March 26, 2023 at Saint Eugene Church in Oklahoma City, OK

Ezekiel 37, 12-14 + Psalm 130 + Romans 8, 8-11 + John 11, 1-45

My name is Thomas. When my parents chose that name for me, I am sure that they did not realize what a gift they were giving me. While there are several great men with that name: Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Beckett, Thomas More, I feel sure that they knew nothing of those men, and I have always believed that the Apostle Thomas was their intent. Over the 81 years I have carried that name, that man called: “The Twin” and I have grown closer. The oral tradition that shaped the written Gospels only recalled three occasions when he spoke, and it’s not hard to understand why they would have remembered and passed on his words. The three things he says reveal a movement in faith for anyone who would be a follower of Jesus Christ. First some bewilderment: “We do not know where you are going”. Then the first and shortest of all creeds, “My Lord and My God”. Finally, the courage and boldness that any believer must have when he says, “Let us go to die with him.”

With the words we hear today, Thomas challenges the fear in his companions as they near Jerusalem knowing that there is trouble ahead, and the enemies of Jesus are waiting for him. His timid, frightened companions remind Jesus that there had just been an attempt on his life. They don’t want to go, and they don’t want him to go. Thomas speaks up. What he suggests is that anyone living in fear is already dead. Fear drains the life out of us.  It leaves us paralyzed and unable to fulfill God’s plan for us. Jesus knows what God wants, not just from him but from us all, and so, fearless, he goes.

There is much more to this episode in John’s Gospel than a story about a dead man being called from a tomb. This occasion in Bethany is not the first time Jesus as called someone to life.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Transfiguration scenes, but not John. There is no Transfiguration scene. The whole of John’s Gospel episode by episode, reveals the glory of Jesus. The whole Gospel is an unfolding of glory revealed in Jesus Christ from the joy of a wedding feast without wine to the sadness of a grave in Bethany. The glory of God is slowly being revealed through Jesus Christ, who constantly shows us the essence of God’s being and glory. We are invited to enter into the dynamic of that love and in response, give glory to God.

Come Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is poured out and poured into the lives of those cautious, timid, and sometimes fearful disciples, the glory of God breaks into this world.

My friends, if the mission of Jesus Christ was ultimately to give glory to God and restore that glory in the lives of human kind, then we suddenly know what our lives are about and why we are here. The glory of God is the reason we have the gifts given to us using them for the glory of God affirms that we know who we are and why.

For three nights this week, I will refresh your memories about what we do here in this sacred space and remind you of why we do it. An example: I will soon say to you: “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” And you say? “For the glory of his name!” There it is! There is your reason for being here. Giving glory to God is what you came here for not to get something. Yet, how often we hear some say: “I don’t get anything out of it.” Maybe they only do things to get something in return.  I’m also going to talk about what God is doing here. Sometimes we miss that because we’re too busy thinking about ourselves. Join me three times this week. It might just be refreshing and change the way you experience this Holy and precious time we spend in this place.

Lenten Mission at Saint Eugene Parish in Oklahoma City, OK

Monday, March 27, 2023

The Roman Rite Mass and Language of Ritual Part One

Let us pray that my sacrifice and yours will be acceptable to God the almighty Father. May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy church. With those words the church, you and me declare to all the world why we were created, why we are here, and what God asks of us. Yet, somehow those words that say so much get so little attention. They get rattled off by memory and are more a signal to stand up than anything else. To invite you to do more than recite words, and to tempt you to dig deeper into the mystery of faith revealed to us and celebrated in this church is why I am here.

Historians, I suspect, will examine these years of our times and have all sorts of names to describe our generation: the age of blame, the age of the victims, the age of relativism, the age of individualism, the age of narcissism, and, I suspect, the age of the great Culture War. While we all find some evidence to support any of those names, the one that might be most troubling and destructive is the latter one. The Culture War being raged in this polarized western society has infected not only our civil society, but our church as well. While I wish the issues being fought over would be addressed in a classroom, the fact is, they are often being addressed in our churches.

Change is a frightening and disturbing experience, and it is often resisted at a high price. I can confirm that from my own experience. Retirement, while planned for and anticipated, has been nothing like I expected. It has been was full of surprises not always welcome. In the beginning, I would pick up my phone not to answer a call, but to check the battery because it was never ringing. I would show up to celebrate Mass in a parish and discover that I had gone to the wrong church, or that something special was going on that day over which I had no information nor input about it happening.

Yet, change is a sign of and a result of life. Whatever does not change is either frozen or dead. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, is much like the Prophets of the Old Testament, calling for change. The Synodal Church he is reawakening is a church that listens. He wants us to stop talking, judging, commanding, and condemning and start listening both to one another and to the Word of God. Listening must come before acting. There is a pattern of that in our Sacred Liturgy and we would do well to honor that wisdom in everything we do.

A few years ago, I sat in as an observer during a meeting of priests during which the polarized clergy were addressing the issue of what language should be used at Mass and which direction the priest should face. I did not observe much listening at that meeting. It amounted to a series of pronouncements and a kind of manifesto written from various documents favorably chosen somewhat out of context. I came away from that meeting sensing that the liturgy was not really the issue. One of the men who was obviously and unfortunately feeling very defensive was asked why he chose to do what he was doing with the liturgy of the church. His response was: “Because I can.” I immediately began hearing Frank Sinatra singing “I did it my way.” Since I was there to listen, I kept my mouth shut, but I wanted to say: “Excuse me. I don’t like the possessive pronoun. It isn’t your liturgy. It’s “my sacrifice and yours”. In truth, it’s really God’s, and you can’t do what you want even if you can. You can’t kill someone even if you can. You can’t stand on one leg to give out communion even if you can. Now, when it comes to priests, I have often said when preaching retreats, “It’s not your parish.” You are just passing through. From the viewpoint of a priest, I have personally always avoided using the possessive pronoun when referring to my assignments. I would often challenge the men in seminary to avoid saying “My Parish.” It’s never yours. Your name may be on the Checking Account, but it’s not on the Deed. You are just passing through. (Tell the story of a Bishop.) When it comes to Lay people, it is their parish. Many of the built it, clean it, and pay for it. In as much as it really is God’s Parish, there is a practical and real side to possession. Let me tell you who taught me a lesson about this from the experience of a Lay Person. Her name was Ruth – some priests called her, “Ruth of Edmond”. She was my mother.

The greatest thing about retirement is that I no longer care about the roof, the collection, the staff, or even the Bishop for that matter. (Tell the St Peter story.)Since I am 81 years old, I have lived through six of them. They come and they go just like your pastors. Then, as a bi-ritual priest, living outside of the Diocese for which I was ordained, I now have three Bishops to whom I am responsible leading me to finally see that what concerns them does not really concern me, and my main objective is to avoid giving them any more concerns. The consequence of this is that I now have lots of time to sit, study, read, and reflect upon what’s going on around me, and that is what led me to gather these thoughts I want to share with you this week. I am very aware that there is a difference between opinions and facts. Some people are not aware of that difference. I will make it clear which one is which. However, during these Culture War Years, facts no longer seem to matter, and I can’t do anything about that.

What I hope you will take from the time we spend together these next two nights is a greater and deeper respect and reverence for what we do knowing why we do it. It is my opinion that those who long for the old Mass are mostly not those who were there. They are often are heard to say that it has more mystery and more reverence. That comment always gets this old red-head a bit fired up. I resent the suggestion that what I do at the altar is in any way lacking in reverence. I feel the same way defensive of the people who gather with me. Quite honestly, the reformed Liturgy as we now have it could very well stand some serious attention when it comes to respect and a spiritual sense of what we we’re doing, and I hope that’s why you’ve come here tonight.  I can easily remember the 12-minute Latin Mass of my childhood. It was hardly spiritual, reverent, or mysterious. It was fast and efficient. I firmly believe that when we begin to take the sacred Liturgy seriously, pay attention to what we are doing, and become more attentive to what God is doing, the real tradition will be recognized and embraced because what has been restored and emphasized by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council is far more traditional than what we did before 1968. What I observe (opinion here) is that this movement toward a “more reverent and mystery filled liturgy” is really a new form of a priest-focused clerical liturgy that is as much performance as it is worship in which women are returned to the sacristy while men take charge. 

I have no illusions that our time together will change anything that is noticeable or maybe that even matters. Yet, I have thought my way into these talks because the Sacred Liturgy of the Church, and that means all of the sacraments must be for us the ultimate school of prayer. The Liturgy of the Church is our source of life. My own opinion, for what it’s worth, is that after the reforms of the Council in the 1960s all we did was change the language, move the furniture around, and learn a few new songs of dubious quality. In other words, we have spent a long time tinkering with the superficial things. Some insist that the Council broke the traditions of the Church. That is a superficial and silly idea of “tradition” which betrays a confusion over what is tradition and custom. It takes some thought to determine what is a “tradition” and what is a custom. They are not the same. Bread and Wine is the tradition. Gold, wooden, glass, or clay cups is a custom. In war, there is never a winner, and any illusion that we have to “win” is a perfect sign that a disaster is coming. If we are going to survive the cultural war that has found a place within the Body of Christ, we are must finally dig into the Spiritual meaning, and pay attention to the gestures, and words we use to respond to the Covenant God has offered us. It might be about time to stop being so preoccupied by what we do and open ourselves to what God is doing in the Liturgy. To people in RCIA who are approaching their first celebration of Reconciliation I have often said: “Stop being anxious about what you are going to say and do, and spend at least as much time on what you hope God will say and do for you.” And so, I ask you the question, “When is the last time you approached your parish Sunday assembly wondering and thinking about what God may be planning to do and say?” 

Every now and then I hear someone complaining that it’s too noisy in church before Mass. They can’t pray. When I hear that, I know that someone is quite confused and does not seem to know what they are doing or why they have come to church. On Ash Wednesday, we heard a very clear instruction about prayer that should not be confined to Lent. “Go to your room and shut the door” is what we heard. Prayer is an experience of intimacy with God. It is unique to each of us. It is private, it is can be intense or casual. We all need to get something clear in our minds. We come to church to worship – that is not the same experience as prayer. By its very nature, worship is noisy. It is a gathering of God’s people at God’s command, and that gathering is noisy from words of greetings, to crying babies, to the banging of kneelers to the shuffling of feet or the scraping of walkers moving in a steady procession down the aisle toward the source of life. 

In some ways, worship as liturgy is a refined taste. That’s different from prayer, and by prayer, I’m not talking about reciting by rote formulas and litanies. I mean a real heart to heart talk with God, with the risen Lord, or maybe with his mother? It can mean complaining, whining, or laughing in gratitude. It can also mean just being quiet. After all, if it’s a conversation, you better shut up and take a breath so the other can say something in response.

There is a very important moment in the Sacred Liturgy that expresses exactly why we get together in the church. That is the way we just began here. Let’s say it again. Let us pray that my sacrifice and yours will be acceptable to God our almighty Father. And what do you say? May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, four our good and the good of all his holy Church”. Why are you there? For the praise and the glory of God’s name. We do not come into the Church to get something. Every weekend I see people who don’t get it. They come to get, not to give. They come to “get communion.” As soon as they do, they’re out the door. The purpose of worship the work of the liturgy is give glory to God, to praise God, to thank God. We don’t come to “get” communion. We are present in order to enter into communion with a people who are giving glory and praise to God.  We don’t do that by racing out the door. We are not there to get points, to avoid sin, or think for one minute that we can stand before God and claim a place in the Kingdom of Heaven by saying, “I never missed Mass.” To that God will say what the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel tell us: “When I was hungry did you give me anything to eat?” We are not going to bargain or bribe our way into the Reign of God.

Liturgy is a learned set of behaviors and actions, not all of which are immediately obvious and not all of which can ever be totally explained. That is because liturgy is ritual. The rituals of our Sacred Liturgy, all say something that we need to understand, and that also means that we must understand that language. There is a consistency about ritual that allows us to be free of worry about what to do next or if we’re going to do it right. It frees us to pay more attention to what God is doing. If something breaks that consistency, if something happens that is not part of the ritual, it’s over. 

The order of the liturgy is set, the scripture readings change from day to day. Some argue today that there is too much flexibility and that we should return to “one Roman Rite.” The idea that there was and should be “one” way of doing the Roman Rite is contrary to our history. That’s not true. At the risk of overgeneralizing, this means that from as early as the fourth century the liturgy as celebrated at Rome had the same structure, but there were differences between the papal liturgy and the liturgy celebrated in parishes. When I was at the Cathedral back in Oklahoma City, I tried to cultivate a “Cathedral” liturgy never intending it to be copied in local parishes. Even after the Council of Trent, liturgical practices that were in existence for two hundred years were allowed to continue such as the Dominican liturgy celebrated in Dominican Convents, or the Ambrosian liturgy celebrated in Milan. “One size fits all” has never been the case when it comes to the Roman or Western Latin Rite. However, those unique variations are for particular places and communities. They are not “optional rites” for people everywhere. For one thing, the rites have to fit the space. What works in a Gothic church of France would be silly on Guymon, Oklahoma. Rites have to be celebrated within a culture as well as a building, and that might mean different garments, different instruments, different movements.  At the same time, it can be said that “one structure fits all” in the sense that the eucharistic liturgy always has the same basic outline: Gathering, Introductory Rites, Liturgy of the Word, Presentation of Gifts, Eucharistic prayer, Communion, and Dismissal. 

For me, liturgy is never understandable or comprehensible. In fact, the liturgy always articulates and enacts what is incomprehensible, astounding, and even fascinating. Rituals are all over us. We use them all the time because rituals are our way of expressing something when words are inadequate. I see it all the time, I do it all the time. I saw it Thursday at the Ft Myers airport. An older man got out of car, and boy who may have been about 6 or 7 got out with what I assumed were his parents. The little ran up to the old man and threw his arms around the old man with tears in his eyes, and the old man bent down, ruffled that child’s hair and kissed him on the top of his head. That was a ritual. It was an action that expressed something that words could not express. Contrary to what some young people might say, rituals are not boring. Boredom is a condition of the brain. It is the consequence of a failed imagination. I am never bored. I have suffered through the longest most ridiculous inconsequential meetings that you could ever imagine, and I’ve never been bored. I have rearranged the furniture in the room, changed the pictures on the wall and counted the ceiling tiles because I have imagination. It takes imagination to enter into Liturgy and Worship. It takes imagination to pray too. It’s not that God is a figment of one’s imagination meaning that we make it up. It’s that we have to imagine the God that Jesus has revealed to us, the God he called, Abba.

Liturgical rites are comprised of a number of things, and should engage all of our senses. They are not simply speaking of the right words over the right elements to produce predetermined results. Liturgy is always an astounding and complex collection of ideas, images, sights, sounds, silences, people, ministers, building, and much more all of which contribute to a multisensory and multidimensional experience. A good liturgy ought to wear you out. It ought to be an almost over-load of experience. Understanding what occurs is always secondary to experiencing in ever-new ways what occurs uniquely in and through the liturgy. Every liturgy is a unique and particular experience. When we gather every Sunday, it’s always different because things have happened to us during the week. We’re different than we were the week before unless you live in some kind of bubble frozen in time. While in every act of liturgy we use what we have used before: texts, rites, gestures, music, and so forth, no act of liturgy is ever repeated or the same if for no other reason that we are never the same. 

The purpose of Liturgy is the sanctification of people and through the holiness of life one gives glory to God. It is odd to me that for nearly a generation, we have been ready to draw nourishment for our spiritual lives from the Sacred Scriptures. We have not been taught in a similar way to draw that nourishment from the Sacred Liturgy. I believe, and that’s why I’m here, that we must learn to experience the same nourishment from the Liturgy. This might mean, for example, approaching the mystery of the Eucharist by understanding the meaning of the Eucharistic Prayer. When the priest says: “The Mystery of Faith” in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer, something should be unfolding, opening up, become clear to us about who is in our midst and because of it and because of what we are doing there, our own identity should be crystal clear. Four words that ought to make us think: “HUH?” “What’s happening here?” “How am I a part of this?” “What do I have to say about it?” Like the Scriptures, the Liturgy must be understood, meditated upon, and interiorized until it becomes part of our personal prayer. What I mean by that is that the Liturgy should makes us want to run home and shut the door! God speaks and acts through the Liturgy just as much as God speaks and acts through the Scriptures. 

Many people these days have discovered an ancient and very fruitful kind of personal prayer called: Lectio Divina. It is a method of prayer usually practiced alone, but sometimes in a group setting when a passage of Scripture is read then reflected upon by placing one’s self into the scene or the occasion, imagining (there’s that skill again) what it was like and what it is like right now. I wonder why that same exercise used with Sacred Scriptures, could not be used with the words of the Liturgy? It might be rather fruitful. In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter eight, Philip asks the Ethiopian official whom he finds reading the prophet Isaiah: “Do you understand what you are reading?” I think that same question should be asked of every one of us: “Do you understand what you are celebrating?” No more than we could get through the Prophet Isaiah in one day do I think we can get through the Sacred Liturgy in three talks, but we can at least open a crack and get a taste for what might lead you to a deeper understanding and fruitful prayer in the Liturgy.

Saint Benedict never uses the word Liturgy in his rule that has guided so many praying and worshiping communities for so long. The wisdom of his rule is not just for monks and nuns. The wisdom of his rule if learned, practiced and followed in families would transform life in this world. The very first word that begins the Holy Rule is, ‘Listen.” What do you think it would like in your home if everyone followed that rule? As I said, Benedict never uses the word “Liturgy” in his rule when encouraging and instructing on prayer. In its place, he refers to the “Opus Dei”, the “Work of God.” It is not by chance that the Eastern Churches refer to the Sacred Liturgy as, “The Divine Liturgy.” Isn’t that saying a lot more than calling our worship, “Mass?” If you go to “The Divine Liturgy”, you know immediately who’s in charge and who is doing something. Our Liturgy is not what we do. It is the work of God, that accomplishes what it signifies. Saint Paul writes in almost every Epistle about the “mystery” of God. For Paul the “mystery” is God’s plan to gather up all things in Christ. Start thinking about that, ponder it, pull it apart the next time you hear a priest rise from his knee and say: “The Mystery of Faith.” It does not mean it’s a secret, because the secret has been revealed, God’s plan. It is Jesus Christ who reveals the mystery of God. That’s the mystery of faith: Jesus Christ! 

The Greeks believed mystery was something that remained hidden, could not be spoken of, and was beyond comprehension. This is exactly the opposite of the Judeo-Christian understanding of mystery. How I wish Sister Mary Everlasting would have known and understood that. Instead, what many of us grew up with was that firm and authoritative announcement: “It’s a mystery” every time we asked a question about what something meant or why we did something in church. Because of Jesus Christ, the secret, the mystery has been revealed. We do know what God is doing. Nothing reveals the mystery of God more than the words and actions of Jesus. Think about that scene on Easter evening with those disappointed and discouraged disciples going to Emmaus. They were going the wrong way! Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and revealed the mystery at table with bread and wine. With that, knowing the plan of God, they turned around and went the right way – back to the company of the other believers in Jerusalem. 

The link between the Scriptures and the Liturgy is absolutely essential, and we do something that makes it obvious. At the beginning of the Liturgy, the Gospel is carried solemnly, in the grand gesture of being held high before the entire assembly until reaching the altar, the heart of the assembly. It is then enthroned on the altar becoming a kind of Epiphany. The very Word of God passes through the people of God. It is a kind of Incarnation. The Word is within us. The Word of God takes flesh and remains in the flesh of God’s people. We put that Word on the altar, the place of sacrifice. It is the place of offering, because Jesus Christ offers himself. In Christ, the word of God becomes not just a body but a body offered, a total gift of self. The epiphany, the revelation, is there in the gesture of putting the Gospel on the altar. The Word of God has found its fulfillment in the true worship offered by Christ on the cross.  We cannot just walk up there and put the book down like a picture book on your coffee table. That act is the beginning of the celebration. It is like an icon that manifests the unity that exists between the Scripture and the mystery of the altar, the Eucharist. In the Scriptures, the knowledge offered is intellectual and rational. In the Liturgy, in Ritual, one learns by listening, speaking, seeing, smelling, and touching. The senses are the pathway to meaning.

Those of you familiar with the Passover ritual might remember that a child asks a question at the beginning. “What does this mean?” With that, the Passover rite begins. I think we need to keep asking that question every time we assemble for the Liturgy. “What does this mean?” I always think that those who participate in the Liturgy without knowing the mystery are like a dancer who dances without knowing the music or rhythm. We must never quit pondering the mystery narrated by the Scriptures and celebrated in the Liturgy. The Liturgy is like a dance that moves, interprets and anticipates the story of our salvation as told in the Sacred Scriptures.

“Back in the day, I love to say that now that I’m retired, the seminary I attended required a half semester workshop with the drama teacher. At first some of us scoffed at the idea until the very first week, when Father Gavin spoke to us about Liturgy as Drama. In that class we learned about “blocking” which is what happens at an early stage of preparation for a play. Where people stand, how they move, what they do with their hands, where they look, and how they walk is all part of that. I remember the day in that class when he had us watch a video of a marching band out on a football field going through their drill for a half-time show. The precision of it to the day amazes. Every member of the band knows where they must stand and how to move from place to place without bumping into others. He spoke to us about space and how to move from one place to another. (Tell the story about Communion Ministers at Saint Peter and Saint William).

So, my friends, for the next two nights, I want to explore with you the mystery of faith. My hope is that in doing so, you may begin to gather for the liturgy with some excitement and some wonder about what God has in store, would like to say, and might do with you rather than coming because you have to, just because you always have, or because you’re afraid that as Sister Mary Everlasting told you that you would burn in hell if you didn’t go. 

Just as I explained what we are doing with and why that great book is carried through the assembly and enthroned, not put, but enthroned on the altar, I will tease out the movements that make up the sign language we use in rituals. I need your imaginations to wake up. I need for you to wonder why and begin to connect your head and your heart. I hope that you will begin to find a new motive for and a new experience in prayer as you explore the rite and rituals that speak about something almost too profound too real and too divine to speak of. If you want to do that, God willing, I’ll be right here tomorrow night. If you have time, you might take a few minutes to prepare and read very slowly and carefully thinking about each word in Eucharistic Prayer Two or Three. You can find them on line, in a Missal, or Hymnal. It is a very different experience to read or say those words yourself rather than just hear some priest proclaiming them. Notice that the prayer is addressed to God, not to Jesus. That is important to realize as we explore how Jesus and the Holy Spirit participate and contribute to our Divine Liturgy and our Eucharistic experience. 

Monday, March 28, 2023

The Roman Rite Mass and Language of Ritual Part Two

In the last half of the 4^th Century, Saint Ambrose gave a series of sermons right after Easter to the newly Baptized. One of them concerned the “Sacraments” In that sermon Ambrose tells us that the Eucharistic celebration is a mystery of forgiveness and reconciliation. The entire celebration is filled with gesture and words about reconciliation and forgiveness. From what is properly called: “The Penitential Act” with its “Lord, Have Mercy” litany to those words spoken over the chalice: “Poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins, to the Rite of Peace, to the Lord’s Prayer, to the Lamb of God, it’s all about forgiveness. 

The rites of introduction for the Eucharistic celebration have four elements: a greeting, the penitential act, the doxology, and the prayer. These are not separate actions. The purpose of this introduction is for us to enter into the presence of the Lord. The first authentic liturgical act the assembly is called to carry out is to approach God’s presence. There is a reciprocal presence here. The Lord is with his people and the people are before the Lord. Psalm 24 composed for the liturgical entry into the Jerusalem Temple goes like this: “Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place?” Then it continues: “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts.” Our “Confiteor” prayer expresses the same sentiments. Remember this, in the Scriptures, the “pure and just one” is not the one who is without sin but the one who recognizes their sin. When you remember this, those words: “Let us remember or call to mind our sins” become the first act of the assembly. Only the just one shall stand before the Lord, and who is the just one? It is the sinner who knows their own sinfulness. With that comes the great “doxology”. Doxos is a Greek word meaning “Glory.” Having been made pure by the mercy of God, the assembly expresses its intention to carry out an act of worship. In the Bible there are five cultic verbs:

We praise you

We bless you

We adore you

We glorify you

We give you thanks for your great glory. 

Recognize the great hymn?

It goes on with what amounts to a Creed that expresses the Holy Trinity

You alone are the Holy One

You alone are the Lord

You alone are the most – High, Jesus Christ,

With the Holy Spirit

In the Glory of God, the Father.

With that said, the Introductory Rite finishes with a summary prayer that in every instance affirms how we pray and why we pray: Through Christ our Lord.

So, with that fresh in our minds, we must ask and wonder what it means spiritually. The answer, to put it briefly, is that we are both a holy people and a sinful people: holy by reason of the one who is in our midst and sinful by reason of what we have done and what we have failed to do. Humanity’s misery stands face to face with God’s mercy here. It’s like that woman caught in adultery. There she is standing before the Lord of mercy. The work of the Liturgy to come is to resolve that conflict. In our usual way of thinking everything is about us, the thought has developed that Liturgy or “Liturgia” in Greek refers to the words we say or what we do in ritual worship.  Maybe we need to get over ourselves because, it also refers to the work of God and what God is doing. Instead of being all concerned about what we do and how well we do it, we might shift our thought to what God is doing which is far more important. Thinking of Liturgy as the work of God among us, as Benedict says in his rule, changes our whole perspective and perhaps our attitude about and our presence in the Liturgy. God is doing something here. Pay attention.

An element in the Penitential Act that is more often ignored than observed is silence. It is essential. It must be austere, intense, and severe. It ought to last long enough to make us feel uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable because we want to get things moving, but uncomfortable because we are in shame. When I am presiding, I take this moment seriously. Why not take it seriously? I want God to take me seriously. I take God seriously. I once overheard one of the servers at Saint Mark Parish in Norman say to another one: “He must have a lot of sins to remember!” When that silence does conclude with the Confiteor or a litany of God’s merciful qualities, there comes a blessing prayer in which the attributes of mercy, compassion and holiness are expressed by invoking the name of the Lord. This is not absolution.

At this point then, it is necessary to resolve a confusion that often arises over this Penitential Act and the Rite of Reconciliation. We cannot reduce to a simple recited formula the powerful work of God moving a person to conversion and repentance. The Sacrament of Penance expects just exactly that, a period of conversion and penance. The naming of the sin, the recognition and the claiming of the consequences of specific sin, is the journey we might call Reconciliation. That is not what happens in the Penitential Rite introducing the Eucharistic Liturgy. In short, to put it in bad, but common language: Going to Mass is not an excuse for avoiding the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Listen to these words that conclude the Syriac Liturgy with which the celebrant dismisses the assembly:

Go in peace, beloved brothers and sisters; we entrust to you the grace and mercy of the Holy Trinity, and to the viaticum that you have taken from the purifying altar of the Lord, all of you, near and far, living and dead, saved by the glorious cross of the Lord and signed by the sign of holy baptism. May the Holy Trinity forgive your errors, remit your sins, and give you the repose of your soul at your deaths. Have pity on me, a weak and sinful servant, with the help of your prayers. Go in peace, content and joyful, and pray for me.”

It took me a long time to see it, so I’ll bet that most of you have never noticed that the only time Jesus reads the Scriptures is in the context of the Liturgy. It is the 4^thChapter of Luke’s Gospel. The infancy narrative is finished. John the Baptist is at work, and the adult Jesus appears, is baptized, anointed by the Holy Spirit and led by that Spirit to the wilderness where he faces his temptations. Then Luke tells us that filled with the Holy Spirit, he returns to Galilee and went to the Synagogue. He takes up the scroll during the prayer, and with that, his ministry begins. His first public act is liturgical in the synagogue not in the Temple. What happens in that synagogue is the institution of the Liturgy of the Word. What happens in an upper room is the institution of the Eucharistic Liturgy. Both moments of Institution happen in the same way and with the same words. “He took in his hands.” First, he took the scroll of the Prophet in his hands. Then he takes the bread and cup in his hands.

The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that it is himself, Christ, who speaks when the Scriptures are read in the church. For me, that is one of the most important and profound messages of the Council. When we read the Scriptures in the assembly, it is Christ who speaks proclaiming the Good News once again. If we really believed that, how could we sit back and not be on the edge of our seats with eyes and ears wide open. Jesus Christ is speaking to us right then and there. This is not some “back in the day” moment when we are recalling something Jesus said once long ago. It is now. Jesus Christ is speaking to us right then and there. This is the living Word of God, not some old diary or journal entry made 2,000 years or so ago. Think for a moment what effect this reality should have on the reader both in terms of their appearance, their preparation, and the sound of their voice. How does it happen? What does it mean? These are the questions to ask at this point.

We must notice a detail in Luke’s Gospel. He writes: “And Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath.” He did not go into an empty room. He went into the midst of a people gathered together. This is not just describing a physical action like walking into a room. It means convening together with the believers in the same place in order to be a member of the gathering. For a Christian to enter a church, for every believer to enter his place of worship, means entering into and becoming part of a people’s entire history of faith. It means choosing to be a member of the community of believers present and past, or we could say: “Dead or Alive. See how this anticipates and foretells the Mystery of Faith. And, what is this “mystery of faith?” It is Jesus Christ whose presence, whose mission, whose entire being is the gathering together of all people. This is why is greatest focus for him was on those who were scattered, lost, abandoned, expelled, sinful. His fulfillment of God’s will and God’s plan was to gather all people together with, through, and in Jesus Christ. That is the “Mystery of Faith.”  It becomes a kind of sign of what is to come. So, the assembly gathered in worship is a sign of what is to come. Look around the next time you enter your church for the Holy Eucharistic celebration. Use that gift we call, “imagination.” Look at that rag-tag assembly of sinners longing for Salvation. We belong there. To summarize this simply, the assembly is the place where God continues to speak to us and where Jesus proclaims the Good News. And so, when we hear the Gospel proclaimed, some event in the past is not being recalled as though it was history. The work of God through Jesus Christ is made present now. The assembly is essential. I came to this realization when I learned some time ago that to this day, in every synagogue of the world, the scroll of the Law may not be removed from the Arc unless there are ten adult men present. It is not enough for the book of the Law to be present and read. It is absolutely necessary that there be people present to hear it. Here is the difference between a Scripture Study class and the proclamation of the Word of God in the Liturgy; people present and listening.

This reality has implications regarding the assembly. They are there to listen not to read. It is about hearing, not about reading. It means that they ought to be able to hear which says something about a sound system and about the one who speaks. There are details in Luke’s Gospel that give us even more to notice. The attendant hands the scroll to Jesus who is the lector. The scroll is not his property. In fact, to make the point more clearly, Luke tells us that when he finished, he handed the scroll back to the attendant. That scroll belongs to the community on whose behalf the attendant acts. The community is the care taker. So, in the Christian assembly, the lector receives from the church the Sacred Text to read. They do not bring their own Bible. The book is on the ambo because it belongs to the church. When finished, the lector leaves it there because it is in the keeping of the assembly just as the Eucharist is in the care of the church. One other thing to note from Luke’s Gospel. When Jesus received the scroll, he read from the passage assigned for the day it tells us. He did not just pick out something he wanted to preach on or read. It is the same for the Lector in the Liturgy. They read the passage assigned by the church for the day. In reference to the lector, Saint Benedict had this to say, and I sometimes wonder how we could have ignored it: “No one shall presume to read or sing unless he is able to benefit the hearers; let this be done with humility seriousness, and reverence, and at the abbot’s bidding.”Watch this, remember, and think about this the next time you are at Mass. Those Sacred Scriptures are ours. God has given us his word. Think of that the next time you hear the words: “and the Word was made flesh.”

In the First Testament Book of Nehemiah another important element is passed on to us, the visibility of the Book of the Law of the Lord. In the 8^th chapter it says: “Ezra brought the law before the assembly. The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose. Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen. Amen.” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”

What is important here is the book must be seen before it is heard. The people express their faith because to be before the book of the law is to be before the Lord. It is a ritual action manifesting the presence of God in the midst of the people. Even today in a synagogue this ritual gesture is repeated. Before it is read, the scroll is held up open for the people to see, and then it is carried through the assembly as the people venerate it and sing. We declare by this gesture that the book belongs to all who have free access to the word of salvation. And so, when the reading is finished, the book stays where it is, where it belongs where all the people have access to it.

When it comes to the Book of the Gospels, the Good News, even more attention and more ritual behavior is evident. The Book itself is beautiful. It is always to be treated with great reverence. It is not tucked under the arm to carry around. It is held high, brought through the assembly, and it is enthroned on the altar which is free of any other object at this point.  It has the same dignity as the Eucharistic gifts. It is not just an object used it in worship. It is an object of worship. Again, the Second Vatican Council put it this way: “The Christian is nourished by the Bread of Life …from the one table of the Word of God and the Body of Christ.” That is why the Gospel Book is on the altar – it will feed us. “Not on bread alone does one live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” In the Eastern churches, the Book of the Gospels is enthroned on the altar even outside the liturgical celebrations. It is always there just as the Eucharistic consecrated elements are always in the tabernacle. 

When it is time to feed the people with the Good News, the book is taken from the altar just as the Body and Blood of Christ are taken from the altar when it is time to feed the people. Remember these words from John 6, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.” But just verses before that he says: “Anyone who hears my word has eternal life.” We cannot overlook that the Gospel is lifted up from the altar. Ultimately all four Gospels lead to the proclamation of the Passion. The Gospel and the Cross cannot be separated, and for that reason, we sign ourselves at the time of the Gospel’s proclamation because this is the book of the crucified.

Tying all of this together I want to point out an interesting little part of this ritual that is too often ignored or just passed over without any question when we should be asking the question a child asks at the Passover: “What does this mean?” Just before communion begins, there is a little one-line verse often ignored. Why is it there and what does it mean? At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration, at the moment we receive the body and blood of the Lord, the Liturgy reminds us of the intimate relationship between the Book of the Gospels and the altar, between the Word and Eucharist. That’s where something called, “The Communion Antiphon” comes in, and what it does. It is a moment, just as communion is about to begin which is why it is called an “Antiphon” meaning that it comes “before.” 

In the 13^th century, the reception of communion by the faithful disappeared. With it disappeared the Communion Chant. Only the antiphon remained. A fragment of what it once was, it still reminds us that there is a connection between being fed and nourished by the Word and being fed and nourished by the Bread of Life. That single Gospel verse is spoken or sung over, so to speak, the Eucharistic bread and chalice so that the broken bread and the broken word form a single reality in the sacrament. Hearing a verse from the Gospel of the day just proclaimed reinforces the unity of the table of Christ and the Bread of Life. This past Sunday was a perfect example. The Communion Antiphon was part of what Jesus said to Martha standing there at the grave of Lazarus. It ties the feast we have just had on the Word with the feast we are having with the Eucharist Bread. That verse becomes an invitation to enter into deeper communion with God. But even more so, it says that the Gospel is fully realized only through the communion in the body and blood of Christ. Think of it this way: Pope Gregory the Great commented on the Emmaus story saying, “They…recognized in the breaking of the bread the God they did not know as he explained the Sacred Scriptures.”

Let’s turn our attention now to the gifts. There is here an unmistakable ritual act by which we say something in gesture about what we believe and who we are. There is a definite ethical dimension to this act. If you want to really get to the roots of this, the 26^th Chapter of Deuteronomy will take you there. It calls into question the right to possess. It is an act of Thanksgiving that acknowledges both the obligations of those gifted and their responsibility for those who are without. This action of the Liturgy is not just a way to get the dishes to the altar. In Deuteronomy, all of the demands about tithing, first fruits, the sabbatical year, and gleaning are there to make certain that the poor do not have to beg. 

Saint Augustine insists that when we make an offering, we are offering ourselves. This rite of presentation directly involves the faithful who are present even though only two or three may actually bring the gifts to the altar. This is in obedience to the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 16) “No believer may come before the altar with empty hands, because the vocation of every person is to offer the world to God by her own hands.” When you realize that this is the law of Moses, you might begin to question how that law can be dismissed while Murder, Stealing, Lying, and Adultery get to be such big things. Who makes the priorities? This presentation of the gifts is a priestly act that demonstrates the priestly character of all the Baptized. In as much as these gifts represent ourselves then it is we who are placed on that altar, it is we who are sanctified by and through these gifts which, by the power of the Holy Spirit will soon become the Body of Christ. Hear these words from the Maronite Rite spoken by the priest holding up the gifts just given him by the people: “Almighty Lord and God, you accepted the offerings of our ancestors. Now accept these offerings that your children have brought to you out of their love for your holy name. Shower your spiritual blessings upon them and in lace of their earthly gifts, grant them life and your kingdom.” An exchange of gifts is about to happen. We bring what we have. God gives us what God has. And then with what God has given us, we give God glory. 

Let’s think about what is offered: bread, wine, and water, but let’s do so because these are the elements Christ took into his hands. The prayer said by the priest is remarkable. “Blessed are you, Lord”. That is an acclamation and an affirmation of faith in the Blessedness of God. We are not “blessing something”. It is not the Bread and Wine that are blessed, but the God of the Universe, the God of all creation. When you stop to think about it, bread is extraordinary. In it we can recognize the fundamental elements of the world: the EARTH that receives the seed and makes it grow, the WATER and the ground grain mixed together into a dough, and the FIRE and hot AIR for baking. These are the elements of the universe. They are universal, and so is bread. Every culture has some form of bread as its staple. It is the most basic of foods, and everywhere it is a metaphor for food. To lack bread means to lack food to lack that on which we depend to live and without it we die.

Unlike bread, there is the wine which is not a principle of sustenance. We can live without wine. Yet, wine adds an element of gratuity and suggests a feast. It is a drink of joy and pleasure. It is call to community and festivity and it promotes a spirit of joy and fellowship. So, these two elements, bread and wine are the signs of human life, signs of work and signs of play, fatigue and joy, need and excess. I bake bread every week. I never buy bread in the store. When I started, I noticed that my bread would last about four days before mold begins to grow. I also noticed that bread from the store might last two weeks leaving me to wonder what chemical is in that long-lasting bread. So, out of some caution and some doubt that my life would be prolonged by that chemical, I have been baking a loaf about every five days. In doing so, I have begun to reflect and pray as I do so. It strikes me very powerfully, that the dough in my hands is alive. It rises, it eats the sugars in the grain and produces gasses that lift up the dough making what at first is heavy light and fragrant. Then I bake it, and it dies. Then I eat what has died and I live. It is a spiritual revelation worth turning you into domestic bakers. Try it.

Now, the presentation of the gifts is not limited to bringing bread and wine for the Eucharist. There are other gifts to relieve the suffering of the poor. To me, this makes the Eucharist a source of social transformation, and the source and power for that transformation is here in this ritual of sharing, out of duty and gratitude. It adds another dimension to the Eucharist that makes it the food of charity. If it is the Bread of Life, then it is also the Bread of Love. There is a connection between sacramental practice and the practice of justice. What is not shared is wasted. Our Sacred Liturgy offers a challenge to the church in the world. In a society dominated by the strongest among us, the Eucharist is a real threat. In a society where individualism triumphs, the Eucharist reminds us of the common destiny of all humanity. In a society where waste prevails, the Eucharist is a call to share. The Eucharist forges a theology of charity, for charity is a mystery that is both sacramental and prophetic. The Eucharist is just as social as theological. It is where the ethic of service is rooted. The truth is, there can be no communion with God without sharing with our brothers and sisters. To receive communion is to be a communion. 

Maybe at this point we should think about this communion to which we belong. How the church prays determines what the church is. Consider this, there are three successive movements that make up the dynamic of a liturgical assembly – which is the Church. 

God calls his people together

God speaks to his people

God enters into a covenant with this people.

The origin of every Liturgy is the call of God and response of the people. The first liturgical action is the response and gathering of the people.

John Chrysostom has some fascinating and enlightening comments about the Greek word: ekklesia. As some of you know, I get side tracked sometimes by words, especially nouns and verbs. Indulge me for a moment. Ekklesia is a noun composed of the preposition ek, which means from and the verb, “kaleo” which means call. Therefore, ekklesia is “the convocation”, the “call forth from” that leads us to understand ekklesia as those called together.

Now, back to Chrysostom. He says that the ekklesia is not the bishop’s house but the house of God’s people. With that he instructs in this way, “The Bishop is not to greet those who gather there like the head of a house might greet guests. Christians who gather in assembly are not the guests of the one who presides. Rather, they are gathered in their own house because the Church is the common home of all.” The one who presides is also a member of the assembly. He too comes in response to the call of God to gather. He too confesses his sins, hears the Word of God proclaimed, offers thanksgiving and is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord in order to become, with the members of the community he serves, one body in Christ. What I think is important to point out here is that the Liturgy does not begin with the opening song or the sign of the cross. It begins with God calling together the people and the people responding to this call by gathering in assembly.

What makes an assembly an ekklesia is the Word of God. Hearing the Word of God is what made Israel “the people of God.” This is why God says through the Prophet, Jeremiah, (7,23) “This command I gave them, obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” It is the proclamation of the Word of God that gives birth to the church. This means that the assembly is the home of the Word. For that reason, the Ambo is the special place of the Scriptures. Observe this. The book is not held in the hands of the lector, because it does not belong to the lector. It is placed on the ambo and it remains there even when the assembly disperses. We are saying something by this behavior. Is anyone listening we might wonder?

At the same time what makes an assembly an ekklesia is also at the same time what makes an ekklesia is an assembly. That’s not doubletalk. This begins to unfold for us in the Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 10,” Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.” This is not simply a reference to the historical body of Jesus but the body that is the church, the people God has gathered through him. Since the day of Pentecost, the work of the Holy Spirit has been to continue the mission of Christ, the gathering of the dispersed children of God giving the people a new covenant. The close connection between the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist cannot be ignored. The end purpose to which Christians are called in assembly is the body of Christ. The transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit is not, in fact, an end in itself; rather, the gifts are transformed so that those who eat them may become what they receive.

As I said yesterday, the Eucharistic prayers, all of them, will be more fruitful for us if we give them the same prayerful reflection we use on the Sacred Scriptures with Lectio Divina. If you do that, you will discover the dynamic of the two epiclesis of the prayer; one epiclesis over the gifts and a second over the assembly. An example: in Eucharistic prayer 2 the church prays: “Humbly we pray that, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.”The bodies are placed in relationship here: the Eucharistic Body of Christ and the Ecclesial Body. The goal of the first one is the second one. The whole purpose of the Eucharistic Body is the Ecclesial Body. “Why are we doing this, we should ask? The answer is to become what the Holy Spirit continues to do, gather into one the scattered children of God.

The church cannot be satisfied with having the Eucharist. It is not something to be possessed. The Eucharist serves no purpose if it remains simply an object to be possessed and adored. The church, however, is called to become the Eucharistic body of the Lord. The truth of the Eucharistic body is an ecclesial body. To receive communion is to be a communion. When we understand that the purpose of the Eucharist is to make us one body, a communion of brothers and sisters in faith, we will no longer view our participation in the Sunday assembly as a matter of obligation but rather as the expression of our identity. Being there is what makes us Catholic or Christian. If you’re not there, you can’t claim that id

This is why we take great care to see that those who are too sick to be present must receive Holy Communion. Through no fault on their own are they absent. To make certain that they stay in communion, we reach out to them through the ministry of Extraordinary Ministers uniting them to the liturgy and to Christ and the Church. It is most important that this happen when the assembly is gathered together. Their sending forth is a powerful sign to all of us that some are missing, and as Jesus sought out the sick who, often because of their illness had been banned from Synagogue, we too as the Body of Christ still seek those who are missing to strengthen the bond we have through communion. Augustine, in one of his sermons tells a story about Victorinus who converted to Christianity around 355. He was in the habit of reading the Holy Scriptures and studied all the Christian writings intensively. He said to friend in a private conversation that he was a Christian. The other replied: “Until I see you in Christ’s church I will not believe that or count you among the Christians.” With that, Victorinus said: “Let us go to the church: I want to become Christian.” We know he was not talking about a building here, but rather an assembly gathered together in the name of Christ.

All of this leads us to confirm that the central issue for us today is to believe in the Church as communion, as the Body of Christ. In a culture marked by individualism, competition, affirmation of oneself at all costs, even at the expense of others, it is difficult to be church, to be truly a community. Only from the Eucharist, from the prophetic gesture of the breaking of the bread, can the Christian communities of the West renew their awareness that the Church cannot be the Body of Christ where Christians fail to turn away from egoism and refuse to share their goods with the poor. What is not shared with others in communion is taken from others in injustice. According to Sirach, God does not like a sacrifice that is the fruit of injustice toward the poor because: “Like one who kills a son before his father’s eyes is the person who offers a sacrifice from the property of the poor.” (Sirach 34, 24)

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

The Roman Rite Mass and Language of Ritual Part Three

In a conversation about the Liturgy with someone recently, they expressed some surprise and not just a little annoyance when a fairly young priest said to her: “The Mass is a sacrifice. That talk about a meal and the altar as a table is just some Protestant idea that is totally wrong.” I wondered to myself at the time why it was an either-or matter in his mind. Then I began to wonder if that priest had paid any attention to the narrative of the Last Supper. I don’t think we call it the “Last Sacrifice.” The more I thought about it I wondered if that young man had any knowledge of Covenant which happens to be what was instituted and sealed at that meal in an upper room. Every Covenant in the whole history of salvation as recorded in the Scriptures involves a sacrifice and a meal. They always ate. They always consumed something in accepting and entering into a Covenant. The Old Covenant was sealed by the sacrifice of a lamb, and then the act of consuming what has been sacrificed binds one into the Covenant.

It is entirely possible that one or the other of these realities: sacrifice or meal might gain more importance or receive more attention from time to time, but it’s not a good idea to exclude either one. Doing so distorts everything and interferes with the action of God. Both sacrifice and meal contribute to the things we say and do in our ritual response to God’s action and Word. Let’s sort that out tonight.

The Paschal Sacrifice of Christ cannot be understood at all without understanding the Passover Sacrifice. The whole new Covenant springs out of the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. It isn’t by chance that Matthew carefully casts Jesus in the image of Moses. It is entirely possible that Jesus saw Moses as his role model. Both what he says and what he does leaves little doubt about the influence of Moses and the Torah on Jesus himself. His life in the synagogue, his participation in the Feasts at the Temple root him firmly in Israel’s tradition.

There are some questions that can lead deeply into the profound meaning of what we say, what we do, and why. The first question is, What does God ask of us? The answer to that question is found in the Book of Exodus when Moses, at God’s insistence approaches Pharaoh petitioning for the freedom of the Israelites. In Chapter 8 it says: “Go to Pharaoh and say to him: ‘Let my people go so that they may worship me.” Right there you have the answer of what God asks of us. Worship. The whole point of saving people is for worship. We know how that story unfolds as Moses goes back and forth between plagues. Finally, near the end Pharaoh tells Moses it’s OK to go and take some stuff, sheep, and goats with them. Moses says, “No.” We need to take everything because we do not know what the Lord will ask of us.  With the last plague, as we know, Pharaoh has had enough, and the Israelites take everything and head out into the desert. The first place they go is to Mount Saini. They don’t know how to worship. They have been slaves. At this point in the history of salvation, they are not really a people, but there they find out. They discover that the heart of religion is worship, and the heart of worship is sacrifice. What we give to God is sacrifice.

Let me remind you what they are instructed to do. They are to take a year-old lamb, and the first thing they are told to do is to take it into their home. Now, remember when we were little and would come home with a stray cat or dog and want to keep it? I’m not sure about your home, but I can tell, Ruth and Ted always said no, and that was the end of it. As an adult, I have begun to understand why it was “no”. They did not want us to become attached to it especially if the owner would show up and take it back breaking our hearts. Well, there are two reasons why God required that the little lamb be taken into the home: to keep it safe and unblemished, and to let a relationship of love grow. 

Then, the instructions continue. When it was time for the Passover, the lamb was to be carried to the temple, carried, again to keep it unblemished. Once at the Temple, it was lifted up in a place with a high wall where someone opened its throat catching the blood in a bowl. By that lifting up, the lamb was presented. It was not offered. There is a difference. That bowl was then taken into the holy place and the blood was poured out onto the altar. At that moment, it was offered to the Father. It was an “oblation.” That somewhat technical word means it was offered to God, offered in such a way that there was nothing left. God was given it all. That’s an oblation. There can all sorts of sacrifices for all sorts of reason. An athlete makes sacrifices in training to become better. That’s not an oblation. Notice and hear the language we use in the Liturgy. After the Oblation takes place, the dead lamb was taken home to be roasted and a feast was held to which others were invited who might not be able to afford a lamb. The story of the Passover was told again beginning with the youngest person present asking a question: “What does this mean?” The point of worship, the whole point of sacrifice is that you give up something you love. You give it all.

The question still stands for us: How has God asked us to worship him? In the Old Covenant, Take a lamb and slaughter it. In the New Covenant, how does he ask for worship? Do this in memory of me. That’s how God wants us to worship: Do This. At the moment in the Liturgy when the Words of Institution are spoken, that is the presentation. That is when the lamb is lifted up to the wall. When those sacred elements are held up in the hand. At that moment, we are confronted with the Mystery of Faith. It is presenting. It is not worship.

Worship is offered when the priest takes the body and blood of Christ and lifts it high with these extraordinary words that say it all: Through Him, With Him, and In Him, God, Almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirt, all glory and honor is yours forever and ever. That is the moment of fulfillment. That is the moment of true worship. It is the moment when the Father is glorified. And what do we say at that moment? Amen. The instructions call it “The Great Amen.” In my experience as priest it is more of the “Lame” Amen. It is just a signal to get off our knees. If there is ever a time for bell ringing and incense smoking, it is right here, at this moment, not at the presentation moment. The whole purpose of the presentation is the oblation. The whole purpose of the consecration is the offering of Christ’s Body to the Father. Through Him. With Him. In Him. Do you remember what is said after that? (All Glory and Honor) Isn’t that exactly what you said you were going to do after the gifts were placed on the altar?

Let’s review that just for the sake of emphasis. Just before the Eucharistic Prayer’s Preface begins, the priest says to the assembly: Let us pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father. Then, what does the assembly say? “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy church.”

My friends with those words those present are exercising the priesthood into which we were all called and anointed at our Baptism. You cannot waste your priesthood by watching. You have to get into the worship giving glory and praise to God. People may not sit in a pew and watch as though they were watching the Texas/Oklahoma Football game. In fact, when I think about it, those watching the game are probably on their feet shouting and excited way more excited than most people taking up space in a church on Sunday. The Father asks us to worship and give glory. The Father is glorified and the world is saved only if we stop watching and start worshipping. 

We are not re-enacting the last supper. For me, the prefix “re” suggests doing something again. We are not doing something over again. We have to be careful with that word, “remember.” We are not repeating something that happened in history. In the experience of the liturgy, there is no past. We are in a sense, in the future. This is why I think having a clock in the Church is a bad idea. The moment we step across the threshold of worship in the liturgy, we are outside of time. There is no time in the presence of God. We are actualizing the same gracious deeds God accomplished for us and for our salvation. In the liturgy, the notion of time is one in which a saving act that occurred once and for all at a time and place in saving history is experienced still, here and now, in a new experience until it is fulfilled at God’s saving initiative and in God’s good time at the end of time. 

There are three final ritual gestures important to understand and reflect upon: the fraction rite, the greeting of peace, the reception of Holy Communion with the conclusion of the Sacred Liturgy, and what we begin to see with these final actions is something that is not too surprising. The longer something is done, the more we have to say about it. Just like it is in our lives, the longer we live, the more stuff we accumulate. The oldest of prayers are always shortest until someone decides to revise them and then they get longer: more words! If you just look at the Eucharistic Prayers in the Latin Rite, you can see it. Eucharistic Prayers Two and Three which have their origins in the 4^th and 5^th century, they are much shorter than the Roman Canon that comes from the 16^th century. Longer still is Eucharistic Prayer Four which was adapted from a Swiss Canon composed in the 20^th century.

In the very early days as Christian communities were forming and multiplying, it became increasingly possible for the one responsible for teaching, leading, and sanctifying to be present at each assembly. There developed the custom of distributing a portion of the Body of Christ consecrated at the Principal celebration to the outlying communities as a sign of their unity all together. Someone designated would take a small portion of the Consecrated Bread to other places where it would be mixed in or added to what was on the altar in the outlying place. It was either dropped in the Chalice or mixed into the Consecrated Bread already on the altar. Obviously uniting them in a visible and powerful way to the Leader, (Bishop) and the principal church or “Mother Church” as it was sometimes referred to. As an aside, we accomplish today with the Holy Oils. After the Chrism Mass, every community takes some of the Oil Blessed or Consecrated by the Bishop back home to the local church. It provides for us the same sign that was made with this ancient “Fraction rite.” 

As that custom of sending out a small portion of the Consecrated Bread to each of the communities became increasingly difficult to maintain, an allegorical meaning was attached to the action. The church has always seemed to have a problem recognizing practical things as simply that. For instance, in some Byzantine Rites, there is a ritual gesture of adding hot water to the consecrated wine just before Communion. The water sits over a candle warming all through the liturgy. The purpose of adding the water is to thaw, or soften, the wine which has become somewhat congealed during the long liturgy in frigid cold climate and church.  It’s simply a practical matter introduced to solve a problem. Once the liturgy was celebrated in a warm climate and once churches had some heat, the purpose has to be repurposed to make sense. Water gets added to the wine for us in the Latin Rite simply because the wine used early on tasted terrible. It was a crude drink always on the edge of being spoiled because there was no refrigeration. To make it palatable, the diluted it. The elegant blends of fine wines had not yet been considered. They used what they had. Historians tell us that no one today would drink that stuff. 

It’s the same thing with the washing of hands in the Latin Rite. Early in the formation of the Eucharistic Liturgy, the gifts brought to the altar were many, messy, and varied. After receiving and handling all of that stuff, hand washing was appropriate. When the custom of bringing something out of everything you had had passed away, the hand washing continued now with a prayer to shift the action from practicality to piety. The result is now reflected in the prayer the priest says as water is poured over his hands. It comes from a Psalm, “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from all my sins.” A practical custom of cleaning up has become a prayer for forgiveness and purity.

