The Quiet Corner,

a weekly meditation on the Sunday Gospel,

by the Reverend John A. Kiley,

since 1974.

The Quiet Corner                  by the Reverend John A. Kiley                     29 July 2004AD

       “My relationship with God is direct and personal,” Congressman James Langevin remarked recently to reporters.  “The Church is merely a guest in that relationship,” he concluded.  There have not been more unCatholic words uttered since Martin Luther declared that every man is his own priest.  The notion that the Church can be peripheral to a Catholic’s spiritual life is, at best, a mistake or, at the worst, heresy.   For the authentic Catholic, the Church is not a mere spectator at one’s spiritual life; the Church is one’s spiritual life.  It is the Church that welcomes the believer into the worshipping community, cleansing him from our ancestral sin through Baptism.  It is the Church that nourishes the faithful on the Body and Blood of Christ.  It is the Church that restores the fallen soul to God’s good grace through the sacrament of Penance.  It is the Church that solemnizes marriages and confers holy orders.  It is the Church that strengthens the young adult through Confirmation and fortifies the elderly with the Anointing of the Sick.  It is the Church that affirms, teaches and protects the Word of God revealed in Scripture.  It is the Church that is the defender of the orphan and the widow.  A spiritual life that is maintained apart from these Divinely instituted rituals is sadly undernourished, if not entirely defunct.

        To view the Church as a witness to spiritual events that occur at arm’s length is profoundly to misunderstand the role of mediation in God’s plan of salvation.  God the Father has deliberately and consistently chosen mediators to bring his message of salvation to the world.  Whether it be the ancient promise made to Abraham or the old covenant revealed through Moses or, pre-eminently, the New Covenant realized through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God always employs human mediation to effect Divine consequences.  God invariably reveals himself through human words and human events.  This is the key to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ ( the Word became flesh ) and it is the key to Christ’s establishment  of the Church ( he who hears you hears Me and he who hears Me hears Him Who sent Me ).  Clearly, the Church is the continuation of the Incarnation down through the ages.  The Church extends the saving actions of Jesus Christ to people of every time and place -- through her words, through her sacraments, through her social commitment. 

        So close is the identification of the work of the Church with the work of Jesus Christ that the ancient Church fathers could state boldly that outside the  Church there was no salvation and that one could not have God for a Father unless one had the Church for a Mother.   These maxims might be interpreted more broadly and more benignly nowadays but their basic truth endures.  The Church is the channel through which every grace is bestowed on mankind.  Sometimes this bestowal is obvious: a believing community gathered around the altar of the Lord renewing the sacrifice of Christ.  Other times God’s generosity through the Church is quite mysterious:  almost 80% of the world remains unevangelized.  Nonetheless, it is through Jesus Christ and through his Catholic Church that the fullness of revelation will be brought to mankind.  There is no going around Jesus.  There is no going beyond Jesus.  He alone is God’s Son.  He is the sole mediator of the New Covenant.  He is the unique bridge between heaven and earth.  Indeed, the stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. 

        Just as surely as Christ is indispensable to the Father’s plan of salvation so the universal Church established by Christ and empowered to promote his ministry is indispensable.  To ignore the Church is to ignore Christ; and to ignore Christ is to ignore the Father’s unique revelation of Himself                                                                                           COMPLETE

       A request was made recently by a former parishioner of St. Leo parish. Pawtucket, to speak to the Men of St. Joseph at his current parish of St. Francis de Sales in North Kingston.  The topic broadly suggested was prayer – which just about left the entire economy of salvation at my disposal.  After some thought, my material began to focus more and more on a very traditional and not very innovative system of prayer familiar to all:  the rosary.  The rosary is the stuff of senior citizens fingering the beads before Mass and it is the stuff of Papal Encyclicals (every Pope since Pius IX has written a Rosary encyclical) -- and for good reason.  The Rosary, properly said, encompasses the three main forms of Christian prayer:  vocal prayer, mental prayer and contemplative prayer. 

        The rosary popularly is most closely related with vocal prayer.  The Our Fathers and Hail Marys and Glory Bes are the framework of the Rosary.  Until the new Illuminative mysteries of the Rosary were added, the fifteen decades added up to 150 Hail Marys – the number of psalms in the Bible.   The Rosary is called the Laity’s Psalter.  Vocal prayer or recited prayer or memorized prayer has long been important for Christians.  In the centuries before the printing press, memorization was the chief vehicle for popular prayer.  In the late twentieth century, memorization fell on hard times and consequently prayer fell on hard times.  Spontaneity was viewed as the only authentic source of prayer.  Yet vocal or memorized prayers have their place.  Formal, written prayers like the Our Father or the Act of Contrition or the Memorare represent in themselves centuries of Christian piety.  They summarize attitudes and motivations that it would take most believers decades to accumulate.  The key to vocal prayer is not the mere recitation of the words but the gradual internalization of these words.  What starts out from the memory is gradually absorbed into the heart.  Vocal prayer is a guide to authentic prayer, a first step in the right direction, a frame within which to work.

