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 caught kids on the roof of the church and have erased graffiti off various doors.  Being somewhat off the beaten path, the building can be a temptation to area urchins.  Yet the parish boasts a very large parking lot which might well be mistaken for an extension of Greene airport by an unfamiliar pilot.  Every dog in Warwick receives its daily exercise in this lot, speedily leading its master along on a taut leash.  Young children quickly lay aside their training wheels thanks to the expertise they accomplish on this vast expanse.  Weight conscious residents loose poundage as they pace around the circumference of the property.  Teenagers practice their pre-license driving techniques on the macadam.  Hence the thought occurs that with so many people making a path to this out-of-the-way parking lot, an equal number of people could certainly make their way to a chapel of adoration on the same property.

       I am happy to report that a convenient space at Saint William Church which started out as a baptismal area in the 1960s and became a reconciliation room in the 1980s, will now be a chapel where the public may spend some quiet time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.  Religious items not used in decades have been resurrected from the church’s cellar to form an intimate, personal area where the faithful may pray, reflect and adore Christ present in the Holy Eucharist.  The chapel, located at the right front side of the church at 200 Pettaconsett Avenue off Post Road, will  open officially on Saturday, October 16, at the 5pm Mass and will welcome visitors daily thereafter at least from dawn to dusk.  “The Master is here and wants to see you,” Martha advised her sister Mary in the Gospel account, and now the parishioners of St. William parish similarly invite their neighbors and the public to spend a quiet moment at the feet of the Master in their newly renovated chapel. 

       This new Eucharistic opportunity fortuitously takes place as our Holy Father announces his year of the Eucharist.  "If the fruit of this Year is only to revive in all Christian communities the celebration of Sunday Mass and to increase Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass, this Year of grace will have achieved a significant result," the Pope observed as he issued his recent apostolic letter on the Blessed Sacrament.    St. William parish, as well as St. Francis parish, along with many other parishes around the diocese, is pleased to cooperate with the Holy Father as he re-states the Church’s perennial belief in the Real Presence.  “Remain with us, Lord,” the Pope begins his letter quoting the Emmaus disciples.  Through John Paul’s letter, the Lord seems to be reversing the invitation, insisting that we seize the opportunity to remain with him, sacramentally present in parish churches and neighborhood chapels.  

                                                                       COMPLETE

       The Gospel according to St. Luke is frequently called the Gospel of Prayer.  St. Luke’s version of the Good News makes more references to prayer, records more prayers, and depicts Jesus at prayer much more than his fellow three evangelists.  The Christian world is indebted to St. Luke for the Benedictus, the joyous canticle of Zachary acclaiming the birth of his son, John the Baptist.  Mary’s splendid Magnificat, spoken as the expectant virgin mother visited her cousin Elizabeth, is found only in the third Gospel.  The Nunc Dimittis, the happy exclamation of the aged Simeon as he met the infant Christ in the Temple, is also recorded solely by St. Luke.  The glad words of the angels celebrating the birth of Christ, Glory to God in the Highest, has become a favorite prayer of the universal Church which, again, is indebted to St. Luke for preserving it for posterity.  Even the Lord’s Prayer in the simplified version found in St. Luke probably reflects the original form of that prayer as it left the lips of Jesus better than St. Matthew’s formalized, congregational style.  St. Luke presents his readers with his own book of prayer.

       The image of Jesus at prayer is a frequently repeated scene in the Gospel according to St. Luke.  Quite often the disciples are found mystified during the day because Jesus has taken himself to the hillside to spend time in prayer.  For example, Jesus descends the mountain from one of these prayer vigils before nominating the twelve Apostles.  And it must never be forgotten that it is St. Luke’s account of the Gospel that reports Jesus’ lifelong practice of attending the local synagogue session every Saturday.  “Entering the synagogue,” St. Luke writes, “as he was in the habit of doing…”  The example of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, entering a neighborhood prayer hall to praise God and reflect on the Sacred Scriptures with his fellow Jews is sobering and compelling. 

       The Gospel readings for this coming Sunday as well as for last Sunday present two parables on prayer that are exclusive to St. Luke.  Last weekend worshippers heard Jesus instruct the disciples on the need of persistent prayer.  The persevering example of the distressed widow pleading her cause before the heartless judge is a reminder to Jesus’ disciples that prayer is not an occasional practice for the Christian but is clearly a way of life.  And Jesus insightfully indicates that the lack of such persistent prayer may lead to a complete loss of faith:  “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”  In the mind of Christ, prayer is the fertile soil in which faith will flourish.  Failure to pray will lead to a scant harvest on the final day. 

       St. Luke follows this lesson on persistent prayer with a message on the openness that must characterize the believer as he or she approaches God in daily prayer.  The pious Jew was in the habit of praying seven times a day, a schedule spread over various hours symbolically sanctifying every moment of the day.  The Liturgy of the Hours found in Catholic observance continues this practice of offering every minute of the day to God.  The often pictured assembly of Moslems kneeling in prayer at various times of day is reflective of this same ancient prayer tradition.  In St. Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ lesson, a Pharisee and a fellow Jew approach the Temple at the time for appointed prayer.   The attitude of the Pharisee at prayer is clearly self-righteous, highlighting his own virtues while being critical of his neighbor’s faults.  This frame of mind is roundly condemned by Jesus.  On the contrary, the fundamental attitude of the authentic Christian disciple must be the admission of one’s needs and limitations along with a complete dependence on God's guidance and direction.  The humble sinner at prayer is overcome by the thought of his own unworthiness especially when contrasted with the glory of God enshrined in the Jewish Temple.  If prayer is to be sincere and effective, then the one at prayer must be completely honest with him or herself and completely candid with God.  The supplicant must lay aside all pretenses and façades, opening oneself completely to God’s healing Word and Presence.  Both self-satisfaction and pious reverie stifle true prayer.  Frank realism is the necessary background before which the true believer will make progress in prayer.