The same thing has happened with the fraction rite. First of all, the bread had to be broken up into serving sized pieces. There was also that old custom of adding a portion from the Bishop’s Liturgy that had been brought there. Suddenly, or perhaps gradually, when the practical matter no longer was necessary, an allegorical reason gets added in the form of a prayer which completely changes the meaning of the ritual action.

With the typical efficiency of the Western, Latin, Roman rite, the priest says these words which you rarely hear because a Litany is being sung (Lamb of God). As he breaks off a small piece of the larger portion, (think of the original action) he drops it into the chalice with these words: “May the mingling of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ bring eternal life to us who receive it.”

The Eastern Churches which, by culture, are far more inspired by allegorical ideas, have an even greater and more spiritual dimension to this breaking and mixing. In the Maronite Rite with which I am more familiar, the assembly begins to sing, and the priest, with the large consecrated host in his right hand breaks it over the chalice in two parts; then he breaks a piece from the edge of the half remaining in his left hand saying: “We have believed and have approached and now we seal and break this oblation, the heavenly bread, the Body of the Lord, who is the living God.” Then he dips the small piece into the chalice in the form of a cross saying: “We sign this chalice of salvation and thanksgiving with the forgiving ember which glows with heavenly mysteries.” Then he dips the Body of Christ into the Blood three times saying: “In the name of the Father, the Living One, for the living; and of the only Son, the Holy One, begotten of him, and like him, the Living One , for the living; and of the Holy Spirit, the beginning, the end, and the perfection of all that was and will be in heaven and on earth; the one, true and blessed God without division from whom comes life forever.” Then, he sprinkles the Body three times, using the small piece that has been dipped into the Blood saying: “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is sprinkled on his holy Body, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  Then, he drops the small piece into the Blood of Christ and says: “You have united, O Lord, your divinity with our humanity and our humanity with your divinity, your life with our mortality and our mortality with your life. You have assumed what is ours and you have given us what is yours for the life and salvation of our souls. To you be glory forever.” The priest then presents the consecrated host and the chalice to the people who together say: “O Lord, you are the pleasing Oblation, who offered yourself for us. You are the forgiving Sacrifice, who offered yourself to your Father. You are the High Priest, who offered yourself as the Lamb. Through your mercy, may our prayer rise like incense which we offer to you Father through you. To you be glory forever.”

This is the Eastern Church’s way of worship – the giving of Glory and Praise to God. It is that elevation of the Sacrament with the words Through, With, and In – To you be glory forever.  That is worship! 

What does the action mean we could ask as the child asks at the Passover Meal. That lifting up and those words mean that God is worshiped, praised, and glorified by God’s Son Jesus and by all of us through, with, and in him. This cannot be observed or watched. The fraction rite does not mean that the sacrifice of Christ was the breaking of his body. The Body of Christ must be broken, yes; but that Body is the ekklesia, the church. We have to be broken in service, and when we are, we are one with Christ. If we are doing nothing, if we’re sitting there watching, there is no worship.

Before we can get to the moment of union, we have to deal with something that is very real and somewhat contradictory. We have to deal with, acknowledge and ritually address our sinful brokenness. Just before the distribution of Communion, the Liturgy, or is it God, invites us to exchange a sign of peace with our brothers and sisters in faith many of whose names we do not even know. The peace that Christians offer each other is a divine gift, never simply the fruit of personal sentiments or feelings. The person with whom I exchange peace is a symbol of the person whom I most need to forgive and the person from whom I hope to receive forgiveness. This is a profound and sacred act. It is not time to be looking around for your friends. You don’t need to be reconciled, forgive, or be forgiven by your friends. Likewise, introducing yourself to someone behind or in front of you is not for this time. You should have already done that when you arrived. This is a time for husbands and wives to simply say, “I’m sorry” and mean it. It is a time for children to look up to their parents and feel the same sorrow, or to look at one another to forgive and find forgiveness for their fights and lies, and meanness. This is about seeking and giving pardon because, we are about to approach the altar of forgiveness, and we had better be at peace, for there might be consequences if we are not. To say to one another, Peace be with you,” means to recognize in each other the need for and the gift of forgiveness. We began the Liturgy by accepting the Lord’s forgiveness. Near the end, give what we have received. 

In the logic of the Liturgy, the two or three people standing near me with whom I exchange peace become in that moment a sign of the real person with whom I recently reconciled or with whom I hope to reconcile soon. In that gesture of peace, I express my openness to peace and reconciliation, received from God. I receive, so to speak, a mandate that I am called to make a part of my daily living. I receive the gift of peace that I am also called to give. The truth of the sign of peace is made manifest by the respect and seriousness with which I give it. If I exchange peace in a superficial and thoughtless way, I run the risk of banalizing so great a gift. It might mean that I have lived this peace in a superficial and thoughtless way as well. If I exchange peace with all, in reality I give it to no one, in the rite and in life. This is personal. It is immediate. It is real.

With peace and forgiveness established, we may now approach the God of mercy and love to be fed, and to become what we eat. There is a procession, seeing it and joining it pulls us deeper into the church. We are a people on a journey toward the Kingdom of God. The procession is an image of all humanity on the way toward God, each of us in our own circumstances and states of life. All go toward the altar. Each of us just as we are with our burdens, our misery, our labors because we are hungry for the bread of mercy, the bread of eternal life that only God can give. In some ways, it is a vision of things to come. 

A French writer named: Christian Bobin describes the Communion Procession of the Faithful on Easter morning. Close your eyes and imagine:

“At the moment of Communion, at the Easter Mass, the people got up in silence, walked down the side aisles to the back of the church, then turned one by one up the central aisle, advancing to the front. Where they received the host from a bearded priest with silver-rimmed glasses, helped by two women with faces hardened by the importance of their role, the kind of ageless women who change the flowers on the altar before they wilt and take care of God like he was a tired old husband. Seated at the back of the church, waiting my turn to join the procession, I looked at the people, their postures, their back, their necks, the profiles of their faces. For a second my view opened and I saw all of humanity, its millions of individuals, included in this slow and silent flow; old and adolescent, rich and poor, adulterous women and earnest girls, crazies, killers and geniuses, all scraping their shoes on the cold, rough stone tiles of the church floor, like the dead who will rise patiently from their darkness to go receive the light. Then I understood what the resurrection will be like and the stunning call that will precede it. 

There is not much more to say after that except to remind you that there is one final intense gesture, raising our arms and opening our hands to receive the Body of Christ. Open hands like people about to receive a gift. It is a gesture that must reveal an interior attitude. It is an act of the Spirit. To open one’s hands is the purest human gesture one can make to represent openness to receiving a gift. The posture of one who is standing, with arms out and hands open, signifies not only openness to receive but also total vulnerability and inability to harm. Open hands are confident hands. One who wants to take something from someone, to take possession, does not open their hands but tightens them. We do not grab. We do not take. We receive from someone else. What we receive is salvation in the Eucharistic Bread, a sacrament freely given by the Father. 

Liturgy then, is heaven on earth and at the same time also the threshold of heaven. It is the most sacred thing we do, because through and in it, we humans touch God and are embraced by God. Liturgy is the breaking into our world of all that is of God and of the kingdom of heaven.  What we have in the Liturgy, my friends, is a dynamic school of prayer in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit teach us, the believer, how to pray with three important elements: Hearing, Interiorization, and Interpretation. Teaching someone to pray also is teaching someone to believe, and in learning to pray, we learn to believe. In the study and preparation, I gave for this day, I was constantly frustrated by the limits of time and the inadequacy of human words. With that in mind, I am humbled and say that I cannot find the words to express how wonderful it feels to be here with you back in Oklahoma. I told the people at Saint Mark at the last Liturgy we celebrated together that I would no longer be their pastor, but would always be their priest. I never forget you, and I can’t think of a better way to conclude this day than by taking the concluding prayer from the Divine Liturgy of the Maronite Rite. “I leave you in peace, O holy Altar, and I hope to return to you in peace. May the offering I have received from you be for the forgiveness of my faults and the remission of my sins, that I may stand without shame or fear before the throne of Christ. I do not know if I shall be able to return to you again to offer another sacrifice. I leave you in peace. “

Sunday, March 12, 2023

The Roman Rite Mass and Language of Ritual Part One

I don’t know what drove us to this point, but I know we’ve been here before. The Liturgy, the Worship of the Church, has over time in history been a like a lightning rod, an explosive source of controversy, tension, that is always a threat to the very unity of the Church which it should be strengthening. In July 2022, our Holy Father, exposed the reality of this fact by a firm and decisive document concerning the primacy of place given to the reforms of the Roman Rite decreed by the Ecumenical Council. His predecessors, fearful of breaking up the church over the refusal of some to accept the Decree of the Council allowed for some use of the Pre-Council Liturgy with the hope that gradually, the church would come together and older people who found the change impossible to accept would eventually pass away. It did not work, and the furor that erupted in reaction to the decision of Pope Francis should be all we need as evidence that as a church we are already broken. The Liturgy itself may not actually have been the only issue, since we are living again through days and years both politically, socially, religiously, and personally that could not be expressed any more clearly than Frank Sinatra did with his a wildly popular song: “I did it my way.” When I asked a priest a year or so ago why he wanted to celebrate Mass in Latin using the old form, his response was: “Because I can.” It was the end of our conversation. I should have come back with a response that I thought of later, but you know how it is: you think of things after it’s too late. I should have said, “Excuse me, I don’t like the possessive pronoun It’s not your liturgy, nor is that parish your church. It’s God’s and you can’t do what you want with it, even if you can. You can’t kill someone even if you can. You can’t stand on one leg to give out Holy Communion even if you can.” (Story about Mom at her parish.)

What I hope you will take from the time we spend together these next two nights is a greater and deeper respect and reverence for what we do knowing why we do it. It is my opinion that those who long for the old Mass often are heard to say that it has more mystery and more reverence. That comment always gets this old red-head a bit fired up. I resent the suggestion that what I do at the altar is in any way lacking in reverence. I feel the same way defensive of the people who gather with me. Quite honestly, the reformed Liturgy as we now have it could very well stand some serious attention when it comes to respect and a spiritual sense of what we we’re doing. I hope that’s why you’ve come here tonight. Many of us can easily remember the 12-minute Latin Mass of our childhood. That was hardly spiritual, reverent, or mysterious. It was fast and efficient. I firmly believe that when we begin to take the sacred Liturgy seriously, pay attention to what we are doing, and become more attentive to what God is doing, the real tradition will be recognized and embraced because what has been restored and emphasized by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council is more traditional than what we did before 1968.

I have no illusions that our time together will change anything that is noticeable or maybe that even matters. Yet, I have thought my way into these talks because the Sacred Liturgy of the Church, and that means all of the sacraments must be for us the ultimate school of prayer. The Liturgy of the Church is our source of life. My own opinion, for what it’s worth, is that after the reforms of the Council in the 1960s all we did was change the language, move the furniture around, and learn a few new songs of dubious quality. In other words, we have spent a long time tinkering with the superficial things. Some insist that the Council broke the traditions of the Church. That is a superficial and silly idea of “tradition” which betrays a confusion of tradition and custom. It takes some thought to determine what is a “tradition” and what is a custom. They are not the same. Bread and Wine is the tradition. Gold, wooden, or clay cups is a custom. In war, there is never a winner, and any illusion that we have to “win” is a perfect sign that a disaster is coming. If we are going to survive the cultural wars that have found a place within the Body of Christ, we are must finally dig into the Spiritual meaning, and pay attention to the gestures, and words we use to respond to the Covenant God has offered us. It might be about time to stop being so preoccupied by what we do and open ourselves to what God is doing in the Liturgy. To people in RCIA who are approaching their first celebration of Reconciliation I have often said: “Stop being anxious about what you are going to say and do, and spend at least as much time on what you hope God will say and do for you.” And so, I ask you the question, “When is the last time you approached your parish Sunday assembly wondering and thinking about what God may be planning to do and say?” 

Every now and then I hear someone complaining that it’s too noisy in church before Mass. They can’t pray. When I hear that, I know that someone is quite confused and does not seem to know what they are doing or why they have come to church. On Ash Wednesday, we heard a very clear instruction about prayer that should not be confined to Lent. “Go to your room and shut the door” is what we heard. Prayer is an experience of intimacy with God. It is unique to each of us. It is private, it is can be intense or casual. We all need to get something clear in our minds. We come to church to worship – that is not the same experience as prayer. By its very nature, worship is noisy. It is a gathering of God’s people at God’s command, and that gathering is noisy from words of greetings, to crying babies, to the banging of kneelers to the shuffling of feet or the scraping of walkers moving in a steady procession down the aisle toward the source of life. 

In some ways, worship as liturgy is a refined taste. That’s different from prayer, and by prayer, I’m not talking about reciting by rote formulas and litanies. I mean a real heart to heart talk with God, with the risen Lord, or why not with his mother? It can mean complaining, whining, or laughing in gratitude. It can also mean just being quiet. After all, if it’s a conversation, you better shut up and take a breath so the other can say something in response.

There is a very important moment in the Sacred Liturgy that expresses exactly who we get together in the church. I’ll be you have forgotten all about it, and I’m here to remind you of what you say. The priest says to you: Let’ us pray that my sacrifice and yours will be acceptable to God our almighty Father. And what do you say? May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, four our good and the good of all his holy Church”. Why are you there? For the praise and the glory of God’s name. We do not come into the Church to get something. Every weekend I see people who don’t get it. They come to get, not to give. They come to “get communion.” As soon as they do, they’re out the door. The purpose of worship the work of the liturgy is give glory to God, to praise God, to thank God. We don’t come to “get” communion. We are present in order to enter into communion, and we don’t do that by racing out the door. We are not there to get points, to avoid sin, or think for one minute that we can stand before God and claim a place in the Kingdom of Heaven by saying, “I never missed Mass.” To that God will say what the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel tell us: “When I was hungry did you give me anything to eat?” We are not going to bargain or bribe our way into the Reign of God.

Liturgy is a learned set of behaviors and actions, not all of which are immediately obvious and not all of which can ever be totally explained. That is because liturgy is ritual. The rituals of our Sacred Liturgy, all say something that we need to understand, and that also means that we must understand that language. There is a consistency about ritual that allows us to be free of worry about what to do next or if we’re going to do it right. It frees us to pay more attention to what God is doing. If something breaks that consistency, if something happens that is not part of the ritual, it’s over. 

The order of the liturgy is set, the scripture readings change from day to day. Some argue today that there is too much flexibility and that we should return to “one Roman Rite.” The idea that there was and should be “one” way of doing the Roman Rite is contrary to our history. That’s not true. At the risk of overgeneralizing, this means that from as early as the fourth century the liturgy as celebrated at Rome had the same structure, but there were differences between the papal liturgy and the liturgy celebrated in parishes. When I was at the Cathedral back in Oklahoma City, I tried to cultivate a “Cathedral” liturgy never intending it to be copied in local parishes. Even after the Council of Trent, liturgical practices that were in existence for two hundred years were allowed to continue such as the Dominican liturgy or the Ambrosian liturgy celebrated in Milan. “One size fits all” has never been the case when it comes to the Roman or Western Latin Rite. For one thing, the rites have to fit the space. What works in a Gothic church of France would be silly on Marco Island. Rites have to be celebrated within a culture as well as a building, and that might mean different garments, different instruments, different movements. 

At the same time, it can be said that “one structure fits all” in the sense that the eucharistic liturgy always has the same basic outline: Gathering, Introductory Rites, Liturgy of the Word, Presentation of Gifts, Eucharistic prayer, Communion, and Dismissal. For me, liturgy is never understandable or comprehensible. In fact, the liturgy always articulates and enacts what is incomprehensible, astounding, and even fascinating. Rituals are all over us. We use them all the time because rituals are our way of expressing something when words are inadequate. I see it all the time, I do it all the time. I just saw it yesterday at the airport. An older man got out of car, and boy who may have been about 6 or 7 got out with what I assumed were his parents. The little ran up to the old man and threw his arms around the old man with tears in his eyes, and the old man bent down, ruffled that child’s hair and kissed him on the top of his head. That was a ritual. It was an action that expressed something that words could not express. Contrary to what some young people might say, rituals are not boring. Boredom is a condition of the brain. It is the consequence of a failed imagination. I am never bored. I have suffered through the longest most ridiculous inconsequential meetings that you could ever imagine, and I’ve never been bored. I have rearranged the furniture in the room, changed the pictures on the wall and counted the ceiling tiles because I have imagination. It takes imagination to enter into Liturgy and Worship. It takes imagination to pray too. It’s not that God is a figment of one’s imagination meaning that we make it up. It’s that we have to imagine the God that Jesus has revealed to us, the God he called, Abba.

Liturgical rites are comprised of a number of things, and should engage all of our senses. They are not simply speaking of the right words over the right elements to produce predetermined results. Liturgy is always an astounding and complex collection of ideas, images, sights, sounds, silences, people, ministers, building, and much more all of which contribute to a multisensory and multidimensional experience. A good liturgy ought to wear you out. It ought to be an almost over-load of experience. Understanding what occurs is always secondary to experiencing in ever-new ways what occurs uniquely in and through the liturgy. Every liturgy is a unique and particular experience. When we gather every Sunday, it’s always different because things have happened to us during the week. We’re different than we were the week before unless you live in some kind of bubble frozen in time. While in every act of liturgy we use what we have used before: texts, rites, gestures, music, and so forth, no act of liturgy is ever repeated or the same if for no other reason that we are never the same. 

The purpose of Liturgy is the sanctification of people and through the holiness of life one gives glory to God. It is odd to me that for nearly a generation, we have been ready to draw nourishment for our spiritual lives from the Sacred Scriptures. We have not been taught in a similar way to draw that nourishment from the Sacred Liturgy. I believe, and that’s why I’m here, that we must learn to experience the same nourishment from the Liturgy. This might mean, for example, approaching the mystery of the Eucharist by understanding the meaning of the Eucharistic Prayer. When the priest says: “The Mystery of Faith” in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer, something should be unfolding, opening up, become clear to us about who is in our midst and because of it and because of what we are doing there, our own identity should be crystal clear. Four words that ought to make us think: “HUH?” “What’s happening here?” “How am I a part of this?” “What do I have to say about it?” Like the Scriptures, the Liturgy must be understood, meditated upon, and interiorized until it becomes part of our personal prayer. What I mean by that is that the Liturgy should makes us want to run home and shut the door! God speaks and acts through the Liturgy just as much as God speaks and acts through the Scriptures. 

Many people these days have discovered an ancient and very fruitful kind of personal prayer called: Lectio Divina. It is a method of prayer usually practiced alone, but sometimes in a group setting when a passage of Scripture is read then reflected upon by placing one’s self into the scene or the occasion, imagining (there’s that skill again) what it was like and what it is like right now. I wonder why that same exercise used with Sacred Scriptures, could not be used with the words of the Liturgy? It might be rather fruitful. In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter eight, Philip asks the Ethiopian official whom he finds reading the prophet Isaiah: “Do you understand what you are reading?” I think that same question should be asked of every one of us: “Do you understand what you are celebrating?” No more than we could get through the Prophet Isaiah in one day do I think we can get through the Sacred Liturgy in three talks, but we can at least open a crack and get a taste for what might lead you to a deeper understanding and fruitful prayer in the Liturgy.

Saint Benedict never uses the word Liturgy in his rule that has guided so many praying and worshiping communities for so long. The wisdom of his rule is not just for monks and nuns. The wisdom of his rule if learned, practiced and followed in families would transform life in this world. The very first word that begins the Holy Rule is, ‘Listen.” What do you think it would like in your home if everyone followed that rule? As I said, Benedict never uses the word “Liturgy” in his rule when encouraging and instructing on prayer. In its place, he refers to the “Opus Dei”, the “Work of God.” It is not by chance that the Eastern Churches refer to the Sacred Liturgy as, “The Divine Liturgy.” Isn’t that saying a lot more than calling our worship, “Mass?” If you go to “The Divine Liturgy”, you know immediately who’s in charge and who is doing something. Our Liturgy is not what we do. It is the work of God, that accomplishes what it signifies. Saint Paul writes in almost every Epistle about the “mystery” of God. For Paul the “mystery” is God’s plan to gather up all things in Christ. Start thinking about that, ponder it, pull it apart the next time you hear a priest rise from his knee and say: “The Mystery of Faith.” It does not mean it’s a secret, because the secret has been revealed, God’s plan. It is Jesus Christ who reveals the mystery of God. That’s the mystery of faith: Jesus Christ! 

The Greeks believed mystery was something that remained hidden, could not be spoken of, and was beyond comprehension. This is exactly the opposite of the Judeo-Christian understanding of mystery. How I wish Sister Mary Everlasting would have known and understood that. Instead, what many of us grew up with was that firm and authoritative announcement: “It’s a mystery” every time we asked a question about what something meant or why we did something in church. Because of Jesus Christ, the secret, the mystery has been revealed. We do know what God is doing. Nothing reveals the mystery of God more than the words and actions of Jesus. Think about that scene on Easter evening with those disappointed and discouraged disciples going to Emmaus. They were going the wrong way! Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and revealed the mystery at table with bread and wine. With that, knowing the plan of God, they turned around and went the right way – back to the company of the other believers in Jerusalem. 

The link between the Scriptures and the Liturgy is absolutely essential, and we do something that makes it obvious. At the beginning of the Liturgy, the Gospel is carried solemnly, in the grand gesture of being held high before the entire assembly until reaching the altar, the heart of the assembly. It is then enthroned on the altar becoming a kind of Epiphany. The very Word of God passes through the people of God. It is a kind of Incarnation. The Word is within us. The Word of God takes flesh and remains in the flesh of God’s people. We put that Word on the altar, the place of sacrifice. It is the place of offering, because Jesus Christ offers himself. In Christ, the word of God becomes not just a body but a body offered, a total gift of self. The epiphany, the revelation, is there in the gesture of putting the Gospel on the altar. The Word of God has found its fulfillment in the true worship offered by Christ on the cross.  We cannot just walk up there and put the book down like a picture book on your coffee table. That act is the beginning of the celebration. It is like an icon that manifests the unity that exists between the Scripture and the mystery of the altar, the Eucharist. The Rite is for the Liturgy what the alphabet is for the Scriptures. In the Scriptures, the knowledge offered is intellectual and rational. In the Liturgy, in Ritual, one learns by listening, speaking, seeing, smelling, and touching. The senses are the pathway to meaning.

Those of you familiar with the Passover ritual might remember that a child asks a question at the beginning. “What does this mean?” With that, the Passover rite begins. I think we need to keep asking that question every time we assemble for the Liturgy. “What does this mean?” I always think that those who participate in the Liturgy without knowing the mystery are like a dancer who dances without knowing the music or rhythm. We must never quit pondering the mystery narrated by the Scriptures and celebrated in the Liturgy. The Liturgy is like a dance that moves, interprets and anticipates the story of our salvation as told in the Sacred Scriptures.

“Back in the day, I love to say that now that I’m retired, the seminary I attended required a half semester workshop with the drama teacher. At first some of us scoffed at the idea until the very first week, when Father Gavin spoke to us about Liturgy as Drama. In that class we learned about “blocking” which is what happens at an early stage of preparation for a play. Where people stand, how they move, what they do with their hands, where they look, and how they walk is all part of that. I remember the day in that class when he had us watch a video of a marching band out on a football field going through their drill for a half-time show. The precision of it to the day amazes. Every member of the band knows where they must stand and how to move from place to place without bumping into others. He spoke to us about space and how to move from one place to another. (Tell the story about Communion Ministers at Saint Peter and Saint William).

So, my friends, for the next two nights, I want to explore with you the mystery of faith. My hope is that in doing so, you may begin to gather for the liturgy with some excitement and some wonder about what God has in store, would like to say, and might do with you rather than coming because you have to, just because you always have, or because you’re afraid that as Sister Mary Everlasting told you that you would burn in hell if you didn’t go. 

Just as I explained what we are doing with and why that great book is carried through the assembly and enthroned, not put, but enthroned on the altar, I will tease out the movements that make up the sign language we use in rituals. I need your imaginations to wake up. I need for you to wonder why and begin to connect your head and your heart. I hope that you will begin to find a new motive and a new experience in prayer as you explore the rite and rituals that speak about something too profound to real and to divine to speak of. If you want to do that, God willing, I’ll be right here tomorrow night. If you have time, you might take a few minutes to prepare and read very slowly and carefully thinking about each word in Eucharistic Prayer Two or Three. You can find them on line, in a Missal, or Hymnal. It is a very different experience to read or say those words yourself rather than just hear some priest proclaiming them.

Lenten Mission at San Marco Parish – Marco Island, FL

Monday, March 13, 2023

The Roman Rite Mass and Language of Ritual Part Two

Saint Ambrose, in writing “On the Sacraments” tells us that the Eucharistic celebration is a mystery of forgiveness and reconciliation. The entire celebration is filled with gesture and words about reconciliation and forgiveness. From what is properly called: “The Penitential Act” with its “Lord, Have Mercy” litany to those words spoken over the chalice: “Poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins, to the Rite of Peace, to the Lord’s Prayer, to the Lamb of God, it’s all about forgiveness. 

The rites of introduction for the Eucharistic celebration have four elements: a greeting, the penitential act, the doxology, and the prayer. These are not separate actions. The purpose of this introduction is for us to enter into the presence of the Lord. The first authentic liturgical act the assembly is called to carry out is to approach God’s presence. There is a reciprocal presence here. The Lord is with his people and the people are before the Lord. Psalm 24 composed for the liturgical entry into the Jerusalem Temple goes like this: “Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? Then it continues: “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts.” Our “Confiteor” prayer expresses the same sentiments. Remember this, in the Scriptures, the “pure and just one” is not the one who is without sin but the one who recognizes their sin. When you remember this, those words: “Let us remember or call to mind our sins” become the first act of the assembly. Only the just one shall stand before the Lord, and who is the just one? It is the sinner who knows their own sinfulness. With that comes the great “doxology”. Doxos is a Greek word meaning “Glory.” Having been made pure by the mercy of God, the assembly expresses its intention to carry out an act of worship. In the Bible there are five cultic verbs:

We praise you

We bless you

We adore you

We glorify you

We give you thanks for your great glory. 

Recognize the great hymn?

It goes on with what amounts to a Creed that expresses the Holy Trinity

You alone are the Holy One

You alone are the Lord

You alone are the most – High, Jesus Christ,

With the Holy Spirit

In the Glory of God, the Father.

With that said, the Introductory Rite finishes with a summary prayer that in every instance affirms how we pray and why we pray: Through Christ our Lord.

So, with that fresh in our minds, we must ask and wonder what it means spiritually. The answer, to put it briefly, is that we are both a holy people and a sinful people: holy by reason of the one who is in our midst and sinful by reason of what we have done and what we have failed to do. Humanity’s misery stands face to face with God’s mercy here. It’s like that woman caught in adultery. There she is standing before the Lord of mercy. The work of the Liturgy to come is to resolve that conflict. In our usual way of thinking everything is about us, the thought has developed that Liturgy or “Liturgia” in Greek refers to the words we say or what we do in ritual worship.  Maybe we need to get over ourselves because, it also refers to the work of God and what God is doing. Instead of being all concerned about what we do and how well we do it, we might shift our thought to what God is doing which is far more important. Thinking of Liturgy as the work of God among us, as Benedict says in his rule, changes our whole perspective and perhaps our attitude about and our presence in the Liturgy. As I said at the beginning, God is doing something here. Pay attention.

An element in the Penitential Act that is more often ignored than observed is silence. It is essential. It must be austere, intense, and severe. It ought to last long enough to make us feel uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable because we want to get things moving, but uncomfortable because we are in shame. When I am presiding, I take this moment seriously. Why not take it seriously? I want God to take me seriously. I take God seriously. I once overheard of the servers at the last parish I served say to another one: “He must have a lot of sins to remember!” When that silence does conclude with the Confiteor or a litany of God’s merciful qualities, there comes a blessing prayer in which the attributes of mercy, compassion and holiness are expressed by invoking the name of the Lord. This is not absolution.

At this point then, it is necessary to resolve a confusion that often arises over this Penitential Act and the Rite of Reconciliation. We cannot reduce to a simple recited formula the powerful work of God moving a person to conversion and repentance. The Sacrament of Penance expects just exactly that, a period of conversion and penance. The naming of the sin, the recognition and the claiming of the consequences of specific sin, is the journey we might call Reconciliation. That is not what happens in the Penitential Rite introducing the Eucharistic Liturgy. In short, to put it in bad, but common language: Going to Mass is not an excuse for avoiding the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Listen to these words that conclude the Syriac Liturgy with which the celebrant dismisses the assembly:

Go in peace, beloved brothers and sisters; we entrust to you the grace and mercy of the Holy Trinity, and to the viaticum that you have taken from the purifying altar of the Lord, all of you, near and far, living and dead, saved by the glorious cross of the Lord and signed by the sign of holy baptism. May the Holy Trinity forgive your errors, remit your sins, and give you the repose of your soul at your deaths. Have pity on me, a weak and sinful servant, with the help of your prayers. Go in peace, content and joyful, and pray for me.”

It took me a long time to see it, so I’ll bet that most of you have never noticed that the only time Jesus reads the Scriptures is in the context of the Liturgy. He’s in the synagogue and he takes up the scroll. In the synagogue during the prayer it happens. In Luke’s Gospel, the ministry of Jesus begins with that scene, an act of worship. His first public act is liturgical in the synagogue not in the Temple. What happens in that synagogue is the institution of the Liturgy of the Word. What happens in an upper room is the institution of the Eucharistic Liturgy. Both moments of Institution happen in the same way and with the same words. “He took in his hands.” First, he took the scroll of the Prophet in his hands. Then he takes the bread and cup in his hands.

The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that it is himself, Christ, who speaks when the Scriptures are read in the church. For me, that is one of the most important and profound messages of the Council. When we read the Scriptures in the assembly, it is Christ who speaks proclaiming the Good News once again. If we really believed that, how could we sit back and not be on the edge of our seats with eyes and ears wide open. Jesus Christ is speaking to us right then and there. This is not some “back in the day” moment when we are recalling something Jesus said once long ago. It is now. Jesus Christ is speaking to us right then and there. This is the living Word of God, not some old diary or journal entry made 2,000 years or so ago. Think for a moment what effect this reality should have on the reader both in terms of their appearance, their preparation, and the sound of their voice. How does it happen? What does it mean? These are the questions to ask at this point.

We must notice a detail in Luke’s Gospel. He writes: “And Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath.” He did not go into an empty room. He went into the midst of a people gathered together. This is not just describing a physical action like walking into a room. It means convening together with the believers in the same place in order to be a member of the gathering. For a Christian to enter a church, for every believer to enter his place of worship, means entering into and becoming part of a people’s entire history of faith. It means choosing to be a member of the historical body, present and past, of the community of believers. See how this anticipates and foretells the Mystery of Faith. God’s plan is to gather all people together with, through, and in Jesus Christ. It becomes a kind of sign of what is to come. So, the assembly gathered in worship is a sign of what is to come. Look around and use that gift we call, “imagination.” To summarize this simply, the assembly is the place where God continues to speak to us and Jesus proclaims the Good News. And so, when we hear the Gospel proclaimed, some event in the past is not being recalled as though it was history. The work of God through Jesus Christ is made present now. The assembly is essential. I came to this realization when I learned some time ago that to this day, in every synagogue of the world, the scroll of the Law may not be removed from the Arc unless there are ten adult men present. It is not enough for the book of the Law to be present and read. It is absolutely necessary that there be people present to hear it. Here is the difference between a Scripture Study class and the proclamation of the Word of God in the Liturgy.

This reality has implications regarding the assembly. They are there to listen not to read. It is about hearing, not about reading. It means that they ought to be able to hear which says something about a sound system and about the one who speaks. There are details in Luke’s Gospel that give us even more to attend to. The attendant hands the scroll to Jesus who is the lector. The scroll is not his property. In fact, to make the point more clearly, Luke tells us that when he finished, he handed the scroll back to the attendant. That scroll belongs to the community on whose behalf the attendant acts. The community is the care taker. So, in the Christian assembly, the lector receives from the church the Sacred Text to read. They do not bring their own. The book is on the ambo because it belongs to the church. When finished, the lector leaves it there because it is in the keeping of the assembly just as the Eucharist is in the care of the church. One other thing to note from Luke’s Gospel. When Jesus received the scroll, he read from the passage assigned for the day it tells us. He did not just pick out something he wanted to preach on or read. It is the same for the Lector in the Liturgy. They read the passage assigned by the church for the day. In reference to the lector, Saint Benedict had this to say, and I sometimes wonder how we could have ignored it: “No one shall presume to read or sing unless he is able to benefit the hearers; let this be done with humility seriousness, and reverence, and at the abbot’s bidding.”Watch this, remember, and think about this the next time you are at Mass. Those Sacred Scriptures are ours. God has given us his word. Think of that the next time you hear the words: “and the Word was made flesh.”

In the First Testament Book of Nehemiah another important element is passed on to us, the visibility of the Book of the Law of the Lord. In the 8^th chapter it says: “Ezra brought the law before the assembly. The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose. Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen. Amen.” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”

What is important here is the book must be seen before it is heard. The people express their faith because to be before the book of the law is to be before the Lord. It is a ritual action manifesting the presence of God in the midst of the people. Even today in a synagogue this ritual gesture is repeated. Before it is read, the scroll is held up open for the people to see, and then it is carried through the assembly as the people venerate it and sing. We declare by this gesture that the book belongs to all who have free access to the word of salvation. And so, when the reading is finished, the book stays where it is, where it belongs where all the people have access to it.

When it comes to the Book of the Gospels, the Good News, even more attention and more ritual behavior is evident. The Book itself is beautiful. It is always to be treated with great reverence. It is not tucked under the arm to carry around. It is held high, brought through the assembly, and it is enthroned on the altar which is free of any other object at this point.  It has the same dignity as the Eucharistic gifts. It is not just an object used it in worship. It is an object of worship. Again, the Second Vatican Council put it this way: “The Christian is nourished by the Bread of Life …from the one table of the Word of God and the Body of Christ.” That is why the Gospel Book is on the altar – it will feed us. “Not on bread alone does one live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” In the Eastern churches, the Book of the Gospels is enthroned on the altar even outside the liturgical celebrations. It is always there just as the Eucharistic consecrated elements are always in the tabernacle. 

When it is time to feed the people with the Good News, the book is taken from the altar just as the Body and Blood of Christ are taken from the altar when it is time to feed the people. Remember these words from John 6, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.” But just verses before that he says: “Anyone who hears my word has eternal life.” We cannot overlook that the Gospel is lifted up from the altar. Ultimately every Gospel leads to the proclamation of the Passion. The Gospel and the Cross cannot be separated, and for that reason, we sign ourselves at the time of the Gospel’s proclamation because this is the book of the crucified.

Tying all of this together I want to point out an interesting little part of this ritual that is too often ignored or just passed over without any question when we should be asking the question a child asks at the Passover: “What does this mean?” Just before communion begins, there is a little one-line verse often ignored. Why is it there and what does it mean? At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration, at the moment we receive the body and blood of the Lord, the Liturgy reminds us of the intimate relationship between the Book of the Gospels and the altar, between the Word and Eucharist. That’s where something called, “The Communion Antiphon” comes in, and what it does. It is a moment, just as communion is about to begin which is why it is called an “Antiphon” meaning that it comes “before.” 

In the 13^th century, the reception of communion by the faithful disappeared. With it disappeared the Communion Chant. Only the antiphon remained. A fragment of what it once was, it still reminds us that there is a connection between being fed and nourished by the Word and being fed and nourished by the Bread of Life. That little fragment is spoken or sung over, so to speak, the Eucharistic bread and chalice so that the broken bread and the broken word form a single reality in the sacrament. Hearing a verse from the Gospel of the day just proclaimed reinforces the unity of the table of Christ and the Bread of Life. That verse becomes an invitation to enter into deeper communion with God. But even more so, it says that the Gospel is fully realized only through the communion in the body and blood of Christ. Think of it this way: Pope Gregory the Great commented on the Emmaus story saying, “They…recognized in the breaking of the bread the God they did not know as he explained the Sacred Scriptures.”

Let’s turn our attention now to the gifts. There is here an unmistakable ritual act by which we say something in gesture about what we believe and who we are. There is a definite ethical dimension to this act. If you want to really get to the roots of this, the 26^th Chapter of Deuteronomy will take you there. It calls into question the right to possess. It is an act of Thanksgiving that acknowledges both the obligations of those gifted and their responsibility for those who are without. This action of the Liturgy is not just a way to get the dishes to the altar. In Deuteronomy, all of the demands about tithing, first fruits, the sabbatical year, and gleaning are there to make certain that the poor do not have to beg. 

Saint Augustine insists that when we make an offering, we are offering ourselves. This rite of presentation directly involves the faithful who are present even though only two or three may actually bring the gifts to the altar. This is in obedience to the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 16) “No believer may come before the altar with empty hands, because the vocation of every person is to offer the world to God by her own hands.” When you realize that this is the law of Moses, you might begin to question how that law can be dismissed while Murder, Stealing, Lying, and Adultery get to be such big things. Who makes the priorities? This presentation of the gifts is a priestly act that demonstrates the priestly character of all the Baptized. In as much as these gifts represent ourselves and therefore it is we who are placed on that altar, it is we who are sanctified by and through these gifts which, by the power of the Holy Spirit will soon become the Body of Christ. (Read from the Maronite Rite the prayer of acceptance.)

Let’s think about what is offered: bread, wine, and water, but let’s do so because these are the elements Christ took into his hands. The prayer said by the priest is remarkable. “Blessed are you, Lord”. That is an acclamation and an affirmation of faith in the Blessedness of God. We are not “blessing something”. It is not the Bread and Wine that are blessed, but the God of the Universe, the God of all creation. When you stop to think about it, bread is extraordinary. In it we can recognize the fundamental elements of the world: the EARTH that receives the seed and makes it grow, the WATER and the ground grain mixed together into a dough, and the FIRE and hot AIR for baking. These are the elements of the universe. They are universal, and so is bread. Every culture has some form of bread as its staple. It is the most basic of foods, and everywhere it is a metaphor for food. To lack bread means to lack food to lack that on which we depend to live and without it we die.

Unlike bread, there is the wine which is not a principle of sustenance. We can live without wine. Yet, wine adds an element of gratuity and suggests a feast. It is a drink of joy and pleasure. It is call to community and festivity and it promotes a spirit of joy and fellowship. So, these two elements, bread and wine are the signs of human life, signs of work and signs of play, fatigue and joy, need and excess. I bake bread every week. I never buy bread in the store. When I started, I noticed that my bread would last about four days before mold begins to grow. I also noticed that bread from the store might last two weeks leaving me to wonder what chemical is in that long-lasting bread. So, out of some caution and some doubt that my life would be prolonged by that chemical, I have been baking a loaf about every five days. In doing so, I have begun to reflect and pray as I do so. It strikes me very powerfully, that the dough in my hands is alive. It rises, it eats the sugars in the grain and produces gasses that lift up the dough making what at first is heavy light and fragrant. Then I bake it, and it dies. Then I eat what has died and I live. It is a spiritual revelation worth turning you into domestic bakers. Try it.

Now, the presentation of the gifts is not limited to bringing bread and wine for the Eucharist. There are other gifts to relieve the suffering of the poor. To me, this makes the Eucharist a source of social transformation, and the source and power for that transformation is here in this ritual of sharing, out of duty and gratitude. It adds another dimension to the Eucharist that makes it the food of charity. If it is the Bread of Life, then it is also the Bread of Love. There is a connection between sacramental practice and the practice of justice. What is not shared is wasted. Our Sacred Liturgy offers a challenge to the church in the world. In a society dominated by the strongest among us, the Eucharist is a real threat. In a society where individualism triumphs, the Eucharist reminds us of the common destiny of all humanity. In a society where waste prevails, the Eucharist is a call to share. The Eucharist forges a theology of charity, for charity is a mystery that is both sacramental and prophetic. The Eucharist is just as social as theological. It is where the ethic of service is rooted. The truth is, there can be no communion with God without sharing with our brothers and sisters. To receive communion is to be a communion. 

Maybe at this point we should think about this communion to which we belong. How the church prays determines what the church is. Consider this, there are three successive movements that make up the dynamic of a liturgical assembly – which is the Church. 

God calls his people together

God speaks to his people

God enters into a covenant with this people.

The origin of every Liturgy is the call of God and response of the people. The first liturgical action is the response and gathering of the people.

John Chrysostom has some fascinating and enlightening comments about the Greek word: ekklesia. As some of you know, I get side tracked sometimes by words, especially nouns and verbs. Indulge me for a moment. Ekklesia is a noun composed of the preposition ek, which means from and the verb, “kaleo” which means call. Therefore, ekklesia is “the convocation”, the “call forth from” that leads us to understand ekklesia as those called together.

Now, back to Chrysostom. He says that the ekklesia is not the bishop’s house but the house of God’s people. With that he instructs in this way, “The Bishop is not to greet those who gather there like the head of a house might greet guests. Christians who gather in assembly are not the guests of the one who presides. Rather, they are gathered in their own house because the Church is the common home of all.”

The one who presides is also a member of the assembly. He too comes in response to the call of God to gather. He too confesses his sins, hears the Word of God proclaimed, offers thanksgiving and is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord in order to become, with the members of the community he serves, one body in Christ. What I think is important to point out here is that the Liturgy does not begin with the opening song or the sign of the cross. It begins with God calling together the people and the people responding to this call by gathering in assembly.

What makes an assembly an ekklesia is the Word of God. Hearing the Word of God is what made Israel “the people of God.” This is why God says through the Prophet, Jeremiah, (7,23) “This command I gave them, obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” It is the proclamation of the Word of God that gives birth to the church. This means that the assembly is the home of the Word. For that reason, the Ambo is the special place of the Scriptures. Observe this. The book is not held in the hands of the lector, because it does not belong to the lector. It is placed on the ambo and it remains there even when the assembly disperses. We are saying something by this behavior. Is anyone listening we might wonder?

At the same time what makes an assembly an ekklesia is also at the same time what makes an ekklesia is an assembly. That’s not doubletalk. This begins to unfold for us in the Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 10,” Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.” This is not simply a reference to the historical body of Jesus but the body that is the church, the people God has gathered through him. Since the day of Pentecost, the work of the Holy Spirit has been to continue the mission of Christ, the gathering of the dispersed children of God giving the people a new covenant. The close connection between the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist cannot be ignored. The end purpose to which Christians are called in assembly is the body of Christ. The transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit is not, in fact, an end in itself; rather, the gifts are transformed so that those who eat them may become what they receive.

As I said yesterday, the Eucharistic prayers, all of them, will be more fruitful for us if we give them the same prayerful reflection we use on the Sacred Scriptures with Lectio Divina. If you do that, you will discover the dynamic of the two epiclesis of the prayer; one epiclesis over the gifts and a second over the assembly. An example: in Eucharistic prayer 2 the church prays: “Humbly we pray that, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.”The bodies are placed in relationship here: the Eucharistic Body of Christ and the Ecclesial Body. The goal of the first one is the second one. The whole purpose of the Eucharistic Body is the Ecclesial Body. “Why are we doing this, we should ask? The answer is to become what the Holy Spirit continues to do, gather into one the scattered children of God.

The church cannot be satisfied with having the Eucharist. It is not something to be possessed. The Eucharist serves no purpose if it remains simply an object to be possessed and adored. The church, however, is called to become the Eucharistic body of the Lord. The truth of the Eucharistic body is an ecclesial body. To receive communion is to be a communion. When we understand that the purpose of the Eucharist is to make us one body, a communion of brothers and sisters in faith, we will no longer view our participation in the Sunday assembly as a matter of obligation but rather as the expression of our identity. Being there is what makes us Catholic or Christian. If you’re not there, you can’t claim that identity. This is why we take great care to see that those who are too sick to be present must receive Holy Communion. Through no fault on their own are they absent. To make certain that they stay in communion, we reach out to them through the ministry of Extraordinary Ministers uniting them to the liturgy and to Christ and the Church. It is most important that this happen when the assembly is gathered together. Their sending forth is a powerful sign to all of us that some are missing, and as Jesus sought out the sick who, often because of their illness had been banned from Synagogue, we too as the Body of Christ still seek those who are missing to strengthen the bond we have through communion. Augustine, in one of his sermons tells a story about Victorinus who converted to Christianity around 355. He was in the habit of reading the Holy Scriptures and studied all the Christian writings intensively. He said to friend in a private conversation that he was a Christian. The other replied: “Until I see you in Christ’s church I will not believe that or count you among the Christians.” With that, Victorinus said: “Let us go to the church: I want to become Christian.” We know he was not talking about a building here, but rather an assembly gathered together in the name of Christ.

All of this leads us to confirm that the central issue for us today is to believe in the Church as communion, as the Body of Christ. In a culture marked by individualism, competition, affirmation of oneself at all costs, even at the expense of others, it is difficult to be church, to be truly a community. Only from the Eucharist, from the prophetic gesture of the breaking of the bread, can the Christian communities of the West renew their awareness that the Church cannot be the Body of Christ where Christians fail to turn away from egoism and refuse to share their goods with the poor. What is not shared with others in communion is taken from others in injustice. According to Sirach, God does not like a sacrifice that is the fruit of injustice toward the poor because: “Like one who kills a son before his father’s eyes is the person who offers a sacrifice from the property of the poor.” (Sirach 34, 24)

Lenten Mission at San Marco Parish – Marco Island, FL

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

The Roman Rite Mass and Language of Ritual Part Three

In a conversation about the Liturgy with someone recently, they expressed some surprise and not just a little annoyance when a fairly young priest said to her: “The Mass is a sacrifice. That talk about a meal and the altar as a table is just some Protestant idea that is totally wrong.” I wondered to myself at the time why it was an either-or matter in his mind. Then I began to wonder if that priest had paid any attention to the narrative of the Last Supper. I don’t think we call it the “Last Sacrifice.” The more I thought about it I wondered if that young man had any knowledge of Covenant which happens to be what was instituted and sealed at that meal in an upper room. Every Covenant in the whole history of salvation as recorded in the Scriptures involves a sacrifice and a meal. They always ate. They always consumed something in accepting and entering into a Covenant. The Old Covenant was sealed by the sacrifice of a lamb, and then the act of consuming what has been sacrificed binds one into the Covenant.

It is entirely possible that one or the other of these realities: sacrifice or meal might gain more importance or receive more attention from time to time, but it’s not a good idea to exclude either one. Doing so distorts everything and interferes with the action of God. Both sacrifice and meal contribute to the things we say and do in our ritual response to God’s action and Word. Let’s sort that out for a few minutes before we have lunch.

The Paschal Sacrifice of Christ cannot be understood at all without understanding the Passover Sacrifice. The whole new Covenant springs out of the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. It isn’t by chance that Matthew carefully casts Jesus in the image of Moses. It is entirely possible that Jesus himself saw Moses as his role model. Both what he says and what he does leaves little doubt about the influence of Moses and the Torah on Jesus himself. His life in the synagogue, his participation in the Feasts at the Temple root him firmly in Israel’s tradition.

There are some questions that can lead deeply into the profound meaning of what we say, what we do, and why. The first question of all is, what does God ask of us? The answer to that question is found in the Book of Exodus when Moses, at God’s insistence approaches Pharaoh petitioning for the freedom of the Israelites. In Chapter 8 it says: “Go to Pharaoh and say to him: ‘Let my people go so that they may worship me.” Right there you have the answer of what God asks of us. Worship. The whole point of saving people is for worship. We know how that story unfolds as Moses goes back and forth between plagues. Finally, near the end Pharaoh tells Moses it’s OK to go and take some stuff, sheep, and goats with them. Moses says, “No.” We need to take everything because we do not know what the Lord will ask of us.  With the last plague, as we know, Pharaoh has had enough, and the Israelites take everything and head out into the desert. The first place they go is to Mount Saini. They don’t know what God wants, or how to worship, but there they find out. They discover that the heart of religion is worship, and the heart of worship is sacrifice. What we give to God is sacrifice.

Now remember how it goes? They are to take a year-old lamb, and the first thing they are told to do is to take it into their home. Remember when we were little and would come home with a stray cat or dog and want to keep it? I’m not sure about you, but I can tell, Ruth and Ted always said no, and that was the end of it. As an adult, I have begun to understand why it was “no”. They did not want us to become attached to it especially if the owner would show up and take it back breaking our hearts. Well, there are two reasons why God required that the little lamb be taken into the home: to keep it safe and unblemished, and to let a relationship of love grow. 

Then, if you remember the instructions, when it was time for the Passover, the lamb was to be carried to the temple – again to keep it unblemished. Once there, it was lifted up in a place with a high wall where someone opened its throat catching the blood in a bowl. The lamb was presented not offered by that lifting up. That bowl was then taken into the holy place and the blood was poured out onto the altar. At that moment, it was offered to the Father. It was an “oblation.” That somewhat technical word means it was offered to God. There can all sorts of sacrifices for all sorts of reason. An athlete makes sacrifices in training to become better. That’s not an oblation. Notice and hear the language we use in the Liturgy. After the Oblation takes place, the dead lamb was taken home to be roasted and a feast was held to which others were invited who might not be able to afford a lamb. The story of the Passover was told again beginning with the youngest person present asking a question: “What does this mean?” The point of worship, the whole point of sacrifice is that you give up something you love.

The question still stands: How has God asked us to worship him? Take a lamb and slaughter it. In the New Covenant, how does he ask for worship? Do this in memory of me. That’s how God wants us to worship: Do This. At the moment in the Liturgy when the Words of Institution are spoken, that is the presentation. That is when the lamb is lifted up to the wall. When those sacred elements are held up in the hand. At that moment, we are confronted with the Mystery of Faith. It is presenting. It is not worship.

Worship is offered when the priest takes the body and blood of Christ and lifts it high with these extraordinary words that say it all: Through Him, With Him, and In Him, God, Almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirt, all glory and honor is yours forever and ever. That is the moment of fulfillment. That is the moment of true worship. It is the moment when the Father is glorified. And what do we say at that moment? Amen. The instructions call it “The Great Amen.” In my experience as priest it is more of the “Lame” Amen, just a signal to get off our knees. If there is ever a time for bell ringing and incense smoking, it is right here, at this moment, not at the presentation moment. 

Just before the Eucharistic Prayer’s Preface begins, the priest says to the assembly: Let us pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father. Then, what does the assembly say? “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy church.” My friends with those words those present are exercising the priesthood into which we were all called and anointed at our Baptism. You cannot waste your priesthood by watching. You have to get into the worship giving glory and praise to God. People may not sit in a pew and watch as though they were watching the Kansas/Oklahoma Football game. In fact, when I think about it, those watching the game are probably on their feet shouting and excited way more excited than most people taking up space in a church on Sunday. The Father asks us to worship and give glory. The Father is glorified and the world is saved only if we stop watching and start worshipping. 

We are not re-enacting the last supper. For me, the prefix “re” suggests doing something again. We are not doing something over again. We are not repeating something that happened in history. In the experience of the liturgy, there is no past. We are in a sense, in the future. We are actualizing the same gracious deeds God accomplished for us and for our salvation. In the liturgy, the notion of time is one in which a saving act that occurred once and for all at a time and place in saving history is experienced still, here and now, in a new experience until it is fulfilled at God’s saving initiative and in God’s good time at the end of time. 

There are three final ritual gestures important to understand and reflect upon: the fraction rite, the greeting of peace, the reception of Holy Communion with the conclusion of the Sacred Liturgy.

In the very early days as Christian communities were forming and multiplying, it became increasingly possible for the one responsible for teaching, leading, and sanctifying to be present at each assembly. There developed the custom of distributing a portion of the Body of Christ consecrated at the Principal celebration to the outlying communities as a sign of their unity all together. Someone designated would take a small portion of the Consecrated Bread to other places where it would be mixed in or added to what was on the altar in the outlying place. It was either dropped in the Chalice or mixed into the Consecrated Bread already on the altar. Obviously uniting them in a visible and powerful way to the Leader, (Bishop) and the principal church or “Mother Church” as it was sometimes referred to.

As that custom became increasingly difficult to maintain, an allegorical meaning was attached to the action. The church has always seemed to have a problem recognizing practical things as simply that. In the Byzantine Rite, there is ritual gesture of adding hot water to the consecrated wine just before Communion. The water sits over a candle warming all through the liturgy. The purpose of adding the water is to thaw, or soften, the wine which has become somewhat congealed during the long liturgy in frigid cold climate and church.  It’s simply a practical matter introduced to solve a problem. Once the liturgy was celebrated in a warm climate and once churches had some heat, the purpose has to be repurposed to make sense. Water gets added to the wine for us in the Latin Rite simply because the wine used early on tasted terrible. It was a crude drink always on the edge of being spoiled because there was no refrigeration. To make it palatable, the diluted it. The elegant blends of fine wines had not yet been considered. They used what they had. Historians tell us that no one today would drink that stuff.

All of this is a perfect example of liturgy begins to accumulate more stuff, just like we do in life. The oldest of prayers are always shortest until someone decides to revise them and then they get longer: more words! If you just look at the Eucharistic Prayers in the Latin Rite, you can see it. Eucharistic Prayers Two and Three which have their origins in the 4^th and 5^th century, they are much shorter than the Roman Canon that comes from the 16^th century. Longer still is Eucharistic Prayer Four which was adapted from a Swiss Canon composed in the 20^th century. So, back to the water and washing, since the priest and deacon hardly get dirty handling the gifts brought to the altar, some other meaning gets tagged to it in order to give some spiritual or pious meaning to the action. The washing of hands is a perfect example. Early in the formation of the Eucharistic Liturgy, the gifts brought to the altar were many, messy, and varied. After receiving and handling all of that stuff, hand washing was appropriate. When the custom of bringing something out of everything you had had passed away, the hand washing continued now with a prayer to shift the action from practicality to piety. The result is now reflected in the prayer the priest says as water is poured over his hands. It comes from a Psalm, “Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity and cleanse me from all my sins.” A practical custom of cleaning up has become a prayer for forgiveness and purity. The same thing has happened with the fraction rite. First of all, the bread had to be broken up into serving sized pieces. There was also that old custom of adding a portion from the Bishop’s Liturgy that had been brought there. Suddenly, or perhaps gradually, when the practical matter no longer was necessary, an allegorical reason gets added in the form of a prayer which completely changes the meaning of the ritual action.