        Besides the Our Fathers and Hail Marys, meditation on the assorted Scriptural mysteries from the Annunciation to the Coronation is integral to the Rosary.  The pious soul must not only say the successive words, he must muse on the several events that form core of the Gospel message.  In fact, meditation on the mysteries is necessary if one is to gain any indulgence attached to the Rosary.  Murmuring hushed words is not enough.  The believer must kneel quietly and thinks over the life of Christ.  How does the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth impact my life?  What ramifications does the Resurrection of Jesus hold for me?  Does Mary’s Assumption into heaven speak to my generation?  Reflecting or pondering or meditating on the life of Christ necessarily deepens a person’s appreciation of Christ.  Ideas do have consequences.  Thoughts will gradually blossom into activity.  Mental prayer nurtures and matures the Christian life.  Mental prayer is certainly not limited to the Rosary for source material.  The Eucharist, the sacraments, the Bible, spiritual reading, daily life as well as current events and the beauties of nature are several launching pads for mental prayer. 

        One of the problems with the Rosary is that people end their prayer when the Hail Marys end.  Chances are their real prayer is only just beginning then.  By real prayer is meant contemplation.  The Rosary is a vehicle that allows the believer to focus his time, attention, and thoughts more and more on Christ.  Through the Rosary (and through other forms of mental prayer) the worshipper becomes absorbed with Christ.  He becomes pre-occupied with Christ, so to speak.  This is contemplation.  The word contemplation means to occupy the same space as someone else.  Through contemplative prayer, the Christian truly becomes one with Christ.  Words and even thoughts fade to the background as the believer begins to enjoy the simple presence of Christ.  He begins to occupy sacred space.  In the end, the fullness of prayer resides in the complete enjoyment of God’s many presences.  Albert Camus, the French existentialist philosopher who died mid-century, remarked that his closest communication was with his Spanish grandmother who spent her final years praying the Rosary.  The interior depth that Camus achieved by his study of philosophy was paralleled by his grandmother’s interiority achieved through the Rosary.  In quite different ways, they were both contemplatives.   Contemplation is not the prerogative of the few; it is a challenge for the many.  By God’s grace, vocal prayer and mental prayer, properly embraced, will flourish into contemplation.                                                            COMPLETE

        Perhaps the most persistent argument within Christianity is the enduring debate over salvation through faith versus salvation through works.  Is a man saved by his beliefs or by his conduct?  Is it my inner attitude toward God that will get me into heaven or is it my outward charity toward my neighbor that will ensure for me eternal life? 

        In this coming Sunday’s Gospel, eager crowds are astounded when they are rejected at heaven’s gate for being unknown to the Master.  They argue that they prophesied and exorcised and healed in His Name.  Yet the Master protests that he does not know them.  They might have done the correct thing but their personal knowledge of the Master was minimal.  Yet the same Jesus who rejects good works as superficial or misleading in this Lucan context extols good works in the striking Matthew XXV judgment scene.  “I was hungry and you gave me food.  I was thirsty and you gave me drink…”  These immemorial words have become the support of do-gooders down through the centuries.  In fact, in St. Matthew’s depiction of the final judgment, the saved declare openly that they were not aware of Christ’s presence in their lives:  “Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you drink? or naked and clothe you?...”   Their relationship with Christ comes as a complete surprise.  They are “anonymous Christians,” to borrow a phrase from the mid-twentieth century.

        The problem of faith versus works even predates Christianity itself.  The Jewish Scriptures extol Abraham as the father of believers and a model of faith.  It was Abraham’s acceptance of God’s challenging Will in face of almost certain defeat that justified him.  “I will make you the Father of many nations,” God promised the aging, childless patriarch.  Abraham, as a man of faith, took God at his word.  Yet the Judaism of Christ’s time had devolved into a rigorous pursuit of ritual perfection.  Over the centuries. works had gotten the upper hand.  Prayers, fasts, ceremony, almsgivings and observances were the daily pre-occupation of the fastidious Jew.  Keeping the law was the mark of the saint.

        Older Catholics can well recall the days when Mass every Sunday and Holy Day, no meat on Friday, fasting from midnight, silence in church, no R rated movies, no dessert for Lent and an eagerness for indulgences were the emblems of the good Catholic.  Clearly the multiplication of good works was a noble enterprise for all pre-Vatican II Catholics.  And this in a Church which declared solemnly at Trent that “faith is the root and foundation of all justification.”