With the typical brevity of the Western, Latin, Roman rite, the priest says these words which you rarely hear because a Litany is being sung (Lamb of God). As he breaks off a small piece of the larger portion, (think of the original action) he drops it into the chalice with these words: “May the mingling of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ bring eternal life to us who receive it.” The Eastern Churches which, by culture, are far more inspired by allegorical ideas, have an even greater and more spiritual dimension to this breaking and mixing. In the Maronite Rite with which I am more familiar, the assembly begins to sing, and the priest, with the large consecrated host in his right hand breaks it over the chalice in two parts; then he breaks a piece from the edge of the half remaining in his left hand saying: “We have believed and have approached and now we seal and break this oblation, the heavenly bread, the Body of the Lord, who is the living God.”Then he dips the small piece into the chalice in the form of a cross saying: “We sign this chalice of salvation and thanksgiving with the forgiving ember which glows with heavenly mysteries.” Then he dips the Body of Christ into the Blood three times saying: “In the name of the Father, the Living One, for the living; and of the only Son, the Holy One, begotten of him, and like him, the Living One , for the living; and of the Holy Spirit, the beginning, the end, and the perfection of all that was and will be in heaven and on earth; the one, true and blessed God without division from whom comes life forever.” Then, he sprinkles the Body three times, using the small piece that has been dipped into the Blood saying: “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is sprinkled on his holy Body, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  Then, he drops the small piece into the Blood of Christ and says: “You have united, O Lord, your divinity with our humanity and our humanity with your divinity, your life with our mortality and our mortality with your life. You have assumed what is ours and you have given us what is yours for the life and salvation of our souls. To you be glory forever.” The priest then presents the consecrated host and the chalice to the people who together say: “O Lord, you are the pleasing Oblation, who offered yourself for us. You are the forgiving Sacrifice, who offered yourself to your Father. You are the High Priest, who offered yourself as the Lamb. Through your mercy, may our prayer rise like incense which we offer to you Father through you. To you be glory forever.”

This is the Eastern Church’s way of worship – the giving of Glory and Praise to God. It is that elevation of the Sacrament with the words Through, With, and In – To you be glory forever.  That is worship!

What does the action mean we could ask as the child asks at the Passover Meal. It cannot be observed or watched with the simple thought that the sacrifice of Christ meant that his body would be broken. We might ask what God is saying to us? The answer is in the action. The Body of Christ must be broken, and that Body is the ekklesia, the church. We have to be broken in service, and when we are, we are one with Christ. 

Before we can get to the moment of union, we have to deal with something that is very real and somewhat contradictory. We have to deal with, acknowledge and ritually address our sinful brokenness. Just before the distribution of Communion, the Liturgy, or is it God, invites us to exchange a sign of peace with our brothers and sisters in faith many of whose names we do not even know. The peace that Christians offer each other is a divine gift, never simply the fruit of personal sentiments or feelings. The person with whom I exchange peace is a symbol of the person whom I most need to forgive and the person from whom I hope to receive forgiveness. This is a profound and sacred act. It is not time to be looking around for your friends. You don’t need to be reconciled, forgive, or be forgiven by them. Likewise, introducing yourself to the someone behind or in front of you is not for this time. You should have already done that when you arrived. This is a time for husbands and wives to simply say, “I’m sorry” and mean it. It is a time for children to look up to their parents and feel the same sorrow, or to look at one another to forgive and find forgiveness for their fights and lies, and meanness. This is about seeking and giving pardon because, we are about to approach the altar of forgiveness, and we had better be at peace, for there might be consequences. To say to one another, Peace be with you,” means to recognize in each other the need for and the gift of forgiveness. We began the Liturgy by accepting the Lord’s forgiveness. Near the end, give what we have received. 

In the logic of the Liturgy, the two or three people standing near me with whom I exchange peace become in that moment the sign of the concrete person with whom I recently reconciled or with whom I hope to reconcile soon. In that gesture of peace, I express my openness to peace and reconciliation, received from God. I receive, so to speak, a mandate that I am called to make a part of my daily living. I receive the gift of peace that I am also called to give. The truth of the sign of peace is made manifest by the respect and seriousness with which I give it. If I exchange peace in a superficial and thoughtless way, I run the risk of banalizing so great a gift. It might mean that I have lived it out in a superficial and thoughtless way as well. If I exchange peace with all, in reality I give it to no one, in the rite and in life.

With peace and forgiveness established, we may now approach the God of mercy and love to be fed, and to become what we eat. There is a procession, seeing it and joining it pulls us deeper into the church. We are a people on a journey toward the Kingdom of God. The procession is an image of all humanity on the way toward God, each of us in our own circumstances and states of life. All go toward the altar. Each of us just as we are with our burdens, our misery, our labors because we are hungry for the bread of mercy, the bread of eternal life that only God can give. In some ways, it is a vision of things to come. 

A French writer named: Christian Bobin describes the Communion Procession of the Faithful on Easter morning. Close your eyes and imagine:

“At the moment of Communion, at the Easter Mass, the people got up in silence, walked down the side aisles to the back of the church, then turned one by one up the central aisle, advancing to the front. Where they received the host from a bearded priest with silver-rimmed glasses, helped by two women with faces hardened by the importance of their role, the kind of ageless women who change the flowers on the altar before they wilt and take care of God like he was a tired old husband. Seated at the back of the church, waiting my turn to join the procession, I looked at the people, their postures, their back, their necks, the profiles of their faces. For a second my view opened and I saw all of humanity, its millions of individuals, included in this slow and silent flow; old and adolescent, rich and poor, adulterous women and earnest girls, crazies, killers and geniuses, all scraping their shoes on the cold, rough stone tiles of the church floor, like the dead who will rise patiently from their darkness to go receive the light. Then I understood what the resurrection will be like and the stunning call that will precede it. 

There is not much more to say after that except to remind you that there is one final intense gesture, raising our arms and opening our hands to receive the Body of Christ. Open hands like people about to receive a gift. It is a gesture that must reveal an interior attitude. It is an act of the Spirit. To open one’s hands is the purest human gesture one can make to represent openness to receiving a gift. The posture of one who is standing, with arms out and hands open, signifies not only openness to receive but also total vulnerability and inability to harm. Open hands are confident hands. One who wants to take something from someone, to take possession, does not open their hands but tighten them. We do not grab. We do not take. We receive from someone else. What we receive is salvation in the Eucharistic Bread, a sacrament freely given by the Father. 

Liturgy then, is heaven on earth and at the same time also the threshold of heaven. It is the most sacred thing we do, because through and in it, we humans touch God and are embraced by God. Liturgy is the breaking into our world of all that is of God and of the kingdom of heaven.  What we have in the Liturgy, my friends, is a dynamic school of prayer in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit teaches the believer how to pray with three important elements: Hearing, Interiorization, and Interpretation. Teaching someone to pray also is teaching someone to believe, and in learning to pray, we learn to believe. In the study and preparation, I gave for this day, I was constantly frustrated by the limits of time and the inadequacy of human words. With that in mind, I have humbled and say that I cannot find the words to express how wonderful it feels to be here with you back in Oklahoma. I told the people at Saint Mark at the last Liturgy we celebrated together that I would no longer be their pastor, but would always be their priest. I never forget you, and I can’t think of a better way to conclude this day than by taking the concluding prayer from the Divine Liturgy of the Maronite Rite. “I leave you in peace, O holy Altar, and I hope to return to you in peace. May the offering I have received from you be for the forgiveness of my faults and the remission of my sins, that I may stand without shame or fear before the throne of Christ. I do not know if I shall be able to return to you again to offer another sacrifice. I leave you in peace. “

March 5, 2023 at Saint Sebastian Parish, Ft Lauderdale, FL Opening of Lenten Parish Mission

Genesis 12, 1-4 + Psalm 33 + 2 Timothy 1, 8-10 + Matthew 17, 1-9

At Monsignor’s invitation, I’ve come over from Naples where I have retired like most other people there after serving in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for fifty years. I want to introduce you to someone who has a lot to say to us at this particular time in history. In December, with the beginning of Advent, we gave him a voice, and from now until the third of December, he will speak to us week after week revealing God’s plan for us and how God’s first plan, ruined by sin, could be restored.

We don’t really know his name, but we have figured out a few details about him that allow us to dig deep into the treasure he left us. It was sometime between the year 80 and 90 that this obviously devout follower of Jesus sat down somewhere with 

1 a few sayings of Jesus preserved by a folks who had actually heard Jesus speak, 

2. with a few notes about customs and events that actually happened at the time of Jesus 

3. and then finally with an early copy of something called; “The Good News” by man named Mark.

Whoever he was, with remarkable skill he wove these three sources together to produce a literary masterpiece the we call: “The Gospel of Matthew.”

He was just what was needed at the time, and I think we need him now just as much as they did then. It was a difficult and challenging time. Some could call it a crisis. The first generation “church” was strictly Jewish at the time. Suddenly, those Jewish followers of what many called, “The Way” found themselves at odds with everything they had known in the past. Out of nowhere, they found themselves in a polarized world that affected everything from family life to the local synagogue where they were no longer welcome. Gentiles were coming to seek a place among them wanting to follow the “Way” of Jesus. These foreigners did not speak their language. They could not and would not embrace the old ways. There was a big shift taking place that demanded a new and fresh look at the old traditions that offered a new way of looking at Christ that was not quite so “Jewish”. The old timers, those first Jewish converts suddenly were beginning to wonder if they had made a mistake, and they needed reassurance that what was happening was God’s plan. The Old Testament, which is all they had as a guide, their sense of Salvation’s movement, discipleship, and morality were all up for grabs and needed a new look.

This man sat down to provide some guidance to the church, some wisdom, and a new way to emerge from this crisis faithful to God’s will. Over time, he gets the name, “Matthew”. There is no reason at all to think that he is the same “Matthew” that appears as an Apostle in the story. In fact, that Matthew would have been too old to write it all. What we know is that he was very well educated. He used Greek is though it was his first language, and it is a much more polished Greek than what would have been found in those three sources he had at hand. His style in the language suggests that he may have been in Antioch or Syria.

Whatever, I am hoping to spend some time with you exploring what he left us becoming carefully aware that each of the Gospels has a different theme and purpose so that as you spend this year with Matthew’s Gospel you might more fruitfully hear and understand what is revealed. All of us over time have conflated all four Gospels into one in our heads making it very difficult to tease out the unique themes, issues, that each evangelist proposes. Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday, I want to help you get better acquainted with this man and his message. He speaks to us today just as clearly and powerfully as he first did to that polarized and challenged community facing change they could never have predicted or controlled.

There is a natural division in his Gospel that sets us up for this week. The beginning that tells of Birth of Christ leading to his Baptism and public ministry. Then there is the Ministry and Preaching of Jesus that makes up the middle section that is divided into Five Sermons or you could call them, “Books. You know the first one: “The Sermon on the Mount.” Today’s Gospel came from the Fourth Book which is about the identity of Jesus. The last night, Tuesday, we will reflect on the Passion of Christ as Matthew tells it which is a perfect way to prepare for what we shall soon remember in Holy Week.

So, I invite you to join me. I encourage you to bring a Bible with you. I think you will be surprised at what you never saw or heard before, and how it all fits together. For instance, Matthew told us just now that this Transfiguration happened after six days. In other words, it is the seventh day. That detail places this incident in the context of a creation story: Jesus went up the mountain with his friends on the seventh day, the day of completion. Having just shared a hard teaching about his suffering and disfiguration, Jesus allowed them a glimpse of the future of all creation in the Transfiguration. While Mark and Luke give similar accounts of this moment, Matthew uses the Greek word that comes into English as metamorphosis. In Greek mythology, metamorphosis was what happened when the gods took on human form. There’s something to think about until we meet again. You might notice one other thing here. The disciples who are there are the same ones who go to the Garden with Jesus after the Last Supper.  They are very slow to get their faith together, but by showing us their slow growth in faith, he encourages us who are sometime just as slow.

St. Sebastian Lenten Mission

Sunday, March 5, 2023

Part One, The Infancy Narrative

Tradition has always called this great work, “The Gospel of Matthew”. As I said this morning, this man was educated well and uses Greek as though it may have been his first language. It is a much more polished Greek than what is found in his sources.  His language style suggests he may well have been in Antioch or Syria. Some call him a verbal architect because the work is actually “built” in a constructive and balanced way.

This the mission of Jesus, the whole idea of salvation in the mind of people gets brought into agreement with the mind of God. The earliest idea that springs from the Exodus and then the Old Testament Prophets is that the Israelites are the people of God and no one else. The public ministry of Jesus is restricted to the land and people of Israel, but they refuse him and his revolutionary ideas about God deciding to keep things just as they are. Then the great turning point comes with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What happens in this Gospel is that Church, not Judaism becomes true people of God because it is the people formed by God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the fulfiller of the Law and the prophets. For those early Jewish converts, this is a stunning new development. Their privilege place, and the authority they felt because they were Jews suddenly means nothing. They wonder if they have made a mistake, so Matthew carefully and consistently reassures them over and over again by helping see that the Old Testament was leading up to this time and that it was God’s plan all along. 

Some like to think of Matthew as an Architect, and it’s not hard to see how or why. A “blueprint” of the Gospel shows us that there are five pillars that hold it all together. These are five discourses or Sermons with the same arrangement. First there is a narrative that is followed by a discourse or sermon. Each of them is very distinct, and they all end with the same words: “When Jesus finished these words.”  What we end up with is five books all bound together. The five can be counted and named this way.

1. The Sermon on the Mount
2. The Sermon on Mission
3. The Sermon on Parables
4. The Sermon on Church Order
5. The Sermon on Things to Come.

But that is for tomorrow, and Tuesday we will take up the Passion.

We must always remember that this is not history! This is theology. It is a revelation. It is set in time and in place, but the where and the when do not matter nearly as much as the fact that the Gospel is a living expression, an ongoing revelation by God as a way of speaking to us, calling to us, and embracing us. There is one purpose here, and it is not historical. It is to communicate a faith to us either to strengthen the faith that we already have or to awaken readers a new kind of faith. What we can discover is the faith that Matthew held and led him to write. This faith is so important to him that he will take no risk of being misunderstood since this faith addresses the meaning of existence. So, to avoid misunderstanding, there is a pattern to his writing that will become more obvious. He states what he wants to say, and then he states what he does not mean to say. It removes all ambiguity and leaves us with: position and opposition. 

Of all four Gospels, this is probably the most familiar and maybe the most popular. It gives us the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Golden Rule. For older Catholics, it was Matthew’s Gospel that dominated the Sunday Gospel Readings before the reform of the Second Vatican Council. It was practically the only Gospel we heard with the exception of Luke’s Christmas story details and John’s Passion. This Gospel gives us a fusion of ethics, faith and morality. This writer sets himself in strong opposition against those who claim that accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is all that is required of them. His great concern is to convince followers of Christ that genuine faith must be demonstrated in daily obedience to the way of life he proclaimed. Faith and Ethics. These are two sides of the same coin.

As I just said, the structure with its five pillars or five books comes out of Matthew’s intense fidelity to his Jewish roots and his knowledge of the community or church for which he writes. It is often proposed that his intention was to compose something new modeled on the Five Books of Moses in which narrative and legal material alternate. However, reducing this Gospel to that purpose misses the point that this, like all the other Gospels is first and foremost a Passion Narrative. Most scholars believe that the Passion of Christ was written first, and then what comes before was simply a way of explaining why it happened and how. Perhaps, a way of avoiding or giving too much attention to the structure with its five books is to more simply see that this Gospel has three parts:

1. Who is this Jesus the Messiah?
2. What did he have to say?
3. What does he do?

The first part centers on the Infancy, the Baptism, and the Temptation.

The second part is preparation for the passion.

The third part is ultimately what it’s all about, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

The Genealogy

With all that said, let’s take up that first part and think about who Jesus is for Matthew. It all begins with what is best called, the “Royal Genealogy.” Matthew makes and takes a great effort to answer the question: “Who is Jesus Christ?” No other Gospel writer found it helpful to start this way. He digs into the family background just as we might do. Members of my family along with me have done some serious research into our origins, our family history, identity, and movements. It’s been fun and has been full of surprises. Here Matthew reveals his convictions about Jesus: his origins lie in the old people of God (Abraham), and Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel’s history. Unlike Luke who traces the ancestry of Jesus back to Adam, the father of the human race, Matthew traces it only to Abraham, the father of the Jews. This is what would have been important and of interest to the Jewish/Christians who were to receive this Gospel.

For Matthew, Jesus is a Messianic King, so his line must come through David and the kings of Judah. Again, I insist, this is a theological statement, not history or a biological report! To get an idea of how clever it is and how Matthew uses this genealogical tool to express faith in Christ Jesus, you could take notice of how he changes the verb in the genealogy. Various translations will be different, but the change is there nonetheless. It is an active verb like “begot” or so and so “became”. When it comes to the last, with the incarnation Matthew switches to the passive voice verb form saying simply: “of her (Mary) was born Jesus, who is called the Messiah.” 

This last statement announces the story of Jesus’ birth contrasting the ordinary conceptions of David and Joseph with the extraordinary conception of Jesus. The whole list of people can only raise questions. The inclusion of women in what ought to be a male genealogy should raise an eyebrow or two. Among them are two foreign prostitutes: Tamar and Rehab. Then there is Ruth, a Gentile and Bathsheba with whom David committed adultery.  It’s almost as though he can’t bring himself to say her name, so he calls her “the wife of Uriah”. This is clearly not real. There is a theological statement here perhaps slightly prophetic about what is coming. Including these women reminded the Jewish and Gentile readers that God’s plan of salvation included Gentiles, even unrighteous Gentiles. What happens through this genealogy is an affirmation that Jesus is an authentic King, a descendant of King David. He is not usurper, but a legitimate ruler of God’s people.

Jesus then is an authentic Jew. This is important for Gentile Christians to understand, and Matthew wants to make the point.  One final point that can escape us easily is that in the introduction, the very first line of the Gospel Matthew says: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” He calls it a “book”, and with a subtle way that escapes us in English, there is a reference to the first book of the Bible, “Genesis”.  In Greek, genesis can mean “genealogy”, and it has other meanings, “birth” being one of them. Matthew’s choice of “genesis” as the key noun in the opening lines is worth some thought because he might have been promoting some association with the first book of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is likely that he wants to remind readers that in Jesus Christ, God had made a new beginning. Thus, the first Gospel could be called: “Genesis II, the Sequel.”

The Conception and Naming of Jesus

Joseph, in the genealogy, has already been brought forward into this Gospel, and as this narrative of the Nativity unfolds, he remains very much front and center. In Luke’s Gospel, Mary is the dominant figure. Luke emphasizes the essential passivity of the human response to God’s action: “Let it be done to me….” On the other hand, as we see here, with Joseph as the leading figure, the active component in the human response is important for Matthew. Three times Joseph is instructed by an angel in a dream, and three times he must DO something. This is consistent with Matthew’s understanding of Christian faith. It’s about action. Matthew makes that powerfully clear at the end of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who DOES the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

When the angel calls Joseph “Son of David”, it becomes clear that it is Joseph’s continuity with King David that gives Jesus that royal identity. That is Joseph’s role here: to give legitimacy as a Son of David to Jesus. Matthew gives us a Joseph visited by an angel more than once. For his first readers, Jewish Christians, a Joseph who dreams is a familiar scene. Remember the Joseph with the colorful coat who dreams Egypt through famine? When Joseph takes Mary into his home, it is more theological than respectful kindness. By doing this, he provides Davidic paternity on her child inserting her child into his proper place in salvation history. His key role next is to give the child a name, a name God has already chosen, and it is a name that does not show up in Joseph’s lineage or genealogy. It is a common name that originally meant “God helps”. But by the first century the popular explanation of the name was “God Saves”, and this is confirmed by the Angel who says: “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 

The Visitors

In 1857 John Henry Hopkins was the rector at Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He wrote a carol for a Christmas pageant in New York City, We Three King of Orient Are and with that, the first twelve verses of Matthew’s Chapter Two begin to lose every bit of revelation and meaning. In my opinion, he may have given us a catchy tune and sweet lyrics, but he sure did obscure Matthew’s intention with these verses. With his frequently used: “BEHOLD”, Matthew signals a new divine intervention, and that’s what we get here. The story as it goes in the second chapter has the “Holy Family” entirely passive. Joseph is not even mentioned. Mary is seen but no heard, and the child does nothing. The primary figures are nameless strangers from the east and Herod the King. In the original Greek as Matthew wrote it, he calls them “magoi”. It is a word with several meanings: magician, the Persian priestly caste, or a Zoroastrian. Scholars these days seem to prefer this last meaning, Zoroastrian or astrologers. It’s the best guess since a star has their attention.

They speak of “The King of the Jews”, and it’s worth remembering that this phrase will not be used again by Matthew until the Passion. He wants to plant that idea in our minds early on. Herod calls together the chief priests and the scribes, the very ones who will so violently oppose Jesus, and in stunning irony, they know exactly where the Messiah will come from, and they do not go! Only these Gentiles go to Bethlehem!

Matthew loves contrasts, and we get one of them in these verses as we see Herod “troubled” and the Magi “joyful.” And what’s Herod’s problem? He’s just been told that there is a “new-born king.” In other words, a king who is king by birthright. Herod is not. He is a usurper and a tyrant. He has no right to the throne and the title he got by murder. His trouble is really fear, and the contrast between joy and fear is going to show up again and again. The political and religious authority of these Scribes, Chief Priests, and Herod is now threatened, and they will go after the threat. You have to wonder, “What is the difference between the Gentile visitors and these local people Matthew puts into this story?” How is it that these Gentiles are on the move and the locals, who know as much as the Gentiles, do nothing? It’s the star. One group follows the light, the others stay in the darkness. For the first readers of Matthew’s Gospel, the image of the Israelites following the pillar of fire by night, light, the message speaks. Gentiles now get to see the light, and it leads them to something new.

So, these magoi show up with three gifts that Matthew mentions. The gifts have led us to think that there were just three of them which makes no sense because long distance travel would have required a lot of helpers. I blame John Hopkins for igniting imaginations, but there is nothing in all of the Scriptures that gives them names or indicates their country of origins. Such details and embellishments may help us enter into the Christmas Spirit, but they lead us far from the text, and the text is what matters. There have been all kinds of nice and pious meanings attached to the gifts, but the simple truth is: gold, frankincense and myrrh were nothing more than gifts fit for a king, and that is what Matthew is affirming. There is a King here, a king in the line of David. 

What’s with the star? All attempts to come up with some natural phenomenon are nothing but distractions from Matthew’s intent. He wants to report a supernatural phenomenon because something supernatural is going on. And then there is Herod. I’ll talk about him in a few minutes. Matthew is revealing a conflict that will continue in this Gospel. It’s like a preview. Gentile strangers (the Magi) accept Jesus. In contrast, there is the violent rejection of him by the Jewish ruler. It’s a hint about things to come.

From Bethlehem to Nazareth via Egypt

In the second and final half of this Chapter, Joseph is back, and in the mind of Matthew and his first readers there are always two Josephs. We need to have that in mind as well. If you are not really familiar with the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, you need to be if you want to listen to the first two Chapters of Matthew. Not only does Joseph act as a link to the Hebrew Scriptures, so does the story about leaving hastily in the night. This is a Passover story that reveals how God saves. In Matthew, God is saving the “New Israel”, Jesus.  This time, it is in reverse almost as though he was playing it back in order to play again with a different ending. Instead of going out of Egypt, Matthew has the New Israel (Jesus) going into Egypt. The killing of children by a tyrant takes place in Judea this time rather than in Egypt. Had he stayed in Judea, he would be dead. There is in this story the first hint of how important Moses is in Matthew’s Gospel, and how closely Matthew will identify Jesus with Moses. It almost begins to feel as though Moses was the ideal hero of Jesus. Remember how Moses ended up floating in a basket placed there by his mother when the very real threat of a massacre was happening?  That’s how Moses got to Egypt. He was spared the massacre of infants just as Jesus was spared the Massacre of infants. Joseph is informed that he can return with Jesus to his people because “those who sought the child’s life are dead,” just as Moses is instructed in Exodus 4, 10, “Go back to Egypt; for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” Matthew uses the plural pronoun “those”. He does not say, Herod. Here is a perfect example suggesting strongly that the Exodus event is being repeated once again.

The whole purpose of writing this for Matthew is the identity of Jesus – now Jesus is identified as Israel, a “new” Israel. This whole sense of something new is developed by Matthew as he reverses the biblical themes. In this way he reveals his own faith conviction. Jesus is the son of David. Jesus is King. Jesus is Messiah. Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophets and writings. One last piece of this identity is yet to be manifest, and it comes at the end of this chapter. Jesus needs to be designated as “Son of God” and this must happen outside of Judea so as to remove any hint that his authority might be based on power. His authority comes from being called out of Egypt, and the verb is the clue that leads us to understand what Matthew is revealing. Jesus is “called”. He has a vocation. His vocation is to be Emmanuel. That is to say, his vocation is to be the holy presence of God among us. This is why those Gentile visitors bow down before him. They are not bowing to an earthly king. They are in adoration of the divine presence.

Here is where Matthew presents his view of authority and how it applies to Jesus. Divine authority is not like human authority. It is not imposed from above by force, threat, or fear. That’s the kind of authority Matthew shows us in Herod. When God acts, it shows itself as an opportunity, something that happens in the normal course of human events. When God acts, there is then a call, a vocation by which humans accept or submit in order to carry out or complete God’s intervention. Matthew says to us, “Something new has happened. There is a new kind of authority that has taken flesh in this holy one. Joy is the result of finding this holy one. That is the response of those visitors, Joy.  Jesus is not to be found in places of power like Jerusalem or in the courts of the powerful like Herod. Confirming this, Jesus is called a Nazarene. Placing him outside of Judea because, the plan of God to save a New Israel has a new, wider, and more inclusive sense.

So, there is a final shift of geography from Bethlehem of Judea, because of its place in the prophecies, to Nazareth where everyone knew Jesus grew up and was at home. I have always found it strange that Matthew would think Jesus is safer in Galilee than in Judea because Galilee is ruled by Herod Antipas who murdered John the Baptist. This is quite different from Luke who has Mary and Joseph coming from Nazareth to Bethlehem where Jesus is born. Luke needs no reason for a return to Nazareth. That’s their home. For Matthew, Bethlehem was the home town of Jesus, and Nazareth in Galilee is a place of exile. It is there, in Galilean exile that Jesus will exercise his ministry. He will come home to Judea only to die.

One more time I must repeat the mantra of these sessions: This is not History. This is Theology. They are not the same.

So, what’s the Theology we get so far?

Were there three magi in history? It does not make any difference. It is irrelevant.

Matthew speaks of only three gifts, the traditional gifts for someone of royal birth. 

It’s not about Three Kings of Orient. It is about the birth of a King. 

Did the Holy Family really flee to Egypt in the night? It does not make any difference. 

What matters is that, like Moses, Jesus has a vocation and he was spared a massacre in order to fulfill it. 

To live this Gospel and listen to Matthew, we have to keep digging into the identity of Jesus and keep asking, “Who is this?” That’s what he is exploring with these stories. The truth about Jesus Christ. 

So far, in these first two chapters, we have this much Theology:

Jesus is the “Son of David”. Thank you, Joseph.

Jesus is the “King of the Jews”. Thank you, magi.

Jesus is the “Messiah.” Thank you, Herod’s scribes and chief priests.

Jesus is “Emmanuel”. Thank you, prophets.

Jesus is “Son of God”.  Thank you, John the Baptist and God the Father. (words heard at the Baptism of Jesus)

We shall also see

Jesus as A Teacher, “Rabbi”, and his disciples are learners. In Matthew, the teaching of Jesus is more important than miracles.

Jesus as A Story Teller (Parables)

Distinctive features in Matthew’s Gospel

Matthew’s Gospel is concerned with:

What followers of Jesus could hope for.

How followers of Jesus should behave in community

How the commandments of Moses and of Jesus relate (Is Jesus a Law Maker or a Law Breaker)

Matthew elevates the disciples who in Mark are dull and uncomprehending. Peter plays an especially important role in Matthew. (Peter walks on the water, he asks how many times to forgive, and only in Matthew is he the Rock.

Matthew makes villains out of the Pharisees who were really the spiritual leaders at the time. also (in)famously vilifies the leaders of the Jewish people, particularly the Pharisees. Some scholars have taken this harsh polemic as evidence that Matthew’s community had been expelled from the synagogue. Though the specific situation is difficult to know with absolute certainty, we can see clearly that there was serious tension between Matthew’s community of Christ-followers and the Jewish leaders with whom they interacted.

From John to Jesus

Now it is an interesting fact that only two Gospels begin with stories about the birth of Jesus, but all four begin his time of ministry with John the Baptist. That fact tells us that this is more important than angels, shepherds, and magi. Unique in Matthew’s Gospel is a conversation between Jesus and John. In fact, it is at his encounter with John that Jesus speaks for the first time in this Gospel. In this dialogue, Matthew sets matters straight over a dispute that arose between the followers of John and followers of Jesus. John’s followers think that if Jesus came to John for Baptism, Jesus was inferior to John; and if Jesus was Baptized, he must be a sinner. With this dialogue, that matter of priority is settled. It is thought by many scholars that the decision of Jesus to be Baptized was an act that gives him solidarity with sinners just as his death gives him solidarity with the dying, and his dining with sinners gives him solidarity with tax collectors and sinners. There is always this matter of “identity” going on beneath the surface in Matthew’s Gospel. In Luke’s Baptismal scene, John is preaching to “the crowds.” That is not the case with Matthew. Remember, as I said at the beginning, Matthew is addressing a growing crisis. He does not want the leaders of the Church to turn into a “brood of vipers” smug and secure in their privileged powerful position. He even makes his point more strongly by having the Pharisees, who are pious lay-people and the Sadducees who are the priestly nobility come together when in fact, at the time, they were in strong opposition to one another. Matthew believes that the leaders and the people of the Church he is writing to must not act like these Pharisees and Scribes who ultimately reject Jesus because they resist God’s plan for the church. “Do not act like those Pharisees” he says to lay people in his church. “Do not act like those Sadducees” he says to the priestly authorities in his church. “Look what they did!” he says.

The Baptism itself is passed over with one word making it clear that something more important is happening here than just someone coming forward in response to John’s call. It isn’t Baptism. If this scene were recorded for us as a musical or an opera, at the verse where Jesus comes up out of the water, trumpets would blast, lights would flash, and the whole chorus would sing out: “Behold in six-part harmony!” This is the event Matthew wants to be remembered. It is what we call, “a theophany” which is defined as the temporal and spatial manifestation of God in some tangible way. Another Gospel comparison tells us something more. In Mark’s baptismal scene, only Jesus hears the voice which says: “You are my beloved Son.” In Matthew, that fact has already been established. So, everyone hears the voice (not just Jesus) which says: “This is my beloved Son.” With that, we can say: “Thank you, God.” The identity of Jesus is complete. Yet, one more thing must happen to confirm his identity before Jesus begins his ministry. That is the temptation.

Both the location and the time are a direct link on the part of Matthew between the temptation of Jesus (the New Israel) and the temptation of the Hebrew people (the Old Israel) The location is the desert or the “wilderness” while time corresponds to 40 days and nights for the New Israel and 40 years for the old Israel.  We know who remains faithful this time around. We can easily be distracted by the details and the whole mood of this story. But for Matthew, the story is less concerned with the vanquishing of Satan than with the meaning of Jesus’ Divine Sonship. So, we have to get down into what Matthew is doing here. This is a “meditation” on what is implied by that heavenly declaration: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The fact that the first two temptations begin with Satan saying: “If you are the Son of God” helps us get the point. The English translation of the Greek word, ei is misleading because it does not really mean “if”. A more accurate word in the translation could be “since” because Satan is not trying to prove something. The other option in translation would then be: “Since you are the Son of God.” Satan is trying to convince Jesus that being God’s Son is a matter of powerfully working wonders rather than understanding and doing God’s will as found in the Scripture and fulfilling that will in trust and obedience.

In summary then, Moses and the Hebrew people in the desert are always in the shadows for Matthew’s story. The three temptations in the Gospel match in sequence the same three temptations faced by the Hebrew people: hunger, trust, and idolatry. When we sit with this story for a while, it is easy to begin to wonder what this has to do with the temptations we face today. I leave you with this. The basic, underlying temptation that Jesus shared with us is the temptation to treat God as less than God. We are hardly tempted to turn stones into scones but we are much more likely to turn corn into fuel to drive our luxury cars rather than using that corn to feed the hungry. We are constantly tempted to mistrust and doubt God’s readiness to give us what we need to face our trials. None of us are likely to test God by jumping off a cliff, but we frequently question God’s helpfulness when things go wrong forgetting the promise, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (II Corinthians 12, 9) Pagan idolatry is no more a temptation for us than it was for Jesus, but compromise with the ways of the world is a never-ending seduction, and the gods of money, the gods of power are always lurking in the shadows. In all of these things, we would do well to be continually grateful that we have a great high priest who, tempted as we are, was able to resist all such temptation by laying hold of Scripture and firmly acknowledging that only God is God, and that God isn’t us.

Monday, March 6, 2023

Part Two, The Mission and Message of Jesus

It is a peculiar fact that in age and at a time in human history when more people are literate that the Word of God has become more difficult to read. People born before the rational scientific revolution of the last few hundred years knew how to read sacred literature. They knew and they understood images, not photographs or paintings, but the kind of images found in time-tested mythology. They knew that the truth was passed on through symbols and stories. It is not that the stories were made up and therefore not true, but that the stories, the characters, their challenges, their failures, were told to reveal or convey the truth. What is peculiar, and very unfortunate is that we modern or post-modern people, however we want to call ourselves, have been infected with something more troubling that a virus. That something is best called “the scientific method.” Because of that, we have forgotten how to read sacred literature. We read the words all right, and there are countless Bible study programs to give evidence that people do read the Sacred Scriptures. The very fact that the Bible is still to this day is the most purchased book on the market.

Because we’ve been infected, we look for what we might call “empirical truth”. By that I mean, evidence, research, and reason. If there is no evidence, if there has been no research, and if it is unreasonable, it isn’t the truth. That kind of thinking will not allow the message, the truth, the revelation of our Sacred Writings to come through to us. The fact is, our ancient scriptures are full of mythical, symbolic images, and in order to understand our Scriptures, we must will willing to look for the symbols, to treat the sacred stories as powerful, truth-bearing stories, not historical reporting.

This bothers a lot of people, and that’s too bad because too often those who are shocked or upset about this fact are too afraid to move beyond the comfortable, and I’ll say, “lazy” way of just thinking that reading the Bible, especially the Gospels is like reading someone’s diary. Here’s an example. In Matthew 24 it starts with “Jesus left the Temple.” We think the Temple is a big building in Jerusalem, but not for Matthew. The Temple represents the entire system of life, faith, and economy. The entire verse says this: “Jesus left the Temple, and as he was going away his disciples came up to draw his attention to the Temple buildings”. The disciples are always doing things like that. It’s the end of the Gospel, the 24^thchapter out of 28, and they have not gotten the point! He’s leaving the Temple, and they are admiring the building. The disciples are stuck in the system the Temple represents, marveling at the structure, and the reply of Jesus is: “You see these stones? In truth I tell you, not a single stone will be left on another. It’s all going to fall apart. Stop putting your trust in it.” Jesus is talking about the end of the world, not about a building. He is talking about the end world as we have known it. And I’ll bet your sitting here thinking I’m talking about the apocalypse or the destruction of the universe or creation. No. I’m talking about the end of the world as we live it. Because when Jesus comes, when the Messiah comes, when the Kingdom of God breaks into our lives, the world as we knew it, saw it, and served it is all over. We cannot welcome the presence of Christ, the full coming of Christ until we have let go of the old. Too many live under the illusion that it is possible to worship this world order and at the same time say: “Thy Kingdom Come.” Yet, we can’t say, “Thy Kingdom Come” until we say, “My Kingdom go.”

Here’s the point in our discovery of Matthew’s Gospel and all scriptures for that matter. The story is always true, and sometimes it really happened. That’s the nature of all sacred scriptures. This is what I wanted you to understand in the first of these talks before Christmas, and you have to hang on to that as we go forward. Did three kings from somewhere in the east to Bethlehem? I don’t believe that really happened, and you don’t have to. But you do have to believe the truth that the story contains. Every nation on earth will come to adore the King. So, what does the virus of our age do to us, people spend hours and waist all kinds of time trying to prove by science and the study astronomy to see if there was some kind of special star. Those folks are done for when it comes to their ability to read the images and find the truth in the stories that may or may not be true.

So, let’s wade into the middle section of Matthew’s so well-structured Gospel. There is a signal phrase in this Gospel that signals a change. It’s like the “ding” in an elevator that tells you another floor has been reached. When Matthew writes this: When Jesus had finished these sayings…. it is the signal that one of the five divisions or books is finished. Sometimes these divisions are called, “discourses”. The sequence of events in Matthew matches Mark’s Gospel with groups of sayings inserted. An example is what we call “Sermon on the Mount.” Those sayings in Mark and Luke’s Gospels are scattered throughout but Matthew groups them together. So, Mark gives Matthew the structure, or sequence of events. 600 of the 661 verse of Mark are found in Matthew. Events from Mark have sayings added by Matthew. Then, unique to Matthew is great attention to the Old Testament. Remember that yesterday I spoke of Matthew’s audience being made up of primarily Jewish converts to the “Way”. Matthew wants them to feel OK about that conversion. Also unique to Matthew is his interest in Church affairs. This is the only Gospel that makes a direct mention of the “Church”. Much of it is directed toward situations that the Church of the first century was facing. With that said, let’s take up the five Books noticing that there is a progression that shows Jesus moving from his homeland in Galilee, to his rejection in Jerusalem, and then triumphantly back again to Galilee at the end.

The First Discourse: Chapters 3 to 7:28 concerns The Ethics of the Kingdom

Details tell us a lot. Jesus sits, the disciple’s approach, he opens his mouth and teaches. Those first two verbs suggest to us that Matthew wants us to see a king on his throne, and his disciples come like subjects in a royal court. Notice that the disciples are the ones he addresses. The crowd is just there listening in. This is not something private for an exclusive group. They can hear and potentially become disciples. Here is the Teacher addressing the learners.

In many English translations, the word Blessed is used which does not always carry into English the complex meaning of the word Matthew chooses in Greek. Congratulations would really be more accurate.

Congratulations to the poor in spirit. We should not miss the point that both Matthew and Luke open the Good News for the poor. Matthew adds “the spirit” leading us away from thinking about an economic condition. This is about the need for God.

Congratulations to those who mourn. This is not about the loss of a loved one. This is about sharing God’s sadness over sin and evil, war and injustice. It’s a longing for God to act and make things right. 

Congratulations to the meek refers not to those who are powerless, but to those who use power and strength for the right reasons. This is a description of Jesus who is humble. In Greek, the term Matthew uses refers to taming a wild animal. 

Congratulations to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. These people hunger and thirst for the right things – their deepest longings are for fellowship with God. They will know a comfort only God can provide.

Congratulations to the merciful. This is not about feelings. It is about action that leads toward helping another. These are people who have experienced God’s mercy and know it was given to be shared.

Congratulations to the pure of heart. This is about the very center of a person’s innermost being, the place where decisions are made. The condition of one’s heart determines one’s actions. The issue here is moral purity. It assumes that communion with God depends on purity of heart, not purity of cups.

Congratulations to the Peace Makers. These are the ones who leave the altar to make peace with another. 

Congratulations to those persecuted for the sake of righteousness. The “righteous one” is Jesus in the mind of disciples. He is also the “Just one” leading the disciples to see that there is a price to pay for justice in an unjust world.

Congratulations to you when people revile you and utter all kinds of evil on my account. 

There is a switch here from the third person to the second person that few people ever notice, but it is important. Matthew is now addressing the Christian community. They are congratulated because they share the same fate as the prophets.

We are all so familiar with the Beatitudes, that we often tend to think that the first thirteen verses of chapter five is the sermon. Wrong! The Beatitudes are simply the opening for this Sermon which really gets down to business as Jesus begins to clarify, describe, or define the vocation of a disciple in the world. Immediately Jesus makes it clear that faith and discipleship are not private matters. Thinking or saying that “My faith is a matter between God and me” is the opposite of what Jesus says. The salt and light instruction ought to make that perfectly clear. Why should we do this? To win rewards or acceptance? Jesus is not telling disciples that by doing good works, they would earn salvation. Those good works are to give glory to God.

Then comes a clarification about the Law. It is not abolished. It is fulfilled which means complete, and in this sermon, disciples are instructed to complete or perfect the law in six areas: Murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, revenge and love of enemies. Each of these are introduced by a lead-in phrase: “You have heard it said, you shall not commit murder. “You have heard is said, you shall not commit adultery, and so on. With this instruction for us disciples, comes the practice of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer. When Matthew has Jesus get to this final instruction, he provides the model prayer. As this first discourse draws to a close, Jesus tells disciples about what kind of treasures matter, reminds them that they cannot serve two masters, that they are not to judge, remember that God provides, so disciples must ask trusting that God provides what they need, and finally, the discourse ends with the news that those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This discipleship is about doing something. A disciple cannot just be a “hearer” of the Word. There must be action. With the last verse of this discourse, Matthew tells us that the crowds were astonished at his teaching because he taught with authority, not like the scribes. With Matthew, as I said earlier, it is not miracles that bring the people to amazement. It is the Word Spoken.

Second Discourse: Chapters 8:1 to 11:1 Concerns the Mission

The second discourse begins with the usual Matthean bridge saying: “Now, when Jesus had finished saying these things……. It is a reflection on the authority of Jesus and the need for disciples to submit to that power and authority. Now the authority that raised such amazement is confirmed with a series of miracle stories that lead disciples to understand the Mission of the Kingdom. Divine power goes on display through Jesus, and it’s all about healing. There are three sets of stories that concern the fact that each person has been excluded from participation in the life of Israel. There is pattern of triads in Matthew’s Gospel. You will see it again and again. 

The first is the cure of a leper, the second is a gentile centurion and his son, the third is Peter’s mother-in-law who has not be able to serve. We can see immediately Matthew’ all-inclusive vision of the Kingdom of God with a look at the Church for which he is writing. That Church must have been very comforted with a story about a gentile being included as well as a woman. After the cure of Peter’s mother-in-law, we see one of Matthew’s principal characteristics, connecting this to the Old Testament prophets – “This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “he took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Jesus has the power to restore and heal what is broken. It’s not just about diseases. It’s about the consequence of the disease, alienation from the life of the community.

The second set of three now show another kind of authority. Jesus gets into a boat, and the disciples follow him. Matthew says that Jesus wanted to go to “the other side”. That is a detail worth noting. It does not simply mean the opposite shore. It literally means the other side. It’s like a Democrat going to the Republicans. So, in those days, what is “the other side”? It is the Gadarene country. This was a pagan place, one of the ten Greek cities. That Jesus would head over there through a storm should raise an eyebrow or two. It’s not only a pagan place, there are swine there, but that does not stop Jesus. Then, another sign of his authority is given as he cures a paralytic and forgives his sins. The people were filled with awe not because he cured the paralytic, but because he forgives sins. It is what he says, not what he does that Matthew goes after, and he tells us that they glorified God who had given such authority to human beings. Matthew’s use of the plural reminds readers that this authority to forgive sins did not leave earth when he, the Christ, was exalted in to heaven. So, Jesus has authority over fear (the consequence of a storm at sea), over evil forces, and over sin. There is the triad again. Disciples of Jesus shall inherit that authority.

As a bridge to the third set, the story of Matthew’s invitation is told and Jesus goes to dinner with sinners providing the occasion for an instruction – a discourse that is summed up simply by saying it is mercy God desires, not sacrifice, and Jesus (and therefore his disciples) came to call sinners so he comes as a doctor to the sick.

The third set of miracles begins with a dead girl being raised to life and then a woman with a hemorrhage is cured. What unites these stories is faith. In the first, it is the faith of the father who asks Jesus to restore his daughter. Then comes a woman who just wants to touch Jesus.  Again, it’s about faith as Jesus asks two blind men: “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Finally, there comes the healing of a death-mute. It takes four verses, but it is important because, for the first time it introduces conflict. The Pharisees say: “By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.” The section ends with the final selection of the Twelve and their sending out to proclaim the good news: to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons. They are to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. There is no universal outreach yet. Then, we get what must by now be familiar words: “Now, when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities.”You know what that means: Discourse Three.

The Third Discourse: Chapters 11:2 to 13:53 Ministry in Galilee & the Nature of the Kingdom 

Up this point, Jesus has been the sole missionary. Now he makes partners for preaching the gospel and healing. There is a somber mood to this Discourse as it unfolds in Matthew’s Gospel. Refusal to accept the gospel will be the rule, not the exception which leads to parables about judgement at the end of this third discourse. The negative response we first saw at the end of Discourse two will grow. This is a serious reminder that the gospel is not the story of a religious hero but of a dying savior, the final discourses lead us to the passion narrative.

This section begins with John’s disciples coming to Jesus to ask if Jesus is “the one who is to come.” True to form, Matthew links all of this to the Old Testament as Jesus declares that John is “Elijah who is to come.” Elijah’s task in the Old Testament was to prepare the people for the coming of God. It didn’t go well then, and that is what is happening now. After a thanksgiving prayer to his Father that reveals his relationship with the Father, he issues the Great Invitation: “Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.” There is something very important being promised her, and it isn’t a vacation. The burden that Jesus wants to lift is the burden of the law being imposed too heavily. So, the next two episodes concern the Sabbath, and a conflict arises because disciples of Jesus pluck some grain while walking on the Sabbath, and Jesus cures a man with a withered hand in a synagogue on the Sabbath day. Remember, Jesus did not come to abolish the law. Yet, the law must yield to a higher principle: Mercy. More conflict is the result. So, Matthew says: When Jesus became aware that the Pharisees were conspiring against him seeking a way to destroy him, Jesus departed. 

This third discourse continues with a demand for a sign. Until this point, the Pharisees have been the source of conflict. At this point Matthew introduces the Scribes into the conflict. They are the ones who interpret the law. They are the professionals, so to speak. The Pharisees, are lay people who teach the law and show how it is to be observed like Catechists in our day. The opposition is growing. Finally, the focus of this discourse emerges with a series of parables about the Kingdom.

In the Greek language, the word “parable” comes from a verb that means “set side by side”, that is “to compare”. In Hebrew, there is slight change as “parable” begins to mean something hidden. Matthew is using the word “parable” with its Hebrew nuance which is why he speaks about “things that are hidden”. Jesus now uses parables to respond to the rejection he experiences. They all begin with the same phrase: “The Kingdom of heaven is like…” These parables do not describe the future or what the Kingdom will be like. They are concerned with the present

Finally, there comes three parables about sowing: (1) seed thrown everywhere, (2) someone sews weeds among the wheat, (3) Mustard Seed and Yeast. Deeply distressed about the mixed state of the Church, Matthew uses these parables to remind one group that just because they are church members is no guarantee of salvation. They need to change and bring a harvest from what God has planted everywhere. The general message is that those who receive the word of the kingdom and understand it not just intellectually but with commitment at the depth of their being, will be able to withstand temptation and tribulation. Those are the ones who will produce a bountiful harvest in terms of the good fruits of obedience to God’s will.

This discourse reveals that the Kingdom of Heaven is not a thing that can be acquired as a permanent possession. It is a life-style, a gracious gift of participation in God’s life. With that, Matthew writes: “When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place, came to his home town and began to teach the people in their own synagogue….”

The Fourth Discourse: Chapters 13:54 to 19:1Opposition & The Governance of the Kingdom

Jesus is now at home. When he takes his turn in the hometown synagogue there is amazement, wonder, and suspicion. At this point, Matthew tells us about the death of John the Baptist as one more reminder about the hostility disciples of Jesus will find in this world. He then reports the only miracle reported in all four Gospels which suggests that this is of unusual importance. This is the feeding of the multitude. There are two feeding stories in Matthew. Being the people that we are, infected with the “virus” of science, the question always lingers: “Did this really happen?” My response is as always: “This is not history. It is theology.” It does not make any difference. We have to ask what it means, not did it happen. Details give us a lead. Bread and Fish are the basic ingredients of a peasant’s meal in Galilee. Jesus provides no cooked dishes, luxurious fruit, and there is no wine. These simple details tell us that God can provide what is necessary for life. While not the “Banquet” we might expect in the Kingdom of God, what we see is that the Messiah is the host who supplies what his people need out of compassion. Matthew reminds the Church that they are to give, to share, to feed, and to serve with the further reminder that God uses what we bring.

Then something happens that again raises a question. Jesus walks on water. “Did that really happen? How did he do that?” Some might think of this as evidence of divinity confirming that Jesus is God since he can walk on water. But, Peter does the same thing which means this is something that comes from God. It is not God walking on water. This is not some kind of “show off” stunt. Details make that clear. The boat is far from land. The boat is in trouble. This is a story about Jesus coming to the aid of his threatened disciples. This is about a rescue not about the nature of Jesus.  It is worth noting that Matthew refers here to “those in the boat” not to the Twelve or the Apostles. It’s about all of us dependent upon the savior. While the other Gospel writers tell the story of Jesus on the water, only Matthew includes the part about Peter exploring what it means to be caught midway between faith and doubt. Peter represents all who dare to believe that Jesus is Savior, taking their first steps in confidence that Jesus will sustain them. I have always found it very important to remember that in John’s Gospel, faith or believing is always a verb, never a noun. It is not a thing or a possession. It is an activity.

Suddenly, once on land, Pharisees come from Jerusalem. This is an ominous statement. Jesus only goes to Jerusalem to die. This presence of the Pharisees coming from Jerusalem is a like a dark cloud on the horizon. They come to start trouble, and it’s over the washing of hands and what is clean and what is unclean. Jesus never suggests that the law and the customs around the law should be done away with. He simply wants to remind his listeners of the reason for the law so that the law will be observed because of faith not obligation or fear. It would seem that he is also writing about these things to support the Jewish converts who are a minority in his predominantly Gentile Church. He seems to be protecting them from ridicule for wanting to preserve their life-style. We would do well to remember that in today’s multi-cultural and multi-generational church. Matthew is revealing that there are disputes in his church over life-style.

To affirm the presence of Gentiles among believers, there comes the story of the Canaanite Woman who begs for help. The response of Jesus seems harsh to our ears when he refuses at first and makes that comment about taking children’s food and throwing it to the dogs. The word Matthew uses for dog means “a household pet”. That’s not as harsh sounding as “DOG” in English. The whole scene is a test of her faith, and by responding positively to her, Jesus signals that the Kingdom is going to be wide open. It is this emphasis on faith that makes Matthew’s version of this story slightly different from Mark’s. Matthew takes care to show us believing Gentiles in contrast to the unbelieving Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem. Jews reject Jesus. Gentiles come to him.

After this scene there comes a second feeding story. There is with this one a mass healing as well as a mass feeding, and importantly it happens on a mountain. This is theology not geography. This is about God’s people being gathered on the mountain of the Lord as Isaiah describes the end of time. What happens to them there is a theological expression of salvation: healing and feeding in abundance. Why two feeding stories? Two different messages. The first is about God providing what we need using what we have. The second includes details that have no connection to Israel. Instead of twelve baskets leading us think of the Twelve Tribes, this time there are seven baskets. At that time people counted seventy nations on earth. Then trouble comes again as the Pharisees return wanting a sign from heaven. Jesus is having none of this since he’s been working signs and wonders all along and they can’t see what’s right in front of them because what he says threatens their life-style and security, and they want none of that. In effect, what Jesus says to them is “No. You can’t see what’s going on here.” So, he takes to the boat and heads to the district of Caesarea Philippi. There, with one of the greatest cities the Romans had built high on an out-cropping of rock above them, he asks a question: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” He uses his favorite title, “Son of Man” which comes right out of the Old Testament (Daniel 7) meaning an exalted human like figure. In other words, the “Son of Man” is perfect humanity. At that moment, Peter declares Jesus to be the Messiah, and at that point of Matthew’s Gospel, things change, the mood changes, and the whole energy increases.

The Fifth Discourse: Chapters 19:2 to 26:1 Jesus and the Future of the Kingdom

As always, the next discourse begins: “And when Jesus finished these sayings.” Now Jesus departs from Galilee and comes into “the region of Judea beyond the Jordan” well on his way to Jerusalem. Since Peter’s declaration, Jesus now teaches the Twelve even though the crowds follow him. The Pharisees are back now with their evil intent. They start with a mocking question about marriage and divorce. The response of Jesus makes even more obvious Matthew’s respect and concern for the law. While the Pharisees may be trying to trap Jesus into disregarding the law, Matthew’s Jesus interprets the law using other scriptural verses to back up his argument, and it works. They are humiliated before the crowd, and that makes them all the angrier.

As the journey continues there are three short scenes which reveal what it takes to become a child of the Kingdom. The first is the story is about children with which Jesus embraces and makes it clear that children have a special importance. Of course, in that culture, children were not valued, but in the mind of Jesus, a child is the perfect example of what it means to be helplessly dependent on the Father in heaven. It is not unreasonable to suspect that Matthew is also urging his church to include children in every aspect of the communities’ life. The second of the three scenes is about a young rich man who thinks perfection comes from doing things. The perfection Jesus expects is undivided devotion. He can’t do that. He has too many things. He’s rich. Then comes a parable that reveals a God of compassion rather than a God of justice. In that parable a vineyard owner pays workers the same wage regardless of how long they have worked. The climax of this parable is: “am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” Matthew is challenging some seniority claims among the early disciples as former pagans begin to assume roles in the community. The old-timers don’t like it.