        The competition between faith and works, belief and law, the inner and the outer man is a sad but perennial development within religious history.  The truth, of course, is that mankind is saved neither by faith nor by works.  The popular Catholicism of the last century was just as mistaken as the Evangelical Protestantism of the Reformers.  Man is saved neither by his faith nor by his works.  Man is happily saved by God.

        Yes.  That neon sign that hung on the side of a church in Lonsdale for decades announcing, “Jesus Saves!” was correct.  (Vince Maynard, sometime chaplain at RIC, could never figure out whether the building was a church or a bank.)  Salvation clearly begins with God.  It was God who recognized man’s plight.  It was God who sent his Incarnate Son to redeem the human race.  It was the Son of God who died in man’s stead on the Cross.  It was this same Jesus who established the Church to dispense His saving grace to the world.  God is the beginning and the end of salvation.  

        This goodness of God discovered in the history of salvation should evoke from the soul a joyous acceptance of God’s favor (commonly called faith) and a determined eagerness to live and share this favor with others (commonly called works).  “Christianity is not a question of either/or,” Kierkegaard wrote, “it is a matter of both/and.”  Both faith and works are God’s instruments.                   COMPLETE

     Jesus recommends many virtues to his followers.  He asks that they be merciful, peaceable, compassionate, poor in spirit, and watchful.  Yet Jesus claims only one virtue for himself, and that is the virtue of humility.  Recall Jesus’ familiar words: “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart.”  Unfortunately humility is often confused with docility or even sheepishness.  Uriah Heep in Charles Dickens’ classic novel David Copperfield comes across as very humble, bowing and scrapping before his master with his “Yes, sir…No, sir” attitude.  As it turns out, Uriah Heep is not humble at all.  Rather he is an ingratiating schemer, hoping that his agreeableness will win over his master for his own advancement.  Nowadays he would be labeled passive-aggressive, coming across as a wimp but actually being a foxy grandpa.

        There is nothing passive about humility.  And the fact that Jesus claims this virtue for himself should tip the believer off to examine this misunderstood virtue more closely.  Jesus was not passive.  He might have been gentle and meek and sensitive and respectful.  But he was very aggressive when it came to doing his Father’s Will.  Jesus never compromised in the moral sphere and he never compromised in following God’s plan of salvation.  He was resolutely obedient to his Father’s arrangements.  His vocation was to exalt the Father, to promote the Father, to support the Father in all things. 

        In a sense, Jesus exalted the Father at his own expense. Jesus, who was after all a Divine Person (Son of God) and who had notable human talents as well (preacher, healer, miracle worker, teacher), always sought out the lowest place during his thirty-three years on earth.  He was born into a minority nationality in a lowly town, lived for awhile in Egyptian exile, grew to manhood in the obscurity of Nazareth, eschewed the Jewish elite for the working classes, died young as a criminal, and was buried in a borrowed grave.  Yet today he is remembered and honored and adored as the savior of the world!

        Jesus deliberately chose the last seat on life’s bus to show that his power was not the result of his own native talents but entirely the work of God.  Let’s face it.  From a human perspective, Jesus died a failure.  He did not convert the world.  He didn’t even convert the Jews.  His followers were scattered at the time his death, even returning to their former tasks, convinced that there was no future in preaching the Gospel. 

        Yet Jesus was anything but a failure from an eternal perspective.  By relying solely on God the Father and submitting his human talents entirely to God’s plan, Jesus was proclaiming that the source of all authentic spiritual success rested with God, not with man.  In choosing the last place (Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Calvary), Jesus actually revealed the first place (the Kingdom of God).  The last shall be first and the first shall be last, declares Jesus on numerous occasions.  And Jesus displays this inverse ratio most of all by his own life.  Jesus was indeed last; he emptied himself completely of every human dignity, becoming, as it were, a slave.  But for that very reason Christ was exalted by God.  He was raised up to higher dignity, entirely of God’s making.  “He who humbles himself shall be exalted,” Jesus promises his followers.  “And he who exalts himself shall be humbled,” Jesus cautions all other hearers.

        Humility then is anything but weakness.  In fact, humility requires great strength and determination.  The natural human inclination is to put oneself forward, promote one’s interests, and always to save face.  The genuinely humble soul abandons self-interest and assigns himself a distinctively lesser role than he deserves, relying on God rather then his own talents to see that he gets his just desserts.  In the end, humility is an act of faith.  Humility is the deliberate rejection of legitimate, natural endowments in favor of supernatural assistance.  The goal of humility is not simply to defer attention from one’s self; the object of humility is to draw attention to God – whence comes the believer’s true strength.  The humble soul chooses to make God, not his or her own gifts, the focus of the world’s attention.                                                                                                     COMPLETE

       When I was recently assigned as pastor of St. Francis and St. William parishes, one of the first questions I asked myself was, “Who is St. William?”  A search of the Internet came up with about 45 Saint Williams – monks, martyrs, missionaries and a metropolitan.  On my first visit to the parish I asked Father George Behan who our patron saint was.  He told me he was not sure but he thought that the saint’s feast was in early January.  I also inquired of a former pastor Father Nicholas Iacovacci but neither did he know which Saint William was our patron.  He had hoped that it might be one whose feast was in warm weather.  Parish documents indicate that the parish was actually named for Providence Bishop William A. Hickey, who died in 1933, the year St. William Church was formally established as a parish.  I went to the Rhode Island Historical Society to review the Providence Visitor for that era.  The Visitor simply states that in 1926 the celebrated Father John Sullivan, pastor of St. Matthew parish in Cranston, named his newly established mission church in Norwood after Bishop Hickey “in honor of St. William.”  The saga ends there. 

        The Internet lists two Saint Williams with feasts in January.  St. William of Dijon has a feast on January 1 and St. William the Confessor, Archbishop of Bourges, has his feast on January 10.  Since a pastor originally chose St. William as the parish patron, it seems fitting that a pastor should now specify who among the several Saint Williams is our special intercessor.  Using January as my only clue, I am nominating St. William the Confessor whose biography (taken from Butler’s Lives) appears below as our official patron saint.  Since St. William of Dijon’s feast comes on January 1, it would always be over shadowed by New Years Day and the Solemnity of Mary.   And frankly when people hear the name St. William of Dijon they think more of the mustard than of the saint. 

        Both of these Saint Williams had similar monastic backgrounds.  They were both saintly and zealous monks and abbots, very intent on reforming and improving their various monasteries.  But what impressed me most was the observation that Saint William the Confessor was noted “for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and for the time he spent praying at the altar.”  Note also that he died “while at prayer.”  Since our parish church is the very center of our religious lives, St. William the Confessor’s devotion to Christ present in the Holy Eucharist is a mandate for us all to respect, worship and adore Christ sacramentally present in our churches.

        Saint William the Confessor was a member of the noble family of the Counts of Nevers, born in the 12^th century in Nevers, France.  His father Baldwin planned a military life for the young William. He was educated, however, by his maternal uncle, Peter the Hermit, archdeacon of Soissons, and was drawn toward religious life from an early age. He first was a monk in the Order of Grandmont.  He became a priest and then a canon at Soissons and finally a canon at Paris. He was noted for his austere life, for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and for the time spent praying at the altar. Internal dissension in his religious order caused him to leave Grandmont for the recently formed Cistercian Order, taking the habit at Pontigny. He became abbot at Fontaine-Jean in Sens, France. And then he was elected abbot at Chaalis near Senlis, France in 1187.  He reluctantly assumed the position of archbishop at Bourges in central France in 1200, accepting the position only after receiving orders from the general of his order and from Pope Innocent III himself.    St. William then lived an even more austere life, defended clerical rights against the state, cared personally for the poor, sick, imprisoned and debauched, and converted many Albigensian heretics in his diocese to orthodox Christianity.  He died January 10, 1209 at Bourges, France, of natural causes while at prayer.  Witnesses claim he performed 18 miracles during his life, and another 18 after his death. He was canonized on May 17, 1217 by Pope Honorius III.

Saint William, you were a father to your monks and a shepherd to your people.  Pray now before God’s heavenly altar that we might form a truly Eucharistic community, alert to the Presence of Christ in our hearts and in our church, eager to share our Catholic faith with people everywhere, and especially intent on welcoming our disadvantaged brothers and sisters.  Amen

       Rare is the person who would belittle the reading of Scripture.  Everyone would admit that even the reading of a line or two of the Bible would somehow profit a believer.  After all St. Peter does write that “all Scripture is inspired of God and useful…”  Yet even in the reading of Holy Writ, mankind betrays his innate self-centeredness.  The basic selfishness of the human person shines through in the midst of this very noble activity.  In this Sunday’s lengthy Gospel passage from St. Luke, Jesus proposes three parables that illustrate the nature of the Kingdom of God.  In fact these parables are intended to illustrate the nature of God Himself.  Yet after you hear these three parables this coming weekend, ask yourself what the three tales concerned.  Chances are your response will be, “The Lost Sheep,” “The Lost Coin,” and “The Prodigal Son.”  These references to the sheep, the coin and the son would certainly not be wrong.  These three stories do indeed allude to the sheep that has wandered dangerously close to a cliff or become enmeshed in a briar patch.  Jesus certainly does speak of a coin lost in a corner of room or hidden by a jar on the shelf.  And it is undeniable that the celebrated spendthrift’s return to his family home was a topic presented by Jesus for the edification of the crowds.