Having arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus goes to the Temple. As Matthew tells the story of the “cleansing”, there is some refinement as judgement is tempered by grace. Because we often blend all of the Gospel events together, we can often miss some details that are unique to one or the other of the Evangelists, or we think that they all say the same thing. Not so. This story is a perfect example. It is unlikely that Jesus stopped the commerce of the Temple even for a short time one day. He would have been arrested on the spot. More than anything, this event is symbolic. Since it is told in all four Gospels there is probably some historical fact to this. With the other three Gospels, there is a mood of judgement. In Matthew, right in the middle of this Jesus responds to the blind and the lame who came to him in the temple. He cured them. Matthew does not give us some wild angry judge. There is a moment of compassion in the middle of it. The scene ends with conflict between Jesus, the Chief priests, and the scribes. Jesus then heads out to Bethany to spend the night.

In the morning he is hungry, and with the story of that cursed Fig Tree. It’s really not about the fig three however. It’s about faith and prayer. It is a symbolic gesture (remember, this is theology not history) with which Matthew uses the judgement on the tree as a symbol of what happens to people without faith or prayer. When Jesus gets to the Temple, they are waiting for him with more trouble. At this point, Matthew uses parables to further give focus to the Father Jesus has come to reveal. First there is the parable of the two sons, one who says no and then does what is asked, and one who says yes and does nothing. The second parable tells of an owner who sends people to collect his portion and the tenants kill them. The theological focus of this parable comes not from the cheating tenant farmers but their violent treatment of those the owner sends. Matthew includes this parable here to show the rejection of the Messiah – because of it, Israel is now decommissioned. It’s elect status as “light to the Gentiles” is taken over by the church. Now comes the third parable about the wedding Feast in which the defiant refusal to participate in the wedding feast matches the refusal of the tenant farmers to share the fruit.

Jesus then leaves the Temple, and the final address concludes as Jesus speaks of the Temple’s destruction which was not some divine fore-knowledge. Anyone with any sense would have known that given the corruption, the lack of faith, the internal conflicts within Israel itself, there would be big trouble ahead that would probably end with the destruction of the Temple. Israel as it was then was destroying itself by refusing to listen to Jesus. Matthew now switches into a different style of writing here called: Apocalyptic describing the signs of the end of the ages. It must not be forgotten that this is not a prediction of the future. It is an interpretation of things already happening that mark not the end of the world, but the end of age. The last discourse closes with talk of the last things, the Judgement. The final parable concerned the coming of the Son of Man who is easily recognized as the “bridegroom”. The waiting maidens the are easily identified with “disciples.” But the condemnation of the foolish maidens raises the question as to who does belong to the group of “disciples.” The criterion for knowing who belong and those who do not belong is what people do or do not do. What one is to do is not the issue here. What matters is that something is done before it’s too late. Whatever is done must be done because of mercy and compassion, for no other reason. Because this is what the perfect human being (Son of Man) does. Then we hear the familiar words: “When Jesus had finished saying all these things….” 

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Part Three, The Passion & Resurrection

(Begin with singing Bach’s “O Sacred Head”)

As we begin, it should go without saying by now, but I’ll say it again: This is not History. What we are given is rooted in certain basic facts, but the intention of all the Gospel writers is to interpret history, not report it. In other words what is important is what it means, not how it happened. There are here powerful theological motives for writing. Frequently important texts from the Old Testament will weave in and out shaping the way the story is told to assure us that what happened to Jesus was always God’s plan. It was not some accident or the result of some terrible mistake or the triumph of evil over good. This is God’s plan. 

It all begins as each section of Matthew’s Gospel has begun with that formula: “When Jesus had finished these things….” This time another word is slipped into the signal phrase: “When Jesus had finished all these sayings…” Now there is nothing more to say.

Matthew’s desire to show the fulfillment of all the prophets moves Jesus toward his death, and so the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel, knowing the prophets, knows everything that is to take place. This is not because he has some Divine foreknowledge, but because he knows the prophets. That is important to understand. If his Divine Nature interferes with his human nature, something is wrong. What we shall see in Matthew’s Passion is the great dignity of Jesus as Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah, and King. This is Matthew’s statement about who this is, about the identity of Jesus. Around this Matthew clusters some other themes: the responsibility of the people of Israel for the blood of innocent Jesus, the founding of the church by the crucified and risen Jesus, the weakness of Peter and others in contrast to the strength of Jesus. Remember, Matthew is writing this Gospel to encourage and strengthen a church that is troubled by persecution, division, and betrayal. The failure of Peter, the fate of Judas, the failure of Jewish leaders all warn and challenge the Christians to whom he writes.

And so, it begins with Chapter 26. The fourth and final prediction of the Passion begins this section as an introduction. In the Greek, there is a change in verb tense that somehow did not get carried over into most English Translations, but I think it is worth noting. In the three previous predictions of the Passion Matthew uses the future tense. Now it is in the present tense saying: “The Son of Man is being handed over.” There is also great significance to the use of the passive verb “is being”. This is Matthew’s skill in making it clear that this is God’s doing. God is in control. God’s will or plan is being completed. In Matthew’s brilliant construction of this Gospel (Remember I pointed out earlier that some scholars refer to him as an “architect”) there is a “flash back” scene when he tells us that the chief priests and elders of the people gathered together conspiring to kill Jesus. That’s the same gathering with an earlier plot to kill Jesus in the infancy narrative. The Gospels do not agree on dates – another indication that this is not a history report. In Matthew, Jesus dies on Passover, the 13^th day of Nisan which fell on a Friday that year creating a theological connection between the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb and the prediction of his death by Jesus. Those leaders want to avoid arresting Jesus during the Passover fearing a riot because at this point the people are on the side of Jesus, and it was believed that the Messiah would appear at Passover. But, since God is in charge, their plan to avoid the Passover arrest does not work out as they planned.

The whole narrative for Matthew is like a great drama. So, after a scene with the gathering of the chief priests and elders, there comes another scene in which a woman with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment pours it over the head of Jesus. The clueless disciples don’t get it, but Jesus declares this as one more indication of what is to come, the anointing of his body for burial. But there is even more to this anointing since the Messiah was to be “The Anointed” one. Matthew affirms the role of Jesus at this point as the Messiah. It’s an affirmation that will be needed as Israel’s expectation of what the Messiah will be crumbles as the passion unfolds. All through Matthew’s Passion we ought to take notice that the women come off much better than the men. This is the first example of that, and there will be more. The women are more loyal and unselfish and certainly braver. The contrast is shocking. In this scene, the men quibble over the legitimacy of a generous act of love, while the woman manifests the true spirit of discipleship. Then the contrast gets sharper between the woman, who cannot qualify as a member of the Twelve because of her gender, and Judas who appears in the next scene bargaining away his teacher for a paltry thirty pieces of silver. She has just lavished her money on a gift for her master. This happens at the home of Simon the Leper, and we know nothing about him. In Matthew, this woman is unnamed. Jesus interprets her action for us as an anointing for his burial. In Matthew’s Gospel, there will be no report of women coming to the tomb to anoint the body, and there is no Nicodemus with spices for the anointing. It happens here.

This flows very naturally into the next scene which in contrast has Judas going into action. The amount of money is only mentioned in Matthew because it is a prophecy fulfillment (Zechariah 11:12). It is a demeaning sum. In the Book of Zechariah, a slave is gored by an ox, this is the amount in reparation to the master of the slave. In other words, he’s only a slave and not worth much. Matthew offers no motive for the treachery of Judas. While some may want to make greed the motive, the little sum of money makes that improbable. Some want to propose that Judas wanted to force Jesus to become the Messiah they wanted to compel some miraculous event. Matthew is simply not interested in that guessing game. I think Matthew is content to let the mystery of evil stand on its own. Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes good people do bad things. There doesn’t need to be some other motive. The Jewish leaders who had wanted to delay the arrest of Jesus lose control with the offer Judas makes to them. Now their plan to wait will not work.  Judas is in control of the timing and arrest. This along with the knowledge that Jesus has been showing all along affirms that this is the plan of God unfolding just as God designed not the work of some enemies. 

At this point, Matthew has the cast of characters on stage: Jesus, his disciples, his opponents, and the machinery of betrayal and death begins to turn. It is now the eve of the Passover, and with almost majestic solemnity Jesus, preparing for his last Passover gives precise directions to disciples on how and where the Passover will be celebrated. Following the instructions of Jesus, the Passover celebration begins, and the mood is filled with sadness and exaltation. It is also amusing to me that translations into English (like the popular New American Bible) from Matthew’s Greek mention a “table.” One commentary suggests that the translators were influenced by Leonardo da Vinci’s painting. There is no mention of a table in the original Greek. They were lying on cushions as the custom would have suggested. In that culture, any meal is a sacred moment at which a powerful bond of friendship is celebrated. Eating with someone means something beautiful, powerful, and sacred. When Jesus says: “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me is my betrayer” there is a disturbance not because this exposes one of them, but because they have all done that. In that circumstance, they all ate out of a common dish. So, when Jesus predicts that someone will violate that sacred bond of friendship, there is a disturbance that raises a question that can find an echo in every human heart: “Is it I, Lord?” As we shall see, they all betrayed him, not just Judas. Here is an example of a technique in Matthew I mentioned earlier. We know something the characters do not know. For us, the betrayer is revealed as each of the disciples uses the word, “Lord”. When Judas asks his question, he says, “Rabbi.” If they thought Judas was a betrayer, they never would have let him leave the room. In Mark’s Gospel, it is unbelievers who address Jesus by that title. Judas seems to fascinate Matthew, and there is more about Judas here than in the other Gospels.

Matthew assumes that his readers know how a Passover meal is celebrated, so there are little details until Jesus says something out of the ordinary. Imagine how surprised those disciples were when Jesus took the bread as was the custom but makes no mention of the ancient exodus as would normally happen. Instead, he says: “This is my body” leading Matthew’s readers to realize that a new exodus will occur. In the ritual, the second cup was filled with red wine symbolic of the blood of the Passover, the blood of lambs, sprinkled on the doorposts of Israelite homes so that the avenging angel would pass over. Again, the words of Jesus are a surprise. He makes no mention of the past, but speaks of the new covenant and the future. Here is that shift always in the shadow of Matthew’s Gospel. There is a new Israel, a new chosen people, a new covenant, and that people will be established by doing this in his memory. With a promise that they shall all drink the fruit of the vine in the Kingdom, they sing a hymn and depart. With that promise of a great reunion in the Kingdom of Heaven, the meal ends on a very hopeful note. They sing the traditional song that concludes the meal, the Hallel which is Psalms 113 through 118. These are psalms of praise. Taken as a whole, they are songs of deliverance.  They are joyful and grateful.

On the way Jesus speaks of their faith being shaken, and Peter speaks up with great bravado. Again, we know something he doesn’t know his promise to never deny Jesus will be broken, and then Peter sleeps. Matthew takes great care to affirm the humanity of Jesus with the Gethsemane scene. Jesus is free to rebel against God’s will, but he learns through prayer to say not my will but yours just as he taught us about prayer. The same three disciples who were with Jesus at the transfiguration are with him now. Then they fell on their faces. Now Jesus falls on his face and they sleep. With terrible irony, Judas is awake and leading a crowd to the garden. On the surface, it would seem that Judas has taken the initiative here and is in charge, but the way Matthew presents this scene, it is Jesus who is in control What happens Jesus could easily have prevented, but he chooses not to do so. Judas calls Jesus “Rabbi” again, and Jesus calls him “friend.” The kiss is really an insult because a student/disciple would and could never be that intimate with their Rabbi/Teacher unless invited to do so. With this detail, Matthew would lead us to see that Judas is repudiating the authority of Jesus. Violence erupts, a sword is drawn, and the disciples flee, and Jesus insists that violence is not the answer nor the greatest power. It is love.

Now begins the second part of Matthew’s passion, the condemnation to death. The charge is a threat to destroy the Temple, and that is serious not because it was God’s dwelling place but because it provided the priestly caste of their livelihood and status. For them, that is most serious. This threat to destroy the Temple was a threat to national identity, self-understanding, and national pride. It was sacrilegious and treasonous. In the end however, the charge is Blasphemy. At this point in Matthew’s Passion narrative, we run right into the fact that this is not history. There are all kinds of details here that are simply in conflict with history. For instance, the Jewish high court would not have convened at night, in a private home on the eve of a major festival. Add to that fact a law which said a capital trial could not be held at night. The only way to reconcile these events is to suppose that there was a quickly assembled inquiry at night with a formal verdict being passed in the morning. It could be argued that this conflict could be explained by the fact that this was extraordinary and required secrecy and haste hence the night trial. However, St Luke has doubts about this because he sets the trial before “the council of the elders of the people” on Friday morning at its regular meeting place. John’s Gospel has no trial of Jesus before a Jewish court. So much for trying to make history out of this. 

Matthew wants us to see more than a rather odd and clumsy effort to make Jesus look guilty and set the conditions for Pilate’s verdict. The focus and purpose of this scene is to provide Jesus with the opportunity to declare the purpose of his mission. This helpless victim is gradually revealed as the builder of the New Temple, the Son of God, the Messiah who sits at the right hand of God. The judges become the judged! The whole scene is framed by the report of Peter’s denial in the courtyard. As the cock crows and he remembers what Jesus had said, he recognizes that in spite of his denial he is loved and he weeps. Caiaphas, frustrated at the silence of Jesus asks a question, and we know the answer. “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?” Caiaphas ends up doing what Peter cannot do. Yet we could hear what Caiaphas says as bitter sarcasm: “Are you the Messiah”. It’s like saying: “Is this all we get?” The silence of Jesus up to this point is one more example of a refusal to stop what his happening. But he cannot remain silent. So, when the High Priest’s question touches on the truth about Jesus as Messiah, Jesus simply says: “You have said it so.” With that, by assenting to the title Son of God, they have all they need. It’s Blasphemy, and that required the death penalty. Leaving the scene, Matthew switches back to Peter.

When it does come to Peter’s denial, I find it quite interesting that Matthew never mentions his name again. The very prediction of Peter’s denial affirms once again that Jesus is Prophet just as the soldiers mock and taunt him calling him “prophet”. After Peter’s denial, there is another scene in which Jesus is transferred to the Roman Governor. Then it’s back to Judas who, like Peter is overwhelmed with regret and attempts to return the thirty pieces of silver to the leaders confessing that he has betrayed innocent blood. The two betrayers stand in contrast. One repents and weeps. The other does not have repentance because that leads to a change in life. He only has regrets, despairs and then he dies. 

Since only the Roman Governor could pass a death sentence, the “authorities” had to find a way to get what they wanted. Blasphemy would mean nothing to the Roman Governor. So, they switch tactics, and with the Roman Governor the charge is changed to suggest treason as Jesus is presented as King. Dreams which have an important part at the opening of Matthew’s Gospel are suddenly again used as the wife of Pilate intervenes because of a dream. She is only mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel. This whole scene is theological in that it carries the message that the death sentence handed down by Pilate is really the responsibility of the leaders of the people who assume full responsibility resulting in what is stated in verse 43 of chapter 21: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.” There is no real historical evidence that there really was a custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover time. Luke’s Gospel never mentions this at all. That does not mean it didn’t happen, but the question pushes us to ask what it means. Pilate calls him “famous” The adjective Matthew uses, different from Mark’s is not so dark and threatening. Mark calls him a murderer. Matthew simply says he is famous which makes the choice of the people more interesting to all Christians still tempted to choose someone famous over Christ. Our present-day hero worship of celebrities is the point.

As I said, this whole scene is Matthew’s way of affirming the guilt of the Leaders. This is not something Pilate does, but he does recognize that Jesus could be used as a figurehead by a revolutionary movement. It is important when reflecting upon this and the words: “His blood be upon us and our children” as a theological conviction that Israel as a whole has rejected its Messiah in a final and definitive way and therefore deserves to be deselected as God’s special people. Matthew describes the crowds at this point, and it is important to recall that throughout the Gospel, “the crowds” were always on the brink of acknowledging Jesus as God’s son, but they have not been won over to faith in Jesus. They followed, they marveled, and they praised, but their highest praise, that Jesus is the son of David is inadequate. The crowds never called Jesus “Lord” or “Son of God”, but the disciples do. When thought of this way, as Matthew intended, this is less an attack on Jews as an explanation for the Gentile mission and for the church in which Gentiles are not predominate. This is about rejection not about murder. In a very real way, Israel (the Jewish leaders) hand Jesus over to the Gentiles (the Romans) in an ironic but clearly understood theological statement.

The abuse of Jesus as Matthew presents it leads to the crucifixion. These “soldiers” are not Roman legionaries. They would have been “auxiliaries” not Jewish inhabitants of the area. “Mercenaries” is what we would call them today. They had no love for the Jews, so having an opportunity to abuse the “King of the Jews” was all they needed. They mock the “king”. He gets a scepter (a reed). He gets a crown (of thorns). He gets the royal robe (a soldier’s red cape). 

When presenting the crucifixion, Matthew gives us very little by way of details. There is nothing said about nails or pounding. He simply says: “having crucified”. The details given are not about the victim but about the spectators in this Gospel. First there is Simon the Cyrenian. No details come from Matthew. We are not informed that Jesus is too weak. Simon is simply a silent spectator. There are the soldiers who fulfill a prophesy by offering sour wine to Jesus as they split up his clothing. The two thieves, like the soldiers are negative observers. They say nothing in Matthew’s Gospel. Just their placement on the right and left ironically suggests a royal setting. Since these observers have no lines, there are others who do speak, and that gives them some prominence. These are the people passing by who mockingly quote Jesus about the temple coming down and his messianic claim. For Matthew, this is a refrain from the temptation in the desert during which Satan tempts Jesus to draw on supernatural power and save himself. The leaders of the people are there too speaking about and actually quoting what Jesus has said and done. The message from Matthew through this scene is that those who became Christians had to face a challenge from family, friends, and acquaintances. Matthew’s crucifixion scene speaks to this by showing that the indignities Jesus suffered as Messiah were all in accordance with the prophecies. Israel had expected an all-powerful Messiah, but God had sent one who would renounce the use of force against his enemies and submit instead to suffering and death for “the Son of man came not be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The moment of crucifixion is an enthronement: Jesus, crowned, is surrounded by an improbable retinue of two others who die in the same way. The entire crucifixion story as Matthew tells it is one Old Testament Prophecy fulfillment after another. Nearly every detail has an Old Testament reference. The detail of the soldiers casting lots over the clothing of Jesus is just one obvious example. The first readers of Matthew’s Gospel would have understood and connected all these references, images, and details. Of the traditional “Seven Last Words”, Matthew gives us only one: “My God, My God, Why Have You Abandoned Me.” Men and women of faith at that time did not consider it inappropriate to argue with God. Scenes from “Fiddler on the Roof”, if you remember, should confirm that fact. It is not unfaith, but faith that permits Job to call God’s justice into question. What most scholars accept for this moment is that Jesus is praying Psalm 22 which begins by complaining to God. The faith of Jesus is seen by the possessive pronoun, MY. Did Jesus feel abandoned by God? Probably so, why not? Matthew may have wanted to make this point. Separation from God is the price or the consequence of sin. Jesus is paying that price on behalf of others is the point. The offering of the sour wine is refused. It was probably a cruel way of prolonging the agony, and Jesus will have none of that.

Matthew records three events at the moment of the death, an earthquake, splitting of the rocks, and the Temple veil being torn from top to bottom. These are all biblical signs of the end of the world. In a very true sense, the death of Jesus did mark the end of a world without hope and the beginning of new age of God’s Spirit. The tearing of the Temple veil is followed by a Gentile (Roman soldier) confessing faith in Jesus. We can assume that Matthew, is still addressing that community struggling with Gentile inclusion. He sees the torn veil as sign of universal access by all to Jesus. Unique to Matthew’s Gospel is the addition of the men who are with that centurion. They all say those words: “Truly this was the Son of God.” These are Gentiles, not Jews. With this detail, Matthew affirms the place and the faith of Gentiles among the newly chosen People of God. Women are also present leading to the scenes of the burial and the resurrection.

Matthew, as with all the other Gospels describes the burial of Jesus for one reason, to confirm the reality of the death. Remember, in Mark, there is a Centurion dispatched to pierce the side of Jesus to confirm that Jesus is dead. We do not find that in Matthew. He goes straight to the story of Joseph of Arimathea. His action of providing a family tomb is extravagant. Romans threw the bodies of the crucified on the ground as food for scavengers. Jewish law forbids this, but a criminal’s body was not allowed in the family tomb, so there was a common grave. We know from Matthew that Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin who probably opposed this death. If he had his own tomb, he was a rich man, and with that detail, another Old Testament prophesy is fulfilled. (Isaiah 53,9 “They made his grave with a rich man.”). The Gospel accounts make it clear that there is something special here, and the clean linen cloth emphasizes that. 

Matthew’s concern is not whether or not Jesus is dead, he wants to confront the rumor that the body was stolen. For the leaders, an empty tomb would be an incontestable fact. If it were not empty, the leaders could easily refute any preaching about the resurrection by displaying a corpse. This is a dilemma. So, they come up with that rumor as a way to explain an empty tomb. The placing of the guard is only found in Matthew’s Gospel. It’s one more effort to refute the rumor that the body was stolen. The fact that this rumor existed is in itself an indication that the tomb was empty! Matthew shows the rumor to be false because it is based on the laughable testimony of witnesses who admit to sleeping through the whole event. Now the women come into the scene. There are only two of them this time. There is no way to guess or figure out why two and where the third woman was. Matthew is the only Gospel writer who tells us that the tomb was guarded. There is something ironic here when the Jewish leaders want Pilate to have the tomb guarded. It would seem that they put more stock in a prediction by Jesus that after three days he would rise from the dead. Meanwhile, his disciples seem to have forgotten all about that. Suddenly, these leaders want to join forces with the power of Rome to prevent the resurrection as best they can with a sealed stone and posted sentries. This is all part of Matthew’s effort to confront the rumor of the time that the body was stolen not brought back to life. These guards at the tomb, unlike the ones at the cross do not confess belief. Unbelieving, they became as “dead men.” Yet, like the magi at the beginning of this Gospel, they leave with the same great joy that filled the magi who came to see the new born king. In his appearance to these women, he sends them to his “brothers”. He does not say “disciples” because all is forgiven. 

As Matthew draws this to an end, there is nothing about the resurrection itself. All we get is the effects with two points of view: an empty tomb and the disciples meeting the risen Lord. Again, there is an earthquake. It’s the second one. The first one at the moment of his death when Matthew says, “The tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.” This second earthquake announces another opening. The women went “to see the tomb”. What is important to Matthew is not what they were coming to do, but what happened to them. An angel comes for the first time since the opening of this Gospel. Notice that the angel rolls the stone for them. There is no suggestion that the opening of the tomb is necessary to allow the risen Christ to come out. He has already risen when the angel rolls the stone. The women do not come to see him rising, but to see that he has already risen. The invitation to see the place where he lay is addressed to the same persons who watched the body being placed there, so there is no mistake. It’s not the wrong grave, and the stone was still in place when they got there. Then comes the instructions: to tell and go to Galilee, and with that note, Matthew, once more, emphasis the importance of Galilee making it the place where the story ends because that’s where the ministry of Jesus began.

The presence of Jesus after the resurrection is quite different in each of the Gospels. Yet, it is likely that a common story of the commissioning of the Twelve is shared by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. However, each of them relates this event from the perspective of their own theology. The location says something. Mark has it happen in Jerusalem, Luke and John have it happening in Galilee. Matthew, who is the focus for us right now places the appearance where?  On a mountain! Several times in Matthew, important events occur on the mountain: the final temptation, the transfiguration, and then there is THE mountain of the Beatitudes. These final verses are unique to Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus comes as the Son of Man to found and commission his church. While he sent his apostles only to the land and people of Israel during his public ministry, he now sends the eleven to all nations, with baptism, not circumcision as the initiation rite, and with his commands, not the Mosaic Law, as the final norm of morality. Here for the only time in this Gospel the address is to “the eleven”, a sad reminder that Judas is lost. What they saw there on that mountain is not given to us. Matthew is more concerned with what is said. All through chapters 24 to 26 “Son of Man” is the title Matthew uses for Jesus. Then he changes in Chapter 27 to “Son of God.” Finally, in this last chapter, the title, “Jesus” is the only one Matthew uses to make certain that there is a connection between the risen Lord and the earthly Jesus. Matthew tells us that when they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted. The word, “doubt” here means hesitation. Jesus approaches them Matthew tells us. He speaks first of himself, then to them with the words of commission, and finally the most comforting and reassuring words in all of the Gospel: “I am with you always to the end of the age.”

Our scientific age and our need for scientific proof for something to be real or true crashes when it comes to the Resurrection and that Empty Tomb. So, we like to soften the reality that we cannot explain by suggesting that the disciples felt that Jesus was still with them in spirit. Add to this the fact that the details presented by all four Evangelists have huge discrepancies: who first discovered that the tomb was empty?  When did they do so? How and when was the stone rolled away? Was there one angel or two? Or was there any angel at all? Early Christians were not very concerned about detail accuracy. This is a faith story intended for believers. Non-believers will never be convinced of anything about an empty tomb. This is not so much about Jesus as it is about God.  To believers, there is no doubt at all that God could raise Jesus from the grave. The purpose is to ask a question: “What is this story telling us about God?”

The cry of Jesus on the cross is answered. At the same time, we must avoid thinking that the resurrection was just automatic because after all, Jesus was divine. That thinking deprives Good Friday of its significance. If the resurrection was because Jesus was divine, then the whole business of the cross was just an act a charade. Matthew insists that this is God’s act. To make that as clear as possible, Matthew uses the passive voice of the verb: “He has been raised.” The empty tomb is not proof of anything. It is a sign of the resurrection. The resurrection is not a carefully constructed myth but an inexplicable event. The story is only believable because God is believable. 

(Repeat the singing of, “O Sacred Head”)

March 13 & 14, 2021

2 Chronicles 36, 14-17, 19-23 + Psalm 137+ Ephesians 2, 4-10 + John 3, 14-21

A favorite and frequently recurring theme in John’s Gospel is the struggle between light and darkness. You may remember that Nicodemus first came to Jesus in the night, and as his faith grew stronger, he emerges from the darkness coming to Jesus again in the day for more and more instruction. He is drawn to the light. His experience and the struggle between light and darkness reveals the drama in every Christian’s life. We are all faced with an inescapable choice. We are constantly confronted with choices we cannot evade. We must choose and keep on choosing. Of course, the ultimate choice is to believe. Nicodemus made that choice, and we have too, or we probably would not be in this church. We also know that it is not a choice made once and for all, because time and time again we are tested by tragedies and plagued by doubts.

One of the most often quoted passages from the New Testament leaps out of our readings today. I can’t imagine anyone who has not been to baseball or football game and not seen it. It sometimes shows up on our TV screens when the cameras pan the crowd. Someone will be holding a homemade sign that simply says: John 3: 16. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” While I admire that enthusiastic evangelism, I also suspect that there is a serious misunderstanding about what exactly that “eternal life” means in John’s Gospel. In the language of John’s Gospel that Greek word: Zoe Aioniosis not simply unending or posthumous life. This “ion-life” of John is “new life”, life with God that one enters with Christian Baptism. In other words, you don’t have to stop breathing to enter into Zoe Aionios.

I just gave you a preview of what you might experience and learn during the upcoming Parish Mission. I am going to talk about what this new life with God looks like, and what it is we actually become when we come to faith in Jesus Christ. We become Blessed. So, I am going to unfold the Beatitudes with you by paying close attention to the Greek words that Matthew uses in the Sermon on the Mount. Contrary to what many might want to think, his Beatitudes are not glowing prophecies or pious hopes of what shall be. They are exclamations of what is. It is not for some future world postponed either. Beatitude is the state in which a Baptized person has already entered. They proclaim the conditions in which people of the Covenant live. They are not about someone else or about some other time. They are about us. If you want to find out how to be holy? Internalize the Beatitudes. When you recognize someone who is holy, you have recognized the Beatitudes being live. So, that is exactly what I want to explore with you three nights this week: the Beatitudes that can lead us to a holy life just as they led Nicodemus to the light that was Jesus Christ.

The Beatitudes draw a strange and challenging picture of one who is blessed: they are poor and unimpressive, hungry and in mourning, trodden on yet able to make peace. Again, the Beatitudes are about me, now someone else. “Blessed are you” is the way it goes. It does not say “Blessed are those poor.” Nicodemus, a rich young man, and many others come to Jesus wondering what it is they must do to be saved. That question is asked by this world that always thinks you have must earn everything or deserve something because you did something. This is the kind of thinking that Jesus came to confront and challenge. With the God that Jesus reveals, it’s all about grace which is a gift not earned, but freely given. If it’s earned, it is a reward. That’s not grace. We must learn to live in the beauty of this grace and assume the attitude of someone who lives in the state of grace. When we feel ourselves poor, humiliated, desperate and all the rest of it, we will qualify for the label “blessed.” If you want to count yourself among the blessed and discover what it really means, come and join me this week. 

March 15, 2021 Day One St Agnes Parish Lenten Mission

BLESSED ARE THE POOR

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Luke 16, 19-31

It is helpful to remember that the Beatitudes are not statements, they are exclamations which is why some translations will say, “Happy” But that English word is not so good because Happy gives away its own case. It contains the root “hap” which means “chance”. Human happiness is something which is dependent on chances which come and go. Life gives and also takes. It’s all by “chance”. Not so with the meaning of these exclamations. This is about Blessedness and Joy which nothing in life can take away. So, these are not pious hopes of what shall be. These are congratulations on what is. This Blessedness exists here and now. It is not something into which the Christian will enter. The very form of the Beatitudes is a statement of the thrill and radiant gladness of the Christian life. Their greatness is that they are not wistful glimpses of some future beauty; they are not even golden promises of some distant glory; they are triumphant shouts of bliss for a permanent joy that nothing in the world can ever take away.

When Matthew set about collecting these sayings of Jesus and putting them together in Greek, he used very strong and intense words for every one of them. Φτωχός is the word he chose for this Beatitude. “Poor” is an unfortunate choice of English words to carry the full power of what is being proposed. “Poor” is the woman observed putting in her offering at the Temple. She has a little to give, but by her gift she becomes Φτωχός which means destitute. Φτωχός is also the word Luke uses to describe Lazarus in this parable. It describes absolute and complete destitution. NOTHING is what this is about: complete and total dependency. It is this radical idea that leads the apostles to react so desperately when Jesus talks about how it is easier to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The suggestion that wealth and prosperity were not the blessing and favor many at the time believed them to be was a startling suggestion.  Proposing the reverse was unthinkable.

We might recall that the giving of the Law with Moses was accompanied by promises of blessing, and that wealth and prosperity were taken as signs of God’s pleasure. It was a long-lasting belief. As Israel came from the desert into Canaan and grew prosperous, it became evident to the prophets that wealth brought a great temptation to break the covenant. It was not simply wealth, of course, but the attitude of self-satisfaction that so often accompanied the acquisition of wealth that often turned the rich away from God. Seized by the passion for possession, for security, for power, those rich were willing to do anything in order to build their homes of ivory and their summer palaces. Prophets confronted this, they turned more to the poor of the land as the only hope for maintaining the covenant with God. The poor had nothing to cling to but God, and so the prophets proclaimed that the future restoration would be built upon the remnant represented by the poor. The kingdom would belong to them and not to the rich. It was not because God did not care for the rich and powerful, but because the rich and powerful had a way of regarding themselves as self-sufficient and without need of God. Into this steps the Rabbi Jesus with this Beatitude. There is only one thing we need, and those who have it are in Blessed!

         There is an old Jewish proverb that says, “You cannot eat at both tables.” It springs from this thinking about those who have a lot things being blessed and favored by God. The unspoken other side of that thinking is that those who have nothing are out of favor with God, or that God has abandoned them. The book of Job challenges this thinking so contrary to the reality of life. Bad things do happen to good people. Every day this reality is confirmed. Job is as good as a person could be, yet he is struck down by one catastrophe after another. His friends insist that he must have sinned which is the only way they can understand what has happened to him. Job insists that he has not sinned, and the author’s purpose is that we believe Job. By the end of his story, Job is restored to prosperity, but not before his concept of God is shattered and replaced by a far more profound idea of God.

         This is the heart of the matter. Before we can enter into Beatitude Life, our concept of God must be purified or fine-tuned. If there is any trace of that old thinking that prosperity is a sign of God’s favor, you are not ready. The concept has to be re-envisioned. That’s what happened to Job. He came to a much more profound idea of God, and a much more mature and healthy relationship as a consequence.

                  What the Prophets were looking for then was a spiritual attitude, a disposition of soul which could be called to poverty: a self-dispossession which made room for the Word of God. The meaning of this poverty is seen in the beginning of Luke’s Gospel. The characters of Mary and Elizabeth, of Zachary and Simeon, all conform to the image of these “Anawim” – these faithful poor waiting patiently for the Lord. Think of Mary, who in the Magnificat praises God for looking upon the lowliness (the poverty) of his handmaid. She was poor in spirit; she was of the kingdom. She did not cling to anything, not even her own understanding of what her virginity should mean. Yet, no one is poorer than Jesus himself. He is the full realization of poverty, and of course, in as much as he is the revelation of what God is, we can say that God is poor. The obedience of Jesus Christ is a manifestation of that poverty. Jesus gave up everything including his own will surrendering to the Will of the Father.

As this doctrine developed there was a growing belief that there was a sharp distinction between the present age and the age to come which was God’s age and an age of reward. This is what provided that image of two tables. You cannot eat at both. If you have your reward in this world, there is no reason to expect another reward in the next world. All kinds of parables and sayings of Jesus point to this truth. What good is it to store up riches?  Think of that parable about the rich man and Lazarus and what happens to them in the age to come. Remember how the Lord observes those who make a great parade of their piety in order to impress the world around them. They can expect nothing in the time to come. “They have their reward” says Jesus. Jesus insists that it is useless to store up anything. Even if we can and even if we do preserve them, we cannot preserve our lives, so what’s the point of all this preservation?  “To whom will it go? Asks Jesus.

Our efforts to hold onto things is really useless in this world. People spend all kinds of money these days on security systems and arm them while they go out to dinner and then die in a car wreck on the way home. There is a great song from “Show Boat” that describes the reality of life. “It just keeps rolling, it keeps on rolling along.” Heraclitus, often called the “weeping philosopher” once said you can’t step into the same river twice. By the time you have stepped into it the second time it is not the same river, and you are not the same person. So, the effort to hang onto things gets called into question. “That’s mine.”  “I’ve got it.” This is the thinking of someone in for a rude surprise. Once you set a goal and achieve it, you have had your reward. The challenge ever before us is to get deeper into the poverty Jesus speaks of in the Sermon. To do so it helps to go back to the beginning; to “Genesis.”

The serpent says that if you eat fruit from the tree of knowledge “your eyes will be opened and you will be as God, knowing good and evil.” The subtlety of this comes from the other version that states that God made man, male and female, “in his own image and likeness.” That is to say, it is not simply a temptation to wish to be like God. We were created, intended, and meant to be like God by reason of the way God has already acted. There is nothing wrong with that temptation to “be like God.” The problem is the idea that we, or Adam and Eve, could make ourselves be “like God.” God does that, not us. What the serpent offers is a distortion of possessing something that is already there. The serpent is seeking to propose a new concept of ownership.

Likeness to God was something that God had already given. Originally there was nothing that man and woman had to do on their own. Think about it. When all creation had been given to them, what could they do to possess something that was already given to them by God? How could man and woman secure ownership of something that is always a gift from God? Satan suggests that they should do something to become like God, that they should take their likeness to God into their own hands. The gesture of taking the fruit and eating the fruit is a symbol of man taking something into his own hand and storing it away safely inside himself! It is a symbol of that security of possession which has become such an obsessive concern for fallen human people.

         Possession is the issue. Possessiveness is destructive of relationships by hanging on too tightly. Something like friendship can only be possessed in so far as it is constantly received as a gift which is ever new. I can’t count the number of relationships I have seen fall apart because someone in the relationship was too possessive. Fallen human beings like things they can hang onto or think they can. It is really the poor in spirit who can actually have anything because they are the ones who know how to receive gifts since everything for them is a gift. Consider the parable of the master who goes away leaving his property to 3 different people – the one who buries the money is afraid of risk. He is afraid of losing, and because of this fear he does lose. The master wants the servants to take risks just like the master takes a risk in leaving portions of his property with them. That loser wants to hang on to what he got, so he buries it. Not a good Gospel plan. Think about those apostles who had five loaves and two fish. It was all theirs, but Jesus asked them to give it up. He asked them to become poor like the people around them. When they did, remember what happened to that food?

         The reason why it is so important for us to unlearn the kind of possessing that Satan proposes is that ultimately the only thing worth possessing is completely beyond possessing. When we possess nothing, then everything is available equally shared by all. If everyone possessed nothing and did not hang on to anything, everything that is, everything God has created, would be available and equally shared by everyone. That would be an experience of “Blessedness.” As soon as we begin to take and hold as our own, there is that much less for everyone else. Some would call this thinking “Socialism” and others might call it “Communism.” I call it “Gospelism” or authentic Christianity.

                  Perhaps the first and most essential characteristic of this Φτωχός is the profound awareness of who we are as creatures before God. We exist moment by moment only because of the creative love and fidelity of the Father. We have and we are nothing apart from God. We are totally unnecessary. Yet much of our lives is spent avoiding this realization. It is not by chance that the first of the Beatitudes confronts the First of all Sins: Pride. The first characteristic of the poor is embracing this truth. Everything we have is a gift received.

                  The characteristic of this Φτωχός is the ability to listen. One rich in this world lives with a cluttered mind and heart, many voices, many longings and desires fill those lives. The rich do not and cannot listen to the other, for too much energy is spent in listening to the conflicting shouts of passion. In a song by Kris Kristofferson, “Me and Bobby McGee, there is a line, “Freedom’s just another name for nothin’ left to lose.” I love that description of poverty. The poor person is able to leave the land of father and mother and journey to a far place on a promise; the poor person is able to let another go in freedom; the poor person can hand over the body in crucifixion for others. The poor person is of the kingdom because the kingdom consists in those who hear the Word of God and keep it. And only the truly poor can hear.

                  As I said at the beginning, God is very poor because God clings to nothing. Blessedness is a measure of how much we resemble God in whose image we are made. The hymn of Philippians that is sing at Vespers so often says it all. He did no grasping, but poured out everything. A frightening thing about this is that to become poor we have to surrender even our grip on ourselves which very well might mean being exposed and experiencing times of mental, emotional and spiritual deprivations. We call this: “Dark Nights.” We have all been there, but I dare say, we probably failed to understand what it means and even what it offers as a blessing.

                  Think of Mother Theresa when a few years ago her letters to her spiritual director revealed that she spent the largest part of her life in that kind of darkness. She probably did not at the time understand that this very painful experience was her most real experience of poverty and her most intimate connection with the poor she served. I believe that this darkness is exactly what stripped her of everything she might have wanted to hold onto leaving her with nothing. In that poverty, she was able to realize the image of God in herself and become the angel of mercy, compassion, and self-giving by which we remember her. She became poor so that her identity with the poor lifted them up.

                  Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who have allowed themselves to be stripped of acquisitiveness and “security”, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, because they no longer seek to possess, but to be possessed. If we ask the question, ‘What does it mean for the Kingdom of God to be ours? We begin to realize that it means our lives are centered upon God and imitating the very way God lives and acts. This is the ultimate depth of a Beatitude, “Poverty of Spirit.”

Psalm 113

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Numbers 12, 1-8            The Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel is always cast in the shadow of or in the image of Moses, so here is Moses “by far the meekest man on the face of the earth.” It is a new Moses then who proposes that real Blessedness, real Beatitude is found in Meekness. Πράος is the Greek work here. Again, this is a very strong word. The Greeks used that word to describe the domesticating of a powerful animal. It means, great strength under control. These animals, horses or oxen had to be “meeked.” Important to realize is that meekness is not weakness. It is quite the opposite: strength used in control, with discipline.

         Inherit is the word here that makes a big difference from the Beatitude before it. Meekness goes along with poverty of spirit so opposed to grasping and manipulating and perverting, and so this inherit word opens us to receiving. An inheritance is not seized, it is received. This is a way of seeing all things as gifts from God’s hands, our own lives first of all. It is a reverence which recognizes that where God is at work, as in creation, there is the Holy. It is a response, therefore, which lets things be what they are and uses them appropriately.

         Meekness inherited recognizes that the kingdom of God is itself a gift that cannot be seized at our own initiative. We do not possess it. We are gifted with it; moment by moment with the result that every moment of our lives should be characterized by thanksgiving.

         The meek are those who wait knowing that what they wait for has already been given and will be given again – the gift of God’s own life. The meek like the poor are radically dispossessed, because they desire nothing but that which comes to them as a gift from God. Those are the ones who truly are able to rejoice in, celebrate, and make use of the earth as children of God. Those who seek to grasp never really possess. The paradox of the beatitudes like the paradox of the kingdom, is that those who lose their lives will gain them. Those who are poor enough, meek enough, that is to say, free enough to desire nothing but what is given are the ones able to rejoice in all things. Blessed are the meek who are not in too big a hurry to get things done and know how to wait, helpless, nailed to a cross. Against all the odds it is they who will in inherit the earth.

         It is the teaching of this world that the earth belongs to those who seize it, that power is meant for domination, oppression and exploitation, and that the only limits to my freedom are the limits imposed by my appetites, that arrogance and lack of care are signs of strength. This attitude, and the understanding of humanity which it expresses, has dominated much of our history in the western world for the past four hundred years. It is an idea of man based upon the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods that humans might have light and warmth. That theft was regarded as the heroic appropriation of an item to which man was entitled by virtue of his mere presence on earth. So, this “entitlement” has justified the thoughtless domination of technology in our world today. It has enabled us to throw railroads and ribbons of concrete across the land, to erect great mountains of steel and mortar, to seal our lives in plastic wrapping. With this view of humanity, we have created a “world of man” that is destroying creation. We have forgotten that the earth belongs to another. What we are only now beginning to discover is that by seizing the earth, we have destroyed it. And in the process, we are seeing this “world of man” turning into a demonic world, filled not with the light and hope and the optimism of science, but seething with the forces of violence and decay. With the blowing a fuse our shining cities become chaotic nightmares of luting and murder. An old folk song asked us once, “Where have all the flowers gone?” We might ask more appropriately, where has the image of humanity gone? Now that the world has been shaped to the image of Promethean man, is it possible to recognize ourselves?

         Now Psalm 37 gives us a focus for this Beatitude, and I believe that Matthew intended it so. The psalmist is looking around the world. He sees all the wrong people prospering. The people who ought to be doing well, the righteous followers of God’s law seem to be helpless before the successes of the wicked. It does not make sense. So, the psalmist, trying to find comfort if not understand, meditates on the state of the world in the light of the mystery of God’s plan.

         The message is clear. There is no future for the wicked. Consequently, there is no need to interfere any more than necessary to make the grass shrivel up in the sun. Indignation is inappropriate, and it is a long way from meekness. The meek simply laugh. The psalmist suggests that it is silly to take the unrighteous seriously. Reaction and outrage give them more substance than is their due, and it will accomplish nothing but harm. In other words, Evil has only as much reality as we give it.

         Now that is not to suggest something simplistic. Evil is a part of our world as we know it, and a powerful part. So, we should notice that there is a shift in verb tenses between the first and the second Beatitude. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Julian of Norwich summed up meekness best of all: “All will be well.” Our temptation is, and always has been, to try to achieve God’s purposes by using the methods of the world. But every attempt to do so is shut off by the cross of Christ. Matthew 5:39 says: “Do not resist the evil.” If the previous Beatitude suggests that something has gone wrong with our normal ideas about possession; this Beatitude suggests that there is something wrong with our normal ideas about our attempts to get things done. In fact, this raises some question about the whole idea of trying to achieve something.

         This whole business of “trying” is suspicious to me. Trying to do something always involves a division: it means doing one thing with an eye on another. Someone may play scales because they are trying to play the piano. Some may exercise because they are trying to stay healthy. It always seems to me that this can lead to two mistakes. First, we get into the way of thinking that everything that we do needs some kind of extrinsic justification. So, we become suspicious of people just doing things because they want to. The consequence is that we resort to all kinds of pseudo-justifications, like going for walks “for exercise” or worse we declare that walking is really important. We end up decorating harmless occupations with high-sounding meanings. Then the second thing kicks in. We forget that no amount of trying ever automatically produced the desired results. We can practice our scales, but some will never become pianists. I had a very close friend who went running every day, and one day while showering after his run, he fell dead in the shower. Fifty-seven years old! I’m not going to run. Between the trying and the doing, there is always some disconnect. My point is that our concern with trying to do things can often get us out of tune with God, because God does not try to do anything. Eckhart whose insights always leave me dumbfounded said that God acts without a reason why. God does things just because God is God. A German mystic remarked that a rose exists without a reason why; it blossoms because it blossoms. Now a biologist would want to take that further and talk about pollen, seeds, and reproduction. By the time the biologist or plant scientist is finished, there is no wonder, no awe, and hardly any beauty which is often the gateway to the divine.            Aristotle used that Greek word, Πράος to define the virtue between two extremes. It was for him, the “happy medium” between opposite passions. For example, Πράος described a generous man as opposed to a miser or a spendthrift. He goes on to describe the difference between complete passivity and rage as “meekness” or Πράος. As Aristotle saw it, there was a happy medium between too much and too little anger. This folds over into our understanding the Capital Sin, Anger, which Augustine rather artificially matched to this Beatitude in one of his sermons. Meekness thought of in this way, as I said at the beginning, is not weakness. The Meek are not without the passion or a virtuous Anger. It is just that they get angry about the right things, and they are never angry about any injury or affront to themselves. 

         Power is among the great temptations Aquinas warns against, and this Beatitude is its antidote. This Beatitude as about yielding. This is about directing our talents to a virtuous end. “Learn from me” says Jesus, for I am meek and humble of heart.” We have to become students; we have yield to the Teacher. The Epistle of James (1, 21) insists that we must receive with meekness the Word which is able to save our souls. We yield, we give control of our lives to Christ. If not, our lives will forever remain out of control.

         If we are going to be and act like God, if we are to appreciate the act of God, we must come to appreciate the point of pointlessness or the joy of unnecessariness. There is some meekness in learning that there is satisfaction sometimes in just doing something for its own sake. As this truth began to dawn on me not too long ago, I began to understand my mother’s response and the wisdom of it when I would ask “Why?” She would look at me, shrug, and then say, “Because.” And that was all there was to it. It was always the end of the conversation. The reason why you go to Mass is not to try and be holy or obedient. It is because you do. It is because of who you are. It is because that is what Catholics do. There does not have to be some great and noble reason. There is meekness in this.

         The meek will inherit the earth. The meek can be trusted with the good of this world. They will not hold too tightly. They will use everything in creation without exploitation or abuse. The meek do not feel the need to rush out and do something. It is better to rejoice in the Lord and be content to rest in his truthfulness and to gaze with wonder upon the world of his making with the eye of faith and the heart of hope. The meek are the source of hope and optimism in the face of helplessness.

PSALM 37

March 16, 2021 Day Two St Agnes Parish Lenten Mission

Blessed are Those Who Mourn

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Luke 19, 41-44 and John 11, 33-35

                  There is an intensity with this Beatitude just as with the others. The Greek word that Matthew chooses means more than sorrow. It means, agony. Πενθουντες speaks of a broken heart, the kind of broken heart that comes from a great loss like the grief felt by a parent over the death of a child. Thinking of it in this way, with this sense, we gain a deeper insight into God himself, a God who grieves, the kind of grief that a father would experience over the death of his first and only son. Think of David and his response to the death of his dearest son. 2 Samuel 12, 15-17 tells us: “The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you – O Absalom, my son, my son!” This sorrow is among the most profound of human emotions. There is the feeling that something of us is lost, and aware of it we mourn. Our freedom confronts the tragedy of finite human existence.

                  The first two Beatitudes considered established a kind of emptiness. Letting go of possessions and of “go-getting” activism. Left to themselves, they could just leave a void, but now we are warned against that void. Blessed are those who mourn warns us against a negative kind of detachment and helplessness which could lead us to say: “I have nothing and I can do nothing. So, what the hell! I don’t care.” Those who do not care do not mourn, and so they are outside of Beatitude. Jesus is calling sorrow itself a blessed human condition, and like all of the beatitudes, it is a sample of his life.

                  The world in which we live would do everything to avoid this experience, and it finds grief, sorrow, or mourning to be anything but a Blessing, and so like all the others, this world would deny it and avoid at all costs. A perfect example of this is this world’s attitude of avoidance toward death. Death remains a taboo, one of the few we have left. We talk freely enough about sex but blush at a serious talk about death. There is almost a conspiracy of silence about death. Funeral directors assure us by the careful use of cosmetics that nothing has really happened our loved ones look as good as ever, so if there is no loss, there is no pain. One of the most vicious lies invented by our age is the refusal to acknowledge to a dying person that he or she is dying. We deprive those who are dying of the dignity of death and chance to mourn the passing of their lives. We want them to stay cheerful so we do not have to make any change. Life as usual, business as usual. Brisk efficiency, a sunny smile. We live in a “cheer up” kind of world in which the reality of grief and sorrow is considered morbid and unhealthy; anything but a blessing.

                  The same obsessive fear of and avoidance of death drives our compulsive seeking after pleasure and comfort. Deep in our hearts we know that we must face the greatest of losses in our death, but we try by every means available to ignore the fact. We narcotize ourselves; we do not allow ourselves to feel; we keep moving. The same tranquilization of the heart affects our relationships. We are afraid to truly take the risk to love another person in any depth, because we fear the loss of that love and cannot face the sorrow that loss will bring. It is safer never to let ourselves be deeply touched by love for another. It is safer to control our relationships, keep things on a businesslike basis. It is not surprising then that love can become manipulative, calculating, and cold. True, we never really exposed ourselves, never really allowed ourselves to become involved, and never opened our hearts to the possibility of being hurt.

                  There are two parts to this Beatitude, and the two Gospel fragments bring them to our attention. The scene at Bethany relates to natural human sorrow and grief that is known only to people who love and care for one another. There is here the promise of com-fort. Fortitude is the suggestion of this promise, not denial nor escape. The comfort comes from an awareness that we are not alone in our grief, for God himself has grieved the death of his Son, and his Son grieved the death of his friend. God know sadness, and God knows what to do about it, for in this sadness it is possible to experience the presence of God. For Martha and Mary, the presence of Jesus Christ was itself a Beatitude. While he wept, it was also a moment of faith and hope in the resurrection. God worked in the midst of that grief to accomplish something.

                  At the death of his mother, St Monica, Saint Augustine tells us that at first, he refused to weep. He believed that his hope in the Resurrection would be denied by his tears. Eventually however, he realized that he needed to let his tears flow mourning not her death so much as mourning the sorrow, sadness, and pain his wild sinful life had caused her. The hurt he caused brought him to tears. He wrote: “My tears became like a pillow for my soul.” He became a great pastor and could comfort others because his mourning became a blessing. Augustin speaks to a second kind of mourning, that which comes from the experience of Jesus standing over Jerusalem. He weeps because of sin.

                  This speaks to us about a kind of spiritual mourning over the sins of this world and our own. It brings us to grief over terrorism, abortion, genocide, orphans of war, and children abused by people trusted and respected. I had a spiritual director once who told me that their morning prayer went like this: “Lord, break my heart with the things that break your heart today.” When we look honestly at what our sins have done, and look at a crucifix we ought to be moved to tears of sadness and pushed beyond regret to repentance. If we are called to rend our hearts not our garments by the prophets, the we ought to do so because a broken heart opens a crack into which we can look with honesty. In this kind of sorrow, the depths of our hearts are touched, are carved out leaving a space for God. Without sadness or sorrow, grief or mourning, are lives are shallow, and that creates a very false spiritual life. It means we have lost our greatness; the greatness of what God created us to be. Se we coast along in an insulated cocoon of non-feeling. Something as simple as our eating habits reveals spiritual conditions with great accuracy. We never fast anymore, we only diet. Because we do not know what feasting is we have forgotten how to fast. Because we do not know sorrow, neither do we truly know joy.

                  Leon Bloy once said, “There are places in our hearts which do not yet exist, and it is necessary for suffering to penetrate there in order that they may come into being”. I think this is the key to the blessedness of suffering and sorrow. True sorrow opens our being breaks through the smooth veneer of routine and regularity and exposes our inner selves. The message of the kingdom remains constant. To Peter, who wished to save Jesus from the pain of suffering, Jesus said simply, “Out of my sight, Satan.” To the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus sad and grieving his death he walked along and revealed himself comforting and bringing them to joy. “Only those who sow in tears and sorrow can really reap with joy.” Says Psalm 126.Only the heart which enters with Jesus into the agony of death and sorrow can rise with him in glory.

         The Arabs have a saying: “All sunshine makes a desert.” The land on which the sun always shines will soon become an arid place in which no fruit will grow. There are certain things which only the rains will produce; and certain experiences which only sorrow can realize. Sorrow can do two things. It can show us, as nothing else, the essential kindness of our fellow-man; and it can show us as nothing else can the comfort and the compassion of God. We see it all the time with the tragedies the media puts before us. The outpouring of good will, charity, and concern is always amazing, and so often we hear the victims of storms and tragedies give witness to the ways in which they have found the power of God’s presence

         When we considered the first two Beatitudes, we saw that it is always right to be detached from things, but it is never right to be detached from people. Our faith begins with a sense of sin. Blessed is the man who is intensely sorry for his sin, the man who is heart-broken for what his sin has done to God and to Jesus Christ. The man who sees the Cross can only be appalled by the havoc wrought by sin. It is why the cross is so important for us, not just as sign of victory for Christ, but as a sign of sorrow for us. We look at a cross and are bound to say: “That is what sin can do. Sin can take the loveliest life in the all the world and crush it onto a cross. When the reality of that sinks in we are moved to penitence with a broken and contrite heart which Psalm 51 insists God will never despise. The way to the joy of forgiveness is through the sorry of a broken heart.