        While the sheep and the coin and the son are important, they are secondary characters in these three parables. The chief actor in these parables is God Himself.  God is the central figure in Jesus’ threefold lesson.  Man betrays his selfishness in reading these three stories because he does not first see God in them, rather he first sees himself.  Man identifies himself with the lost sheep, with the lost coin and with the prodigal son.  Man thinks these tales are about himself and his waywardness and his perversity.  But this line of thinking mistakes a subplot for the main plot.  The main plot of the parables is not man’s sinfulness.  The main plot is God’s mercy.  By right these three stories should be labeled, “The Good Shepherd,” “The Diligent Housewife,” and “The Merciful Father.” 

        The New American Bible begins chapter 15 of St. Luke’s Gospel on the right note by entitling the first two tales, “Parables of Divine Mercy.”  But then this Biblical translation slips back into a twenty century old bad habit by naming the familiar story of the father and his two sons simply, “The Prodigal Son.”  But the parable is not really about the son; the parable is about the father.  It is the father’s mercy, the father’s compassion, the father’s forgiveness that was Jesus’ chief concern in his instruction to the crowds.  Just as it was the zeal of the shepherd not the stupidity of the sheep that chiefly concerned Jesus in the first instance.  And just as it was the tireless energy of the housewife in discovering her lost wealth that Jesus wanted to emphasize in the middle instance.  The shepherd, the homemaker and the father were dominant in the mind of Jesus when he preached to the crowds.  When modern crowds leave their churches this Sunday it should again be shepherd, the homemaker and the father who are riveted in their minds and emblazoned in their hearts if they have truly grasped the message of Divine Mercy that Jesus originally intended.

        An authentic conversion begins not with man’s repentance but with God’s loving kindness.  The sheep didn’t know it was lost and the coin didn’t know it was misplaced until they were sought out by their owners.  The wayward son hadn’t uttered a word of apology when the father ran down the road, threw his arms around him and welcomed him back into the family circle.  Effective conversion begins not with the mere consideration of our own unworthiness but rather with a realization of the unfathomable benevolence of God.  It is God’s goodness not man’s baseness that is at the heart of the Christian religion.  “Where sin abounded, grace does more abound,” an older translation succinctly observed.  And it’s true.  A true believer should always be overwhelmed more by God’s love than by his own wickedness.  Never to rise above our own sins is just another form of selfishness, as was noted at the beginning.  And worse, it is profoundly to miss the meaning of the Gospel.  The Good News is precisely that the world has a Good Shepherd, a Diligent Housewife, a Merciful Father whose love is lavishly dispersed and whose forgiveness is recklessly dispensed.                                         COMPLETE

        A couple of weeks ago the Sunday Gospel passage from St. Luke advised, “Neither can you be my disciple unless you renounce all your possessions.”  Such a total mandate for poverty has never been universally embraced by the Church.  It is true that the first generation of Jerusalem Christians did hold all their material goods in common.  Yet it is apparent that this romantic notion of shared goods was quite impractical.  St. Paul spent much of his missionary time raising funds for the saints back at Jerusalem whose idealism could not keep up with their needs.  Their experiment with Christian communism or Christian socialism was a flop.

        In this coming Sunday’s Gospel, St. Luke again returns to the theme of material goods.  This passage reflects a much more realistic and practical approach to material goods than is usually found in the third Gospel.  This Sunday St. Luke will extol prudence and practicality rather than penury and poverty. 

        In the parable of the scheming steward, Jesus adopts the unlikely perspective of praising a man for his apparent dishonesty.  The foxy manager takes advantage of the final days of his employment to adjust the invoices of his master’s debtors to reflect lesser, more manageable, balances due.  He craftily wins the favor of the local businessmen in the hope that when he is terminated from his present enterprise they will welcome him with open arms into their business ventures.  One unvoiced question is whether a servant known for dishonest dealings behind his employer’s back would be hired by anybody.  But, as with all parables, too much investigation obscures the point.  Jesus is not celebrating the man’s obvious dishonesty. Rather Jesus is recommending the man’s practical self-interest.  The servant has a compelling goal: keeping the wolf away from the door.  And, more to Jesus’ point, he takes sensible and realistic steps to ensure that goal: he uses his business contacts wisely. 

       Jesus, through the pen of St. Luke, does not condemn material goods.  Rather Jesus cautions his hearers about the wise use of material goods.  Material goods should be placed at the disposal of mankind for the building up of the human agenda.  Altogether too often, mankind is the victim of material goods, lured into purchases and tempted into transactions that serve no purpose other than the instant gratification of the buyer and the immediate wealth of the seller.  Money is spent, schedules are arranged, lives are lived, resources are employed neither wisely nor productively.  Even Christians are directed by the trends and fashions of the day rather than by the purposes and promises of eternity.

        Jesus is sensibly advising his disciples to have clear, spiritual objectives and to take the most practical steps to guarantee their fulfillment.  Jesus shrewdly observes that the children of this world – the business people, the entrepreneurs, the merchants, the brokers – leave no stone unturned to garner perishable, earthly wealth.  They take risks.  They work long hours.  They are uncompromising.  They are organized.  They are clever.  Consider the vast wealth accumulated by today’s modern celebrities in the sports and entertainment industries.   Although today’s celebrities might appear foolish and nonsensical at times, they are pretty often the masters of self-promotion, employing competitive tactics that would embarrass the Christian believer.  Jesus is not counseling his followers to imitate their unfeeling aggressiveness.  He is, however, advocating determination and deliberateness in extending the Kingdom of God.  The contemporary Church astutely admits that it needs goals and objectives, planning and development if it is to hold its own in this secularized world. 

        When Jesus Christ became man and took on a human body, he formed an undeniable bond between the material and spiritual universes.  The authentic Christian may not ignore the material world around him.  Yet just as Jesus placed the material at the service of the spiritual, so his Church must do the same.  Accounts, graphs, charts, plans and marketing are not the primary work of the Church.  Worship, prayer, ritual, preaching and catechizing are the Church’s primary tasks.  A sensible Church will nonetheless employ the good things of this world to advance the cause of the next world.      COMPLETE

       Today’s Parish magazine reports of a pastor who was visited by a priest from another diocese.  The visitor asked how many volunteers the pastor had at his parish.  The pastor replied surprisingly, “We have no volunteers.”  The out-of-town priest inquired further, “Then how do you run a big parish like this without any help.”  “Oh, we have plenty of help,” the local pastor replied, “that’s because instead of volunteers, we have stewards.  The parishioners here view their services to the parish not as random good deeds but as their grateful & dedicated contribution to parish life.  Most everyone here renders some special service so we don’t need any volunteers.”  Church work is not just a question of volunteering.  Church work is a privilege and an obligation that flows from our baptism. 

        When a priest receives Holy Orders at the hands of his bishop, he knows that he will have the obligation to offer Mass, hear confessions, comfort the sick and bury the dead.  If a priest saw ordination simply as a single ceremony with no consequences, he would be quite mistaken. The same is true of the sacrament of matrimony.  A couple who looks upon marriage simply as a nice wedding celebration with no further consequences would be sadly mistaken.  Marriage demands companionship, support, exchange of ideas, and signs of affection.  Priestly activities flow out of the ordination celebration.  Marriage responsibilities flow out of the marriage celebration.  Likewise, parish activities flow out of our baptismal commitment.  Treating parish activities casually is actually treating baptism casually.  Instead, each one of us has seriously and joyously to live out our baptismal vows in community by praying for one another, by teaching one another, by comforting one another, by supporting one another.

       It should be observed that in this coming Sunday’s Gospel, the familiar tale of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man who is condemned to hell really has done nothing wrong.  The story does not say that his wealth was ill-gotten or that he was a particularly abusive person.  The reader is not even sure that the rich man was aware of the beggar’s presence at his gate.  And perhaps this lack of awareness, this insensitivity toward his neighbor, this failure to seize an opportunity to do good, was the tycoon’s fatal error.  The man’s wealth made him complacent, self-satisfied, smug.  His sin was clearly a sin of omission. Many well meaning Catholics might be open to the same charge.  It’s not what we’ve done, but rather what we haven’t done that will be our undoing.

       As Roman Catholics we belong to a worldwide Church, to a diocesan Church, to a parish Church and to a domestic Church.  As Catholics it is our baptismal duty to build up these various Church communities by what ever time, treasure and talent God has entrusted to us.  Even though we might attend Church week after week, our baptismal commitment is not complete until we actually begin to contribute to Church life, to build up our Church communities.  We can start by being responsible members of the domestic Church, by being good spouses, good parents, good children.  We can build up our parish Churches by taking active part in the liturgy, by teaching the young, by visiting the sick and elderly, by participating in the many areas of stewardship offered in parish life.  We can support our diocesan Church by looking to our Bishop as teacher and sharing in inter-parish activities.  And we can build up the universal Church by heeding the words of our Holy Father, by working for peace and justice, and by being mission-minded in our outlook.