Psalm 51

Blessed Are The Merciful

Blessed are the Merciful for they shall have mercy

Exodus 34, 1-9

         Fifty years ago, when I was a transitional deacon and assigned for the summer months at Blessed Sacrament Church in Lawton, I learned a lot from Father Wade Darnall. He was one of the “giants” in Oklahoma Church History. He was what we call “a late vocation,” meaning that he finished a career as in infantry man before he went to the seminary. He was as tough as any drill sergeant to some, and biggest push-over in the world to others. To me he was a unique, noble, and prophetic man who left a great hole in our lives when he went from this life into Beatitude.

         Every day at noon there would be line of men and women at the Rectory door on 7^th Street, but charity was not confined to that hour. It was simply more predictable. There was always some cash in a metal box, and the rule was, if someone needed some help, food or cash it was to be provided. It was expected that whoever opened the door would give a polite and respectful ear to the story presented. Then without judgement something was to be provided. I will admit that after a few weeks I caught myself rewarding good stories with more generosity. If it was creative and colorful, I produced more. After being ordained priest, I went back to Blessed Sacrament to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving, and I spent the night. The next morning I was headed to St Joseph Old Cathedral moving into my first assignment. During breakfast, the bell rang, and a regular I recognized from the summer months was there. He was so regular that Wade had nick-named him, “Crooked Nose.” He was an old Apache who rang the bell about once a week always with a new story thinking we did not recognize him. I handed him a sandwich, a coke, and a $10.00 bill. I got in my car and drove directly to the Old Cathedral, and within an hour of arrival while moving a few belongings into the rectory, the bell rang, and it was Crooked Nose. He looked at me, and I looked at him. He shook his head and started to back away. I said, “You made good time.” He said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “I’m everywhere, just like you.” At that point Msgr. Harkin arrived, greeted the man with the same name and handed him a sack of food. I learned from them both how reckless charity and its motive, mercy, must be.

         In Luke 6, 30 it says: “Give to everyone who asks.” It does not say we should find out what they are going to do with it. It does not say that we should make sure that they are not alcoholics, nor does it give us any way of protecting ourselves against being exploited by people who are perfectly capable of supporting themselves. All of the normal prudential limitations we set upon our generosity are conspicuous by their absence from the Lord’s teaching. We like to think that we are being responsible in not giving to everyone who asks. But maybe it is even arrogant and even ungodly to want to be responsible in this kind of way.

         When our Lord tells us to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful, he prefaces this command with the declaration that God gives to good and bad alike with no distinctions. He is, if you like, irresponsible in his giving. But then, who does God have to be respond to? He does not wait to see whether we are going to make good use of his gifts before he gives them. His grace is not given strictly in accordance with how he for sees we shall profit by it. He rains upon the just and the unjust in equal measure, regardless of whether or not the unjust has an umbrella.

         My own personal definition of mercy comes from my experiences with Father Wade and Msgr. Harkin. Mercy is at work when we do not really get what we truly deserve. In other words, if God was not merciful, we would receive the full measure of his wrath. Mercy in a sense is just the opposite of grace as mercy is that which we don’t get but we do deserve, and grace is that which we do get but don’t deserve.

         It is in this spirit that God forgives. Forgiveness is only a special instance of the way in which God manages all his giving. He does not say, “Well, all right. You’re a good man underneath it all. I’ll give you one more chance.”        When St Peter wanted to make sure he had the arithmetic of forgiveness right, he was answered only with a sum he probably did not know how to do. Forgiveness is an example of reckless mercy. It squanders itself upon rogues who have no intention of improving themselves. All it asks for is that it be received. The only unforgivable sin is the sin against forgiveness, the sin which directly and immediately refuses forgiveness.

         Now it is in this spirit that forgiveness must be received too. We must not pretend that we are forgivable and that is why we are forgiven. We are no more forgivable than anyone else. If we think we can privilege our claim to forgiveness, it is not forgiveness we are looking for but some other kind of recognition. If it is forgiveness we are after, then it must be unconditional and unlimited forgiveness. And we can accept that only if we are prepared to accept the company that forgiveness places us in. It is no good wanting to be forgiven and then reserving the right to look around disapprovingly on all the others. We belong in their company.

         This is why forgiving is so inseparable from being forgiven. It is why reckless almsgiving is an apt expression of the spirit of forgiveness. It is a way of acting out a new way of seeing the world that is quite different from our normal, calculating approach. There may be many benefits we can convey to our fellow human beings in more calculating ways; but if they exhaust our repertoire it may be that the most important act of all is missing: mercy.

         Without it we have to admit that we fall short of being merciful and share in all that is wrong with the world. We must not disguise this failure as responsible giving. We may sometimes not give because we cannot be bothered, or we are afraid of the consequences, or because the particular beggar stinks, or because they speak rudely to us, or because they behave like a con man, or because they have annoyed us in the past. There are a thousand reasons why we will sometimes not give, but they are bad reasons. And so long as we know that they are bad reasons, they will probably not do much damage. They will be simply part of the brokenness which we entrust, in hope, to the hands of God. But when bad reasons become good reasons, then we are moving out of the sphere of mercy, and shifting back into the world of our own making and planning. In that world, there is nothing to save our souls.

         To be consistent with my earlier remarks, I investigated the Greek word again ελεημον which we all recognize from the liturgy: ελεημον. I discovered that this word was the best earlier translators from the Aramaic and Hebrew could do since the Hebrew word is untranslatable! It does not simply mean being sympathetic nor does it mean being sorry for someone in trouble. The Hebrew word translated as ελεημον means to get into someone’s skin until we see things with their eyes, think what they think, and feel what they feel. This is a lot more then, than emotional wave of pity. It is a kind of sympathy not given from outside, but which comes from a deliberate identification with the other person until we see what they see and as they feel. There is something profoundly incarnational about this experience. In Jesus Christ, in the most literal sense, God got inside the skin of human kind. He came as a man. He came seeing things with men’s eyes, feeling things with men’s feelings, thinking things with men’s minds. God knows what life is like, because God came right inside life, and that is the motive for, the wonder of, and truth about Mercy.

         The quality of God’s mercy is the point of that parable of the prodigal. The hero of the story, as we know, is not the son but the father. Jesus tells this story to teach us about the possibility of repentance, yes, but even more to tell us that we can always repent because there is a merciful father who runs before us with mercy, a ring and a robe every day. He is no scorekeeper; he is in the game and risks his love with us constantly.

                  It is a strange thing about us, the way we all long so much for love, understanding, trust, and acceptance, yet so systematically reject all of them by our fear of being hurt. This is the great sign of sin, a lasting scar of evil. We long for others to trust us, yet cannot show them trust; we ache for understanding, yet are pleased to view others from prejudice; we crave tenderness, yet deal in cold currency. And we see all around us how a lack of knowledge, closure, and distance generate destruction and alienation; how fear gives birth to fear. It is so hard to break out of this cycle. It is so hard to realize not just in thought but in fact, that where there is no love we must put love in order that we might draw love out. It come as a wonderful and somewhat overwhelming shock when we finally do risk our hearts in trust and discover we are trusted in return, when we show mercy and receive mercy back.

         Of ourselves, our fear is so great we cannot do it. But our God has not only shown us what mercy is, he has given it to us in the gift of his Spirit. We who deserved nothing have been given all things by gift. The more we realize this, the more we will be able to entrust ourselves to each other in the gift of mercy, the more we will be able to take with each the risk God has first taken with each of us.

PSALM 86

Blessed are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will have their fill.

John 4, 4-15

            If you can tolerate a brief Greek grammar lesson, there is something going on here that is very revealing with a clear understanding of the way Matthew uses the language. It is a rule of Greek grammar that verbs of hungering and thirsting are followed by the genitive case which in English is expressed by the word of. For instance, of the man is that genitive case. The genitive which follows verbs of hungering and thirsting in Greek is called the partitive genitive. Hear the word “part” in this instance. The idea is this. The Greek would say: I hunger for of bread.” It was some bread he desired, a part of the break, not the whole loaf. A Greek would say, I thirst for of water.” It was some water desired, a drink of water, not the whole tank. Now, in this Beatitude the genitive case is not used by Matthew. He uses the accusative case. This changes the meaning very dramatically. Instead of hungering and thirsting for some, the hunger and thirst is for it all! Everything. The whole thing! To say I hunger in the accusative case which Matthew uses here it means, I want the whole loaf, or the whole pitcher. Now keep that in mind as we explore a bit more of this Beatitude.

 There is a sense in which the Beatitudes are our way of participating in divine life. That experience we used to call “the Beatific Vision” is what participating in Beatitude is all about. Being poor, meek, mourning, and being merciful is for us a participation in divine life because, as I’ve said, God is poor, meek, mournful, and merciful. God is also hungry and thirsty, so our willingness and readiness to enter into this hunger and thirst makes us “beatified” so to speak. It brings us very close to God. It draws us into the mystery of God.

         When Christ says to the woman, “I thirst”. He is speaking to us today. There is in God since there is in Christ a very real and very powerful thirst and hunger for us. As the verses unfold, a reversal takes place and the one with the bucket becomes the thirsty, and the one without quenches the thirst by his presence and his Word.

         The experience of hunger and thirst is an absolute reminder that we are not independent and self-sufficient. WE are dependent in kinds of ways on all kinds of things. We are dependent on a God whose very God-nature is love, a love that seeks and has created something/someone to love.

         This Beatitude does not promise the hungry that they will be given bare sufficiency, but that they “will have their fill”, stuffed full. If filled, we then have everything we need is the clear implication here. St Thomas teaches that no authentic desire is created in vain. Beatitude itself means having everything you want. What this Beatitude proposes is that the Blessed want Righteousness.

         It is Paul who tells us what righteousness is when he writes to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1, 30) “Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, and not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the week of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing to reduce to nothing those who are something so that no human being might boast before God. “It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

         What those in Beatitude hunger for then is not some Thing, but some One. This hunger leads us into communion; heaven’s bread for our deepest hunger. When we come seeking water, when we come to the altar seeking food, Christ comes because he seeks us and knows our hunger. First, he asks for a drink revealing the longing God has for us. Prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst for us so that we might thirst for him.

         One of the things I learned from and about the poor who would come begging to Wade and Monsignor at those parish doors was that the truly hungry will lose all their pride to get something to eat. There is no pride in those who are really hungry. They will dig everywhere and search through every bit of trash to find something to eat. Hunger casts out pride, and once stripped of it, the hungry will be filled. The promise of that is prefigured in the stories of Jesus feeding the hungry who have come to feast first on his Word. The story starts with two fish and five loaves. It ends with twelve baskets full after they have all had their fill. There is always enough in the presence of Christ. But even then, it is not enough. Did you ever notice on big holidays after a huge meal like on Thanksgiving or Christmas that after a few hours we’re up with the refrigerator door open again looking around for more?  We often want more when we have been satisfied, but what we really want and seek is that communion that feeds us as much as the food itself. The glutton eats alone and knows no joy in eating. For them, food is an end itself. For people in communion, there is always joy because food is a means to further communion. The glutton lives to eat. The Blessed eat to live.

         Too often in life we are content with bits and pieces of things. Deep in this Beatitude there lies a challenge for us who are sometimes satisfied too easily. What we hunger for is not a snack, it is the banquet. What we need is not just the first course, but the whole thing. We cannot be content with a part of goodness or righteousness even though we might have achieved some measure of goodness in our lives. The Beatitude says that we should not be satisfied with partial goodness, but that we must be desperate for, desperate like a starving man or someone actually dying of thirst, desperate for total and complete goodness. It does not suggest that we have to have achieved that level of perfection, but that we want it as much as a man dying in the desert that drink of water that will save.

PSALM 34

March 17, 2021 Day Three St Agnes Parish Lenten Mission

Blessed are the Pure of Heart

Blessed are the Pure of Heart for they shall see God

Ezekiel 36, 23-27 & Luke 10, 38-42

         We are told that Saint Catherine was at one time very devoted to the verse from Psalm 51, “create in me a clean heart”; and one day she had a strange experience in which it seemed that the Lord came to her and removed her physical heart. Later he inserted a new heart into her, his own heart saying, “I am giving you my heart so that you can go on living with it forever.” Now whatever else we may want to make of a story like this, it is at least a dramatic representation of the teaching of St Paul. “I live now not I but Christ lives in me.” (Galatian 2, 20). Our deepest identity is Christ.

         The age and culture in which we live is very conscious of identity and sometimes the lack of it. An “identity crises” is not uncommon. Personally, I think this is what gives rise to great deal of patriotism and a new kind of nationalism across the globe. Language is big part of this. I suspect this is why there is so much sad political turmoil between the English speaking and Spanish speaking peoples among us. I saw this several years ago when I was Rector of the Cathedral in Oklahoma City as a generation of Vietnamese struggled over their identity and desperately wanted Mass in Vietnamese. More recently the establishment of new Lebanese Maronite Rite Parish, a Syro-Malabar Coptic Parish, and a Korean Parish in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, right in the middle of the Bible Bely is amazing, and it is a clear indication that identity wrapped in cultural customs, language, and rituals of faith is very important these days. 

         Our identity however you choose to look at it has one source, our Creator. Made in God’s image. There is only source of life, and as much as we share that life, the source of it is within us. The more there is life for us, the more of God there is, and the more fully human we become in this life, the more we become divine. To me in this way of thinking, the most fully human and the most perfect human was and is, Jesus Christ. Consequently, the more human we become, the more divine we become. God is the heart of our heart. To think and believe in this way puts us deep into the mystery of God. To have a pure heart then is to have a heart that is known to be rooted in the mystery of God. The mystery of God and the mystery of the soul belong together. There is a little story of how an early Christian responded to the demand of a powerful pagan: “Show me your God”? He said, “Show me your man and I will show you my God.”

         To have a pure heart is to have a heart that is not just created by God and then abandoned to us for us to make the most of it; it is to have a heart which is constantly being created and sustained by the newness of the life of God. If our life is rooted in God, so that the source of life in us is God, we shall see as God sees. And what God sees is God. This is why those who are pure of heart will see God. God does not have two different kinds of vision, one for seeing himself and another for seeing his creatures. It is within his eternal and blissful contemplation of himself that he sees all that he has made. That is why he sees that it is very good.

         If we have a pure heart, a source of life welling up from the eternity of God, then what we shall see is God. “Everything is pure to the pure.” (Titus 1, 15) Those who have a pure heart cannot see evil, just as it is said of God that he is too pure to be able to see evil. To have a pure heart means that wherever you look, whatever you are looking at, what you see is God. God, revealing himself in myriads of different ways, but always God. This does not mean that when you look at butterflies, you have a “Hallmark” moment and hear violins playing inside your head and sing out, “How beatific!” It means that you are going to have to look at a man on a cross, broken, his wounds streaming with blood, and know that you are looking at God. To have a pure heart is to be capable of that. Origen, and early Church Theologian thought that it is in learning how to see things properly that we fist begin to be enchanted by the beauty of God. We are led by the beauty of things we can see to an awareness of what cannot be seen.

         The Greek word Katharos that Matthew chooses for this Beatitude can mean clean in sense of clean laundry or clean hands, but just as often it is used to describe something that is pure or unmixed as we might describe a wine that is not a blend. When used to describe a person, it describes the simplicity of a single motive. There are no mixed motives. For instance, a charitable donation is made because of the great need without a single thought that it might also be a tax deduction or make us feel good that we did something for someone. If we do some fine work of kindness, it means we have care at all about whether anyone noticed or whether anyone says, “thank you.”    Purity of heart clarifies things, so that we can be humble in our view of others seeing them as good. It also clarifies things so that we can see even sin in the context of a whole vision of God and of God’s providence and his creation. An opportunity for compassion then is what we see from a pure heart. It makes us sensitive to the good that is truly present even in what is evil. Ancient Fathers of the Church (Pseudo-Dionysius) thought it inconceivable that anything or anybody should be totally devoid of good. Even a person who opts for the worst possible kind of life is at least desiring life and the life that seems best to him so far as it goes is good. To have a pure heart is to enter into the very drama of God’s creating. It is to have a heart like the heart of Christ, taking into itself all the anger and hatred of men and consuming them in and into a fire of infinite love. Purity of heart is in fact one of the ways in which God actually makes himself present in our world. To have a pure heart is to become a person renewed, a person restored to our original calling and purpose. And that person, in the image and likeness of God, shares in the creativity of his creator.

         Finally, Jesus himself speaks to this concern with Luke’s story of Martha and Mary with which we began just now. Martha’s complaint receives the comment, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and trouble about many things. Only one thing is needed.” Martha’s anxiety is the issue. An anxious heart is a divided heart. The divine guest urges her not to stop cooking, but to stop being anxious. It is an interesting challenge to those of us who sometimes think we are being efficient and productive by “double tasking.” The message is, all of what we do must be for one purpose. All of what we do must somehow be focused on God. This calls for a practiced kind of attentiveness. When our heart is focused on the One, Jesus, we will be able to see God.

Psalm 51

Blessed are the Peace Makers

Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Romans 14, 17-19

There is an intimate connection between this beatitude and the previous one, because purity of heart and peace belong inseparably together. True peace in ourselves is a product of purity of heart, and without true peace in ourselves we stand little chance of being peacemakers for anyone else. There is a little story about this in the tales of the Desert Fathers: There were three friends who were eager workers, and one of them chose to devote himself to making peace between people who were fighting in accordance with ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’. The second chose to visit the sick. The third went off to live in tranquility in the desert. The first toiled away at the quarrels of men, but could not resolve them all, and so, in discouragement went to the one who was looking after the sick, and he found him tiring as well and not fulfilling the commandment. So, the two of them agreed to go and visit the one who was living in the desert. They told him their difficulties and asked him to tell them what he been able to do. He was silent for a time, then he poured water into a bowl and said to them. “Look at the water.” It was all turbulent. A little later he told them to look at it again, and see how the water had settled down. When they looked at it, they saw their own faces as in a mirror. Then he said to them, “In the same way a man who is living in the midst of men does not see his own sins because of all the disturbance, but if he becomes tranquil, especially in the desert, then he can see his own shortcomings.”

         The word SHALOHM describes wholeness. Used as a verb it described the mending of a net. It has to do with putting back together whatever is broken. As Jesus used the word it was a greeting that announced that he was there present in their midst, and that the relationship he had with the apostles was not broken by death. The way to peace is the acceptance of the truth, the truth about our brokenness, truth about our lives broken by emotions and passions that are not in union with our goodness or in union with our very beatitude.

         Peace is not something that we can produce for ourselves. It is something given and proclaimed by God in Christ. This peace that we seek is a wholeness that does not exist simply in ourselves, it is in Christ; but because it is in him, and we are in him, our acceptance of ourselves as we are, with all the upsets and tensions becomes less of source of anxiety.

         As I said on Tuesday of this week quoting Meister Eckhart: the spiritual man does not seek peace because he is not hampered by the lack of peace. If we are in Christ, we can be in peace even when we feel no peace. The beginning of peace must be the acceptance of lack of peace just as the beginning of relaxation must be the acceptance of tension. This peace is something that enfolds us rather than something which we grasp. It is a peace that Paul in Philippians says “surpasses all mind”, all comprehension.”This peace is something declared not something we work at or work for. It is not negotiable. It is God’s the complete tranquility of God’s presence.

         With that understood, the peacemaker is then not someone who comes to patch things up, arrange a settlement with balanced concessions all around, or try to find a compromise. The peacemaker declares the truth of God announcing that a fallen world can be remade. So, there is no room for give and take, no room for concessions and compromise. There is only room justice which knows nothing of compromise. I am old enough to remember the day when Pope Paul VI stood at the General Assembly of the United Nations and shouted emphatically: “If you want peace, work for justice.” That work is the labor that tills the soil and prepares our hearts for the seed, the gift, the promise of peace. It will bring about a unity among us that reflects the unity of God. The unity of God is the focus for everything that is real. Understanding this is why I find this rise of “nationalism” so curious and in some ways so uneasy. It is taking us in the wrong direction. Instead of finding our common unity in God, we are continuing to fragment and individualize our identity. If left unchecked, we will hardly be able to recognize that we have a common “father” and therefore hardly be children of God. This peace that springs from the truth of our unity is not achieved by paring down or ignoring the complications of life, but by entering into the magnetic pull of God’s unity. 

         Within the heart of every person, and in the memory of every society there exists a profound nostalgia for paradise. The creation and origin myths of every people describe our beginnings as a time when God and humanity dwelled together as one. Our own primordial tale in Genesis speaks to us of the peace of Eden and it describes the relationship that existed between the creator and the creature. In those days, God spoke to his creature face to face, and there was no fear. The Bible tells us that God strode the garden in one evening to converse with his beloved creatures. From this oneness man experienced peace within himself and with woman. From that moment, in the primal paradise, the longings of the human heart were properly ordered, and there was peace. The significance of that order remains for us: The basis of human peace is peace with God.

         In the mythology of nearly every people there is also an account of how the human creature fell from this state of peace. It does not matter whether this took place at one moment in history, because for us all it takes place at every moment. There is something flawed in our hearts. There is a tragic misdirection of freedom which we inherit, reaffirm, and pass on. The Genesis story speaks to this condition. First is the break with God. At the sound of his coming there is fear, hiding, and deception, evasion, and shame. But the even more saddening effects of this are seen most clearly in the way the man and woman turn on each other with anger or blame. He blames the woman. She blames the serpent. Here at the beginning it is the same as the end, division between human beings. The story goes on with anguish and progressive alienation. There is murder with Cane and Able. There is treachery of Noah’s son who exposed his father’s nakedness. Then there is the story of the tower. It is all about man seizing by force what has been offered as a gift.

         Then there is a shift from universal to particular with Abraham. It is a new beginning in the story of our people, and the start of God’s plan to restore peace between himself and his human creature. It unfolds slowly, but as we proclaim in one of the Eucharistic Prayers: “Again and again you offered a covenant to human beings, and through the prophets taught them the hope for salvation.” The purpose of covenant was to bring about a state of shalom between the parties. It was God’s choice, and God’s right to establish the covenant and terms. As the people failed to keep the terms of the covenant, they failed to be at peace with one another. Oppression and the perversion of Justice was the consequence. The prophets of Israel not only called the people back to covenant, they looked forward to the coming of one in whom the promise might be realized. Psalm 72 tells of this hope.

         Jesus came. The very first announcement of his coming was a proclamation of Peace: “Peace on earth and good will to men” say the angels. In his life among us, he reached through and across every barrier by the simple gestures of acceptance and speaking the truth. He showed us what divine peacemaking was all about. It was his “atonement” with the Father that enabled him to bring that unity to humans for one purpose: “That they may be one as we are one.” The great mystery of his peacemaking is that it was accomplished by an act of violence. In this foolishness was the wisdom of God’s way revealed; in this weakness was his power to save. In this violence by which his body was torn apart, the man of peace handed over his spirit. Before his death he told his followers, “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you.” And when he appeared to them alive after his death, he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”. We are to continue that peacemaking of Jesus by manifesting effectively the same attitudes of forgiveness and mercy, of acceptance and reconciliation that he showed toward us. In this we shall be called children of God.

         To do this, we must be at peace with ourselves. The peace Jesus leaves with us has little to do with feeling good inside, much less with assurance of a calm, unruffled life or a successful career. The peace given by a crucified Messiah would not manifest itself in trivialities. The peace of Jesus has to do with fidelity toward the Father, with the awareness that we are loved and accepted by God. Once grounded in this, we are able to reach out to others in peace. Because we need not find our center in pleasure, possessions, or power, we have no conflict with others over the world and the things of this world. Not needing to possess or use others as assurance of our own worth, we are able to freely see them for what they are, God’s children and place ourselves at their service.

         Without this basis in God, all the world’s attempts at peace-making re futile. They all eventually break down because of the conflicting idolatries of humans. Without peace with God, there can be no peace among us. What is different now is that peace has been given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Psalm 72

Blessed are the Persecuted

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

John 15, 18-20

Asked about the growing secularization of the world and increasing violence against people of faith, Cardinal George once said: “I expect to die in bed. My successor will die in prison. His will die a martyr in the public square. The next one will pick up the shard of ruined society and slowly help to rebuild civilization as the church has so often in history. As this culture falls away or destroys itself from within, the Church will always remain to rebuild the civilization of love.”

         Dealing realistically with persecution is a delicate business. It is so easy to become paranoid or masochistic or to develop a messianic complex “Everybody hates me; therefore I must be right.” These delusional systems have been a part of our story too. But authentic Christian witness does not seek out persecution or seek to justify itself by the opposition it receives. On the other hand, authentic Christian witness seldom has to seek our persecution. There is something about the truth being lived boldly which draws it out. People are just not prepared to come to terms with the truth of what they are – either the truth of their total dependence on God or the truth of their actual, sinful and painful condition. They are likely to be offended by a message which will have no truck with their defensive “face”. They are likely to react with hostility. 

         A world defining itself by darkness does not want the light. A world built on a system of lies will have little patience with the word of truth. Based on what we have seen in Jesus, we can estimate that the more authentically and powerfully the Gospel is preached, the more it will stimulate rejection. This, should make us consider our own degree of acceptance by the world. We ought to wonder sometimes why we are liked in this world. Is it because we are indistinguishable from this world? I get really uncomfortable when I hear people say: “Father is just like the rest of us.”  Isn’t there something in my life which might make people question the way they are living? Or have I just made people comfortable because the Gospel we have grown comfortable with offers them no threat?

         This suffering insists the Beatitude must be for the sake of righteousness. It is for the sake of doing the right thing: not the safe thing, the easy thing, the popular thing, or the convenient thing. Today we can count the persecuted because they defend the unborn, the stranger, the immigrant, and the poor because it is the right thing. Not all of us are called to be social activists; not all of us are meant to take prophetic stances; not all of us can march and picket and lobby and debate. But all of us are called to do the right thing and live lives which express truly if implicitly a judgment on the standards of the world apart from God. One of the surest signs of how far we have come from the standard of right is the way people respond who get caught doing the wrong thing. They are always more upset over getting caught than over the fact that they were doing wrong. Instead of wondering if they should have done something in the first place, they wonder how they made the mistake of getting caught. 

         We suffer persecution not to fulfill some need to be punished, or out of self-righteousness, but “for holiness” sake, that is, for God’s sake. We are able to suffer creatively only because God suffers with us in the wounds of Jesus, which remain even in his risen life the testimony of God’s participation in the anguish of his world. And because we suffer persecution for holiness’ sake, our suffering is for the sake of those who persecute us. It is as servants that we suffer, handing over our lives for the sake of their lives. Suffering persecution in this way is an act of peace-making in the world; an ultimate act.

         The first Beatitude and the Last offer the same thing: The Kingdom of Heaven. The first Beatitude and the Last offer the same thing in the present tense while the other Beatitudes speak of things to come. The persecution is happening now because the Kingdom is not something for the future. The Kingdom has come, and the Kingdom of this world stands in opposition. The Kingdom of truth meets the Kingdom of lies. The Kingdom of freedom meets the Kingdom of slavery and bondage. The Kingdom of Life meets the Kingdom of Death. The truly blessed, those who bear witness in glory to the one who is Blessed and whose life is Beatitude, do so for the sake of righteousness. They do so for the sake of the one who is poor, merciful, meek, hungry, mourning, pure, and making peace. He is Beatitude. In as much as we conform ourselves to him, then we shall expect to be persecuted, but we shall do so with joy which is that inner delight that never changes no matter what the circumstances.

         It is surely no accident that the people who do get martyred are often precisely the people who have shown the most love. We are sometimes bewildered when we hear, for instance, of devoted missionaries being killed by those whom they have served for years with unfailing generosity. “Why them? We ask in perplexity and distress. Could it not be that it was precisely their devoted service which draws martyrdom towards them? Because they have been seen to love, they give confidence to those who are unsure of love; but this confidence eventually becomes a need to probe further. Their final sacrifice is very much a sacrifice of love, and who can say what its fruit may be?

         Christ did not come to make life easy, but to make us great. From the times of the Roman Empire to this day, the only crime of a Christian is that they put Christ before all others. Suffering persecution makes things easier for those who follow. We ought not forget that truth. We enjoy the blessing of liberty and freedom which we possess because men in the past were willing to buy them for us at the cost of blood. They made it easier for us, and by our own steadfast witness for Christ we may make it easier for others who are still to come. It has always seemed to me that those who suffer for Christ are the closest to Christ, for they suffer with Christ, and Christ suffers with them. There is always one question: “Why”? “Why does the church suffer at all?” The answer is that suffering is inevitable because the church is the conscience of the world. Where there is something great, the Church must praise. Where there is something wrong, the Church must condemn, and inevitably there will be an effort to silence the troublesome voice of conscience. 

For most of us, being persecuted for the sake of Christ is not going to mean anything very public of glorious; it is going to mean an endless and boring array of petty harassments. And the “they” who persecute us will, in all probability not be obvious enemies, but our friends and neighbors. This is the persecution that is real and the persecution that is ours, and because it is so subtle, so petty, and so little, it may not seem to measure up to what people like Archbishop Romero, the Sisters in El Salvador, or Stan Rother have experienced, but it will be in the measure of our capacity for bearing that persecution and facing it with Joy because of the company we keep in that experience. 

Psalm 59

Conclusion

For three days now, we have opened ourselves to the light and to the wisdom of the Gospel of Matthew. The first beatitude promised the kingdom to those who were poor in sprit. The last promises the kingdom to those who are persecuted. And so, at the end, we learn again how the Kingdom of God is rooted in the mystery of the One who proclaimed it, proclaims it still, the Lord Jesus himself. He, the poor and persecuted, the suffering servant, was alone among human kind meek and pure of heart. He above all others hungered and thirsted for his Father’s holiness. He alone touched the depths of both the human and divine sorrow, and alone showed perfect mercy. It is only because we share his spirit that we can hear his words, accept them, and being slowly and painfully transformed manifest them in our lives. It is always through him that we utter Amen to the glory of God the Father.

         Having reached the end of the Beatitudes, we ask ourselves if there is any place on this earth for the community they describe. There is only one place and that is where the poorest and meekest of true humans is found, on the cross of Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the crucified. With him his followers have lost all and with him they have found all and from the cross there comes the call: Blessed. Blessed. It is there we see the ultimate expression of Beatitude. It is there we see the poor the meek the merciful the peace possessing and the persecuted once there we see the ultimate blessing/beatitude. His Son giving everything for us in an ultimate act love. Die to self-Make our lives a Beatitude a full and free gift of ourselves to be the blessing of God to the world.

         Perhaps the best way to conclude this week together is to recognize that we have all gotten into the boat and set sail for the other side. Along the way, the storms come up and we get frightened and discouraged and are not too sure that we are going to make it to the other side. It is easy to forget who is in the boat with us. As the story is told, he sleeps some of the time. As the story is told, when they wake him up, he does not rebuke them at all, but turns and rebukes the wind and the waves. My best guess is that he turned and looked at them with a smile, rolled his eyes and shrugged shaking his head and went back to sleep. The real heart of this story and the thing to remember is that every now and then, we need to remember who is with us and wake him up. Wouldn’t it be foolish to sink the boat because we never woke him up? 

March 1,2,3, 2021

Parish Mission on Sacraments First Night: Sacraments of Initiation

Begin with singing, “Sweet Refreshment”

In my own story, a man in the sixth century had a greater influence. His name is Benedict, and I spent 8 years of education and formation at a large Benedictine Monastery. What I took away from there after eight years was way more than a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s Degree in Theology. I took away the very heart of Benedict’s vision and the spirit of the Rule he wrote that to this day guides the lives of monks and nuns all over the world. The Christian life is both prayer and work. Work without prayer is ungrounded and can be self-deceptive. Prayer without work is a fantasy and does not reflect a real Christian vocation which is to find and serve God who is not confined to church or a tabernacle. A Benedictine Abbot once said to his monks something that applies to us all: Take God very seriously. Take your vocation seriously, but do not take yourselves too seriously. 

I am a monk at heart. I live a rather solitary life. It’s just me and God. Having finally retired, I now work and pray, which is what monks do. Sometimes someone will ask me why in retirement I seem so busy, and my response is that we never retire from prayer, and when we realize that, we can’t retire from work either, since work is often the consequence of prayer. You pray about something, and God says, do something about it. What I have retired from is meetings. I no longer care about the loan, the lights, the locks or the leaks. When I see a wet ceiling, “I’m glad for a roofer. They have a job! When someone says, as they did for years and years, “Father, can I have the key to gym?” I say, “I only have car keys, and I obviously don’t know where the gym is located.” I will never forget the very first time I celebrated Mass here at Saint William after I was welcomed here in retirement. The opening hymn had begun, the procession was just starting, and someone came up and pulled on my elbow and said: “Father, there’s no paper in the restroom.” At that moment, I knew I was a monk at heart, and I remembered something my mother always said just before we left the house: “Go to the bathroom, and don’t forget to wash your hands.”

For three nights this week, I am going to invite you into the mystery of who and what we are as a Catholic Church. Something happens to us when we become Church, and as a Church we make something happen in this world. Sacraments are what we are. Sacraments are Holy Moments: the moment when the divine and human touch and become one. Sacraments are our experience of the Incarnation. In theology there is only one Sacrament, Jesus Christ; but as a Church we experience the Christ at the most significant moments of our lives: birth, death, and everything in between. The Sacraments accomplish the work of Jesus Christ. They heal what is broken, they strengthen what is weak, and they proclaim the forgiveness of sin. That’s what was happening all around Jesus when he was on this earth. It is still what happens all around Jesus when we are together as a Church. Sacraments are how we express without words what we believe, and what is happening to us in faith.

Whenever we come in contact with our church, understanding is the challenge we face because it is not about the brain, it’s about the heart. Understanding is not really a cognitive act. It is not about the brain. None of us really think our way into a relationship or even more so, into faith. It is about experience. You did not think your way into love. You experience it, and then along the way your figured out what it was. Understanding comes from the experience. Without it, there’s nothing to think about. The problem in our day and age is that we rarely take the time to experience anything let alone reflect on that experience and come to some understanding about what it means. A Harvard Sociologist (Robert Putnam) described our contemporary age by saying that in these times we have increased the number of believers but not belongers. There are now lots and lots of people who style themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” While we can say with pride that Catholicism is for those who are both “spiritual and religious”, as well as for believers and belongers, we also have to deal with the reality that for everyone one person who enters the Catholic Church in America, three leave. Why? I suspect that there are lots of reason in this “spiritual, not religious” culture, but certainly two factors are the excessive individualism of our culture, and the credibility of the church itself for a variety of reasons, sex abuse, financial mismanagement, ineffective witness of contradictory lives, and lots of other personal reasons. 

We live in an iPod, iPad, iMac, iPhone and endless other “i”-devices world. My point is that a small “i” begins to show how we name countless technological advances and machines. If you glance at the magazine rack in the grocery store, I wonder whether we are not moving from People Magazine to US and SELF. And self is where we seem to be stuck. I recall a famous line from the movie Beaches. Bette Midler leans over the restaurant table and says to her lunch companion, “But enough about me – let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?”

Our church is a “we” church. If you have not noticed, every prayer in the missal uses the first-person plural pronoun. We ask this……ends every prayer. Living our faith (catch the pronoun?) is always a corporate enterprise. We belong to a covenant religion that started with Noah, his sons, his wife, and the wives of his sons along with two of every thing living on earth. Of course, it should have started with Adam and Eve, but a tree and an apple got in the way after which it all went bad. Whenever I think this way, what comes to mind is an apple with a bite out of it. Have you ever thought about that when you look at the icon or emblem on the cover of many computers? 

We belong to a covenant religion that continued with our forebears in biblical faith, covenants we read about every three years in the Sunday readings. There is the covenant with Noah (Genesis 9, 8-15), the covenant with Abraham and Sarah, and their beloved Isaac (Genesis 22, 1-2, 9, 20-13, 15-18). Then there is the covenant with Moses, (Exodus 20, 1-17) and a renewal of the covenant at the time of King Cyrus (2 Chronicles 36, 14-17, 19-23)   followed by Jeremiah (31, 31-34) promising a new covenant. These covenant texts are the bedrock relationship on which our faith is based. We are in this together. It is that simple. Part of what binds us together is ritual which is something we do when words are inadequate. For instance, when you feel overcome with joy and happiness at seeing someone you have not seen for a long time, there are no words, you just want to embrace and kiss. So, with ritual there are simply certain gestures that have an agreed upon meaning. We don’t make them up as we wish They are given to us to shape what we say and do in common. When a birthday cake comes into a room, no one has to tell the one being honored what to do. For that matter, we don’t start singing the National Anthem! Our rites as a church, these rituals that shape and express us are not a place or a time for self-expression. Even the wearing of certain vesture covers up our uniqueness. All of this brings focus to the meaning of what is happening it’s not about some external behavior.

The Sacraments are not something we do. The Sacraments are not something the Church creates. We are drawn by God’s mysterious designs and God’s mysterious ways into these experiences. The Sacraments, the Liturgy is always God’s gift to us and our response to God. Tomorrow when I speak about Matrimony, I will tell you more about something I always said to couples who came in for their first meeting to talk about marriage. I always said: “From now own, do not talk to me about your wedding. It isn’t yours. It isn’t mine. If you think it’s yours, and you think you can design it, you are forgetting that God is in charge, and this Rite and what we do is our response to God’s self-revelation.” Matrimony, Anointing of the Sick, Reconciliation, Ordination these are never ours. I have no business talking about my Ordination. It was not mine. It was God calling and commissioning me to be and do something in His name. All I had to do was show up, kneel down, and say: “Present” when my name was called. After that I had to listen.

We get this message proclaimed every time one of the priests uses the Third Eucharistic Prayer at Mass. He says, and you may recall the words: “You never cease to gather a people to yourself., so that from the East and to the West….” We gather at the Lord’s invitation, not because of a habit. That’s important to keep in mind sometime when you don’t feel like going to Mass some Sunday. Are you seriously going to turn down the Lord’s invitation because of a Tee time or you just don’t want to get up? Seriously?  You see, we always think it’s about us way too easily forgetting that God is up to something. We are made members of one another in this worldwide Catholic Church through the waters of Baptism and the invocation of the three persons of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the prayer over the offerings on Holy Thursday, the priest proclaims these words: “Whenever the memorial of his sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished.” Wow!  If that’s true, you have to be there if you want redemption, not at home with your feet up and beer in your hand watching a football game.

Early on, for many generations, Initiation into the Body of Christ, the Church, was one ritual with three parts. Most of the Eastern Churches continue this ancient custom. Our Latin or Western Roman Church has split them into three separate rites or “Sacraments.” There is some movement to restore the more ancient practice, but for now we have it as it is: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion. Actually, we have sort of messed up the order. For most of us it goes like this: Baptism, Holy Communion, Confirmation. Historically, Baptism and Confirmation were broken apart when the numbers of people being initiated were greater than the community’s leader, who we now call a Bishop, could manage at one time. So, the local delegate of the Bishop Baptized and the initiation was completed at a later time when the Bishop got around to the community. Once the faith of the person initiated was “Confirmed”, then they were allowed to share in the Eucharist. The bringing of a person into communion, into the covenant was the point of it all. That is the apex of initiation: being in communion.

As we all know, many other Christian communities we call “Protestant” do not baptize children, and they do not understand why we do and what it’s all about, but the custom is there from the beginning, and it springs out of the fact that often entire households were initiated: Dad, Mom, and the children. They all came into the covenant. The evidence is there in Acts of the Apostles. In the case of the children, there is a promise made that they will be raised up in a covenanted family that makes it possible for them to grow and live in communion. That is why in the Rite of Baptism for Children, parents are asked to give public testimony that they will bring this child up in the practice of faith. Contrary to what some may want to believe, the parents are not speaking for their child in answering those questions. They are giving testimony that they have faith they to share with their child. 

I honestly don’t know when, why or how we got into the odd custom we have in the Roman Rite Church of dribbling a few drops of water on the head of someone and calling that Baptism. In the end, it is the intention that matters, but we sure have to talk a good line to make the point. Baptism is birth into everlasting life. It is the beginning of new life with all of its promise and hope. About thirty years ago, when I was Rector of the Cathedral in Oklahoma City, we set about fixing up that 70-year-old church with some paint and some other arrangements that suited the Church of our time. One of the things we did was build a Baptistry. If any of you have ever been to Rome and seen the Lateran Basilica which is actually the Cathedral Church of Rome, you might remember that the Baptistry is a separate building off to the side of the church. If you’ve been to Florence, the very famous Baptistry there stands out as great piece of architecture in itself. The Baptistry was separate for a couple of reasons. For one, it was often heated when nothing else was, and for another, people being baptized got into a pool of water without clothing. They laid down, went under water and came up alive. It was a powerful and memorable experience.

A few years ago, I took a group of pilgrims to Lourdes. At one of the planning meetings, I spoke about the “baths” there, and I encouraged everyone to get over any hang-ups they might have and plan to go into the baths. It is a powerful and extraordinary spiritual and physical experience. On the second morning we were there, I reminded everyone that there was time set aside in the schedule to go into the waters. In the group was the retired Police Chief from Oklahoma City. He was a tough guy, burly, tough spoken, and there were no filters on his mouth. He said what he thought all the time. He was sitting in the back of the room with his arms folded. There was no expression on his face other than mild disgust. I concluded by saying that this was the chance, and the only chance to have this experience since few of them were likely to return to Lourdes. Skipping the experience of the baths might be something they would regret for a long time. I explained that there was a small room for removing clothing, and that an attendant would be there to wrap a very large sheet around you, and lead you to the pool. It is something you step down into, and water is flowing through it. The attendant helps you sit down in the water removing the towel-like sheet, and then they offer to pray for you or with you as you settle into the water. When the prayer ends, you stand up and the attendant wraps you in the cloth and leads you very respectfully and quietly back to the dressing area. By this time, the man in the back is looking up at the ceiling after glancing at his watch.

Every evening of the pilgrimage, the group would gather together, have a drink, and then share their most powerful thought or experience of the day. So, that night we followed the usual plan, and after many comments about going to confession, the beautiful Mass in the grotto, the procession the night before, Mr. Police Chief spoke up from that back. He said: “I did it.” With that he choked up and wiped his eyes. He said: “You never told us the water was cold.” I said, “No one asked.” He brushed aside my comment and with tears in his eyes, he said: “I will never ever forget that moment. Now I understand why some of my Protestant friends speak with such passion and so intently about their Baptism. I think I was Baptized today, and I feel wonderful, clean, and almost holy.  I feel alive for the first time since my wife died.” The room was silent, and someone quietly said, “Forget about the “almost part.”

So, back to the Cathedral, we built a baptistry that was attached and visible from the church, but distinct. During the construction, that part of the church was walled off for the sake of safety, and to keep out the weather as they built the addition. After a few weeks, some of the 8^th graders in the parish school wanted to know what was behind the wall. So, I arranged for the contractor to let the children look in. The concrete form had been poured, and they were about to begin the tile work. The children stood and looked at it for a minute or two, and one of the boys said: “It looks like a grave”. With that, I knew we were getting it right. Baptism is about dying and rising. Going down, going under, coming up, breathing in new life. That is what we’re doing.

Water and Fire! These are the most powerful earthly tools and earthly elements. When a forest burns, it dies. When it rains on that scorched earth, everything comes to life again. When it’s time for a baby to be born, the water breaks out of the womb, and life comes through the water. My friends, we have to get in touch with this truth and this reality again. Those of us Baptized as children run the risk of thinking it’s all over, and it’s just something you do to have a party or keep the grandparents happy. One tool that we have to make a connection with something that happened before we can remember is that water in the doorway. Touching it is important. Feeling it on your face and on your hands ought to be a reminder that the room you are entering is a place where Water and Blood bring us again into the very presence of God where the work of our redemption is accomplished.

Water is not the only element we use in our tradition for expressing something that is just a little beyond what words can say. There is white garment, there is fire and light, and there is Chrism. In the thrilling Book of Revelation, we read: (Chapter 21, 1-10).  You know that white garment needs to be real, not some ironed strip of fabric. It’s a garment that gets used again to identify the white robed. Look at what I’m wearing. Think about what a child wears at First Communion. This about what a bride wears by tradition at a wedding. It has nothing to do with virginity. It has everything to do with being a white-robed member of the covenant. It is also our way of putting aside our silly need to be different, to stand out, or be stylish. We cover up and we look alike because by this sacrament we are one people, one body, one in Christ. It’s not about me any longer.

We take fire for light, and with great intensity, we pass that light on to a family on the day of a child’s baptism with the hope and the prayer that the light of that candle, the light of Christ, may never go out. Then we say: “Keep this candle burning brightly so that when the Lord comes you may go out to meet him.” With that, there is covenant. With that, there is identity. With that, there is mission, something to do.

How I wish we would have the courage, understanding, and wisdom to get this right, but it doesn’t seem to be within reach right now, and so we bumble along with a system that clearly doesn’t work. Instead of announcing some grade level or some age for completing Initiation, common sense, if not good theology, ought to say that a person should be “Confirmed” and admitted to the Covenant when they want to and have the desire to be in Communion. In some places around the country, that is beginning to happen, and those of you with grandchildren in different places might already be aware of this change. Communion comes after Confirmation. The very fact that making this correction takes courage, understanding, and wisdom tells you something. These are three Gifts of the Holy Spirit: a sure sign that God is at work. Take if from an old pastor, as long as we keep up the present system of making Confirmation a “rite of passage” into adulthood, it’s going to be a one-way street out the church. It implies for young people that they are now adults and can make choices for themselves.  So, who can blame them for leaving. They are not adults when they are 15 and 16! Our more ancient custom says that once faith grows from the formation, prayer, service, and the witness of parents, signs of that faith will become obvious. When that day comes, a person who is living the Covenant of Sacrifice and Service will want to receive the Eucharist and share in the grace, the strength, the support of the covenant community (the Church). Then, the Leader, the Teacher, and Sanctifier (That’s the role of a Bishop, by the way). He comes, and in his presence, those whose initiation is about to be complete step up, profess their faith, perhaps symbolically announce a new name by which they wish to be called, and a solemn anointing takes place that seals them, makes them holy, and draws them into the company of priests, kings, and prophets who throughout the Old Testament were anointed for service at God’s call.

Then it’s time to enter into the mystery of the New Covenant and it’s time to remember that whenever the memorial of his sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished. At that point, there can be no doubt about who someone is, because Covenant People are so identified with Christ that what they do is what Christ does, and what Christ does is what his people do. In case you don’t remember what Christ does, he heals, he forgives, he feeds, he unites, he draws people to the Father so that they may all be one. That’s not somebody else’s job. It’s ours. If someone is hungry, we feed. If someone is naked, we clothe. If someone is thirsty, we give a drink. If someone is alone, we become their companion. If someone is lost, we lead them home.

So, we gather, as our blessed ancestors have done from the beginning. We break open the Word of God, and we break the bread that has become for us the Body of Christ. It is God’s gift to us. Doing this brings us peace, healing, and reconciliation. It is a God’s way of answering the prayer of his Son, that we might all be one, that we may be friends, and that the relationship Jesus has with his Father is the same relationship we have with the Father.

In an age of hyper-individualism, it is extremely important to pay attention to the words we use and how we pray. As I said at the beginning, every single prayer that is offered begins with the word, “We.” There is no “I” in the Eucharist. Even the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples is always in the plural. We say again and again: “Our Father.” “Give us.” “Forgive us.” It happens because we are one with each other and with Jesus Christ. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Every prayer we offer is THROUGH Christ our Lord, because by Baptism, Confirmation, and in the Eucharist, we are one with Christ. We are in, and through and with Christ.

We gather around this altar at the invitation of Christ. It is Christ who presides, not Tom Boyer. I always smile a bit at the parishes where I serve when at the beginning they announce: “Today’s Celebrant will be Father Tom Boyer.” No, it won’t. It will be Jesus Christ. He is the host, he is the one who speaks, he is the one who opens our minds and hearts to the Word, and he is the one who feeds. There is a spiritual meaning to everything we do in our sacred liturgies. We learn the meanings not just by our brain, but by listening, seeing, speaking, smelling, and touching. The senses are the pathway to meaning, and rich and powerful ritual involves them all.

The very first act reveals who we are and what we’re doing. We approach God’s presence. We’re not just going to church. When the Israelites came near the Temple, they broke into song, and we know the words. They were preserved for us in a Psalm. “We shall up with Joy to the House of our God.” Sing it!

Yet we know in our hearts that the pure and just one is not the one without sin, but the one who recognized his sin. A just one, then, is the sinner who knows that they are a sinner. The most important part of this Penitential Act is SILENCE. It must be severe, intense, and austere. It is time to shut up, and stand humbly before the sinless one who is looking at us with love. If you have ever been caught doing something really wrong and shameful in the presence of someone you love, there is nothing to be said. There are no words to express how you feel in shame and sorrow. Then, we ask for mercy and forgiveness, and break into a song by which we simply acknowledge and praise the Mercy of a God who loves us anyway. Embracing that forgiveness, we in the assembly are worthy to offer praise to God signing: We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory. With that, we pray through Christ our Lord. Then, we sit down and we listen. God has something to say.

And then, it is time for a gracious God to feed us. But remember, Jesus said, “One does not live on bread along, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” If you think about it, where is the Gospel Book at this time usually resting? On the Altar. God will feed us from that table twice: once with the Word, and then again with the Body and Blood of his Son, the Bread of Life. Just as the eucharistic bread and wine are taken from the altar so that the faithful may nourish themselves on the body of Christ, so also the gospel is taken from the altar so that the faithful may be nourished with the word of Christ. 

When the Scriptures are proclaimed in the assembly, God is speaking. It is different from when you might sit at home and read some of the Bible. The power of the Holy Spirit within the assembly. I’ll bet you didn’t know that in a Jewish Synagogue the scroll of the Law cannot be taken from the ark and read if there are not present at least ten adult men. This norm suggests that that it is not enough for the book of the Law to be present and that someone reads from it; also necessary is people to hear it proclaimed. This is the difference between personal study of the Bible and the proclamation of the Scriptures in the midst of the assembly. That is where the power of the Word comes from – out of the assembly, out of the Body of Christ. The Sacred Scriptures belong to the Church, that is why the Lector leaves the Scriptures on the Ambo after the proclamation. The lector does not carry the book away, but leaves it with the assembly because it is in the assembly’s care just as the Eucharist is.

Let me wrap this up with a final thought about the gifts, because the exchange of gifts is what happens next, and it’s beautiful and powerful. Gifts are brought to God and placed on the altar. We give away some of what God has given us as a reminder that we do not have absolute possession of anything. What makes the offering holy is the fact that it is sacrificed, given up, given away. In the Book of Deuteronomy (16,16) God says: “They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.” No believer may come before the altar with empty hands, because the vocation of every person is to offer the world to God by their own hands.

And then, why bread and why wine? Why not a steak and coke? Think about this. Bread has all the elements of the world within it. Those elements are Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. That is what makes bread such a power element that crosses every culture, age, and time. The earth with rain produces the grain, that rises with air and is baked with fire! It’s all there, and as the prayers says, it is the “work of human hands.” It’s about work, labor, grinding, mixing. It’s hard and demanding, labor intensive. But, there is another side to these gifts. It is wine. Yet, wine is hardly as necessary and basic as bread. It does require some labor, but we can do without. What it does supply is pleasure, and it brings with it a sense of celebration, of joy, gratitude, and fellowship. So, we bring these gifts put them on the altar that God may sanctify them by the power of the Spirit and make them “For us” bread of life and spiritual drink. So, the bread that we have carried in our hands to the altar; after giving thanks, is then taken from the altar and placed in our hands as the Body of Christ.

The church cannot be satisfied with having the Eucharist; it does not possess it. The Eucharist serves no purpose if it remains simply an object to be possessed and adored. The church, however, is called to become the eucharistic body of the Lord, and becoming the Body of Christ is the one greatest witness to the truth of the Eucharist. How do we know this is the Body of Christ? Look at the people. If you see Christ, then you know what Eucharist is. To receive Communion is to become communion. Why do you eat this? In order to come this. In a society where individualism triumphs, the Eucharist reminds us of the common destiny of all humanity. In a society where waste prevails, the Eucharist is a call to share.

Conclude with singing: The Servant Song

Parish Mission on Sacraments Second Night: Sacraments of Service

Begin with singing; Sweet Refreshment

Jesus sent us to serve and to heal. To reach deep into this call to service, we need only explore the Rite by which a person is called from the community, Baptism. It begins for all of us at Baptism when we are anointed with a prayer that welcomes us into a Holy People who are as Christ was anointed, Priest, Prophet, and King. The Sacraments of Service: Holy Orders and Matrimony have two essential elements in common: sacrifice and service.  A priest is not the only one who offers sacrifice, and that cultic act in liturgy is not all a priest is called to do. Remember, when we think of sacraments, we need to think of a people and what they mean and stand for; not just what they do. Now, that word, “Order” does not mean organizing things alphabetically or in good straight rows as Sister did when we were in the parish school. 

Remember those great stories by the British author, J.K. Rowling about Harry Potter? Well, early in each school term, the students gathered in that great hall, and the new students were called up one by one. They sat on a stool, and a hat was put on their head. In the stories, it was a magical hat and they called it the “Sorting Hat” because it would magically sort the students into their “houses” or groups for the school year. Those in each house worked together as a team for the building up of the school and support of all the members. Well, when we Catholics talk about “Orders” we are talking about sorting, or dividing up the work and the responsibilities for the sake of the whole and the support of each member. That’s exactly what Holy Orders is really about: sorting out the members in to groups for a common purpose and the support of all the members. Lay People, Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops are people who have been sorted out yet work together for the common good and mutual support in the use of their unique gifts and mission.

I have deliberately avoided using the word Priest for one of the Orders because we need to get something clear about that word and with it the expectations we have for those we might choose to call “Priest.” Actually, Presbyters is probably better for two reasons, it’s a term that refers to the wise elders of a community, and that is certainly what we have now as we face the reality that most priests today are old, and older men are hearing a call to that Order. The other reason I like the word Presbyter is that it disconnects from the Old Testament image of the Priesthood, and that is exactly what the first Christian communities wanted to do. They did not want anything to do with the Old Testament priesthood.