       With all due respect, stewardship does not begin at a sign-up table in the foyer of our parish church or in the auditorium of the parish school.  Stewardship begins at our Baptism.  And as we grow in the Christian life from Baptism onward, we should develop an “attitude of gratitude” whereby we share with our fellow Christians the marvelous gifts of nature and grace that God has entrusted to us.   The rich man’s sin was his indifference toward his needy neighbor.  On the contrary, the Christian believer’s strength will prove to be his active embrace of both God’s Word and the demands of our day.      

COMPLETE

       On the 750^th anniversary of the birth of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Pius XI praised him as “the most Christlike of all the saints.”  What a wonderful tribute to this popular saint who feast day is quickly approaching to rank so high in the heavenly assembly! 

       St. Francis, born Giovanni Bernadone, was the son of well-to-do parents in central Italy in 1186.  His father was a cloth merchant who traveled frequently to France for the latest patterns -- hence the saint’s nickname “Francisco” or little Frenchman.  St. Francis was a rascal of a youth, as self-indulgent as he was popular. As a young man, he went off to battle the rival community of Perugia but was stricken with a fever which gave him much time to reflect on the meaning of life. After his recovery, he stripped himself naked of his fine clothes in Assisi’s public square, dramatizing his break with his earthly father and declaring God as his true and only Father.  It is this overwhelming appreciation of God’s Fatherhood that characterizes all of St. Francis’ subsequent activities. 

       While a wandering vagabond, Saint Francis encountered Christ in the Crucifix that hung in the Church of Saint Damian.  The words from the Crucifix instructed Saint Francis to “build up my Church.”  Saint Francis took these words literally and began to repair dilapidated shrines in the neighborhood.  His zeal soon attracted other young men and the Franciscan Order known today began to take root.  St. Francis continued to live close to nature, refusing to own anything, living in the countryside, and spending long nights under the sky in prayer. St. Francis’ special trademark of poverty was a practical way of saying that he trusted completely in God’s Fatherhood to provide for him and his fraternal band.  He renounced every earthly resource.  Similarly, Saint Francis’ love of nature was never mere sentiment.  His care and concern for the world around him was clearly rooted in his appreciation of the Fatherhood of God who was, after all, the creator of the whole universe – animals and the environment as well as mankind. 

       St. Francis’ Christlike love extended beyond the Western European world to the Islamic sphere to the East.  He visited the Sultan in Arabia at great risk to life and limb.  With just a touch of irony, St. Francis, the little poor man, especially cherished the powerful and universal Roman Catholic Church which he saw as God’s vehicle for salvation in this world.  He sought out the endorsement of the Pope for his new community of little brothers or “friars.”  St. Francis also shared his spiritual insights with the courageous St. Clare with whom he established a contemplative, cloistered order of women known today as the Poor Clares.

       God rewarded St Francis for his Christlikeness by conferring upon him the Stigmata or wounds of Christ, thus graphically drawing out the similarly between Francis and the very Son of God himself.  St. Francis died at a fairly young age in 1225, declaring on his death bed: “Let us begin!”  He viewed all his labors as just the start of bringing the Gospel to every creature.  All who claim St. Francis as a patron should examine their own trust in God’s Fatherhood.  Is God truly our strength and our hope after the example of St. Francis?  Altogether too often, dependence on material goods and comfort drawn from earthly resources displace reliance upon God in the lives of even well-meaning believers.

       In this Sunday’s Gospel, the disciples wisely ask Jesus to “increase our faith.”  The apostolic band is not asking here for an increase of beliefs.  They are not concerned here about an enlargement of the data that makes up our religious creeds.  Rather the apostles are seeking a deeper respect for and reliance upon God as Father.  They might have asked for an increase of trust, or of confidence, or of hope.  In Franciscan terms, they were asking for a greater appreciation of the Fatherhood of God.  Like Saint Francis, they want to be totally reliant on the provident goodness and kindness of God.  No earthly consideration, neither fear of failure nor comfort in success, should diminish their unfailing trust in God.  These first generation Christians took the Fatherhood of God very seriously just as St. Francis would in a later age and as every authentic Christian must in any era.                                                  COMPLETE

       Saint Paul masterfully summarizes the entire Gospel message with the few words from his Letter to Timothy that open this Sunday’s second reading:  “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David: such is my gospel…”   In a dozen words the Apostle reminds his readers of Jesus’ Divine connections and his human roots, of his supernatural aspects as well as his natural pedigree, that he is Son of God but also Son of Man.  Through Christianity’s twenty centuries the pendulum of faith has swung between these two pillars of the Christian religion: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary.