That old priesthood was hereditary. It was a privileged class supported and taken care of by the people. They were men who liked to dress up in fine robes and who held exclusive power and held enormous control and authority over the lives of the people. They ran the temple. They controlled the finances. They passed judgement on people, throwing out some for various reasons, but they also restored people who had been thrown out. An example of that comes to us with that story of Jesus healing some lepers and sending them to the priests for the obvious purpose of having them judged worthy and cleansed restoring them to their rightful place in the community. They were not teachers, they were rulers with a lot of power often abused. Among the Hebrews, a Rabbi was the teacher, and that was a different sort of person – let’s call it a different Order.

When the earliest Christian communities began to organize themselves and sort out the ministries and gifts, they wanted nothing to do with the old priesthood, because they had encountered the one priest, the ultimate High Priest, Jesus Christ. So, what we see developing is this role or ministry called “presbyter”. Judging from what the Epistles can tell us, that early church was very picky! The Epistle to Titus says this (1, 5-9) “…. appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you, on condition that a man be blameless, married only once, with believing children who are not accused of licentiousness or rebellious.” He goes on to add that “a Bishop, “as God’s steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate just, holy, and self-controlled. Holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able to both to exhort with sound doctrine and refute opponents.”

Then, in St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy (3, 1-7) he insists that they “must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money.” He must also, “manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the Church of God. He should not be a recent convert…he must also have a good reputation.”

The first letter of Peter (5, 1-4) instructs presbyters with these words: “Tend the flock of God in your midst not by constraint, but willingly, as God would have it not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.”

Back in the day, when I was working in formation and direction of candidates for the priesthood. I paid a lot of attention to three things: an ability to make and maintain wonderful, nurturing, and lasting friendships, an ability to be hospitable, and I always encouraged them to keep some houseplants in their rooms at the seminary. If they could not keep a weed like a philodendron alive, why entrust them with life of a human soul?

What those earliest Christian communities were looking for and expecting then, was not so much a “priest” like the Old Testament priests, but a prophet. That is what they saw in Jesus Christ, a prophet, not a priest like those guys running the Temple, punishing people, throwing people out, imposing harsh punishments, and always demanding their money. They had seen in Jesus, a new kind of priest: one who offered sacrifice, yes, but also one who stood among them as the prophets had in the past. This is why some thought that Jesus was Elijah returned, or some thought he was John the Baptist returned from the dead. Matthew, as we read deeply into his Gospel saw the image of Moses in Jesus.

The longer I live in this mystery of priesthood, the more I begin to understand that priests are anointed, like Christ, as priest and prophet. The two roles are barely distinguishable. In fact, it is probably only in Ritual behavior that they are distinct. The prophet in us, the prophet in our community, is the one who can point to the presence and the action of God. That role has nothing to do with the future. The prophet is someone who is in touch with the past, but standing with both feet and eyes wide open in the present. The prophet sees the hand of God and says so. The prophet can look into the face of death and disaster and chaos and say: “Look at what God can do. Expect the Divine. Trust in the Providence and Goodness of God.” All of us fuss, worry, and invest time and energy in addressing symptoms, when in fact, a prophetic people address the causes of evil, pain, injustice, and sorrow. For a really great priest, this comes out of courage, and it means that the priesthood is not for cowards and those who are easily intimidated or fear-filled. A priest must transform the present into the future. The symbol of this transformation is the Eucharist. What is changed by the faith of the people and the words of Christ spoken by the priest is not just bread and wine, but all the ordinary things of life changed into the extraordinary and unmistakable signs of God’s immediate presence in and through the world. The Incarnation is not a theological principal; it is a day in and day out experienceof God’s creative, life-giving presence in all things and especially all people. Anything that dims the ability to perceive that presence and honor it must go, and that takes courage. “The poor you will have always with you.” is not an excuse for ignoring the cause of their poverty. Losing sight of the causes of people’s hunger while we’re making sandwiches, running soup kitchens, or food pantries won’t do. We’ve been doing that a long time, and still there are more poor people getting poorer. We are trapped into this stuff because working with the symptoms makes us feel good. We avoid addressing the causes of poverty because it’s tough, risky, unpopular, and sometimes dangerous; but we are prophets, and taking on injustice is our cause, and like the prophets of the Old Testament, they will pay a big price for doing that.

Prophet/Priest lives in the present. That means that the working definition of a priest is: “one who awakens others to the revelation found in their lives.” It’s about the present. It’s about the fact that God is present to us now, and in all things and at every moment. It’s all very fine to know all about what God has done in the past. For the leader, it’s important to know where you’ve been, just in case you go by again. Then you’ll know you’re lost! When we start repeating mistakes from the past, we’re in trouble. I guess you could say, “We’re lost.” But, all that knowledge of the past is no good if we don’t recognize that God is still doing things in the present, our present. Pious “wannabes” who are all caught up in the past, which they mistakenly call “tradition” are lost because they’re not living in the present. They are sure that all the answers are somewhere in the past, and consequently, they are incapable of living with ambiguity and doubt, which are very essential to the human condition in people seeking truth.

When thinking this way, I remember what it was like on April 19, 1995 and the days following when a building in Oklahoma City was destroyed taking 169 lives leaving a city of one million people stunned to silence.  “Why?” was all anyone could ask. Those who needed power, those who were not living in the experience had all kinds of silly answers, when the only response to “Why” was to suggest that was the wrong question. “What does it mean?” was the issue, not why did it happen. And, “What are we going to become because of this?” was the next question. Effective ministry on that day and the days following happened when people were led to ask the right question and go on from there. It was a time to lead those who suffered to imagine a creative power in the midst of that chaos. The first time a man stands in the face of tragedy and thinks he knows the answer to the question “WHY” the real priesthood of Jesus Christ has been traded for certitude that puts us in control. If we are not comfortable in chaos and able to live in the face of it not knowing why, we will never experience creation and the Creator who is always to be found in the midst of it. We know that Christ did not come to take the tragedies out of life. He simply came to show us how to survive them. We know that in our minds, but forget under the pressure to respond to each other in pain and so we fail to act that way. When someone comes up with a glib or pious answer the question or the cry: “WHY?” in a moment of pain in the midst of tragedy, you know they’ve never been there.

Priests are called to enable persons to perceive the revealing presence of God in their ordinary lives. That is what all of us need from the priest. We don’t need to know why, we just need to have someone point to the hand of God in the midst of some chaotic moment. To do this, a priest must possess a singleness of mind. Jesus called it “purity of heart.” It simply means that a priest will be simply, pure of heart, honest, straight forward. There is only one agenda.

Howard Hendricks teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary and is one of the founders of “Promise Keepers”, a powerful program of spirituality for men. Howard says that we are suffering from AIDs, “Acquired Integrity Deficiency.” He believes we are producing celebrities today, but few people of character. So many have been caught in sexual misconduct or financial scandals, or have shown themselves to have an unhealthy love of power and authority. We have leaders who trade character for cash. Power, fame, and money corrupt many of these big-shot leaders. Some have called this the greatest challenge to Evangelical leaders. It is embarrassing. We desperately need men of integrity, and the only place they are going to come from is a real, solid, Catholic/Christian home. 

Here is the big difference we sometimes fail to see. We have to decide what we want and need. Leaders have dreams and look to the future. The manager looks to the bottom line of the profit sheet. This is exactly what’s wrong with our country these days, and with the whole world for that matter. We have no leaders, no statesmen, we have only politicians who are “managers.”  There’s no one around like Martin Luther King, Jack or Bobby Kennedy, Gandhi, Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, or David Ben-Gurion. Now all we get are celebrity executives! They have no dreams. They live for profit, and for profit now.  They have no imagination, only information.  The days in which we are living are without dreams. They are full of fantasies, but the two are not the same. A dreamless sleep is called, “death”, and dreamless society or a dreamless church is dead and meaningless. Our church needs dreamers just as much as we need air, and our society, our church needs true leaders, uncommon men and women who can restore the collective dream: The Kingdom of Heaven. Our passion for control shows it’s self in Secularism, which is the art of this world.

You deserve to have holy men, and that does not mean pious men. I’m not talking about people who walk around with a rosary dangling from their hands, or dressing up in some black robe pacing up and down a corridor with a breviary in their hands. I’m talking about real holiness which sometimes might look fanatical or just plain weird. A really holy person is somehow wild. They are wild with God. They are in love with God, and you can see it, hear it, and believe it. There is something about them that is intense, deep and real. These are people who have met God, who have suffered, and have some vision of the Kingdom of God. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t take anyone there. These are people who know God not by hearsay or from some book, but from having maybe hit bottom and discovered that in the cross, in death, in betrayal, in loneliness, there is someone who loves them and has never left them. 

The ultimate priest and prophet is Jesus Christ who is the one who stands before us to intercede for us, to teach, to sacrifice, and to open our eyes and ears to the present and the state of our relationship with God. What Jesus did is what presbyters must do: proclaim the Kingdom of God, raise a call to conversion, reconcile people to one another and to God, and heal what is broken when it comes to those relationships so that the Kingdom of God can be seen, experienced, and lived right now. “It is at hand” he said over and over again.

Break with song: “Hear Us Now Our God and Father”

In the last parish I served as Pastor, there was an old couple from Lebanon whose children had brought them to Oklahoma when life at their home was getting more dangerous as the violence of religious and political hatred tore apart a country that had for generations shown us how Catholic/Christians and the People of Islam could live side by side with mutual respect, trust, and kindness. Radicalism, a disastrous kind of fundamentalism, and distrust of people who are different tore that all apart in one generation. So, these two “refugees” sought comfort and hope in their family and in their church. They were like old Simeon and Anna, always in the Temple, always at prayer, and always filled with hope. The church there was arranged in four sections, like a cross. The choir was behind at the top, and there were three seating sections in transepts and nave. This couple sat in the side transept section in the front pew. In the back, behind the choir there was a vesting room for the servers. Books, candles and stuff like that was kept back there, and at the other end was the vesting room for the clergy. Inevitably before Mass there was traffic back and forth from one end to the other, and I would make the trip once or twice as well checking with the musicians or making sure all the servers were there and ready. Since the old folks spoke no English, and I speak no Lebanese, we could really never talk, but we found a way over the years to communicate with smiles, nods, winks or bows. The tabernacle was close by, and when passing, I would genuflect, and then passing in front of them, I would bow, and they would grin ear to ear and bow back at me.

One Sunday just before the opening hymn as servers and clergy were lining up, one of the smaller servers said to me: “Why are you always bowing to those people?” I thought, that’s a good question, and I asked him, “Why are you always genuflecting at that Tabernacle and bowing at that altar?” With great confidence born out of his Catholic School education, he said: “Because Jesus is there. It’s a Sacrament.” I said to him: “Let me tell you something. Those two people have lived together as husband and wife for more than 70 years.” If that’s not enough to make it obvious that Jesus is in that front pew, nothing will.” I bow to the presence of Jesus Christ.” 

Well, servers have a way of sharing information, and by next weekend, every time one of them passed in front of those two old people, the servers bowed to them. The old folks smiled and bowed back, and in no time at all, it was like a coocoo clock going off at noon with everyone bowing and bobbing up and down, and everyone was smiling. Maybe those servers learned something very important about the Sacrament of Matrimony. It’s not about a ritual, white dresses, invitations, photographers, cakes, and receptions. It is about the Incarnation. It is about God taking on human flesh to reveal something essential about God’s life, God’s presence, God’s dream for us all before there was sin.

This Church, right now, is sacramental. It is filled with the presence of God. All around us there are sacraments of unity, of peace, of forgiveness and love. You who sit here together as husband and wife are living signs of the power of forgiveness, of what loving sacrifice can accomplish in lifting up another, and of what it means to keep a promise just as God keeps promises, because you are friends and by the grace of the vows you made before God and his church, you are friends with God.

If you ever take time to look carefully and critically at how we go about all of this, and what we are hoping to express in the way we conduct our rituals, there is a lot of silliness that distracts from the truth to which we bear witness in this celebration. For instance, this whole idea of the “Father giving away the bride” is a perfect example. It comes from a time and a culture in which marriage was treated as a contract between families, and the transfer of wealth and property played an important role. “Giving away the bride” ritualized this contract. In this light, you can see how the tradition of the father escorting his daughter to her groom may have developed. Yet, we Catholics believe that the bride and groom give themselves to each other as equal partners, and as one, they give themselves to God. When we get it right, and when we decide that it is more important to reveal the truth than play-act with a script from centuries ago and call it “custom”, a good message will be proclaimed and faith will be revealed. Parents play a major role, and sharing in this moment is a gift greater than writing the checks to pay for it all. But there are other ways to say this. The groom may walk in with his parents, and the bride with her parents who might meet and greet each other with peace before the altar to which they are bringing their children once again just as they did for First Communion. 

Lighting candles has great significance in our Catholic Churches. The most important of these is the Easter or Paschal Candle. All the candles given at infant and adult baptisms are lit from this candle. It is also lit during funerals to mark our loved one’s passage to eternal life. This business of the Unity Candle trying to symbolize two lives become one is already profoundly signified through the couple’s exchange of vows and rings and the Nuptial Blessing. I’m always amused at how confusing and contradictory this relatively new custom can become. It was probably started by someone at a Hallmark store to sell candles. The big candle gets lit and then they blow out the two little ones! It’s as though the identity of the two disappears when you get married. My bet is that by the end of the first week, it will be obvious to both bride and groom that their individual identities have not only failed to disappear, but rather have suddenly grown more real and intense.

In my years as a priest, more than once someone has said to me: “What do you a single and celibate man know about marriage?” It’s a good question, and I have answer. “I’ve never laid an egg; but I know more about it than the chicken.” You don’t have to be married to know about marriage. We’ve all grown up and come from a marriage.

What this old man has learned from listening, watching, reading, and study is that a marriage is not much different from being a priest since ultimately it is about commitment which scares the day-lights out of a lot of young people these days who seem to think that the best way to avoid commitment is to never make any. With both sacraments of service there are few things that work and make it easier and more fruitful. It works for priests and for married couples. Do things together. It will keep you from taking each other for granted. It takes planning and attention to emotions, yours as well as theirs. You make time to go out and have fun, do some chores together, because that’s where you are going to find God. It does not matter what you do together, but how. You can’t forget to laugh. All kinds of science reveal that laughter reduces pain and allows us tolerate discomfort. Physically it reduces blood sugar levels making our heart and brain function better. Laughter establishes and restores a positive emotional climate and connection between two people. Of course, you don’t laugh at each other, you laugh at yourself and invite someone into the joke, because you are no longer taking yourself so seriously. When you laugh at your own faults and failings, it can help the other to do the same not with ridicule but with genuine good humor. It heals, uplifts, puts one’s emotional world back in order. If you don’t laugh much, you better start. If you already do, keep it up.

Back in the day (don’t you love saying?) when I would be meeting with engaged couples early on in their formation, I would insist that they pray together knowing that it is something we Catholics find awkward and sometime avoid simply out of a failure to try and learn how. I would say: “Start this way: one of you should just say, “Let’s pray.” Then be quiet, maybe close your eyes, and wish for a moment about the future for and with each other. It does not have to take long, and when you’ve made your wish, simply say, “Amen”,  which is our standard way of saying “OK, that’s enough.”  Then, when you get comfortable with that, don’t be afraid to ask the other one what they prayed for or prayed about, and then it’s not too hard to start doing that out loud, and before you know it, you’re praying together, praying for one another, being grateful, and most of all acknowledging that God brought you together, and from the very beginning, God saw the two of you as one with a plan that you would be a living sign of God’s covenant.

A lot of couples come in at the beginning thinking that it’s all about them. You know that routine if you’ve had children getting married, and probably you were there once yourself, but the truth is, it’s not all about you. You did not choose the one you married. God did, and you would do well not forget it, because when you keep that in mind, you are going to treat each other better, because that person who came into your life and awakened you to the wonder and mystery of love is a gift from God. It is God who put you together. 

Keeping in touch with God’s role is what puts some energy and focus into the service that this sacrament presents. Husbands and wives help one another to become more holy and so have a special place among the peoples of God, and they bear children to whom they must reveal God and bring them up to keep God’s commandments, which is what they promise at Baptism.

Finally, there are two other ideas I believe are important. One is forgiveness. We all know what power there is in forgiveness both offering and accepting it. But what too often escapes us is the daily discipline of forgiving that a strong marriage and family require. Forgiveness doesn’t need to come in big dramatic scenes, but it does need to happen every day at least once. Every night, all of us must make it a habit to think over the day and acknowledge any hurts, no matter how small. It’s no surprise to realize how many small hurts accumulate in a day. If you don’t let them go, resentment sets in. Matthew, probably one of the most forgiven of the apostles because of his past records for us an instruction by Jesus that must have hit him square between the eyes. He remembers for us that Jesus said we must forgive not just seven times but seventy times. In other words, a whole lot. Forgiving the small stuff every day can make the bigger hurts less difficult to confront and healing them more complete. It takes practice, and as we know, practice makes PERFECT.

Finally, we cannot ever underestimate the power of gratitude or good memories to enrich one’s life. All of us must lean and remember to express gratitude for the good things in life, and sometimes with spontaneous celebration. Why wait for a birthday or an anniversary? Maybe it’s just deciding to sit down together after the laundry is folded, or maybe even before the laundry is folded. Forget about the laundry! Open a bottle of wine, live in gratitude, and express it often. Take and make time to do things just because they help you bond and create a good memory. It’s those memories that will soften the sense of loss when one of you gets left behind.

I have the most fond and wonderful memories of that old couple in Norman, Oklahoma. Papa is gone now. He suffered the ravages of Parkinson’s disease, and finally gets to rest. In the last years of our lives together in that parish I would often be included in family feasts as only Lebanese people can feast. I would always have to sit on one side of Mama with Papa on the other. She would fuss around and make sure my plate was overflowing and do the same for Papa. When he could no longer hold a knife and fork, she would cut the food, and arrange it just so on his plate. He would lean back and watch her. She never said a word, just fix it just right, and wait for him to eat. They had this wonderful way of just gazing at each other. They never said much. In fact, I can’t remember ever hearing them talk to each other. I just remember the they looked. I call it “the gaze of love” that wrapped up gratitude, forgiveness, affection, hopes, and dreams. The fact that they never seemed to talk struck me once as perhaps the real secret to a joyful, lasting marriage. Don’t talk! Maybe just gaze now and then and cherish the moments because they are precious and sometimes fleeting.

Let’s stand and sing about this. “When Love is Found”

Those of you here present with your spouse, join your hands and turn toward each other. Those here without a spouse, join me now in prayer over the sacrament that is here before us. 

My friends who are one in the holy sacrament of marriage, renew now the promises you made to one another, and turn to the Lord in Prayer, that these vows may be strengthened by divine grace. 

Repeat after me these words:

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation

For in the good and the bad times of our lives

You have stood with love by our side.

Help us, we pray,

To remain faithful in our love for one another;

So that we may be true witnesses

To the covenant you have made with humankind.

May the Lord keep you safe all the days of your life. 

May he be your comfort in adversity and your support in prosperity. 

May he fill your home with his blessings as we all now pray together:

Our Father…..

We praise you, O God,

We bless you, Creator of all things,

Who in the beginning made man and woman 

that they might form a communion of life and love.

We give you thanks for graciously blessing the family life of your servants who stand before you in this holy place as they once did with great dreams and tender love.

Look with kindness upon them today and as you have sustained their communion amid joys and struggles, 

renew their Marriage covenant each day, 

increase their charity, and strengthen in them the bond of peace 

so that together with the circle of their children and friends around them they may forever enjoy your blessing.

Sing: “The Servant Song”

Parish Mission on Sacraments Third Night: Sacraments of Healing

Begin with singing: Sweet Refreshment

Last Sunday, we heard the Gospel of the Transfiguration, that moment when Jesus came into the presence of God. His mission on this earth is to take us there, to lead us to Easter and on to glory. There is a problem for us right now, however. There is not enough glory in our lives, and most of the time, we are not much of an Easter people, and the problem comes from something we don’t much like to talk about: sin.

All of us are engaged to one degree or another in a personal, ongoing battle with sin and vice. We are living through an age of serious moral decay. Cheating and Lying are a way of life today from the highest seats of power to grade school classrooms. These days, when someone gets caught doing something wrong, they are more upset about being caught than over what they did. If they think about it all, they wonder how they could have avoided being caught in the first place. There is little interest in repentance and change while a lot of energy is spent on covering up and just plain denial of the truth.

One of the startling facts of life in our times is that no one wants to admit to sin and take any responsibility for its consequences. These days, people just have issues. They don’t sins. So, call it what you want, but it is deadly. On Sunday night, I reminded you that the pure and the just among us are those who know and recognize their sin. That’s the way to holiness and greatness. When we say someone is a good man or a good woman, we do not suggest that they are people in whom there is no inclination to evil, but rather that they are people who have wrestled and still wrestle with it and never give in because their quality and their goodness comes from the struggle. Those people are truly noble. These are people of virtue, character, and nobility. The work of Jesus and his expectation that we change leads us to glory, to Easter, to virtue and nobility.

“Morality is like art, said G.K. Chesterton, “it consists of drawing a line somewhere.” We live in an age in which no lines seem to be drawn at all, or those that have been drawn are being erased. In my 79th year of life and 53 of those as priest I have come to recognize that an unhealed wound, a kind of sinful restlessness, afflicts humanity, and it robs us of glory.

Bruce Springsteen, “The Boss” wrote a song that describes our age when he sings: “Everybody has a hungry heart.” I think we are hungry for glory, hungry for the life we should have had by God’s will and God’s original plan for us. But we have traded our glory for something else, and sin is the consequence. Our hunger is for God and the glory that comes from being in God’s presence. I want to propose to you that in the great Divine wisdom that has shaped and called us Church there is a gift we have forgotten about, and that is a problem. That gift is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This coming Sunday we are going to proclaim a wonderful story about a woman and man who met at the water. A sinner came face to face with the holy one. The thirsty one ends up giving a drink to the one who has a well, and the water jar gets left behind. That water jar, that thing, that kept her coming back again and again because it wasn’t enough gets abandoned because she met the truth and found understanding, mercy, compassion, and love. No ridicule, no shame, no scolding, no reproach, just acceptance of one who was waiting and looking for the Christ.

For all kinds of reasons which are completely irrelevant unless you are looking for an excuse, the practice of sacramental confession in the Catholic Church has dropped off almost overnight in the last forty years. Before the Second Vatican Council, Catholics came regularly and in great numbers to confess their sins to a priest, but then, it nearly stopped altogether. Analysts have proposed a variety of reasons: a greater stress on God’s love, a desire to move away from a fussy preoccupation with sex, the sense that confession is not necessary for salvation, and on and on it can go. Whatever the cause or the causes, the experience has fallen out of practice.

A well-known priest-sociologist once announced that whatever Catholics drop, someone else will inevitably pick up. So, for example, we Catholics, after the Council, stopped talking about the soul, out of fear that the category would encourage a kind of split in humanity between the spiritual and the physical. Suddenly into book stores pops up all kinds of books on care of the soul with a widely popular series on “Chicken soup for the soul.”

Then the Catholic Church slows down talk about angels and devils, and presto, an explosion of books and films about these fascinating spiritual creatures.

A great example of this priest’s idea is the way in which the practice of sacramental confession – largely extinct in the Church pops up in a somewhat distorted form all of the world. What do we find on daytime talk shows from Oprah, to Jerry Springer and Maury, but a series of people coming on live TV to confess their sins, usually of a sexual nature? And what do we see on the numerous judgement-shows like Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars? But people being forced to accept a kind of punishment for their bad or inadequate behavior. Just maybe we ought to admit that the need to confess our sins and receive some sort of judgement or comfort is just hard-wired into our spirits. When we don’t have the opportunity to deal with our sin in the proper context of faith and church, we will desperately find a substitute.

If you want to get a really crazy conversation going sometimes among Catholics, get them started sharing their experiences with Confession. Many of us around my age can tell horror stories about psychological abuse in the confessional by priests who were hung up on sexual sins, or all too eager to threaten eternal damnation, or perhaps just cranky from sitting in a box for hours. On top of that, every priest (including this one) could tell you tales of people coming to confession for trivial reasons or out obsessive-compulsive neuroses. Sometimes I think some people come just because they know someone will listen to them. However, there was an old Roman saying that just because something can be abused doesn’t mean you should get rid of it.

I want to honestly say right here that some of the best and most spiritually rewarding moments in all my years of priesthood have been in the context of hearing a confession. I will never forget sitting in Concourse D at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. A man walked up to me and said: “Father, would you hear my confession.” For a just a few minutes, we walked up and down the concourse. He was a priest who in a moment of discouragement and desperation had left his people to pursue his own pleasures. In those few moments, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he turned around and went back home. I hope to this day that someone came out running to great him with a ring and a robe. There have been moments with young people struggling to love their parents but acting out in hurtful ways. There have been little children trying to learn that a hand is not a weapon with which you hurt someone, but something God has given us to help others up who have fallen, or to pat someone you love, or feed someone who is hungry. I’ve prayed with people who have been unfaithful discovering that their real infidelity is to God and that they have betrayed themselves as much as their partner in this life. 

So, what is it with us? Laziness? Denial? Or maybe a presumption that if we just feel sorry, we don’t have to say we are. How does that work? You scrape my car in the parking lot. You go home and feel badly and maybe tell God you’re sorry, but never say anything to me? It just doesn’t work that way when people want to make up. When you’re sick, you see a doctor, you take your medicine. If you don’t, you might die. Isn’t it odd that many of us go to our doctor at least once or twice a year for a check-up to stay healthy and in good shape without a thought about a check-up for your soul? 

There must be some little voice whispering that God can’t be offended by what we say and do, or worse yet, by what we fail to say and do, and so around and around this world goes with the morality of choices hardly ever being taken into consideration as though I can do what I want as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, but of course the hurt is already there and it’s deep because it’s all about me and my rights. If my rights offend you, it’s your problem. No, it isn’t. So, in God’s mercy there is a way to take another look at what we say and do and what we fail to say and fail to do and then, take responsibility for the consequences which not many people want to do these days because, blame is the game. It’s been going on since Adam and Eve. She blamed the snake, he blamed her, and they ended up alone, in shame and very sorry. The consequences of forgetting that we are children of God, or of thinking that we can act or do what God alone does is dragging us down – way down.

There is always that fear about what someone is going to think of us. So, we don’t want to say what everyone of us can and should say: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” While you might be saying that to a priest you respectfully call, “Father”, what I hear is someone speaking to God the Father. People who don’t know enough to understand are always asking why you have to confess to a priest, and you know the answer, because he’s a sinner too, and where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus Christ, he is in their midst. So, there’s two sinners, and that the unseen one in their midst came to forgive sins and heal whatever is broken. People who don’t know enough question the power or the right of a priest to forgive sins, and as soon as they do, you know that they never listened to the words of the prayer. Let me review them for you: God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is the Holy Spirit that forgives, not the priest. He just speaks the words in the name of the whole church which is fulfilling the commission given to it by Jesus himself.

So, once again, we see the Church as a Sacrament – this time a Sacrament of healing forgiveness that lifts up, restores, heals the broken hearted and sometimes broken lives. We are all people who long for a second chance, and that’s what we proclaim with this great gift: that we have a second chance. And what does the priest think about those repentant and sorrowful people who come to pray with him?  I’ll tell what I think. I sit there in total amazement at the faith in the lives and hearts of people who come to confession. They bear witness to me, and many times, they shame me. I can’t tell you how often I have headed off to find a confessor after some time in the confessional. I don’t see sinners. I don’t see evil. I don’t hear anything but a painful cry from a hurting heart. I’m not there to judge. I’m there to bind up what is broken, to strengthen the weak, and hold up those who feel lame, tired, lost, and alone.

There is one verse in John’s Gospel that leaves me speechless and in awe. It goes like this: Luke 22:54-6: “Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. But Peter was following at a distance. When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. Then a servant-girl, seeing him in the firelight, stared at him and said, “This man also was with him” but he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “I am not!” Then about an hour later yet another kept insisting. “Surely this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean. But Peter said, “I do not know what you are talking about” At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter.”

One of the most powerful moments in the Gospel happens without a word spoken. Jesus has talked and talked and talked about repentance and conversion, and he never gets better results than when he says nothing and just turns and looks at Peter. Of course, it all happens because of things said earlier, but the final and best moment is accomplished in silence. Luke tells us that Jesus turned and “looked at Peter.” and Peter wept. What must have been said between those two men in that glance? What was the message Peter understood as his eyes met the eyes of his friend, his Lord, his brother? We can only imagine, and we can only hope.

What do you think that look was like?  It’s easy for us who live in a measured world of revenge, power, retribution and superiority to think that the look on the face of Jesus as he turned to Peter was one of reproach and “I told you so.” But, after we remember the lessons of Mercy we have heard from Jesus again and again, I think he looked at Peter winked and smiled with love.

We bring our brokenness, our inadequacy, our sinfulness here to this place to be included, to be part of the fellowship, to take part in the forgiveness; the amnesty that redemption proclaims, and we take the chance and live in the hope that he will turn his face toward us again, that He will look at us, and that like Peter we may be touched by the divine mercy that renews our hope in the face of sin.

If Fellowship and Forgiveness belong to this place, so does Mercy.

Mercy is a gift we cannot receive until we have surrendered. It was not until Peter looked Jesus in the eye with full knowledge of what he had done and who he was, that he could simply give up, surrender to grace knowing full well that he was, after all kinds of testing and mistrust, accepted in all his brokenness.

Mercy is not benevolent tolerance or a kind of grudging forgiveness. It is a loving allowing, a willing breaking of the rules by the one who made the rules. It is wink and a smile. Receiving the mercy of God takes humility. That was the difference between Peter and Judas. It was that quality that made the difference between one who said: “I have sinned against heaven and earth.” and then destroyed himself in pride, unable to admit that he had done such a thing; and the other one, who failed by his denial, and was willing to look into the eyes of the one he had failed.

In this place, around this table, gather the weak the broken the lame, the sinners, the powerless to celebrate fellowship, forgiveness, and mercy. If Jesus who sits with us at this table is the revelation of what is going on inside the eternal God, which is the core of Christian faith, then we are forced to conclude that God is very humble. He never holds rightful claims against us. We never attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to Mercy. A lifetime of received forgiveness allows us to become mercy. And when the time comes for us to look into the face of Christ, we can only hope that he will turn and look at us just as he did Peter. Our best hope is that he will wink and smile, and once again we will feast in joy as we pass the plate of Mercy to all who are broken and humble enough to come in.

Sing: “There is a Balm in Gilead”

Have you ever noticed when driving around town those people who are in tank tops and shorts running along with the latest expensive running shoes? They are never smiling. They look like they are in agony, and then I begin to wonder why the people who are running are the ones who don’t need to. They already have flat abs. They don’t need to run. I do, Then I just speed up so I don’t have to see them. It’s all part of the culture and age in which we live. It has been poisoned by a cult of youth and healthy living evidenced by flat bellies and blemish free tanned supple skin so much so that we must now reach deeply into our treasure of tradition for an antidote that would restore our vision letting us see an even greater sacramental sign that reveals the Holy and the Presence of God. I’ll remind you again. When it comes to spirituality and sacraments, it is always going to be about people. 

This cult of youth and health has cost us a great treasure, and hides from eyes a living sacrament of Christ’s presence.  It is the sacrament of suffering, illness and age.

The sick and frail are themselves a sacrament of Christ’s presence among us. Those bent with age and slowed by the burden of years are a living reminder of Christ under the burden of our sin. They proclaim to us still the Good News of Hope in a living homily of patience. Those who live with sickness and pain are a far more real sign of Christ’s presence than the crucifixes which hang all around us. Knees that have bent before the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation are worn from a life of adoration and service. Feet that now shuffle behind walkers or canes have walked down the aisles of our churches in a life-long procession toward the holy. These are lives broken for all. In humble recognition of that which is holy, we anoint with sacred oil that which is most precious for us and bears the image of Christ. We touch, embrace, and reach out not so much to give strength as to receive a measure of their strength and their patience.

I’ve always believed and sensed very deeply that hospitals and nursing homes are very holy places. They are filled with the presence of God, the power of life, the hope of resurrection. In the presence of these holy ones who are suffering, frail, yet faithful. At the same time, they are often places of great loneliness and isolation. Often the sick and the frail are cut off or absent from the fellowship, friendship, and nurturing companionship of the church. One of the most under-appreciated sacramental signs happens during Holy Week when a Bishop gathers the church together for the Blessing and Consecration of the Oils. Then, at the conclusion, someone from every parish takes some of that Oil back to the parish church visually and materially linking all the churches together.

We use these blessed oils in the most wonderful way to mark places and people as holy, as sacred, and as someone very dear to the heart of God. When an altar is blessed, oil is poured on it. When a church is blessed, oil is smeared on its walls. When someone steps up wanting the privilege of sharing the Body and Blood Christ giving witness to their faith in Confirmation, we smear oil on them. When the hands of priest are prepared to hold the sacred gifts in sacrifice and offering, they are smeared with oil. The act unites and bonds us together. 

Listen to the prayer a Bishop offers over the oil of the sick: “Lord God, loving Father, you bring healing to the sick through your Son Jesus Christ. Hear us as we pray to you in faith, and send the Holy Spirit, man’s Helper and Friend, upon this oil, which nature has provided to serve the needs of your people. May your blessing come up on all who are anointed with this oil, that they may be freed from pain and illness and made well again in body, mind, and soul. Father, may this oil be blessed for our use the name of Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you forever and ever. Amen.

When that oil shared with communities around the diocese is then taken and smeared on the head and hands of the sick who, because of their illness or age have been away, they are once again in touch with, included in, and part of the sacramental praying church. The healing is about reaching out and gathering back in whoever is broken and left out. There is hardly anything more painful than loneliness and the feeling of abandonment that often comes with disease, suffering, and age. In their suffering, those we anoint become sacraments in a sense. They are a sign to us of the suffering Christ who stands among us with the promise of resurrection and hope.

We who live in this sacramental faith develop an eye for the holy.

We see it where others do not. We look upon common ordinary things and can see their potential for bearing grace. Bread, Wine, Water, Oil, and Flames to the sacramental eye connect us with the Holy, and can lift us out of the present. 

Sing another verse of: “There is a Balm in Gilead”

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray: Father, you raised your Son’s cross as the sign of victory and life. May all who share in his suffering find in this sacrament a source of fresh courage and healing. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives forever and ever, Amen.

Listen now to the Word of God.

A reading from the Prophet Isaiah:

“The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.

They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song

The glory of Lebanon will be given to them, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; 

They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, 

say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be Strong, Fear Not!

Here is your God, he comes with vindication; 

With divine recompense he comes to save you. 

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared;

Then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing.

Sing: “Healing River”

A reading from the Epistle of Saint James.

Is there any one among you sick? Let him bring in the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.

The Word of the Lord

The Book of the Gospels it taken from the Altar to the Ambo
Sing: “Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ. King of Endless Glory.”

Gospel:

A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Mark

“Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them:

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation.

The man who believes in it and accepts baptism will be saved;

the man who refuses to believe in it will be condemned.

“Signs like these will accompany those who professed their faith; 

they will use my name to expel demons

they will be able to handle serpents, 

they will be able to drink deadly poison without harm

and the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover.

Then after speaking to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven

and took his seat at God’s right hand.

The Eleven went forth and preached everywhere.

The Lord continued to work with them through and confirm the message 

through the signs which accompanied them.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, we experience our powerlessness, our limitations, and illness always leads us to glimpse death. It can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God. It can also make a person more mature, and initiate a search for God and a return to God. Christ’s compassion toward the sick and his many healings of every kind of infirmity are a wonderful sign that “God has visited his people” and that the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive sins, he has come to heal the whole person, soul and body; he is the physician the sick have need of. His compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies himself with them: “I was sick and you visited Me.” His preferential love for the sick has not ceased through the centuries to draw the very special attention of Christians toward all those who suffer in body and soul. It is the source of tireless efforts to comfort them. Often Jesus asks the sick to believe. He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands, mud and washing. The sick try to touch him, and so in the sacraments Christ continues to touch us in order to heal us. With great confidence then, and in response to the command of Christ that we should continue to do what he has done and act in his name, I ask that those who wish to receive the strength and grace of this Holy Anointing come forward. 

My sisters and brothers, in our prayer of faith let us appeal to God for those who are before us:

• Come and strengthen them through his holy anointing, Lord Have Mercy
• Free them from all harm: Lord Have Mercy
• Free them from sin and all temptation: Lord Have Mercy
• Relieve the sufferings of all the sick her present: Lord, Have Mercy
• Assist those dedicated to the care of the sick: Lord, Have Mercy
• Give life and health to our brother on whom we not lay hands in your name: Lord, Have Mercy.

The imposition of hands takes place followed by the anointing.

“Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”

Closing Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, 

by the grace of your Holy Spirit

cure the weakness of your servants.

Heal them and forgive their sins;

restore them to full health and strengthen them to continue their service to your people

for you are Lord forever and ever, Amen.

May the God of all consolation

bless you in every way

and grant you hope all the days of your life.

May God restore you to health

and grant you salvation.

May God fill your heart with peace

and lead you to eternal life.

May Almighty God bless you,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AmenThe “Servant Song” is sung

March 30, 31, April 1, 2020

In my 78^th year of life, I have begun, like many others to think, “There has to be more than this.” I get that way sometimes when routine and the rut I have carefully carved out of the calendar and the clock sometimes seems more like a merry-go-round or a roller coaster for some of us, than real journey from one place to another. On a merry-go-round and even a roller coast, you always end up back where you started. It leaves me wanting something deeper and maybe more contemplative than just getting up in the morning, fixing some coffee, working the crossword, and until it gets too hard, the sudoku puzzle. In the last few years, I’ve actually been somewhat lifted up and encouraged by the fact that a lot of young people are beginning to wonder the same thing: “There has to be more than this.” Like you, I have watched some of them leave us, and the empty pews in so many churches are a very clear sign to us that they are looking and wondering, thinking as I do that there must be more than this.

Sometimes people ask me, “Father, are you a Jesuit?” After a laugh, I always deny it, wondering why or how they could possibly ask that question. I wonder, maybe it’s because I like scotch? Then I think, “I’ve never seen a Jesuit with a 44inch waist.” Why don’t they think I’m Friar Tuck? I have a lot of good friends who are Jesuits. One of them who came to seem me while discerning a vocation at the University of Oklahoma I sent to the Jesuits. He was getting a PhD in Astro-Physics! I didn’t even know what that meant. He asked me why I thought he should be a Jesuit, and I said: “You’re too smart to be a parish priest. You’ll go out of your mind hanging around here the rest of your life!” God has a bigger plan. He’s Jesuit now at a very large parish right on the Mexican Boarder in Arizona. I keep wondering what that has to do with Astro-Physics, but I suppose at this point it doesn’t make any difference. What he does is work and pray.

In my own story, a man in the sixth century had a greater influence. His name is Benedict, and I spent 8 years of education and formation at a large Benedictine Monastery. What I took away from there after eight years was way more than a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s Degree in Theology. I took away the very heart of Benedict’s vision and the spirit of the Rule he wrote that to this day guides the lives of monks and nuns all over the world. The Christian life is both prayer and work. Work without prayer is ungrounded and can be self-deceptive. Prayer without work is a fantasy and does not reflect a real Christian vocation which is to find and serve God who is not confined to church or a tabernacle. A Benedictine Abbot once said to his monks something that applies to us all: Take God very seriously. Take your vocation seriously, but do not take yourselves too seriously. 

I am a monk at heart. I live a rather solitary life. It’s just me and God. Having finally retired, I now work and pray, which is what monks do. Sometimes someone will ask me why in retirement I seem so busy, and my response is that we never retire from prayer, and when we realize that, we can’t retire from work either, since work is often the consequence of prayer. You pray about something, and God says, do something about it. What I have retired from is meetings. I no longer care about the loan, the lights, the locks or the leaks. When I see a wet ceiling, “I’m glad for a roofer. They have a job! When someone says, as they did for years and years, “Father, can I have the key to gym?” I say, “I only have car keys, and I obviously don’t know where the gym is located.” I will never forget the very first time I celebrated Mass here at Saint William Parish after I was welcomed here in retirement. The opening hymn had begun, the procession was just starting, and someone came up and pulled on my elbow and said: “Father, there’s no paper in the restroom.” At that moment, I knew I was a monk at heart, and I remembered something my mother always said just before we left the house: “Go to the bathroom, and don’t forget to wash your hands.”

For three nights to come, I am going to invite you into the mystery of who and what we are as a Catholic Church. It springs out of my life as a would-be monk. It takes shape from my experience and discovery that the Church itself is a Sacrament, a sign that accomplishes what it signifies. Something happens to us when we become Church, and as a Church we make something happen in this world. Sacraments are what we are. Sacraments are Holy Moments: the moment when the divine and human touch and become one. Sacraments are our experience of the Incarnation. In theology there is only one Sacrament, Jesus Christ; but as a Church we experience the Christ at the most significant moments of our lives: birth, death, and everything in between. The Sacraments accomplish the work of Jesus Christ. They heal what is broken, they strengthen what is weak, and they proclaim the forgiveness of sin. That’s what was happening all around Jesus when he was on this earth. It is still what happens all around Jesus when we are together as a Church. Sacraments are how we express without words what we believe, and what is happening to us in faith. The first night I shall talk about the Sacraments of Initiation. The second night, the Sacraments of Service, and the last night, Sacraments of Healing. Service and Healing are the work of Jesus Christ. Once we are brought into and born into Jesus Christ, there is nothing left for us to do but to serve and to heal in his name. That is exactly what he sent his disciples out to do, and that is our work and that is our prayer. Whenever you look up from the rut you may have made for yourself in life and begin to wonder if there isn’t something more, look around at the brokenness in this world and you will know there is more to life than we have ever imagined. I believe that when our young people tire of computer games, cheerleading, basketball and football, they may see in us a place for themselves and realize that they may be taking themselves way too seriously at the expense of taking God seriously. Living and celebrating the Sacramentality of our faith is, I believe, the key to and hope for our future. We have to take it seriously. I invite you to explore how to do that.

Parish Mission on Sacraments First Night: Sacraments of Initiation

Begin with singing, “Come to the Water”

Understanding is the challenge we face when we come into contact with our church and its way of expressing itself in the rites we celebrate. Understanding is not cognitive. It is not about the brain. None of us really think our way into a relationship or even more so, into faith. It is about experience. You did not think your way into love. You experienced it, and then along the way your figured out what it was. The problem in our day and age is that we rarely take the time to experience anything let alone reflect on that experience and come to some understanding about what it means. A Harvard Sociologist (Robert Putnam) described our contemporary age by saying that in these times we have increased the number of believers but not belongers. There are now lots and lots of people who style themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” While we can say with pride that Catholicism is for those who are both “spiritual and religious”, as well as well as for believers and belongers, we also have to deal with the reality that for everyone one person who enters the Catholic Church in America, three leave. Why? I suspect that there are lots of reason in this “spiritual, not religious” culture, but certainly two factors are the excessive individualism of our culture, and the credibility of the church itself for a variety of reasons, sex abuse, financial mismanagement, ineffective witness of contradictory lives, and lots of other personal reasons. 

We live in an iPod, iPad, iMac, iPhone and endless other “i”-devices world. My point is that a small “i” begins to show how we name countless technological advances and machines. If you glance at the magazine rack in the grocery store, I wonder whether we are not moving from People Magazine to US and SELF. And self is where we seem to be stuck. I recall a famous line from the movie Beaches. Bette Midler leans over the restaurant table and says to her lunch companion, “But enough about me – let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?”

Our church is a “we” church. If you have not noticed, every prayer in the missal uses the first-person pronoun. We ask this……ends every prayer. Living our faith (catch the pronoun?) is always a corporate enterprise. We belong to a covenant religion that started with Noah, his sons, his wife, and the wives of his sons along with two of every living thing on earth. Of course, it should have started with Adam and Eve, but a tree and an apple got in the way after which it all went bad. Whenever I think this way, what comes to mind is an apple with a bite out of it. Have you ever thought about that when you look at the icon or emblem on the cover of many computers? 

We belong to a covenant religion that continued with our forebears in biblical faith, covenants we read about every three years in the Sunday readings. There is the covenant with Noah (Genesis 9, 8-15), the covenant with Abraham and Sarah, and their beloved Isaac (Genesis 22, 1-2, 9, 20-13, 15-18). Then there is the covenant with Moses, (Exodus 20, 1-17) and a renewal of the covenant at the time of King Cyrus (2 Chronicles 36, 14-17, 19-23)   followed by Jeremiah (31, 31-34) promising a new covenant. These covenant texts are the bedrock relationship on which our faith is based. We are in this together. It is that simple. Part of what binds us together is ritual which is something we do when words are inadequate. For instance, when you feel overcome with joy and happiness at seeing someone you have not seen for a long time, there are no words, you just want to embrace and kiss. So, with ritual there are simply certain gestures that have an agreed upon meaning. We don’t make them up as we wish They are given to us to shape what we say and do in common. When a birthday cake comes into a room, no one has to tell the one being honored what to do. For that matter, we don’t start singing the National Anthem! Our rites as a church, these rituals that shape and express us are not a place or a time for self-expression. Even the wearing of certain vesture covers up our uniqueness. All of this brings focus to the meaning of what is happening it’s not about some external behavior.

The Sacraments are not something we do. The Sacraments are not something the Church creates. We are drawn by God’s mysterious designs and God’s mysterious ways into these experiences. The Sacraments, the Liturgy is always God’s gift to us and our response to God. Tomorrow when I speak about Matrimony, I will tell you more about something I always say to couples who come in for their first meeting to talk about marriage. I always say: “From now own, do not talk to me about your wedding. It isn’t yours. It isn’t mine. If you think it’s yours, and you think you can design it, you are forgetting that God is in charge, and this Rite and what we do is our response to God’s self-revelation.” Matrimony, Anointing of the Sick, Reconciliation, Ordination these are never ours. I have no business talking about my Ordination. It was not mine. It was God calling and commissioning me to be and do something in His name. All I had to do was show up, kneel down, and say: “Present” when my name was called. After that I had to listen.

We get this message proclaimed every time one of the priests uses the Third Eucharistic Prayer at Mass. He says, and you may recall the words: “You never cease to gather a people to yourself., so that from the East and to the West….” We gather at the Lord’s invitation, not our own self will. That’s important to keep in mind sometime when you don’t feel like going to Mass some Sunday. Are you seriously going to turn down the Lord’s invitation because of a Tee time or you just don’t want to get up? Seriously?  You see, we always think it’s about us way too easily forgetting that God is up to something. We are made members of one another in this worldwide Catholic Church through the waters of Baptism and the invocation of the three persons of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the prayer over the offerings on Holy Thursday, the priest proclaims these words: “Whenever the memorial of his sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished.” Wow!  If that’s true, you have to be there, not at home with your feet up and beer in your hands watching a football game if you want your redemption.”

Early on, for many generations, Initiation into the Body of Christ, the Church, was one ritual with three parts. Most of the Eastern Churches continue this ancient custom. Our Latin or Western Roman Church has split them into three separate rites or “Sacraments.” There is some movement to restore the more ancient practice, but for now we have it as it is: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion. Actually, we have sort of messed up the order. For most of us it goes like this: Baptism, Holy Communion, Confirmation. Historically, Baptism and Confirmation were broken apart when the numbers of people being initiated were greater than the community’s leader, what we now call a Bishop, could manage at one time. So, the local delegate of the Bishop Baptized and the initiation was completed at a later time when the Bishop got around to the community. Once the faith of the person initiated was “Confirmed”, then they were allowed to share in the Eucharist. The bringing of a person into communion, into the covenant was the point of it all. 

As we all know, many other Christian communities we call “Protestant” do not baptize children, and they do not understand why we do and what it’s all about, but the custom is there from the beginning, and it springs out of the fact that often entire households were initiated: Dad, Mom, and the children. They all came into the covenant. The evidence is there in scriptures. In the case of the children, it is the fact that they will be raised up in a covenanted family that makes it possible. That is why in the Rite of Baptism for Children, parents are asked to give public testimony that they will bring this child up in the practice of faith. Contrary to what some may want to believe, the parents are not speaking for their child in answering those questions. They are giving testimony to the faith they are going to share. 

I honestly don’t know when, why or how we got into the odd custom we have in the Roman Rite Church of dribbling a few drops of water on the head of someone and calling that Baptism. In the end, it is the intention that matters, but we sure have to talk a good line to make the point. Baptism is birth into everlasting life. It is the beginning of new life with all of its promise and hope. About thirty years ago, when I was Rector of the Cathedral in Oklahoma City, we set about fixing up that 70-year-old church with some paint and some other arrangements that suited the Church of our time. One of the things we did was build a Baptistry. If any of you have ever been to Rome and seen the Lateran Basilica which is actually the Cathedral Church of Rome, you might remember that the Baptistry is a separate building off to the side of the church. If you’ve been to Florence, the very famous Baptistry there stands out as great piece of architecture in itself. The Baptistry was separate for a couple of reasons. For one, it was often heated when nothing else was, and for another, people being baptized got into a pool of water without clothing. They laid down, went under water and came up alive. It was a powerful and memorable experience.

A few years ago, I took a group of pilgrims to Lourdes. At one of the planning meetings, I spoke about the “baths” there, and I encouraged everyone to get over any hang-ups they might have and plan to go into the baths. It is a powerful and extraordinary spiritual and physical experience. On the second morning we were there, I reminded everyone that there was time set aside in the schedule to go into the waters. In the group was the retired Police Chief from Oklahoma City. He was a tough guy, burly, tough spoken, and there were no filters on his mouth. He said what he thought all the time. He was sitting in the back of the room with his arms folded. There was no expression on his face other than mild disgust. I concluded by saying that this was the chance, and the only chance to have this experience since few of them were likely to return to Lourdes. Skipping the experience of the baths might be something they would regret for a long time. I explained that there was a small room for removing clothing, and that an attendant would be there to wrap a very large sheet around you, and lead you to the pool. It is something you step down into, and water is flowing through it. The attendant helps you sit down in the water removing the towel-like sheet, and then they offer to pray for you or with you as you settle into the water. When the prayer ends, you stand up and the attendant wraps you in the cloth and leads you very respectfully and quietly back to the dressing area. By this time, the man in the back is looking up at the ceiling after glancing at his watch.

Every evening of the pilgrimage, the group would gather together, have a drink, and then share their most powerful thought or experience of the day. So, that night we followed the usual plan, and after many comments about going to confession, the beautiful Mass in the grotto, the procession the night before, Mr. Police Chief spoke up from that back. He said: “I did it.” With that he choked up and wiped his eyes. He said: “You never told us the water was cold.” I said, “No one asked.” He brushed aside my comment and with tears in his eyes, he said: “I will never ever forget that moment. Now I understand why some of my Protestant friends speak with such passion and so intently about their Baptism. I think I was Baptized today, and I feel wonderful, clean, and almost holy.  I feel alive for the first time since my wife died.” The room was silent, and someone quietly said, “Forget about the “almost part.”

So, back to the Cathedral, we built a baptistry that was attached and visible from the church, but distinct. During the construction, that part of the church was walled off for the sake of safety, and to keep out the weather as they built the addition. After a few weeks, some of the 8^th graders in the parish school wanted to know what was behind the wall. So, I arranged for the contractor to let the children look in. The concrete form had been poured, and they were about to begin the tile work. The children stood and looked at it for a minute or two, and one of the boys said: “It looks like a grave”. With that, I knew we were getting it right. Baptism is about dying and rising. Going down, going under, coming up, breathing in new life. That is what we’re doing.

Water and Fire! These are the most powerful earthly tools and earthly elements. When a forest burns, it dies. When it rains on that scorched earth, everything comes to life again. When it’s time for a baby to be born, the water breaks out of the womb, and life comes through the water. My friends, we have to get in touch with this truth and this reality again. Those of us Baptized as children run the risk of thinking it’s all over, and it’s just something you do to have a party or keep the grandparents happy. One tool that we have to make a connection with something that happened before we can remember is that water in the doorway. Touching it is important. Feeling it on your face and on your hands ought to be a reminder that the room you are entering is a place where Water and Blood bring us again into the very presence of God where the work of our redemption is accomplished.

Water is not the only element we use in our tradition for expressing something that is just a little beyond what words can say. There is white garment, there is fire and light, and there is Chrism. In the thrilling Book of Revelation, we read: (Chapter 21, 1-10).  You know that white garment needs to be real, not some ironed strip of fabric. It’s a garment that gets used again to identify the white robed. Look at what I’m wearing. Think about what a child wears at First Communion. This about what a bride wears by tradition at a wedding. It has nothing to do with virginity. It has everything to do with being a white-robed member of the covenant. It is also our way of putting aside our silly need to be different, to stand out, or be stylish. We cover up and we look alike because by this sacrament we are one people, one body, one in Christ. It’s not about me any longer.

We take fire for light, and with great intensity, we pass that light on to a family on the day of a child’s baptism with the hope and the prayer that the light of that candle, the light of Christ, may never go out. Then we say: “Keep this candle burning brightly so that when the Lord comes you may go out to meet him.” With that, there is covenant. With that, there is identity. With that, there is mission, something to do.