       Jesus is indeed the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the only Son of God “…God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…one in being with the Father.”  Jesus himself never states flatly, “I am God,” because the Jews of that day would have thought he was God the Father.  The thought of a second Divine person could only be introduced gradually to the believing community.  Yet the Jesus met in the pages of the Gospel narratives is clearly Divine.  Unlike the later saints who would work miracles in the name of God, Jesus gives sight to the blind, hearing to deaf, speech to the mute and health to the crippled on his own authority.  Jesus is the master of nature, calming storms at sea and multiplying loaves in the wilderness and even restoring life to the dead.  Such mastery over the natural universe had previously been attributed to God the Father alone.  Jesus provokes the Jewish leaders by his audacious forgiveness of sins.  “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” the religious leaders of Christ’s day rightfully inquire, even as they resist the obvious conclusion.  Jesus shamelessly exalts himself even above the Sabbath – the premier symbol of the Mosaic covenant between God and man.  “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath,” Jesus boldly bates his already antagonized audience.  While the activities of Jesus confirm his Divine ancestry in the Synoptic Gospels, the words of Jesus in St. John’s Gospel leave no doubt that this man is much more than a teacher, prophet or miracle worker.  “I am the Light of the world…I am the Resurrection and the Life…I am the Way, the Truth and the Life…I am the Good Shepherd…I am the Gate…I and the Father are One…He who sees me sees also the Father.”  These phrases would be ludicrous on the lips of anyone other than Jesus.  What he has already proven by his deeds, he now authenticates by his words.  He truly is Emmanuel – “God with us.”

       Yet Saint Paul today rightly insists that believers not only consider the heavenly characteristics of Jesus Christ but also his earthly distinctiveness.  Jesus was indeed the child of Mary, the faithful Jew who frequented the synagogue Sabbath after Sabbath, who observed the Mosaic Law (as in this Sunday’s Gospel when he instructs the newly healed lepers to show themselves to the priests), who wept over his beloved Jerusalem even as he pronounced its doom, who enjoyed the company of Martha, Mary and Lazarus and was frustrated by the dullness of the Apostles and the stubbornness of the Jews.  And, of course, Jesus was the man of sorrows: betrayed, handed over, bruised, insulted, crucified, dead and buried.  The humanity of Jesus Christ is undeniable.  He was born.  He grew in wisdom, age and grace.  He had relatives and friends.  On occasion he was hungry and thirsty, as his encounter at the well indicates.  Sometimes he was angry, as at the Temple, and sometimes exasperated, as in his street corner dialogues with the Pharisees.  Jesus was a thoughtful man, feeding the famished crowds in the wilderness and asking that the little girl he just revived be given something to eat.  Jesus could be weary, catching a catnap “on a cushion” in the storm-tossed boat at sea.  And Jesus could even appear discourteous, as his rude dialogue with the Syro-Phoenician woman unavoidably displays.  “A man like us in all things but sin…” the Apostle rightly observes. 

       Each Christian generation must appreciate Jesus in his Divine essence and in his human nature.  The two-fold character of Jesus has its ramifications in every aspect of Christianity.  Thus the Christian balances himself between heaven and earth, between time and eternity, between the natural and the supernatural, between the Risen Christ and the Crucified Christ.   To neglect either is to misread the Gospel.       COMPLETE

       Father Edward Flannery, distinguished author and one-time editor of the Visitor, once lamented in conversation that so many churches were locked up every day of the week except for a few minutes before and after morning Mass.  He recalled that as a youth he could stop into church anytime he wished – on the way to school, for Sunday & weekday devotions, for Saturday confessions, for assorted celebrations during the liturgical year, or whenever he just happened to be going by.  The church was truly the center of neighborhood life, he observed, both spiritually and socially.  The locked church was a sad commentary, he suggested, not only on neighborhood decline but more importantly on Catholic spirituality.  Behind locked doors, the Eucharist was not as central to Catholic life as it might be.

       Readers of the Quiet Corner may be aware that I have recently become the pastor of two parishes in Warwick: St. Francis on Jefferson Blvd. in Hillsgrove and St. William just off Post Road in Norwood.  Like London’s theatres during the blitz, St. Francis church proudly never closes.  Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the church’s doors are open and visitors to the Blessed Sacrament are rarely lacking.  The church is located on a busy thoroughfare, is attached to a school, and has few neighbors.  Perhaps these factors contribute to the security of the property.

       St. William Church, on the other hand, is located well off busy Post Road, in a residential neighborhood, backing up to a densely wooded area.  There has been a sad history of vandalism.  The church is fully alarmed.  In the few months I’ve been here I have c