How I wish we would have the courage, understanding, and wisdom to get this right, but it doesn’t seem to be within reach right now, and so we bumble along with a system that clearly doesn’t work. Instead of announcing some grade level or some age for completing Initiation, common sense, if not good theology, ought to say that a person should be “Confirmed” and admitted to the Covenant when they want to and have the desire to be in Communion. In some places around the country, that is beginning to happen, and those of you with grandchildren in different places might already be aware of this change. Communion comes after Confirmation. The very fact that making this correction takes courage, understanding, and wisdom tells you something. These are three Gifts of the Holy Spirit: a sure sign that God is at work. Take if from an old pastor, as long as we keep up the present system of making Confirmation a “rite of passage” into adulthood, it’s going to be a one-way street out the church. It implies for young people that they are now adults and can make choices for themselves.  So, who can blame them for leaving. They are not adults when they are 15 and 16! Our more ancient custom says that once faith grows from the formation, prayer, service, and the witness of parents, signs of that faith will become obvious. When that day comes, a person who is living the Covenant of Sacrifice and Service will want to receive the Eucharist and share in the grace, the strength, the support of the covenant community (the Church). Then, the Leader, the Teacher, and Sanctifier (That’s the role of a Bishop, by the way). He comes, and in his presence, those whose initiation is about to be complete step up, profess their faith, perhaps symbolically announce a new name by which they wish to be called, and a solemn anointing takes place that seals them, makes them holy, and draws them into the company of priests, kings, and prophets who throughout the Old Testament were anointed for service at God’s call.

Then it’s time to enter into the mystery of the New Covenant and it’s time to remember that whenever the memorial of his sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished. At that point, there can be no doubt about who someone is, because Covenant People are so identified with Christ that what they do is what Christ does, and what Christ does is what his people do. In case you don’t remember what Christ does, he heals, he forgives, he feeds, he unites, he draws people to the Father so that they may all be one. That’s not somebody else’s job. It’s ours. If someone is hungry, we feed. If someone is naked, we clothe. If someone is thirsty, we give a drink. If someone is alone, we become their companion. If someone is lost, we lead them home.

So, we gather, as our blessed ancestors have done from the beginning. We break open the Word of God, and we break the bread that has become for us the Body of Christ. It is God’s gift to us. Doing this brings us peace, healing, and reconciliation. It is a God’s way of answering the prayer of his Son, that we might all be one, that we may be friends, and that the relationship Jesus has with his Father is the same relationship we have with the Father.

In an age of hyper-individualism, it is extremely important to pay attention to the words we use and how we pray. As I said at the beginning, every single prayer that is offered begins with the word, “We.” There is no “I” in the Eucharist. Even the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples is always in the plural. We say again and again: “Our Father.” “Give us.” “Forgive us.” It happens because we are one with each other and with Jesus Christ. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Every prayer we offer is THROUGH Christ our Lord, because by Baptism, Confirmation, and in the Eucharist, we are one with Christ. We are in, and through and with Christ.

We gather around this altar at the invitation of Christ. It is Christ who presides, not Tom Boyer. I always smile a bit at the parishes where I serve when at the beginning they announce: “Today’s Celebrant will be Father Tom Boyer.” No, it won’t. It will be Jesus Christ. He is the host, he is the one who speaks, he is the one who opens our minds and hearts to the Word, and he is the one who feeds. There is a spiritual meaning to everything we do in our sacred liturgies. We learn the meanings not just by our brain, but by listening, seeing, speaking, smelling, and touching. The senses are the pathway to meaning, and rich and powerful ritual involves them all.

The very first act reveals who we are and what we’re doing. We approach God’s presence. We’re not just going to church. When the Israelites came near the Temple, they broke into song, and we know the words. They were preserved for us in a Psalm. “We shall up with Joy to the House of our God.” Sing it!

Yet we know in our hearts that the pure and just one is not the one without sin, but the one who recognized his sin. A just one, then, is the sinner who knows that they are a sinner. The most important part of this Penitential Act is SILENCE. It must be severe, intense, and austere. It is time to shut up, and stand humbly before the sinless one who is looking at us with love. If you have ever been caught doing something really wrong and shameful in the presence of someone you love, there is nothing to be said. There are no words to express how you feel in shame and sorrow. Then, we ask for mercy and forgiveness, and break into a song by which we simply acknowledge and praise the Mercy of a God who loves us anyway. Embracing that forgiveness, we in the assembly are worthy to offer praise to God signing: We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory. With that, we pray through Christ our Lord. Then, we sit down and we listen. God has something to say.

And then, it is time for a gracious God to feed us. But remember, Jesus said, “One does not live on bread along, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” If you think about it, where is the Gospel Book at this time usually resting? On the Altar. God will feed us from that table twice: once with the Word, and then again with the Body and Blood of his Son, the Bread of Life. Just as the eucharistic bread and wine are taken from the altar so that the faithful may nourish themselves on the body of Christ, so also the gospel is taken from the altar so that the faithful may be nourished with the word of Christ. 

When the Scriptures are proclaimed in the assembly, God is speaking. It is different from when you might sit at home and read some of the Bible. The power of the Holy Spirit within the assembly. I’ll be you didn’t know that in a Jewish Synagogue the scroll of the Law cannot be taken from the ark and read if there are not present at least ten adult men. This norm suggests that that it is not enough for the book of the Law to be present and that someone reads from it; also necessary is people to hear it proclaimed. This is the difference between personal study of the Bible and the proclamation of the Scriptures in the midst of the assembly. That is where the power of the Word comes from – out of the assembly, out of the Body of Christ. The Sacred Scriptures belong to the Church, that is why the Lector leaves the Scriptures on the Ambo after the proclamation. The lector does not carry the book away, but leaves it with the assembly because it is in the assembly’s care just as the Eucharist is.

Let me wrap this up with a final thought about the gifts, because the exchange of gifts is what happens next, and it’s beautiful and powerful. Gifts are brought to God and placed on the altar. We give away some of what God has given us as a reminder that we do not have absolute possession of anything. What makes the offering holy is the fact that it is sacrificed, given up, given away. In the Book of Deuteronomy (16,16) God says: “They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.” No believer may come before the altar with empty hands, because the vocation of every person is to offer the world to God by their own hands.

And then, why bread and why wine? Why not a steak and coke? Think about this. Bread has all the elements of the world within it. Those elements are Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. That is what makes bread such a power element that crosses every culture, age, and time. The earth: that with rain produces the grain, that rises with air and is baked with fire! It’s all there, and as the prayers says, it is the “work of human hands.” It’s about work, labor, grinding, mixing. It’s hard and demanding, labor intensive. But, there is another side to these gifts. It is wine. Yet, wine is hardly as necessary and basic as bread. It does require some labor, but we can do without. What it does supply is pleasure, and it brings with it a sense of celebration, of joy, gratitude, and fellowship. So, we bring these gifts put them on the altar that God may sanctify them by the power of the Spirit and make them “For us” bread of life and spiritual drink. So, the bread that we have carried in our hands to the altar; after giving thanks, is then taken from the altar and placed in our hands as the Body of Christ.

The church cannot be satisfied with having the Eucharist; it does not possess it. The Eucharist serves no purpose if it remains simply an object to be possessed and adored. The church, however, is called to become the eucharistic body of the Lord, and becoming the Body of Christ is the one greatest witness to the truth of the Eucharist. How do we know this is the Body of Christ? Look at the people. If you see Christ, then you know what Eucharist is. To receive Communion is to become communion. Why do you eat this? In order to come this. In a society where individualism triumphs, the Eucharist reminds us of the common destiny of all humanity. In a society where waste prevails, the Eucharist is a call to share. Psalm 40 tells us that what is not shared is wasted. The eucharist which forms us as God’s people in a covenant of love.

Conclude with singing: The Servant Song

Parish Mission on Sacraments Second Night: Sacraments of Service

Begin with singing; Come to the Water

Jesus sent us to serve and to heal. To reach deep into this call to service, we need only explore the Rite by which a person is called from the community, Baptism. It begins for all of us at Baptism when we are anointed with a prayer that welcomes us into a Holy People who are as Christ was anointed, Priest, Prophet, and King. The Sacraments of Service: Holy Orders and Matrimony have two essential elements in common: sacrifice and service.  A priest is not the only one who offers sacrifice, and that cultic act in liturgy is not all a priest is called to do. Remember, when we think of sacraments, we need to think of a people and what they mean and stand for; not just what they do. Now, that word, “Order” does not mean organizing things alphabetically or in good straight rows as Sister did when we were in the parish school. 

Remember those great stories by the British author, J.K. Rowling about Harry Potter? Well, early in each school term, the students gathered in that great hall, and the new students were called up one by one. They sat on a stool, and a hat was put on their head. In the stories, it was a magical hat and they called it the “Sorting Hat” because it would magically sort the students into their “houses” or groups for the school year. Those in each house worked together as a team for the building up of the school and support of all the members. Well, when we Catholics talk about “Orders” we are talking about sorting, or dividing up the work and the responsibilities for the sake of the whole and the support of each member. That’s exactly what Holy Orders is really about: sorting out the members in to groups for a common purpose and the support of all the members. Lay People, Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops are people who have been sorted out yet work together for the common good and mutual support in the use of their unique gifts and mission.

I have deliberately avoided using the word Priest for one of the Orders because we need to get something clear about that word and with it the expectations we have for those we might choose to call “Priest.” Actually, Presbyters is probably better for two reasons, it’s a term that refers to the wise elders of a community, and that is certainly what we have now as we face the reality that most priests today are old, and older men are hearing a call to that Order. The other reason I like the word Presbyter is that it disconnects from the Old Testament image of the Priesthood, and that is exactly what the first Christian communities wanted to do. They did not want anything to do with the Old Testament priesthood.

That old priesthood was hereditary. It was a privileged class supported and taken care of by the people. They were men who liked to dress up in fine robes and who held exclusive power and held enormous control and authority over the lives of the people. They ran the temple. They controlled the finances. They passed judgement on people, throwing out some for various reasons, but they also restored people who had been thrown out. An example of that comes to us with that story of Jesus healing some lepers and sending them to the priests for the obvious purpose of having them judged worthy and cleansed restoring them to their rightful place in the community. They were not teachers, they were rulers with a lot of power often abused. Among the Hebrews, a Rabbi was the teacher, and that was a different sort of person – let’s call it a different Order.

When the earliest Christian communities began to organize themselves and sort out the ministries and gifts, they wanted nothing to do with the old priesthood, because they had encountered the one priest, the ultimate High Priest, Jesus Christ. So, what we see developing is this role or ministry called “presbyter”. Judging from what the Epistles can tell us, that early church was very picky! The Epistle to Titus says this (1, 5-9) “…. appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you, on condition that a man be blameless, married only once, with believing children who are not accused of licentiousness or rebellious.” He goes on to add that “a Bishop, “as God’s steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate just, holy, and self-controlled. Holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able to both to exhort with sound doctrine and refute opponents.”

Then, in St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy (3, 1-7) he insists that they “must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money.” He must also, “manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the Church of God. He should not be a recent convert…he must also have a good reputation.”

The first letter of Peter (5, 1-4) instructs presbyters with these words: “Tend the flock of God in your midst not by constraint, but willingly, as God would have it not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.”

Back in the day, when I was working in formation and direction of candidates for the priesthood. I paid a lot of attention to three things: an ability to make and maintain wonderful, nurturing, and lasting friendships, an ability to be hospitable, and I always encouraged them to keep some houseplants in their rooms at the seminary. If they could not keep a weed like a philodendron alive, why entrust them with life of a human soul?

What those earliest Christian communities were looking for and expecting then, was not so much a “priest” like the Old Testament priests, but a prophet. That is what they saw in Jesus Christ, a prophet, not a priest like those guys running the Temple, punishing people, throwing people out, imposing harsh punishments, and always demanding their money. They had seen in Jesus, a new kind of priest: one who offered sacrifice, yes, but also one who stood among them as the prophets had in the past. This is why some thought that Jesus was Elijah returned, or some thought he was John the Baptist returned from the dead. Matthew, as we read deeply into his Gospel saw the image of Moses in Jesus.

The longer I live in this mystery of priesthood, the more I begin to understand that priests are anointed, like Christ, as priest and prophet. The two roles are barely distinguishable. In fact, it is probably only in Ritual behavior that they are distinct. The prophet in us, the prophet in our community, is the one who can point to the presence and the action of God. That role has nothing to do with the future. The prophet is someone who is in touch with the past, but standing with both feet and eyes wide open in the present. The prophet sees the hand of God and says so. The prophet can look into the face of death and disaster and chaos and say: “Look at what God can do. Expect the Divine. Trust in the Providence and Goodness of God.” All of us fuss, worry, and invest time and energy in addressing symptoms, when in fact, a prophetic people address the causes of evil, pain, injustice, and sorrow. For a really great priest, this comes out of courage, and it means that the priesthood is not for cowards and those who are easily intimidated or fear-filled. A priest must transform the present into the future. The symbol of this transformation is the Eucharist. What is changed by the faith of the people and the words of Christ spoken by the priest is not just bread and wine, but all the ordinary things of life changed into the extraordinary and unmistakable signs of God’s immediate presence in and through the world. The Incarnation is not a theological principal; it is a day in and day out experienceof God’s creative, life-giving presence in all things and especially all people. Anything that dims the ability to perceive that presence and honor it must go, and that takes courage. “The poor you will have always with you.” is not an excuse for ignoring the cause of their poverty. Losing sight of the causes of people’s hunger while we’re making sandwiches, running soup kitchens, or food pantries won’t do. We’ve been doing that a long time, and still there are more poor people getting poorer. We are trapped into this stuff because working with the symptoms makes us feel good. We avoid addressing the causes of poverty because it’s tough, risky, unpopular, and sometimes dangerous; but we are prophets, and taking on injustice is our cause, and like the prophets of the Old Testament, they will pay a big price for doing that.

Prophet/Priest lives in the present. That means that the working definition of a priest is: “one who awakens others to the revelation found in their lives.” It’s about the present. It’s about the fact that God is present to us now, and in all things and at every moment. It’s all very fine to know all about what God has done in the past. For the leader, it’s important to know where you’ve been, just in case you go by again. Then you’ll know you’re lost! When we start repeating mistakes from the past, we’re in trouble. I guess you could say, “We’re lost.” But, all that knowledge of the past is no good if we don’t recognize that God is still doing things in the present, our present. Pious “wannabes” who are all caught up in the past, which they mistakenly call “tradition” are lost because they’re not living in the present. They are sure that all the answers are somewhere in the past, and consequently, they are incapable of living with ambiguity and doubt, which are very essential to the human condition in people seeking truth.

When thinking this way, I remember what it was like on April 19, 1995 and the days following when a building in Oklahoma City was destroyed taking 169 lives leaving a city of one million people stunned to silence.  “Why?” was all anyone could ask. Those who needed power, those who were not living in the experience had all kinds of silly answers, when the only response to “Why” was to suggest that was the wrong question. “What does it mean?” was the issue, not why did it happen. And, “What are we going to become because of this?” was the next question. Effective ministry on that day and the days following happened when people were led to ask the right question and go on from there. It was a time to lead those who suffered to imagine a creative power in the midst of that chaos. The first time a man stands in the face of tragedy and thinks he knows the answer to the question “WHY” the real priesthood of Jesus Christ has been traded for certitude that puts us in control. If we are not comfortable in chaos and able to live in the face of it not knowing why, we will never experience creation and the Creator who is always to be found in the midst of it. We know that Christ did not come to take the tragedies out of life. He simply came to show us how to survive them. We know that in our minds, but forget under the pressure to respond to each other in pain and so we fail to act that way. When someone comes up with a glib or pious answer the question or the cry: “WHY?” in a moment of pain in the midst of tragedy, you know they’ve never been there.

Priests are called to enable persons to perceive the revealing presence of God in their ordinary lives. That is what all of us need from the priest. We don’t need to know why, we just need to have someone point to the hand of God in the midst of some chaotic moment. To do this, a priest must possess a singleness of mind. Jesus called it “purity of heart.” It simply means that a priest will be simply, pure of heart, honest, straight forward. There is only one agenda.

Howard Hendricks teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary and is one of the founders of “Promise Keepers”, a powerful program of spirituality for men. Howard says that we are suffering from AIDs, “Acquired Integrity Deficiency.” He believes we are producing celebrities today, but few people of character. So many have been caught in sexual misconduct or financial scandals, or have shown themselves to have an unhealthy love of power and authority. We have leaders who trade character for cash. Power, fame, and money corrupt many of these big-shot leaders. Some have called this the greatest challenge to Evangelical leaders. It is embarrassing. We desperately need men of integrity, and the only place they are going to come from is a real, solid, Catholic/Christian home. 

Here is the big difference we sometimes fail to see. We have to decide what we want and need. Leaders have dreams and look to the future. The manager looks to the bottom line of the profit sheet. This is exactly what’s wrong with our country these days, and with the whole world for that matter. We have no leaders, no statesmen, we have only politicians who are “managers.”  There’s no one around like Martin Luther King, Jack or Bobby Kennedy, Gandhi, Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, or David Ben-Gurion. Now all we get are celebrity executives! They have no dreams. They live for profit, and for profit now.  They have no imagination, only information.  The days in which we are living are without dreams. They are full of fantasies, but the two are not the same. A dreamless sleep is called, “death”, and dreamless society or a dreamless church is dead and meaningless. Our church needs dreamers just as much as we need air, and our society, our church needs true leaders, uncommon men and women who can restore the collective dream: The Kingdom of Heaven. Our passion for control shows it’s self in Secularism, which is the art of this world.

You deserve to have holy men, and that does not mean pious men. I’m not talking about people who walk around with a rosary dangling from their hands, or dressing up in some black robe pacing up and down a corridor with a breviary in their hands. I’m talking about real holiness which sometimes might look fanatical or just plain weird. A really holy person is somehow wild. They are wild with God. They are in love with God, and you can see it, hear it, and believe it. There is something about them that is intense, deep and real. These are people who have met God, who have suffered, and have some vision of the Kingdom of God. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t take anyone there. These are people who know God not by hearsay or from some book, but from having maybe hit bottom and discovered that in the cross, in death, in betrayal, in loneliness, there is someone who loves them and has never left them. 

The ultimate priest and prophet is Jesus Christ who is the one who stands before us to intercede for us, to teach, to sacrifice, and to open our eyes and ears to the present and the state of our relationship with God. What Jesus did is what presbyters must do: proclaim the Kingdom of God, raise a call to conversion, reconcile people to one another and to God, and heal what is broken when it comes to those relationships so that the Kingdom of God can be seen, experienced, and lived right now. “It is at hand” he said over and over again.

Break with song: “Hear Us Now Our God and Father”

In the last parish I served as Pastor, there was an old couple from Lebanon whose children had brought them to Oklahoma when life at their home was getting more dangerous as the violence of religious and political hatred tore apart a country that had for generations shown us how Catholic/Christians and the People of Islam could live side by side with mutual respect, trust, and kindness. Radicalism, a disastrous kind of fundamentalism, and distrust of people who are different tore that all apart in one generation. So, these two “refugees” sought comfort and hope in their family and in their church. They were like old Simeon and Anna, always in the Temple, always at prayer, and always filled with hope. The church there was arranged in four sections, like a cross. The choir was behind at the top, and there were three seating sections in transepts and nave. This couple sat in the side transept section in the front pew. In the back, behind the choir there was a vesting room for the servers. Books, candles and stuff like that was kept back there, and at the other end was the vesting room for the clergy. Inevitably before Mass there was traffic back and forth from one end to the other, and I would make the trip once or twice as well checking with the musicians or making sure all the servers were there and ready. Since the old folks spoke no English, and I speak no Lebanese, we could really never talk, but we found a way over the years to communicate with smiles, nods, winks or bows. The tabernacle was close by, and when passing, I would genuflect, and then passing in front of them, I would bow, and they would grin ear to ear and bow back at me.

One Sunday just before the opening hymn as servers and clergy were lining up, one of the smaller servers said to me: “Why are you always bowing to those people?” I thought, that’s a good question, and I asked him, “Why are you always genuflecting at that Tabernacle and bowing at that altar?” With great confidence born out of his Catholic School education, he said: “Because Jesus is there. It’s a Sacrament.” I said to him: “Let me tell you something. Those two people have lived together as husband and wife for more than 70 years.” If that’s not enough to make it obvious that Jesus is in that front pew, nothing will.” I bow to the presence of Jesus Christ.” 

Well, servers have a way of sharing information, and by next weekend, every time one of them passed in front of those two old people, the servers bowed to them. The old folks smiled and bowed back, and in no time at all, it was like a coocoo clock going off at noon with everyone bowing and bobbing up and down, and everyone was smiling. Maybe those servers learned something very important about the Sacrament of Matrimony. It’s not about a ritual, white dresses, invitations, photographers, cakes, and receptions. It is about the Incarnation. It is about God taking on human flesh to reveal something essential about God’s life, God’s presence, God’s dream for us all before there was sin.

This Church, right now, is sacramental. It is filled with the presence of God. All around us there are sacraments of unity, of peace, of forgiveness and love. You who sit here together as husband and wife are living signs of the power of forgiveness, of what loving sacrifice can accomplish in lifting up another, and of what it means to keep a promise just as God keeps promises, because you are friends and by the grace of the vows you made before God and his church, you are friends with God.

If you ever take time to look carefully and critically at how we go about all of this, and what we are hoping to express in the way we conduct our rituals, there is a lot of silliness that distracts from the truth to which we bear witness in this celebration. For instance, this whole idea of the “Father giving away the bride” is a perfect example. It comes from a time and a culture in which marriage was treated as a contract between families, and the transfer of wealth and property played an important role. “Giving away the bride” ritualized this contract. In this light, you can see how the tradition of the father escorting his daughter to her groom may have developed. Yet, we Catholics believe that the bride and groom give themselves to each other as equal partners, and as one, they give themselves to God. When we get it right, and when we decide that it is more important to reveal the truth than play-act with a script from centuries ago and call it “custom”, a good message will be proclaimed and faith will be revealed. Parents play a major role, and sharing in this moment is a gift greater than writing the checks to pay for it all. But there are other ways to say this. The groom may walk in with his parents, and the bride with her parents who might meet and greet each other with peace before the altar to which they are bringing their children once again just as they did for First Communion. 

Lighting candles has great significance in our Catholic Churches. The most important of these is the Easter or Paschal Candle. All the candles given at infant and adult baptisms are lit from this candle. It is also lit during funerals to mark our loved one’s passage to eternal life. This business of the Unity Candle trying to symbolize two lives become one is already profoundly signified through the couple’s exchange of vows and rings and the Nuptial Blessing. I’m always amused at how confusing and contradictory this relatively new custom can become. It was probably started by someone at a Hallmark store to sell candles. The big candle gets lit and then they blow out the two little ones! It’s as though the identity of the two disappears when you get married. My bet is that by the end of the first week, it will be obvious to both bride and groom that their individual identities have not only failed to disappear, but rather have suddenly grown more real and intense.

In my years as a priest, more than once someone has said to me: “What do you a single and celibate man know about marriage?” It’s a good question, and I have answer. “I’ve never laid an egg; but I know more about it than the chicken.” You don’t have to be married to know about marriage. We’ve all grown up and come from a marriage.

What this old man has learned from listening, watching, reading, and study is that a marriage is not much different from being a priest since ultimately it is about commitment which scares the day-lights out of a lot of young people these days who seem to think that the best way to avoid commitment is to never make any. With both sacraments of service there are few things that work and make it easier and more fruitful. It works for priests and for married couples. Do things together. It will keep you from taking each other for granted. It takes planning and attention to emotions, yours as well as theirs. You make time to go out and have fun, do some chores together, because that’s where you are going to find God. It does not matter what you do together, but how. You can’t forget to laugh. All kinds of science reveal that laughter reduces pain and allows us tolerate discomfort. Physically it reduces blood sugar levels making our heart and brain function better. Laughter establishes and restores a positive emotional climate and connection between two people. Of course, you don’t laugh at each other, you laugh at yourself and invite someone into the joke, because you are no longer taking yourself so seriously. When you laugh at your own faults and failings, it can help the other to do the same not with ridicule but with genuine good humor. It heals, uplifts, puts one’s emotional world back in order. If you don’t laugh much, you better start. If you already do, keep it up.

Back in the day (don’t you love saying?) when I would be meeting with engaged couples early on in their formation, I would insist that they pray together knowing that it is something we Catholics find awkward and sometime avoid simply out of a failure to try and learn how. I would say: “Start this way: one of you should just say, “Let’s pray.” Then be quiet, maybe close your eyes, and wish for a moment about the future for and with each other. It does not have to take long, and when you’ve made your wish, simply say, “Amen”,  which is our standard way of saying “OK, that’s enough.”  Then, when you get comfortable with that, don’t be afraid to ask the other one what they prayed for or prayed about, and then it’s not too hard to start doing that out loud, and before you know it, you’re praying together, praying for one another, being grateful, and most of all acknowledging that God brought you together, and from the very beginning, God saw the two of you as one with a plan that you would be a living sign of God’s covenant.

A lot of couples come in at the beginning thinking that it’s all about them. You know that routine if you’ve had children getting married, and probably you were there once yourself, but the truth is, it’s not all about you. You did not choose the one you married. God did, and you would do well not forget it, because when you keep that in mind, you are going to treat each other better, because that person who came into your life and awakened you to the wonder and mystery of love is a gift from God. It is God who put you together. 

Keeping in touch with God’s role is what puts some energy and focus into the service that this sacrament presents. Husbands and wives help one another to become more holy and so have a special place among the peoples of God, and they bear children to whom they must reveal God and bring them up to keep God’s commandments, which is what they promise at Baptism.

Finally, there are two other ideas I believe are important. One is forgiveness. We all know what power there is in forgiveness both offering and accepting it. But what too often escapes us is the daily discipline of forgiving that a strong marriage and family require. Forgiveness doesn’t need to come in big dramatic scenes, but it does need to happen every day at least once. Every night, all of us must make it a habit to think over the day and acknowledge any hurts, no matter how small. It’s no surprise to realize how many small hurts accumulate in a day. If you don’t let them go, resentment sets in. Matthew, probably one of the most forgiven of the apostles because of his past records for us an instruction by Jesus that must have hit him square between the eyes. He remembers for us that Jesus said we must forgive not just seven times but seventy times. In other words, a whole lot. Forgiving the small stuff every day can make the bigger hurts less difficult to confront and healing them more complete. It takes practice, and as we know, practice makes PERFECT.

Finally, we cannot ever underestimate the power of gratitude or good memories to enrich one’s life. All of us must lean and remember to express gratitude for the good things in life, and sometimes with spontaneous celebration. Why wait for a birthday or an anniversary? Maybe it’s just deciding to sit down together after the laundry is folded, or maybe even before the laundry is folded. Forget about the laundry! Open a bottle of wine, live in gratitude, and express it often. Take and make time to do things just because they help you bond and create a good memory. It’s those memories that will soften the sense of loss when one of you gets left behind.

I have the most fond and wonderful memories of that old couple in Norman, Oklahoma. Papa is gone now. He suffered the ravages of Parkinson’s disease, and finally gets to rest. In the last years of our lives together in that parish I would often be included in family feasts as only Lebanese people can feast. I would always have to sit on one side of Mama with Papa on the other. She would fuss around and make sure my plate was overflowing and do the same for Papa. When he could no longer hold a knife and fork, she would cut the food, and arrange it just so on his plate. He would lean back and watch her. She never said a word, just fix it just right, and wait for him to eat. They had this wonderful way of just gazing at each other. They never said much. In fact, I can’t remember ever hearing them talk to each other. I just remember the they looked. I call it “the gaze of love” that wrapped up gratitude, forgiveness, affection, hopes, and dreams. The fact that they never seemed to talk struck me once as perhaps the real secret to a joyful, lasting marriage. Don’t talk! Maybe just gaze now and then and cherish the moments because they are precious and sometimes fleeting.

Let’s stand and sing about this. “When Love is Found”

Those of you here present with your spouse, join your hands and turn toward each other. Those here without a spouse, join me now in prayer over the sacrament that is here before us. 

My friends who are one in the holy sacrament of marriage, renew now the promises you made to one another, and turn to the Lord in Prayer, that these vows may be strengthened by divine grace. 

Repeat after me these words:

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation

For in the good and the bad times of our lives

You have stood with love by our side.

Help us, we pray,

To remain faithful in our love for one another;

So that we may be true witnesses

To the covenant you have made with humankind.

May the Lord keep you safe all the days of your life. 

May he be your comfort in adversity and your support in prosperity. 

May he fill your home with his blessings as we all now pray together:

Our Father…..

We praise you, O God,

We bless you, Creator of all things,

Who in the beginning made man and woman 

that they might form a communion of life and love.

We give you thanks for graciously blessing the family life of your servants who stand before you in this holy place as they once did with great dreams and tender love.

Look with kindness upon them today and as you have sustained their communion amid joys and struggles, 

renew their Marriage covenant each day, 

increase their charity, and strengthen in them the bond of peace 

so that together with the circle of their children and friends around them they may forever enjoy your blessing.

Sing: “The Servant Song”

Parish Mission on Sacraments Third Night: Sacraments of Healing

Begin with singing: Come to the Waters

Two days ago, we heard the Gospel of the Transfiguration, that moment when Jesus came into the presence of God. His mission on this earth is to take us there, to lead us to Easter and to glory. There is a problem however. There is not enough glory in our lives, and most of the time, we are not much of an Easter people, and the problem is something we don’t much like to talk about: sin.

All of us are engaged to one degree or another in a personal, ongoing battle with sin and vice. We are living through an age of serious moral decay. Cheating and Lying are a way of life today. These days, when someone gets caught doing something wrong, they are more upset about being caught than over what they did. If they think about it all, they wonder how they could have avoided being caught in the first place. There is not enough faith, the kind of faith that grows from repentance and change. 

One of the startling facts of life in our times is that no one wants to admit to sin and take any responsibility for its consequences. Too many these days have no sins. They just have issues! So, call it what you want, but it is deadly. On Sunday night, I reminded you that the pure and the just among us are those who know and recognize their sin. That’s the way to holiness and greatness. When we say someone is a good man or a good woman, we do not suggest that they are people in whom there is no inclination to evil, but rather that they are people who have wrestled and still wrestle with it and never give in because their quality and their goodness comes from the struggle. Those people are truly noble. These are people of virtue, character, and nobility. The work of Jesus and his expectation that we change leads us to glory, to Easter, to virtue and nobility.

“Morality is like art, said G.K. Chesterton, “it consists of drawing a line somewhere.” We live in an age in which no lines seem to be drawn at all, or those that have been drawn are being erased. In my 78th year of life and more than 50 years as priest I have come to recognize that an unhealed wound, a kind of sinful restlessness, afflicts humanity and robs us of glory.

Bruce Springsteen, “The Boss” wrote a song that describes our age when he sings: “Everybody has a hungry heart.” I think we are hungry for glory, hungry for the life we should have had by God’s will and God’s original plan for us. But we have traded our glory for something else, and sin is the consequence. Our hunger is for God and the glory that comes from being in God’s presence. I want to propose to you that in the great Divine wisdom that has shaped and called us Church there is a gift we have forgotten about, and it’s not good for us. That gift is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This coming Sunday we are going to proclaim a wonderful story about a woman and man who met at the water. A sinner came face to face with the holy one. The thirsty one ends up giving a drink to the one who has a well, and the water jar gets left behind. That water jar, that thing, that kept her coming back again and again because it wasn’t enough gets abandoned because she met the truth and found understanding, mercy, compassion, and love. No ridicule, no shame, no scolding, no reproach, just acceptance of one who was waiting and looking for the Christ.

For all kinds of reasons which are completely irrelevant unless you are looking for an excuse, the practice of sacramental confession in the Catholic Church dropped off almost overnight about forty years ago. Before the Second Vatican Council, Catholics came regularly and in great numbers to confess their sins to a priest, but then, just like that, they stopped coming. Analysts have proposed a variety of reasons: a greater stress on God’s love, a desire to move away from a fussy preoccupation with sexual peccadilloes, the sense that confession is not necessary for salvation, and on and on it can go. Whatever the cause or the causes, the experience has fallen out of practice.

A well-known priest-sociologist once announced that whatever Catholics drop, someone else will inevitably pick up. So, for example, we Catholics, after the Council, stopped talking about the soul, out of fear that the category would encourage a kind of split in humanity between the spiritual and the physical. Suddenly into book stores pops up all kinds of books on care of the soul with a widely popular series on “Chicken soup for the soul.”

Then the Catholic Church slows down talk about angels and devils, and presto, an explosion of books and films about these fascinating spiritual creatures.

A great example of this priest’s idea is the way in which the practice of sacramental confession – largely extinct in the Church pops up in a somewhat distorted form all of the world. What do we find on daytime talk shows from Oprah, to Jerry Springer and Maury, but a series of people coming forward to confess their sins, usually of a sexual nature? And what do we see on the numerous judgement-shows like Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars? But people being forced to accept a kind of punishment for their bad or inadequate behavior. Just maybe we ought to admit that the need to confess our sins and receive some sort of judgement or comfort is just hard-wired into our spirits. When we don’t have the opportunity to deal with our sin in the proper context of faith and church, we will desperately cast about for a substitute.

If you want to get a really crazy conversation going sometimes among Catholics, get them started sharing their experiences with Confession. Many of us around my age can tell horror stories about psychological abuse in the confessional by priests who were hung up on sexual sins, or all too eager to threaten eternal damnation, or perhaps just cranky from sitting in a box for hours. On top of that, every priest (including this one) could tell you tales of people coming to confession for trivial reasons or out obsessive-compulsive neuroses. Sometimes I think some people come just because they know someone will listen to them. However, there was an old Roman saying that just because something can be abused doesn’t mean you should get rid of it.

I want to honestly say right here that some of the best and most spiritually rewarding moments in all my years of priesthood have been in the context of hearing a confession. I will never forget sitting in Concourse D at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. A man walked up to me and said: “Father, would you hear my confession.” For a just a few minutes, we walked up and down the concourse. He was a priest who in a moment of discouragement and desperation had left his people to pursue his own pleasures. In those few moments, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he turned around and went back home. I hope to this day that someone came out running to great him with a ring and a robe. There have been moments with young people struggling to love their parents but acting out in hurtful ways. There have been little children trying to learn that a hand is not a weapon with which you hurt someone, but something God has given us to help others up who have fallen, or to pat someone you love, or feed someone who is hungry. I’ve prayed with people who have been unfaithful discovering that their real infidelity is to God and that they have betrayed themselves as much as their partner in this life. 

So, what is it with us? Laziness? Denial? Or maybe a presumption that if we just feel sorry, we don’t have to say we are. How does that work? You scrape my car in the parking lot. You go home and feel badly and maybe tell God you’re sorry, but never say anything to me? It just doesn’t work that way when people want to make up. When you’re sick, you see a doctor, you take your medicine. If you don’t, you might die. Isn’t it odd that many of us go to our doctor at least once or twice a year for a check-up to stay healthy and in good shape without a thought about a check-up for your soul? 

There must be some little voice whispering that God can’t be offended by what we say and do, or worse yet, by what we fail to say and do, and so around and around this world goes with the morality of choices hardly ever being taken into consideration as though I can do what I want as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, but of course the hurt is already there and it’s deep because it’s all about me and my rights. If my rights offend you, it’s your problem. No, it isn’t. So, in God’s mercy there is a way to take another look at what we say and do and what we fail to say and do and take responsibility for the consequences which not many people want to do these days because, blame is the game. It’s been going on since Adam and Eve. She blamed the snake, he blamed her, and they ended up alone, in shame and very sorry. The consequences of forgetting that we are children of God, or of thinking that we can act or do what God alone does is dragging down – way down.

There is always that fear about what someone is going to think of us. So, we don’t want to say what everyone of us can and should say: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” While you might be saying that to a priest you respectfully call, “Father.” What I as a priest hear is someone speaking to God the Father. People who don’t know enough to understand are always asking why you have to confess to a priest, and you know the answer, because he’s a sinner too, and where two or three gather in the name of Jesus Christ, he is in their midst. So, there’s two sinners, and the one came to forgive sins and heal whatever is broken. People who don’t know enough question the power or the right of a priest to forgive sins, and as soon as they do, you know that they never listened to the words of the prayer. Let me review them for you: God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is the Holy Spirit that forgives, not the priest. He just speaks the words in the name of the whole church which is fulfilling the commission given to it by Jesus himself.

So, once again, we see the Church as a Sacrament – this time a Sacrament of healing forgiveness that lifts up, restores, heals the broken hearted and sometimes broken lives. We are all people who long for a second chance, and that’s what we proclaim with this great gift: that we have a second chance. And what does the priest think about those repentant and sorrowful people who come to pray with him?  I’ll tell what I think. I sit there is total amazement at the faith in the lives and hearts of people who come to confession. They bear witness to me, and many times, they shame me. I can’t tell you how often I have headed off to find a confessor after some time in the confessor. I don’t see sinners. I don’t see evil. I don’t hear anything but a painful cry from a hurting heart. I’m not there to judge. I’m there to bind up what is broken, to strengthen the weak, and hold up those who feel lame, tired, lost, and alone.

There is one verse in John’s Gospel that leaves me speechless and in awe. It goes like this: Luke 22:54-61

One of the most powerful moments in the Gospel happens without a word spoken. Jesus has talked and talked and talked about repentance and conversion, and he never gets better results than when he says nothing and just turns and looks at Peter. Of course, it all happens because of things said earlier, but the final and best moment is accomplished in silence. Luke tells us that Jesus turned and “looked at Peter.” and Peter wept. What must have been said between those two men in that glance? What was the message Peter understood as his eyes met the eyes of his friend, his Lord, his brother? We can only imagine, and we can only hope.

What do you think that look was like?  It’s easy for us who live in a measured world of revenge, power, retribution and superiority to think that the look on the face of Jesus as he turned to Peter was one of reproach and “I told you so.” But, after we remember the lessons of Mercy we have heard from Jesus again and again, I think he looked at Peter winked and smiled with love.

We bring our brokenness, our inadequacy, our sinfulness here to this place to be included, to be part of the fellowship, to take part in the forgiveness; the amnesty that redemption proclaims, and we take the chance and live in the hope that he will turn his face toward us again, that He will look at us, and that like Peter we may be touched by the divine mercy that renews our hope in the face of sin.

If Fellowship and Forgiveness belong to this place, so does Mercy.

Mercy is a gift we cannot receive until we have surrendered. It was not until Peter looked Jesus in the eye with full knowledge of what he had done and who he was, that he could simply give up, surrender to grace knowing full well that he was, after all kinds of testing and mistrust, accepted in all his brokenness.

Mercy is not benevolent tolerance or a kind of grudging forgiveness. It is a loving allowing, a willing breaking of the rules by the one who made the rules. It is wink and a smile. Receiving the mercy of God takes humility. That was the difference between Peter and Judas. It was that quality that made the difference between one who said: “I have sinned against heaven and earth.” and then destroyed himself in pride, unable to admit that he had done such a thing; and the other one, who failed by his denial, and was willing to look into the eyes of the one he had failed.

In this place, around this table, gather the weak the broken the lame, the sinners, the powerless to celebrate fellowship, forgiveness, and mercy. If Jesus who sits with us at this table is the revelation of what is going on inside the eternal God, which is the core of Christian faith, then we are forced to conclude that God is very humble. He never holds rightful claims against us. We never attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to Mercy. A lifetime of received forgiveness allows us to become mercy. And when the time comes for us to look into the face of Christ, we can only hope that he will turn and look at us just as he did Peter. Our best hope is that he will wink and smile, and once again we will feast in joy as we pass the plate of Mercy to all who are broken and humble enough to come in.

Sing: “There is a Balm in Gilead”

Have you ever noticed when driving around town those people who are in tank tops and shorts running along with the latest expensive running shoes? They are never smiling. They look like they are in agony, and then I begin to wonder why the people who are running are the ones who don’t need to. They already have flat abs. They don’t need to run. I do, Then I just speed up so I don’t have to see them. It’s all part of the culture and age in which we live. It has been poisoned by a cult of youth and healthy living evidenced by flat bellies and blemish free tanned supple skin so much so that we must now reach deeply into our treasure of tradition for an antidote that would restore our vision letting us see an even greater sacramental sign that reveals the Holy and the Presence of God. I’ll remind you again. When it comes to spirituality and sacraments, it is always going to be about people. 

This cult of youth and health has cost us a great treasure, and hides from eyes a living sacrament of Christ’s presence.  It is the sacrament of suffering, illness and age.

The sick and frail are themselves a sacrament of Christ’s presence among us. Those bent with age and slowed by the burden of years are a living reminder of Christ under the burden of our sin. They proclaim to us still the Good News of Hope in a living homily of patience. Those who live with sickness and pain are a far more real sign of Christ’s presence than the crucifixes which hang all around us. Knees that have bent before the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation are worn from a life of adoration and service. Feet that now shuffle behind walkers or canes have walked down the aisles of our churches in a life-long procession toward the holy.

These are lives broken for all. In humble recognition of that which is holy, we anoint with sacred oil that which is most precious for us and bears the image of Christ. We touch, embrace, and reach out not so much to give strength as to receive a measure of their strength and their patience.

I’ve always believed and sensed very deeply that hospitals and nursing homes are very holy places. They are filled with the presence of God, the power of life, the hope of resurrection. In the presence of these holy ones who are suffering, frail, yet faithful. At the same time, they are often places of great loneliness and isolation. Often the sick and the frail are cut off or absent from the fellowship, friendship, and nurturing companionship of the church. One of the most under-appreciated sacramental signs happens during Holy Week when a Bishop gathers the church together for the Blessing and Consecration of the Oils. Then, at the conclusion, someone from every parish takes some of that Oil back to the parish church visually and materially linking all the churches together.

We use these blessed oils in the most wonderful way to mark places and people as holy, as sacred, and as someone very dear to the heart of God. When an altar is blessed, oil is poured on it. When a church is blessed, oil is smeared on its walls. When someone steps up wanting the privilege of sharing the Body and Blood Christ giving witness to their faith in Confirmation, we smear oil on them. When the hands of priest are prepared to hold the sacred gifts in sacrifice and offering, they are smeared with oil. The act unites and bonds us together. Listen to the prayer a Bishop offers over the oil of the sick: “Lord God, loving Father, you bring healing to the sick through your Son Jesus Christ. Hear us as we pray to you in faith, and send the Holy Spirit, man’s Helper and Friend, upon this oil, which nature has provided to serve the needs of men. May your blessing come up on all who are anointed with this oil, that they may be freed from pain and illness and made well again in body, mind, and soul. Father, may this oil be blessed for our use the name of Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you forever and ever. Amen.

When that oil shared with communities around the diocese is then taken and smeared on the head and hands of the sick who, because of their illness or age have been away, they are once again in touch with, included in, and part of the sacramental praying church. The healing is about reaching out and gathering back in whoever is broken and left out. There is hardly anything more painful than loneliness and the feeling of abandonment that often comes with disease, suffering, and age. In their suffering, those we anoint become sacraments in a sense. They are a sign to us of the suffering Christ who stands among us with the promise of resurrection and hope.

We who live in this sacramental faith develop an eye for the holy.

We see it where others do not. We look upon common ordinary things and can see their potential for bearing grace. Bread, Wine, Water, Oil, and Flames to the sacramental eye connect us with the Holy, and can lift us out of the present. 

Let us pray: Father, you raised your Son’s cross as the sign of victory and life. May all who share in his suffering find in this sacrament a source of fresh courage and healing. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives forever and ever, Amen.

Listen now the Word of God.

A reading from the Prophet Isaiah:

“The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.

They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song

The glory of Lebanon will be given to them, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; 

They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, 

say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be Strong, Fear Not!

Here is your God, he comes with vindication; 

With divine recompense he comes to save you. 

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared;

Then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing.

Sing: “Healing River”

A reading from the Epistle of Saint James.

Is there any one among you sick? Let him bring in the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.

The Word of the Lord

The Book of the Gospels it taken from the Altar to the Ambo
Sing: “Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ. King of Endless Glory.”

Gospel:

A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Mark

“Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them:

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation.

The man who believes in it and accepts baptism will be saved;

the man who refuses to believe in it will be condemned.

“Signs like these will accompany those who professed their faith; 

they will use my name to expel demons

they will be able to handle serpents, 

they will be able to drink deadly poison without harm

and the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover.

Then after speaking to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven

and took his seat at God’s right hand.

The Eleven went forth and preached everywhere.

The Lord continued to work with them through and confirm the message 

through the signs which accompanied them.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, we experience our powerlessness, our limitations, and illness always leads us to glimpse death. It can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God. It can also make a person more mature, and initiate a search for God and a return to God. Christ’s compassion toward the sick and his many healings of every kind of infirmity are a wonderful sign that “God has visited his people” and that the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive sins, he has come to heal the whole person, soul and body; he is the physician the sick have need of. His compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies himself with them: “I was sick and you visited Me.” His preferential love for the sick has not ceased through the centuries to draw the very special attention of Christians toward all those who suffer in body and soul. It is the source of tireless efforts to comfort them. Often Jesus asks the sick to believe. He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands, mud and washing. The sick try to touch him, and so in the sacraments Christ continues to touch us in order to heal us. With great confidence then, and in response to the command of Christ that we should continue to do what he has done and act in his name, I ask that those who wish to receive the strength and grace of this Holy Anointing come forward. 

My sisters and brothers, in our prayer of faith let us appeal to God for those who are before us:

• Come and strengthen them through his holy anointing, Lord Have Mercy
• Free them from all harm: Lord Have Mercy
• Free them from sin and all temptation: Lord Have Mercy
• Relieve the sufferings of all the sick her present: Lord, Have Mercy
• Assist those dedicated to the care of the sick: Lord, Have Mercy
• Give life and health to our brother on whom we not lay hands in your name: Lord, Have Mercy.

The imposition of hands takes place followed by the anointing.

“Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, 

by the grace of your Holy Spirit

cure the weakness of your servants.

Heal them and forgive their sins;

restore them to full health and strengthen them to continue their service to your people

for you are Lord forever and ever, Amen.

May the God of all consolation

bless you in every way

and grant you hope all the days of your life.

May God restore you to health

and grant you salvation.

May God fill your heart with peace

and lead you to eternal life.

May Almighty God bless you,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

March 30, 31, April 1, 2020 at St. Peter Naples, Fl

In my 78^th year of life, I have begun, like many others to think, “There has to be more than this.” I get that way sometimes when routine and the rut I have carefully carved out of the calendar and the clock sometimes seems more like a merry-go-round or a roller coaster for some of us, than real journey from one place to another. On a merry-go-round and even a roller coast, you always end up back where you started. It leaves me wanting something deeper and maybe more contemplative than just getting up in the morning, fixing some coffee, working the crossword, and until it gets too hard, the sudoku puzzle. In the last few years, I’ve actually been somewhat lifted up and encouraged by the fact that a lot of young people are beginning to wonder the same thing: “There has to be more than this.” Like you, I have watched some of them leave us, and the empty pews in so many churches are a very clear sign to us that they are looking and wondering, thinking as I do that there must be more than this.

Sometimes people ask me, “Father, are you a Jesuit?” After a laugh, I always deny it, wondering why or how they could possibly ask that question. I wonder, maybe it’s because I like scotch? Then I think, “I’ve never seen a Jesuit with a 44inch waist.” Why don’t they think I’m Friar Tuck? I have a lot of good friends who are Jesuits. One of them who came to seem me while discerning a vocation at the University of Oklahoma I sent to the Jesuits. He was getting a PhD in Astro-Physics! I didn’t even know what that meant. He asked me why I thought he should be a Jesuit, and I said: “You’re too smart to be a parish priest. You’ll go out of your mind hanging around here the rest of your life!” God has a bigger plan. He’s Jesuit now at a very large parish right on the Mexican Boarder in Arizona. I keep wondering what that has to do with Astro-Physics, but I suppose at this point it doesn’t make any difference. What he does is work and pray.

In my own story, a man in the sixth century had a greater influence. His name is Benedict, and I spent 8 years of education and formation at a large Benedictine Monastery. What I took away from there after eight years was way more than a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s Degree in Theology. I took away the very heart of Benedict’s vision and the spirit of the Rule he wrote that to this day guides the lives of monks and nuns all over the world. The Christian life is both prayer and work. Work without prayer is ungrounded and can be self-deceptive. Prayer without work is a fantasy and does not reflect a real Christian vocation which is to find and serve God who is not confined to church or a tabernacle. A Benedictine Abbot once said to his monks something that applies to us all: Take God very seriously. Take your vocation seriously, but do not take yourselves too seriously. 

I am a monk at heart. I live a rather solitary life. It’s just me and God. Having finally retired, I now work and pray, which is what monks do. Sometimes someone will ask me why in retirement I seem so busy, and my response is that we never retire from prayer, and when we realize that, we can’t retire from work either, since work is often the consequence of prayer. You pray about something, and God says, do something about it. What I have retired from is meetings. I no longer care about the loan, the lights, the locks or the leaks. When I see a wet ceiling, “I’m glad for a roofer. They have a job! When someone says, as they did for years and years, “Father, can I have the key to gym?” I say, “I only have car keys, and I obviously don’t know where the gym is located.” I will never forget the very first time I celebrated Mass here at Saint William Parish after I was welcomed here in retirement. The opening hymn had begun, the procession was just starting, and someone came up and pulled on my elbow and said: “Father, there’s no paper in the restroom.” At that moment, I knew I was a monk at heart, and I remembered something my mother always said just before we left the house: “Go to the bathroom, and don’t forget to wash your hands.”

For three nights to come, I am going to invite you into the mystery of who and what we are as a Catholic Church. It springs out of my life as a would-be monk. It takes shape from my experience and discovery that the Church itself is a Sacrament, a sign that accomplishes what it signifies. Something happens to us when we become Church, and as a Church we make something happen in this world. Sacraments are what we are. Sacraments are Holy Moments: the moment when the divine and human touch and become one. Sacraments are our experience of the Incarnation. In theology there is only one Sacrament, Jesus Christ; but as a Church we experience the Christ at the most significant moments of our lives: birth, death, and everything in between. The Sacraments accomplish the work of Jesus Christ. They heal what is broken, they strengthen what is weak, and they proclaim the forgiveness of sin. That’s what was happening all around Jesus when he was on this earth. It is still what happens all around Jesus when we are together as a Church. Sacraments are how we express without words what we believe, and what is happening to us in faith. The first night I shall talk about the Sacraments of Initiation. The second night, the Sacraments of Service, and the last night, Sacraments of Healing. Service and Healing are the work of Jesus Christ. Once we are brought into and born into Jesus Christ, there is nothing left for us to do but to serve and to heal in his name. That is exactly what he sent his disciples out to do, and that is our work and that is our prayer. Whenever you look up from the rut you may have made for yourself in life and begin to wonder if there isn’t something more, look around at the brokenness in this world and you will know there is more to life than we have ever imagined. I believe that when our young people tire of computer games, cheerleading, basketball and football, they may see in us a place for themselves and realize that they may be taking themselves way too seriously at the expense of taking God seriously. Living and celebrating the Sacramentality of our faith is, I believe, the key to and hope for our future. We have to take it seriously. I invite you to explore how to do that.

Parish Mission on Sacraments First Night: Sacraments of Initiation

Begin with singing, “Come to the Water”

Understanding is the challenge we face when we come into contact with our church and its way of expressing itself in the rites we celebrate. Understanding is not cognitive. It is not about the brain. None of us really think our way into a relationship or even more so, into faith. It is about experience. You did not think your way into love. You experienced it, and then along the way your figured out what it was. The problem in our day and age is that we rarely take the time to experience anything let alone reflect on that experience and come to some understanding about what it means. A Harvard Sociologist (Robert Putnam) described our contemporary age by saying that in these times we have increased the number of believers but not belongers. There are now lots and lots of people who style themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” While we can say with pride that Catholicism is for those who are both “spiritual and religious”, as well as well as for believers and belongers, we also have to deal with the reality that for everyone one person who enters the Catholic Church in America, three leave. Why? I suspect that there are lots of reason in this “spiritual, not religious” culture, but certainly two factors are the excessive individualism of our culture, and the credibility of the church itself for a variety of reasons, sex abuse, financial mismanagement, ineffective witness of contradictory lives, and lots of other personal reasons. 

We live in an iPod, iPad, iMac, iPhone and endless other “i”-devices world. My point is that a small “i” begins to show how we name countless technological advances and machines. If you glance at the magazine rack in the grocery store, I wonder whether we are not moving from People Magazine to US and SELF. And self is where we seem to be stuck. I recall a famous line from the movie Beaches. Bette Midler leans over the restaurant table and says to her lunch companion, “But enough about me – let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?”

Our church is a “we” church. If you have not noticed, every prayer in the missal uses the first-person pronoun. We ask this……ends every prayer. Living our faith (catch the pronoun?) is always a corporate enterprise. We belong to a covenant religion that started with Noah, his sons, his wife, and the wives of his sons along with two of every living thing on earth. Of course, it should have started with Adam and Eve, but a tree and an apple got in the way after which it all went bad. Whenever I think this way, what comes to mind is an apple with a bite out of it. Have you ever thought about that when you look at the icon or emblem on the cover of many computers? 

We belong to a covenant religion that continued with our forebears in biblical faith, covenants we read about every three years in the Sunday readings. There is the covenant with Noah (Genesis 9, 8-15), the covenant with Abraham and Sarah, and their beloved Isaac (Genesis 22, 1-2, 9, 20-13, 15-18). Then there is the covenant with Moses, (Exodus 20, 1-17) and a renewal of the covenant at the time of King Cyrus (2 Chronicles 36, 14-17, 19-23)   followed by Jeremiah (31, 31-34) promising a new covenant. These covenant texts are the bedrock relationship on which our faith is based. We are in this together. It is that simple. Part of what binds us together is ritual which is something we do when words are inadequate. For instance, when you feel overcome with joy and happiness at seeing someone you have not seen for a long time, there are no words, you just want to embrace and kiss. So, with ritual there are simply certain gestures that have an agreed upon meaning. We don’t make them up as we wish They are given to us to shape what we say and do in common. When a birthday cake comes into a room, no one has to tell the one being honored what to do. For that matter, we don’t start singing the National Anthem! Our rites as a church, these rituals that shape and express us are not a place or a time for self-expression. Even the wearing of certain vesture covers up our uniqueness. All of this brings focus to the meaning of what is happening it’s not about some external behavior.

The Sacraments are not something we do. The Sacraments are not something the Church creates. We are drawn by God’s mysterious designs and God’s mysterious ways into these experiences. The Sacraments, the Liturgy is always God’s gift to us and our response to God. Tomorrow when I speak about Matrimony, I will tell you more about something I always say to couples who come in for their first meeting to talk about marriage. I always say: “From now own, do not talk to me about your wedding. It isn’t yours. It isn’t mine. If you think it’s yours, and you think you can design it, you are forgetting that God is in charge, and this Rite and what we do is our response to God’s self-revelation.” Matrimony, Anointing of the Sick, Reconciliation, Ordination these are never ours. I have no business talking about my Ordination. It was not mine. It was God calling and commissioning me to be and do something in His name. All I had to do was show up, kneel down, and say: “Present” when my name was called. After that I had to listen.

We get this message proclaimed every time one of the priests uses the Third Eucharistic Prayer at Mass. He says, and you may recall the words: “You never cease to gather a people to yourself., so that from the East and to the West….” We gather at the Lord’s invitation, not our own self will. That’s important to keep in mind sometime when you don’t feel like going to Mass some Sunday. Are you seriously going to turn down the Lord’s invitation because of a Tee time or you just don’t want to get up? Seriously?  You see, we always think it’s about us way too easily forgetting that God is up to something. We are made members of one another in this worldwide Catholic Church through the waters of Baptism and the invocation of the three persons of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the prayer over the offerings on Holy Thursday, the priest proclaims these words: “Whenever the memorial of his sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished.” Wow!  If that’s true, you have to be there, not at home with your feet up and beer in your hands watching a football game if you want your redemption.”

Early on, for many generations, Initiation into the Body of Christ, the Church, was one ritual with three parts. Most of the Eastern Churches continue this ancient custom. Our Latin or Western Roman Church has split them into three separate rites or “Sacraments.” There is some movement to restore the more ancient practice, but for now we have it as it is: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion. Actually, we have sort of messed up the order. For most of us it goes like this: Baptism, Holy Communion, Confirmation. Historically, Baptism and Confirmation were broken apart when the numbers of people being initiated were greater than the community’s leader, what we now call a Bishop, could manage at one time. So, the local delegate of the Bishop Baptized and the initiation was completed at a later time when the Bishop got around to the community. Once the faith of the person initiated was “Confirmed”, then they were allowed to share in the Eucharist. The bringing of a person into communion, into the covenant was the point of it all. 

As we all know, many other Christian communities we call “Protestant” do not baptize children, and they do not understand why we do and what it’s all about, but the custom is there from the beginning, and it springs out of the fact that often entire households were initiated: Dad, Mom, and the children. They all came into the covenant. The evidence is there in scriptures. In the case of the children, it is the fact that they will be raised up in a covenanted family that makes it possible. That is why in the Rite of Baptism for Children, parents are asked to give public testimony that they will bring this child up in the practice of faith. Contrary to what some may want to believe, the parents are not speaking for their child in answering those questions. They are giving testimony to the faith they are going to share. 

I honestly don’t know when, why or how we got into the odd custom we have in the Roman Rite Church of dribbling a few drops of water on the head of someone and calling that Baptism. In the end, it is the intention that matters, but we sure have to talk a good line to make the point. Baptism is birth into everlasting life. It is the beginning of new life with all of its promise and hope. About thirty years ago, when I was Rector of the Cathedral in Oklahoma City, we set about fixing up that 70-year-old church with some paint and some other arrangements that suited the Church of our time. One of the things we did was build a Baptistry. If any of you have ever been to Rome and seen the Lateran Basilica which is actually the Cathedral Church of Rome, you might remember that the Baptistry is a separate building off to the side of the church. If you’ve been to Florence, the very famous Baptistry there stands out as great piece of architecture in itself. The Baptistry was separate for a couple of reasons. For one, it was often heated when nothing else was, and for another, people being baptized got into a pool of water without clothing. They laid down, went under water and came up alive. It was a powerful and memorable experience.

A few years ago, I took a group of pilgrims to Lourdes. At one of the planning meetings, I spoke about the “baths” there, and I encouraged everyone to get over any hang-ups they might have and plan to go into the baths. It is a powerful and extraordinary spiritual and physical experience. On the second morning we were there, I reminded everyone that there was time set aside in the schedule to go into the waters. In the group was the retired Police Chief from Oklahoma City. He was a tough guy, burly, tough spoken, and there were no filters on his mouth. He said what he thought all the time. He was sitting in the back of the room with his arms folded. There was no expression on his face other than mild disgust. I concluded by saying that this was the chance, and the only chance to have this experience since few of them were likely to return to Lourdes. Skipping the experience of the baths might be something they would regret for a long time. I explained that there was a small room for removing clothing, and that an attendant would be there to wrap a very large sheet around you, and lead you to the pool. It is something you step down into, and water is flowing through it. The attendant helps you sit down in the water removing the towel-like sheet, and then they offer to pray for you or with you as you settle into the water. When the prayer ends, you stand up and the attendant wraps you in the cloth and leads you very respectfully and quietly back to the dressing area. By this time, the man in the back is looking up at the ceiling after glancing at his watch.

Every evening of the pilgrimage, the group would gather together, have a drink, and then share their most powerful thought or experience of the day. So, that night we followed the usual plan, and after many comments about going to confession, the beautiful Mass in the grotto, the procession the night before, Mr. Police Chief spoke up from that back. He said: “I did it.” With that he choked up and wiped his eyes. He said: “You never told us the water was cold.” I said, “No one asked.” He brushed aside my comment and with tears in his eyes, he said: “I will never ever forget that moment. Now I understand why some of my Protestant friends speak with such passion and so intently about their Baptism. I think I was Baptized today, and I feel wonderful, clean, and almost holy.  I feel alive for the first time since my wife died.” The room was silent, and someone quietly said, “Forget about the “almost part.”

So, back to the Cathedral, we built a baptistry that was attached and visible from the church, but distinct. During the construction, that part of the church was walled off for the sake of safety, and to keep out the weather as they built the addition. After a few weeks, some of the 8^th graders in the parish school wanted to know what was behind the wall. So, I arranged for the contractor to let the children look in. The concrete form had been poured, and they were about to begin the tile work. The children stood and looked at it for a minute or two, and one of the boys said: “It looks like a grave”. With that, I knew we were getting it right. Baptism is about dying and rising. Going down, going under, coming up, breathing in new life. That is what we’re doing.

Water and Fire! These are the most powerful earthly tools and earthly elements. When a forest burns, it dies. When it rains on that scorched earth, everything comes to life again. When it’s time for a baby to be born, the water breaks out of the womb, and life comes through the water. My friends, we have to get in touch with this truth and this reality again. Those of us Baptized as children run the risk of thinking it’s all over, and it’s just something you do to have a party or keep the grandparents happy. One tool that we have to make a connection with something that happened before we can remember is that water in the doorway. Touching it is important. Feeling it on your face and on your hands ought to be a reminder that the room you are entering is a place where Water and Blood bring us again into the very presence of God where the work of our redemption is accomplished.

Water is not the only element we use in our tradition for expressing something that is just a little beyond what words can say. There is white garment, there is fire and light, and there is Chrism. In the thrilling Book of Revelation, we read: (Chapter 21, 1-10).  You know that white garment needs to be real, not some ironed strip of fabric. It’s a garment that gets used again to identify the white robed. Look at what I’m wearing. Think about what a child wears at First Communion. This about what a bride wears by tradition at a wedding. It has nothing to do with virginity. It has everything to do with being a white-robed member of the covenant. It is also our way of putting aside our silly need to be different, to stand out, or be stylish. We cover up and we look alike because by this sacrament we are one people, one body, one in Christ. It’s not about me any longer.

We take fire for light, and with great intensity, we pass that light on to a family on the day of a child’s baptism with the hope and the prayer that the light of that candle, the light of Christ, may never go out. Then we say: “Keep this candle burning brightly so that when the Lord comes you may go out to meet him.” With that, there is covenant. With that, there is identity. With that, there is mission, something to do.

How I wish we would have the courage, understanding, and wisdom to get this right, but it doesn’t seem to be within reach right now, and so we bumble along with a system that clearly doesn’t work. Instead of announcing some grade level or some age for completing Initiation, common sense, if not good theology, ought to say that a person should be “Confirmed” and admitted to the Covenant when they want to and have the desire to be in Communion. In some places around the country, that is beginning to happen, and those of you with grandchildren in different places might already be aware of this change. Communion comes after Confirmation. The very fact that making this correction takes courage, understanding, and wisdom tells you something. These are three Gifts of the Holy Spirit: a sure sign that God is at work. Take if from an old pastor, as long as we keep up the present system of making Confirmation a “rite of passage” into adulthood, it’s going to be a one-way street out the church. It implies for young people that they are now adults and can make choices for themselves.  So, who can blame them for leaving. They are not adults when they are 15 and 16! Our more ancient custom says that once faith grows from the formation, prayer, service, and the witness of parents, signs of that faith will become obvious. When that day comes, a person who is living the Covenant of Sacrifice and Service will want to receive the Eucharist and share in the grace, the strength, the support of the covenant community (the Church). Then, the Leader, the Teacher, and Sanctifier (That’s the role of a Bishop, by the way). He comes, and in his presence, those whose initiation is about to be complete step up, profess their faith, perhaps symbolically announce a new name by which they wish to be called, and a solemn anointing takes place that seals them, makes them holy, and draws them into the company of priests, kings, and prophets who throughout the Old Testament were anointed for service at God’s call.

Then it’s time to enter into the mystery of the New Covenant and it’s time to remember that whenever the memorial of his sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished. At that point, there can be no doubt about who someone is, because Covenant People are so identified with Christ that what they do is what Christ does, and what Christ does is what his people do. In case you don’t remember what Christ does, he heals, he forgives, he feeds, he unites, he draws people to the Father so that they may all be one. That’s not somebody else’s job. It’s ours. If someone is hungry, we feed. If someone is naked, we clothe. If someone is thirsty, we give a drink. If someone is alone, we become their companion. If someone is lost, we lead them home.

So, we gather, as our blessed ancestors have done from the beginning. We break open the Word of God, and we break the bread that has become for us the Body of Christ. It is God’s gift to us. Doing this brings us peace, healing, and reconciliation. It is a God’s way of answering the prayer of his Son, that we might all be one, that we may be friends, and that the relationship Jesus has with his Father is the same relationship we have with the Father.

In an age of hyper-individualism, it is extremely important to pay attention to the words we use and how we pray. As I said at the beginning, every single prayer that is offered begins with the word, “We.” There is no “I” in the Eucharist. Even the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples is always in the plural. We say again and again: “Our Father.” “Give us.” “Forgive us.” It happens because we are one with each other and with Jesus Christ. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Every prayer we offer is THROUGH Christ our Lord, because by Baptism, Confirmation, and in the Eucharist, we are one with Christ. We are in, and through and with Christ.

We gather around this altar at the invitation of Christ. It is Christ who presides, not Tom Boyer. I always smile a bit at the parishes where I serve when at the beginning they announce: “Today’s Celebrant will be Father Tom Boyer.” No, it won’t. It will be Jesus Christ. He is the host, he is the one who speaks, he is the one who opens our minds and hearts to the Word, and he is the one who feeds. There is a spiritual meaning to everything we do in our sacred liturgies. We learn the meanings not just by our brain, but by listening, seeing, speaking, smelling, and touching. The senses are the pathway to meaning, and rich and powerful ritual involves them all.

The very first act reveals who we are and what we’re doing. We approach God’s presence. We’re not just going to church. When the Israelites came near the Temple, they broke into song, and we know the words. They were preserved for us in a Psalm. “We shall up with Joy to the House of our God.” Sing it!

Yet we know in our hearts that the pure and just one is not the one without sin, but the one who recognized his sin. A just one, then, is the sinner who knows that they are a sinner. The most important part of this Penitential Act is SILENCE. It must be severe, intense, and austere. It is time to shut up, and stand humbly before the sinless one who is looking at us with love. If you have ever been caught doing something really wrong and shameful in the presence of someone you love, there is nothing to be said. There are no words to express how you feel in shame and sorrow. Then, we ask for mercy and forgiveness, and break into a song by which we simply acknowledge and praise the Mercy of a God who loves us anyway. Embracing that forgiveness, we in the assembly are worthy to offer praise to God signing: We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory. With that, we pray through Christ our Lord. Then, we sit down and we listen. God has something to say.

And then, it is time for a gracious God to feed us. But remember, Jesus said, “One does not live on bread along, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” If you think about it, where is the Gospel Book at this time usually resting? On the Altar. God will feed us from that table twice: once with the Word, and then again with the Body and Blood of his Son, the Bread of Life. Just as the eucharistic bread and wine are taken from the altar so that the faithful may nourish themselves on the body of Christ, so also the gospel is taken from the altar so that the faithful may be nourished with the word of Christ. 

When the Scriptures are proclaimed in the assembly, God is speaking. It is different from when you might sit at home and read some of the Bible. The power of the Holy Spirit within the assembly. I’ll be you didn’t know that in a Jewish Synagogue the scroll of the Law cannot be taken from the ark and read if there are not present at least ten adult men. This norm suggests that that it is not enough for the book of the Law to be present and that someone reads from it; also necessary is people to hear it proclaimed. This is the difference between personal study of the Bible and the proclamation of the Scriptures in the midst of the assembly. That is where the power of the Word comes from – out of the assembly, out of the Body of Christ. The Sacred Scriptures belong to the Church, that is why the Lector leaves the Scriptures on the Ambo after the proclamation. The lector does not carry the book away, but leaves it with the assembly because it is in the assembly’s care just as the Eucharist is.

Let me wrap this up with a final thought about the gifts, because the exchange of gifts is what happens next, and it’s beautiful and powerful. Gifts are brought to God and placed on the altar. We give away some of what God has given us as a reminder that we do not have absolute possession of anything. What makes the offering holy is the fact that it is sacrificed, given up, given away. In the Book of Deuteronomy (16,16) God says: “They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.” No believer may come before the altar with empty hands, because the vocation of every person is to offer the world to God by their own hands.

And then, why bread and why wine? Why not a steak and coke? Think about this. Bread has all the elements of the world within it. Those elements are Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. That is what makes bread such a power element that crosses every culture, age, and time. The earth: that with rain produces the grain, that rises with air and is baked with fire! It’s all there, and as the prayers says, it is the “work of human hands.” It’s about work, labor, grinding, mixing. It’s hard and demanding, labor intensive. But, there is another side to these gifts. It is wine. Yet, wine is hardly as necessary and basic as bread. It does require some labor, but we can do without. What it does supply is pleasure, and it brings with it a sense of celebration, of joy, gratitude, and fellowship. So, we bring these gifts put them on the altar that God may sanctify them by the power of the Spirit and make them “For us” bread of life and spiritual drink. So, the bread that we have carried in our hands to the altar; after giving thanks, is then taken from the altar and placed in our hands as the Body of Christ.

The church cannot be satisfied with having the Eucharist; it does not possess it. The Eucharist serves no purpose if it remains simply an object to be possessed and adored. The church, however, is called to become the eucharistic body of the Lord, and becoming the Body of Christ is the one greatest witness to the truth of the Eucharist. How do we know this is the Body of Christ? Look at the people. If you see Christ, then you know what Eucharist is. To receive Communion is to become communion. Why do you eat this? In order to come this. In a society where individualism triumphs, the Eucharist reminds us of the common destiny of all humanity. In a society where waste prevails, the Eucharist is a call to share. Psalm 40 tells us that what is not shared is wasted. The eucharist which forms us as God’s people in a covenant of love.

Conclude with singing: The Servant Song

Parish Mission on Sacraments Second Night: Sacraments of Service

Begin with singing; Come to the Water

Jesus sent us to serve and to heal. To reach deep into this call to service, we need only explore the Rite by which a person is called from the community, Baptism. It begins for all of us at Baptism when we are anointed with a prayer that welcomes us into a Holy People who are as Christ was anointed, Priest, Prophet, and King. The Sacraments of Service: Holy Orders and Matrimony have two essential elements in common: sacrifice and service.  A priest is not the only one who offers sacrifice, and that cultic act in liturgy is not all a priest is called to do. Remember, when we think of sacraments, we need to think of a people and what they mean and stand for; not just what they do. Now, that word, “Order” does not mean organizing things alphabetically or in good straight rows as Sister did when we were in the parish school. 

Remember those great stories by the British author, J.K. Rowling about Harry Potter? Well, early in each school term, the students gathered in that great hall, and the new students were called up one by one. They sat on a stool, and a hat was put on their head. In the stories, it was a magical hat and they called it the “Sorting Hat” because it would magically sort the students into their “houses” or groups for the school year. Those in each house worked together as a team for the building up of the school and support of all the members. Well, when we Catholics talk about “Orders” we are talking about sorting, or dividing up the work and the responsibilities for the sake of the whole and the support of each member. That’s exactly what Holy Orders is really about: sorting out the members in to groups for a common purpose and the support of all the members. Lay People, Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops are people who have been sorted out yet work together for the common good and mutual support in the use of their unique gifts and mission.

I have deliberately avoided using the word Priest for one of the Orders because we need to get something clear about that word and with it the expectations we have for those we might choose to call “Priest.” Actually, Presbyters is probably better for two reasons, it’s a term that refers to the wise elders of a community, and that is certainly what we have now as we face the reality that most priests today are old, and older men are hearing a call to that Order. The other reason I like the word Presbyter is that it disconnects from the Old Testament image of the Priesthood, and that is exactly what the first Christian communities wanted to do. They did not want anything to do with the Old Testament priesthood.

That old priesthood was hereditary. It was a privileged class supported and taken care of by the people. They were men who liked to dress up in fine robes and who held exclusive power and held enormous control and authority over the lives of the people. They ran the temple. They controlled the finances. They passed judgement on people, throwing out some for various reasons, but they also restored people who had been thrown out. An example of that comes to us with that story of Jesus healing some lepers and sending them to the priests for the obvious purpose of having them judged worthy and cleansed restoring them to their rightful place in the community. They were not teachers, they were rulers with a lot of power often abused. Among the Hebrews, a Rabbi was the teacher, and that was a different sort of person – let’s call it a different Order.

When the earliest Christian communities began to organize themselves and sort out the ministries and gifts, they wanted nothing to do with the old priesthood, because they had encountered the one priest, the ultimate High Priest, Jesus Christ. So, what we see developing is this role or ministry called “presbyter”. Judging from what the Epistles can tell us, that early church was very picky! The Epistle to Titus says this (1, 5-9) “…. appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you, on condition that a man be blameless, married only once, with believing children who are not accused of licentiousness or rebellious.” He goes on to add that “a Bishop, “as God’s steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate just, holy, and self-controlled. Holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able to both to exhort with sound doctrine and refute opponents.”

Then, in St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy (3, 1-7) he insists that they “must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money.” He must also, “manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the Church of God. He should not be a recent convert…he must also have a good reputation.”

The first letter of Peter (5, 1-4) instructs presbyters with these words: “Tend the flock of God in your midst not by constraint, but willingly, as God would have it not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.”

Back in the day, when I was working in formation and direction of candidates for the priesthood. I paid a lot of attention to three things: an ability to make and maintain wonderful, nurturing, and lasting friendships, an ability to be hospitable, and I always encouraged them to keep some houseplants in their rooms at the seminary. If they could not keep a weed like a philodendron alive, why entrust them with life of a human soul?

What those earliest Christian communities were looking for and expecting then, was not so much a “priest” like the Old Testament priests, but a prophet. That is what they saw in Jesus Christ, a prophet, not a priest like those guys running the Temple, punishing people, throwing people out, imposing harsh punishments, and always demanding their money. They had seen in Jesus, a new kind of priest: one who offered sacrifice, yes, but also one who stood among them as the prophets had in the past. This is why some thought that Jesus was Elijah returned, or some thought he was John the Baptist returned from the dead. Matthew, as we read deeply into his Gospel saw the image of Moses in Jesus.

The longer I live in this mystery of priesthood, the more I begin to understand that priests are anointed, like Christ, as priest and prophet. The two roles are barely distinguishable. In fact, it is probably only in Ritual behavior that they are distinct. The prophet in us, the prophet in our community, is the one who can point to the presence and the action of God. That role has nothing to do with the future. The prophet is someone who is in touch with the past, but standing with both feet and eyes wide open in the present. The prophet sees the hand of God and says so. The prophet can look into the face of death and disaster and chaos and say: “Look at what God can do. Expect the Divine. Trust in the Providence and Goodness of God.” All of us fuss, worry, and invest time and energy in addressing symptoms, when in fact, a prophetic people address the causes of evil, pain, injustice, and sorrow. For a really great priest, this comes out of courage, and it means that the priesthood is not for cowards and those who are easily intimidated or fear-filled. A priest must transform the present into the future. The symbol of this transformation is the Eucharist. What is changed by the faith of the people and the words of Christ spoken by the priest is not just bread and wine, but all the ordinary things of life changed into the extraordinary and unmistakable signs of God’s immediate presence in and through the world. The Incarnation is not a theological principal; it is a day in and day out experienceof God’s creative, life-giving presence in all things and especially all people. Anything that dims the ability to perceive that presence and honor it must go, and that takes courage. “The poor you will have always with you.” is not an excuse for ignoring the cause of their poverty. Losing sight of the causes of people’s hunger while we’re making sandwiches, running soup kitchens, or food pantries won’t do. We’ve been doing that a long time, and still there are more poor people getting poorer. We are trapped into this stuff because working with the symptoms makes us feel good. We avoid addressing the causes of poverty because it’s tough, risky, unpopular, and sometimes dangerous; but we are prophets, and taking on injustice is our cause, and like the prophets of the Old Testament, they will pay a big price for doing that.

Prophet/Priest lives in the present. That means that the working definition of a priest is: “one who awakens others to the revelation found in their lives.” It’s about the present. It’s about the fact that God is present to us now, and in all things and at every moment. It’s all very fine to know all about what God has done in the past. For the leader, it’s important to know where you’ve been, just in case you go by again. Then you’ll know you’re lost! When we start repeating mistakes from the past, we’re in trouble. I guess you could say, “We’re lost.” But, all that knowledge of the past is no good if we don’t recognize that God is still doing things in the present, our present. Pious “wannabes” who are all caught up in the past, which they mistakenly call “tradition” are lost because they’re not living in the present. They are sure that all the answers are somewhere in the past, and consequently, they are incapable of living with ambiguity and doubt, which are very essential to the human condition in people seeking truth.

When thinking this way, I remember what it was like on April 19, 1995 and the days following when a building in Oklahoma City was destroyed taking 169 lives leaving a city of one million people stunned to silence.  “Why?” was all anyone could ask. Those who needed power, those who were not living in the experience had all kinds of silly answers, when the only response to “Why” was to suggest that was the wrong question. “What does it mean?” was the issue, not why did it happen. And, “What are we going to become because of this?” was the next question. Effective ministry on that day and the days following happened when people were led to ask the right question and go on from there. It was a time to lead those who suffered to imagine a creative power in the midst of that chaos. The first time a man stands in the face of tragedy and thinks he knows the answer to the question “WHY” the real priesthood of Jesus Christ has been traded for certitude that puts us in control. If we are not comfortable in chaos and able to live in the face of it not knowing why, we will never experience creation and the Creator who is always to be found in the midst of it. We know that Christ did not come to take the tragedies out of life. He simply came to show us how to survive them. We know that in our minds, but forget under the pressure to respond to each other in pain and so we fail to act that way. When someone comes up with a glib or pious answer the question or the cry: “WHY?” in a moment of pain in the midst of tragedy, you know they’ve never been there.

Priests are called to enable persons to perceive the revealing presence of God in their ordinary lives. That is what all of us need from the priest. We don’t need to know why, we just need to have someone point to the hand of God in the midst of some chaotic moment. To do this, a priest must possess a singleness of mind. Jesus called it “purity of heart.” It simply means that a priest will be simply, pure of heart, honest, straight forward. There is only one agenda.

Howard Hendricks teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary and is one of the founders of “Promise Keepers”, a powerful program of spirituality for men. Howard says that we are suffering from AIDs, “Acquired Integrity Deficiency.” He believes we are producing celebrities today, but few people of character. So many have been caught in sexual misconduct or financial scandals, or have shown themselves to have an unhealthy love of power and authority. We have leaders who trade character for cash. Power, fame, and money corrupt many of these big-shot leaders. Some have called this the greatest challenge to Evangelical leaders. It is embarrassing. We desperately need men of integrity, and the only place they are going to come from is a real, solid, Catholic/Christian home. 

Here is the big difference we sometimes fail to see. We have to decide what we want and need. Leaders have dreams and look to the future. The manager looks to the bottom line of the profit sheet. This is exactly what’s wrong with our country these days, and with the whole world for that matter. We have no leaders, no statesmen, we have only politicians who are “managers.”  There’s no one around like Martin Luther King, Jack or Bobby Kennedy, Gandhi, Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, or David Ben-Gurion. Now all we get are celebrity executives! They have no dreams. They live for profit, and for profit now.  They have no imagination, only information.  The days in which we are living are without dreams. They are full of fantasies, but the two are not the same. A dreamless sleep is called, “death”, and dreamless society or a dreamless church is dead and meaningless. Our church needs dreamers just as much as we need air, and our society, our church needs true leaders, uncommon men and women who can restore the collective dream: The Kingdom of Heaven. Our passion for control shows it’s self in Secularism, which is the art of this world.

You deserve to have holy men, and that does not mean pious men. I’m not talking about people who walk around with a rosary dangling from their hands, or dressing up in some black robe pacing up and down a corridor with a breviary in their hands. I’m talking about real holiness which sometimes might look fanatical or just plain weird. A really holy person is somehow wild. They are wild with God. They are in love with God, and you can see it, hear it, and believe it. There is something about them that is intense, deep and real. These are people who have met God, who have suffered, and have some vision of the Kingdom of God. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t take anyone there. These are people who know God not by hearsay or from some book, but from having maybe hit bottom and discovered that in the cross, in death, in betrayal, in loneliness, there is someone who loves them and has never left them. 

The ultimate priest and prophet is Jesus Christ who is the one who stands before us to intercede for us, to teach, to sacrifice, and to open our eyes and ears to the present and the state of our relationship with God. What Jesus did is what presbyters must do: proclaim the Kingdom of God, raise a call to conversion, reconcile people to one another and to God, and heal what is broken when it comes to those relationships so that the Kingdom of God can be seen, experienced, and lived right now. “It is at hand” he said over and over again.

Break with song: “Hear Us Now Our God and Father”

In the last parish I served as Pastor, there was an old couple from Lebanon whose children had brought them to Oklahoma when life at their home was getting more dangerous as the violence of religious and political hatred tore apart a country that had for generations shown us how Catholic/Christians and the People of Islam could live side by side with mutual respect, trust, and kindness. Radicalism, a disastrous kind of fundamentalism, and distrust of people who are different tore that all apart in one generation. So, these two “refugees” sought comfort and hope in their family and in their church. They were like old Simeon and Anna, always in the Temple, always at prayer, and always filled with hope. The church there was arranged in four sections, like a cross. The choir was behind at the top, and there were three seating sections in transepts and nave. This couple sat in the side transept section in the front pew. In the back, behind the choir there was a vesting room for the servers. Books, candles and stuff like that was kept back there, and at the other end was the vesting room for the clergy. Inevitably before Mass there was traffic back and forth from one end to the other, and I would make the trip once or twice as well checking with the musicians or making sure all the servers were there and ready. Since the old folks spoke no English, and I speak no Lebanese, we could really never talk, but we found a way over the years to communicate with smiles, nods, winks or bows. The tabernacle was close by, and when passing, I would genuflect, and then passing in front of them, I would bow, and they would grin ear to ear and bow back at me.

One Sunday just before the opening hymn as servers and clergy were lining up, one of the smaller servers said to me: “Why are you always bowing to those people?” I thought, that’s a good question, and I asked him, “Why are you always genuflecting at that Tabernacle and bowing at that altar?” With great confidence born out of his Catholic School education, he said: “Because Jesus is there. It’s a Sacrament.” I said to him: “Let me tell you something. Those two people have lived together as husband and wife for more than 70 years.” If that’s not enough to make it obvious that Jesus is in that front pew, nothing will.” I bow to the presence of Jesus Christ.” 

Well, servers have a way of sharing information, and by next weekend, every time one of them passed in front of those two old people, the servers bowed to them. The old folks smiled and bowed back, and in no time at all, it was like a coocoo clock going off at noon with everyone bowing and bobbing up and down, and everyone was smiling. Maybe those servers learned something very important about the Sacrament of Matrimony. It’s not about a ritual, white dresses, invitations, photographers, cakes, and receptions. It is about the Incarnation. It is about God taking on human flesh to reveal something essential about God’s life, God’s presence, God’s dream for us all before there was sin.

This Church, right now, is sacramental. It is filled with the presence of God. All around us there are sacraments of unity, of peace, of forgiveness and love. You who sit here together as husband and wife are living signs of the power of forgiveness, of what loving sacrifice can accomplish in lifting up another, and of what it means to keep a promise just as God keeps promises, because you are friends and by the grace of the vows you made before God and his church, you are friends with God.

If you ever take time to look carefully and critically at how we go about all of this, and what we are hoping to express in the way we conduct our rituals, there is a lot of silliness that distracts from the truth to which we bear witness in this celebration. For instance, this whole idea of the “Father giving away the bride” is a perfect example. It comes from a time and a culture in which marriage was treated as a contract between families, and the transfer of wealth and property played an important role. “Giving away the bride” ritualized this contract. In this light, you can see how the tradition of the father escorting his daughter to her groom may have developed. Yet, we Catholics believe that the bride and groom give themselves to each other as equal partners, and as one, they give themselves to God. When we get it right, and when we decide that it is more important to reveal the truth than play-act with a script from centuries ago and call it “custom”, a good message will be proclaimed and faith will be revealed. Parents play a major role, and sharing in this moment is a gift greater than writing the checks to pay for it all. But there are other ways to say this. The groom may walk in with his parents, and the bride with her parents who might meet and greet each other with peace before the altar to which they are bringing their children once again just as they did for First Communion. 

Lighting candles has great significance in our Catholic Churches. The most important of these is the Easter or Paschal Candle. All the candles given at infant and adult baptisms are lit from this candle. It is also lit during funerals to mark our loved one’s passage to eternal life. This business of the Unity Candle trying to symbolize two lives become one is already profoundly signified through the couple’s exchange of vows and rings and the Nuptial Blessing. I’m always amused at how confusing and contradictory this relatively new custom can become. It was probably started by someone at a Hallmark store to sell candles. The big candle gets lit and then they blow out the two little ones! It’s as though the identity of the two disappears when you get married. My bet is that by the end of the first week, it will be obvious to both bride and groom that their individual identities have not only failed to disappear, but rather have suddenly grown more real and intense.

In my years as a priest, more than once someone has said to me: “What do you a single and celibate man know about marriage?” It’s a good question, and I have answer. “I’ve never laid an egg; but I know more about it than the chicken.” You don’t have to be married to know about marriage. We’ve all grown up and come from a marriage.

What this old man has learned from listening, watching, reading, and study is that a marriage is not much different from being a priest since ultimately it is about commitment which scares the day-lights out of a lot of young people these days who seem to think that the best way to avoid commitment is to never make any. With both sacraments of service there are few things that work and make it easier and more fruitful. It works for priests and for married couples. Do things together. It will keep you from taking each other for granted. It takes planning and attention to emotions, yours as well as theirs. You make time to go out and have fun, do some chores together, because that’s where you are going to find God. It does not matter what you do together, but how. You can’t forget to laugh. All kinds of science reveal that laughter reduces pain and allows us tolerate discomfort. Physically it reduces blood sugar levels making our heart and brain function better. Laughter establishes and restores a positive emotional climate and connection between two people. Of course, you don’t laugh at each other, you laugh at yourself and invite someone into the joke, because you are no longer taking yourself so seriously. When you laugh at your own faults and failings, it can help the other to do the same not with ridicule but with genuine good humor. It heals, uplifts, puts one’s emotional world back in order. If you don’t laugh much, you better start. If you already do, keep it up.

Back in the day (don’t you love saying?) when I would be meeting with engaged couples early on in their formation, I would insist that they pray together knowing that it is something we Catholics find awkward and sometime avoid simply out of a failure to try and learn how. I would say: “Start this way: one of you should just say, “Let’s pray.” Then be quiet, maybe close your eyes, and wish for a moment about the future for and with each other. It does not have to take long, and when you’ve made your wish, simply say, “Amen”,  which is our standard way of saying “OK, that’s enough.”  Then, when you get comfortable with that, don’t be afraid to ask the other one what they prayed for or prayed about, and then it’s not too hard to start doing that out loud, and before you know it, you’re praying together, praying for one another, being grateful, and most of all acknowledging that God brought you together, and from the very beginning, God saw the two of you as one with a plan that you would be a living sign of God’s covenant.

A lot of couples come in at the beginning thinking that it’s all about them. You know that routine if you’ve had children getting married, and probably you were there once yourself, but the truth is, it’s not all about you. You did not choose the one you married. God did, and you would do well not forget it, because when you keep that in mind, you are going to treat each other better, because that person who came into your life and awakened you to the wonder and mystery of love is a gift from God. It is God who put you together. 

Keeping in touch with God’s role is what puts some energy and focus into the service that this sacrament presents. Husbands and wives help one another to become more holy and so have a special place among the peoples of God, and they bear children to whom they must reveal God and bring them up to keep God’s commandments, which is what they promise at Baptism.

Finally, there are two other ideas I believe are important. One is forgiveness. We all know what power there is in forgiveness both offering and accepting it. But what too often escapes us is the daily discipline of forgiving that a strong marriage and family require. Forgiveness doesn’t need to come in big dramatic scenes, but it does need to happen every day at least once. Every night, all of us must make it a habit to think over the day and acknowledge any hurts, no matter how small. It’s no surprise to realize how many small hurts accumulate in a day. If you don’t let them go, resentment sets in. Matthew, probably one of the most forgiven of the apostles because of his past records for us an instruction by Jesus that must have hit him square between the eyes. He remembers for us that Jesus said we must forgive not just seven times but seventy times. In other words, a whole lot. Forgiving the small stuff every day can make the bigger hurts less difficult to confront and healing them more complete. It takes practice, and as we know, practice makes PERFECT.

Finally, we cannot ever underestimate the power of gratitude or good memories to enrich one’s life. All of us must lean and remember to express gratitude for the good things in life, and sometimes with spontaneous celebration. Why wait for a birthday or an anniversary? Maybe it’s just deciding to sit down together after the laundry is folded, or maybe even before the laundry is folded. Forget about the laundry! Open a bottle of wine, live in gratitude, and express it often. Take and make time to do things just because they help you bond and create a good memory. It’s those memories that will soften the sense of loss when one of you gets left behind.

I have the most fond and wonderful memories of that old couple in Norman, Oklahoma. Papa is gone now. He suffered the ravages of Parkinson’s disease, and finally gets to rest. In the last years of our lives together in that parish I would often be included in family feasts as only Lebanese people can feast. I would always have to sit on one side of Mama with Papa on the other. She would fuss around and make sure my plate was overflowing and do the same for Papa. When he could no longer hold a knife and fork, she would cut the food, and arrange it just so on his plate. He would lean back and watch her. She never said a word, just fix it just right, and wait for him to eat. They had this wonderful way of just gazing at each other. They never said much. In fact, I can’t remember ever hearing them talk to each other. I just remember the they looked. I call it “the gaze of love” that wrapped up gratitude, forgiveness, affection, hopes, and dreams. The fact that they never seemed to talk struck me once as perhaps the real secret to a joyful, lasting marriage. Don’t talk! Maybe just gaze now and then and cherish the moments because they are precious and sometimes fleeting.

Let’s stand and sing about this. “When Love is Found”

Those of you here present with your spouse, join your hands and turn toward each other. Those here without a spouse, join me now in prayer over the sacrament that is here before us. 

My friends who are one in the holy sacrament of marriage, renew now the promises you made to one another, and turn to the Lord in Prayer, that these vows may be strengthened by divine grace. 

Repeat after me these words:

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation

For in the good and the bad times of our lives

You have stood with love by our side.

Help us, we pray,

To remain faithful in our love for one another;

So that we may be true witnesses

To the covenant you have made with humankind.

May the Lord keep you safe all the days of your life. 

May he be your comfort in adversity and your support in prosperity. 

May he fill your home with his blessings as we all now pray together:

Our Father…..

We praise you, O God,

We bless you, Creator of all things,

Who in the beginning made man and woman 

that they might form a communion of life and love.

We give you thanks for graciously blessing the family life of your servants who stand before you in this holy place as they once did with great dreams and tender love.

Look with kindness upon them today and as you have sustained their communion amid joys and struggles, 

renew their Marriage covenant each day, 

increase their charity, and strengthen in them the bond of peace 

so that together with the circle of their children and friends around them they may forever enjoy your blessing.

Sing: “The Servant Song”

Parish Mission on Sacraments Third Night: Sacraments of Healing

Begin with singing: Come to the Waters

Two days ago, we heard the Gospel of the Transfiguration, that moment when Jesus came into the presence of God. His mission on this earth is to take us there, to lead us to Easter and to glory. There is a problem however. There is not enough glory in our lives, and most of the time, we are not much of an Easter people, and the problem is something we don’t much like to talk about: sin.

All of us are engaged to one degree or another in a personal, ongoing battle with sin and vice. We are living through an age of serious moral decay. Cheating and Lying are a way of life today. These days, when someone gets caught doing something wrong, they are more upset about being caught than over what they did. If they think about it all, they wonder how they could have avoided being caught in the first place. There is not enough faith, the kind of faith that grows from repentance and change. 

One of the startling facts of life in our times is that no one wants to admit to sin and take any responsibility for its consequences. Too many these days have no sins. They just have issues! So, call it what you want, but it is deadly. On Sunday night, I reminded you that the pure and the just among us are those who know and recognize their sin. That’s the way to holiness and greatness. When we say someone is a good man or a good woman, we do not suggest that they are people in whom there is no inclination to evil, but rather that they are people who have wrestled and still wrestle with it and never give in because their quality and their goodness comes from the struggle. Those people are truly noble. These are people of virtue, character, and nobility. The work of Jesus and his expectation that we change leads us to glory, to Easter, to virtue and nobility.

“Morality is like art, said G.K. Chesterton, “it consists of drawing a line somewhere.” We live in an age in which no lines seem to be drawn at all, or those that have been drawn are being erased. In my 78th year of life and more than 50 years as priest I have come to recognize that an unhealed wound, a kind of sinful restlessness, afflicts humanity and robs us of glory.

Bruce Springsteen, “The Boss” wrote a song that describes our age when he sings: “Everybody has a hungry heart.” I think we are hungry for glory, hungry for the life we should have had by God’s will and God’s original plan for us. But we have traded our glory for something else, and sin is the consequence. Our hunger is for God and the glory that comes from being in God’s presence. I want to propose to you that in the great Divine wisdom that has shaped and called us Church there is a gift we have forgotten about, and it’s not good for us. That gift is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This coming Sunday we are going to proclaim a wonderful story about a woman and man who met at the water. A sinner came face to face with the holy one. The thirsty one ends up giving a drink to the one who has a well, and the water jar gets left behind. That water jar, that thing, that kept her coming back again and again because it wasn’t enough gets abandoned because she met the truth and found understanding, mercy, compassion, and love. No ridicule, no shame, no scolding, no reproach, just acceptance of one who was waiting and looking for the Christ.

For all kinds of reasons which are completely irrelevant unless you are looking for an excuse, the practice of sacramental confession in the Catholic Church dropped off almost overnight about forty years ago. Before the Second Vatican Council, Catholics came regularly and in great numbers to confess their sins to a priest, but then, just like that, they stopped coming. Analysts have proposed a variety of reasons: a greater stress on God’s love, a desire to move away from a fussy preoccupation with sexual peccadilloes, the sense that confession is not necessary for salvation, and on and on it can go. Whatever the cause or the causes, the experience has fallen out of practice.

A well-known priest-sociologist once announced that whatever Catholics drop, someone else will inevitably pick up. So, for example, we Catholics, after the Council, stopped talking about the soul, out of fear that the category would encourage a kind of split in humanity between the spiritual and the physical. Suddenly into book stores pops up all kinds of books on care of the soul with a widely popular series on “Chicken soup for the soul.”

Then the Catholic Church slows down talk about angels and devils, and presto, an explosion of books and films about these fascinating spiritual creatures.

A great example of this priest’s idea is the way in which the practice of sacramental confession – largely extinct in the Church pops up in a somewhat distorted form all of the world. What do we find on daytime talk shows from Oprah, to Jerry Springer and Maury, but a series of people coming forward to confess their sins, usually of a sexual nature? And what do we see on the numerous judgement-shows like Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars? But people being forced to accept a kind of punishment for their bad or inadequate behavior. Just maybe we ought to admit that the need to confess our sins and receive some sort of judgement or comfort is just hard-wired into our spirits. When we don’t have the opportunity to deal with our sin in the proper context of faith and church, we will desperately cast about for a substitute.

If you want to get a really crazy conversation going sometimes among Catholics, get them started sharing their experiences with Confession. Many of us around my age can tell horror stories about psychological abuse in the confessional by priests who were hung up on sexual sins, or all too eager to threaten eternal damnation, or perhaps just cranky from sitting in a box for hours. On top of that, every priest (including this one) could tell you tales of people coming to confession for trivial reasons or out obsessive-compulsive neuroses. Sometimes I think some people come just because they know someone will listen to them. However, there was an old Roman saying that just because something can be abused doesn’t mean you should get rid of it.

I want to honestly say right here that some of the best and most spiritually rewarding moments in all my years of priesthood have been in the context of hearing a confession. I will never forget sitting in Concourse D at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. A man walked up to me and said: “Father, would you hear my confession.” For a just a few minutes, we walked up and down the concourse. He was a priest who in a moment of discouragement and desperation had left his people to pursue his own pleasures. In those few moments, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he turned around and went back home. I hope to this day that someone came out running to great him with a ring and a robe. There have been moments with young people struggling to love their parents but acting out in hurtful ways. There have been little children trying to learn that a hand is not a weapon with which you hurt someone, but something God has given us to help others up who have fallen, or to pat someone you love, or feed someone who is hungry. I’ve prayed with people who have been unfaithful discovering that their real infidelity is to God and that they have betrayed themselves as much as their partner in this life. 

So, what is it with us? Laziness? Denial? Or maybe a presumption that if we just feel sorry, we don’t have to say we are. How does that work? You scrape my car in the parking lot. You go home and feel badly and maybe tell God you’re sorry, but never say anything to me? It just doesn’t work that way when people want to make up. When you’re sick, you see a doctor, you take your medicine. If you don’t, you might die. Isn’t it odd that many of us go to our doctor at least once or twice a year for a check-up to stay healthy and in good shape without a thought about a check-up for your soul? 

There must be some little voice whispering that God can’t be offended by what we say and do, or worse yet, by what we fail to say and do, and so around and around this world goes with the morality of choices hardly ever being taken into consideration as though I can do what I want as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, but of course the hurt is already there and it’s deep because it’s all about me and my rights. If my rights offend you, it’s your problem. No, it isn’t. So, in God’s mercy there is a way to take another look at what we say and do and what we fail to say and do and take responsibility for the consequences which not many people want to do these days because, blame is the game. It’s been going on since Adam and Eve. She blamed the snake, he blamed her, and they ended up alone, in shame and very sorry. The consequences of forgetting that we are children of God, or of thinking that we can act or do what God alone does is dragging down – way down.

There is always that fear about what someone is going to think of us. So, we don’t want to say what everyone of us can and should say: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” While you might be saying that to a priest you respectfully call, “Father.” What I as a priest hear is someone speaking to God the Father. People who don’t know enough to understand are always asking why you have to confess to a priest, and you know the answer, because he’s a sinner too, and where two or three gather in the name of Jesus Christ, he is in their midst. So, there’s two sinners, and the one came to forgive sins and heal whatever is broken. People who don’t know enough question the power or the right of a priest to forgive sins, and as soon as they do, you know that they never listened to the words of the prayer. Let me review them for you: God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is the Holy Spirit that forgives, not the priest. He just speaks the words in the name of the whole church which is fulfilling the commission given to it by Jesus himself.

So, once again, we see the Church as a Sacrament – this time a Sacrament of healing forgiveness that lifts up, restores, heals the broken hearted and sometimes broken lives. We are all people who long for a second chance, and that’s what we proclaim with this great gift: that we have a second chance. And what does the priest think about those repentant and sorrowful people who come to pray with him?  I’ll tell what I think. I sit there is total amazement at the faith in the lives and hearts of people who come to confession. They bear witness to me, and many times, they shame me. I can’t tell you how often I have headed off to find a confessor after some time in the confessor. I don’t see sinners. I don’t see evil. I don’t hear anything but a painful cry from a hurting heart. I’m not there to judge. I’m there to bind up what is broken, to strengthen the weak, and hold up those who feel lame, tired, lost, and alone.

There is one verse in John’s Gospel that leaves me speechless and in awe. It goes like this: Luke 22:54-61

One of the most powerful moments in the Gospel happens without a word spoken. Jesus has talked and talked and talked about repentance and conversion, and he never gets better results than when he says nothing and just turns and looks at Peter. Of course, it all happens because of things said earlier, but the final and best moment is accomplished in silence. Luke tells us that Jesus turned and “looked at Peter.” and Peter wept. What must have been said between those two men in that glance? What was the message Peter understood as his eyes met the eyes of his friend, his Lord, his brother? We can only imagine, and we can only hope.

What do you think that look was like?  It’s easy for us who live in a measured world of revenge, power, retribution and superiority to think that the look on the face of Jesus as he turned to Peter was one of reproach and “I told you so.” But, after we remember the lessons of Mercy we have heard from Jesus again and again, I think he looked at Peter winked and smiled with love.

We bring our brokenness, our inadequacy, our sinfulness here to this place to be included, to be part of the fellowship, to take part in the forgiveness; the amnesty that redemption proclaims, and we take the chance and live in the hope that he will turn his face toward us again, that He will look at us, and that like Peter we may be touched by the divine mercy that renews our hope in the face of sin.

If Fellowship and Forgiveness belong to this place, so does Mercy.

Mercy is a gift we cannot receive until we have surrendered. It was not until Peter looked Jesus in the eye with full knowledge of what he had done and who he was, that he could simply give up, surrender to grace knowing full well that he was, after all kinds of testing and mistrust, accepted in all his brokenness.

Mercy is not benevolent tolerance or a kind of grudging forgiveness. It is a loving allowing, a willing breaking of the rules by the one who made the rules. It is wink and a smile. Receiving the mercy of God takes humility. That was the difference between Peter and Judas. It was that quality that made the difference between one who said: “I have sinned against heaven and earth.” and then destroyed himself in pride, unable to admit that he had done such a thing; and the other one, who failed by his denial, and was willing to look into the eyes of the one he had failed.

In this place, around this table, gather the weak the broken the lame, the sinners, the powerless to celebrate fellowship, forgiveness, and mercy. If Jesus who sits with us at this table is the revelation of what is going on inside the eternal God, which is the core of Christian faith, then we are forced to conclude that God is very humble. He never holds rightful claims against us. We never attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to Mercy. A lifetime of received forgiveness allows us to become mercy. And when the time comes for us to look into the face of Christ, we can only hope that he will turn and look at us just as he did Peter. Our best hope is that he will wink and smile, and once again we will feast in joy as we pass the plate of Mercy to all who are broken and humble enough to come in.

Sing: “There is a Balm in Gilead”

Have you ever noticed when driving around town those people who are in tank tops and shorts running along with the latest expensive running shoes? They are never smiling. They look like they are in agony, and then I begin to wonder why the people who are running are the ones who don’t need to. They already have flat abs. They don’t need to run. I do, Then I just speed up so I don’t have to see them. It’s all part of the culture and age in which we live. It has been poisoned by a cult of youth and healthy living evidenced by flat bellies and blemish free tanned supple skin so much so that we must now reach deeply into our treasure of tradition for an antidote that would restore our vision letting us see an even greater sacramental sign that reveals the Holy and the Presence of God. I’ll remind you again. When it comes to spirituality and sacraments, it is always going to be about people. 

This cult of youth and health has cost us a great treasure, and hides from eyes a living sacrament of Christ’s presence.  It is the sacrament of suffering, illness and age.

The sick and frail are themselves a sacrament of Christ’s presence among us. Those bent with age and slowed by the burden of years are a living reminder of Christ under the burden of our sin. They proclaim to us still the Good News of Hope in a living homily of patience. Those who live with sickness and pain are a far more real sign of Christ’s presence than the crucifixes which hang all around us. Knees that have bent before the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation are worn from a life of adoration and service. Feet that now shuffle behind walkers or canes have walked down the aisles of our churches in a life-long procession toward the holy.

These are lives broken for all. In humble recognition of that which is holy, we anoint with sacred oil that which is most precious for us and bears the image of Christ. We touch, embrace, and reach out not so much to give strength as to receive a measure of their strength and their patience.

I’ve always believed and sensed very deeply that hospitals and nursing homes are very holy places. They are filled with the presence of God, the power of life, the hope of resurrection. In the presence of these holy ones who are suffering, frail, yet faithful. At the same time, they are often places of great loneliness and isolation. Often the sick and the frail are cut off or absent from the fellowship, friendship, and nurturing companionship of the church. One of the most under-appreciated sacramental signs happens during Holy Week when a Bishop gathers the church together for the Blessing and Consecration of the Oils. Then, at the conclusion, someone from every parish takes some of that Oil back to the parish church visually and materially linking all the churches together.

We use these blessed oils in the most wonderful way to mark places and people as holy, as sacred, and as someone very dear to the heart of God. When an altar is blessed, oil is poured on it. When a church is blessed, oil is smeared on its walls. When someone steps up wanting the privilege of sharing the Body and Blood Christ giving witness to their faith in Confirmation, we smear oil on them. When the hands of priest are prepared to hold the sacred gifts in sacrifice and offering, they are smeared with oil. The act unites and bonds us together. Listen to the prayer a Bishop offers over the oil of the sick: “Lord God, loving Father, you bring healing to the sick through your Son Jesus Christ. Hear us as we pray to you in faith, and send the Holy Spirit, man’s Helper and Friend, upon this oil, which nature has provided to serve the needs of men. May your blessing come up on all who are anointed with this oil, that they may be freed from pain and illness and made well again in body, mind, and soul. Father, may this oil be blessed for our use the name of Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you forever and ever. Amen.

When that oil shared with communities around the diocese is then taken and smeared on the head and hands of the sick who, because of their illness or age have been away, they are once again in touch with, included in, and part of the sacramental praying church. The healing is about reaching out and gathering back in whoever is broken and left out. There is hardly anything more painful than loneliness and the feeling of abandonment that often comes with disease, suffering, and age. In their suffering, those we anoint become sacraments in a sense. They are a sign to us of the suffering Christ who stands among us with the promise of resurrection and hope.

We who live in this sacramental faith develop an eye for the holy.

We see it where others do not. We look upon common ordinary things and can see their potential for bearing grace. Bread, Wine, Water, Oil, and Flames to the sacramental eye connect us with the Holy, and can lift us out of the present. 

Let us pray: Father, you raised your Son’s cross as the sign of victory and life. May all who share in his suffering find in this sacrament a source of fresh courage and healing. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives forever and ever, Amen.

Listen now the Word of God.

A reading from the Prophet Isaiah:

“The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.

They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song

The glory of Lebanon will be given to them, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; 

They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, 

say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be Strong, Fear Not!

Here is your God, he comes with vindication; 

With divine recompense he comes to save you. 

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared;

Then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing.

Sing: “Healing River”

A reading from the Epistle of Saint James.

Is there any one among you sick? Let him bring in the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.

The Word of the Lord

The Book of the Gospels it taken from the Altar to the Ambo
Sing: “Praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ. King of Endless Glory.”

Gospel:

A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Mark

“Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them:

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation.

The man who believes in it and accepts baptism will be saved;

the man who refuses to believe in it will be condemned.

“Signs like these will accompany those who professed their faith; 

they will use my name to expel demons

they will be able to handle serpents, 

they will be able to drink deadly poison without harm

and the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover.

Then after speaking to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven

and took his seat at God’s right hand.

The Eleven went forth and preached everywhere.

The Lord continued to work with them through and confirm the message 

through the signs which accompanied them.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, we experience our powerlessness, our limitations, and illness always leads us to glimpse death. It can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God. It can also make a person more mature, and initiate a search for God and a return to God. Christ’s compassion toward the sick and his many healings of every kind of infirmity are a wonderful sign that “God has visited his people” and that the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive sins, he has come to heal the whole person, soul and body; he is the physician the sick have need of. His compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies himself with them: “I was sick and you visited Me.” His preferential love for the sick has not ceased through the centuries to draw the very special attention of Christians toward all those who suffer in body and soul. It is the source of tireless efforts to comfort them. Often Jesus asks the sick to believe. He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands, mud and washing. The sick try to touch him, and so in the sacraments Christ continues to touch us in order to heal us. With great confidence then, and in response to the command of Christ that we should continue to do what he has done and act in his name, I ask that those who wish to receive the strength and grace of this Holy Anointing come forward. 

My sisters and brothers, in our prayer of faith let us appeal to God for those who are before us:

• Come and strengthen them through his holy anointing, Lord Have Mercy
• Free them from all harm: Lord Have Mercy
• Free them from sin and all temptation: Lord Have Mercy
• Relieve the sufferings of all the sick her present: Lord, Have Mercy
• Assist those dedicated to the care of the sick: Lord, Have Mercy
• Give life and health to our brother on whom we not lay hands in your name: Lord, Have Mercy.

The imposition of hands takes place followed by the anointing.

“Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, 

by the grace of your Holy Spirit

cure the weakness of your servants.

Heal them and forgive their sins;

restore them to full health and strengthen them to continue their service to your people

for you are Lord forever and ever, Amen.

May the God of all consolation

bless you in every way

and grant you hope all the days of your life.

May God restore you to health

and grant you salvation.

May God fill your heart with peace

and lead you to eternal life.

May Almighty God bless you,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

The “Servant Song” is sung