       If Jesus’ parables are used as criteria, this Sunday’s Gospel passage begins by citing two charges against the diminutive tax collector Zacchaeus.  He was “a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man” Just last Sunday a tax collector was used in the Gospel account as the model of a sinner.  That tax collector approached the Temple to pray but was overcome with the thoughts of his own unworthiness.  He might have been a repentant sinner but he was still a sinner.  A couple of Sunday ago, the rich man who ate well and dressed in fine linen was denounced for his indifference toward his scabrous neighbor Lazarus.  The rich are characteristically the bad guys in St. Luke’s Gospel account.  So little Zacchaeus has two holes that he has to work his way out of if want to prove himself to be a true “descendant of Abraham,” a true man of faith.

       Zacchaeus’ conversion journey begins with frank curiosity, is nurtured by supernatural faith, and finally blossoms into practical good works.  Unable to see over the heads of his taller fellow citizens, the inquisitive Zacchaeus climbs “a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way.”  The Gospel story then makes it clear that authentic Christianity is not just a matter of casual inquisitiveness or intellectual curiosity or even investigative study.  Saint Luke writes, “Jesus looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.’"  Christian faith is always a gift from God.  God always takes the initiative in the faith life of the believer.  Like Zacchaeus, an enthusiastic seeker might be well disposed toward the Gospel message and may be open to the Good News of salvation, but it is God who initially invites the believer to enjoy an intimate relationship with him.  “Faith comes through hearing,” Saint Paul would later write.  It is always God who speaks the first word in the conversion process and the believer who gratefully responds to that word. 

       In this instance Zacchaeus responded with palpable delight: “And he came down quickly and received him with joy.”   In St. Luke’s Gospel, joy is always the reaction to the Divine presence.  The Apostles on Easter Sunday night “were still incredulous for joy and were amazed”   Zacchaeus’ heart had been happily touched and now his faith can begin in earnest.  Christ and Zacchaeus were to nurture this newly found faith in the intimacy of the tax collector’s’ own home.  Faith grows through dialogue, reflection, contemplation.  It is time spent with Jesus on an interpersonal level that will bring budding faith to its full flower.  

       Zacchaeus’ faith will prove its authenticity by producing effective good works:  “But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.’" But it is not chiefly as a man of charity and justice that Zacchaeus is to be remembered.  Zacchaeus is celebrated today as a man of faith.  This is why Jesus cites him as a true son of Abraham.  “And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.’”  Abraham is the father of believers.  Even in the Christian era, Abraham remains the model of the true believer.   “Abraham believed and God credited it to him as justice.”  Abraham was the first historically verifiable person to believe in YHWH, in God, who brings light out of darkness, good out of evil, life out of death.  Even the premier message of Christ’s death and resurrection, the Paschal Mystery, was anticipated by the birth of Isaac, the vibrant new life that came from the dead loins of Abraham and the lifeless womb of Sarah.  The essence of faith has really not changed since that primitive era.  Abraham saw Christ’s day, Jesus noted, and he rejoiced in it.  Abraham grasped the true nature of faith.  Now Zacchaeus, in turn, comprehends what faith is all about and he too is delighted – and responsive.

       If the Christian is serious about his faith, he will welcome Christ into the home that is his heart.  He will find time for conversation, prayer and contemplation.  Laying aside his own unworthiness, he will, like Zacchaeus, rejoice in the Presence of God made visible and available in Jesus Christ.      COMPLETE

       Superstition has never been a very important part of my life.  Black cats, open ladders and cracked mirrors do not bother me at all.  Friday the thirteenth finds me just as cheery as the July fourth or December twenty-fifth.  This past week, however, I drove to Swansee to see the recently opened movie Therese, based on the life of St. Theresa, the Carmelite nun popularly known as the Little Flower. The two and a half-hour production is pretty as a period piece, reverent as a religious work, accurate as a biography, and patently one-dimensional as a character study of this nineteenth century doctor of the Church.  After the noontime showing of the film, I continued home to Woonsocket for the remainder of my day off, stopping, more out of curiosity than need, at a brand new Super Stop & Shop just over the state line in Bellingham.  Besides some Cheerios (three boxes for seven dollars) and some Maxwell House French Roast Coffee (ninety-nine cents a can), I purchased four pots of yellow mums for the shrines in church in anticipation of All Saints Day.   As I placed the four flower pots in my shopping cart, a young clerk approached me and handed me a fresh red rose.  “Thank you for your purchase,” she smiled.  “We appreciate your business.”

       St. Theresa at noon time; a red rose bud at mid-afternoon?   Were I superstitious I would consider this a miracle.  Cynic that I am I reckoned it a very happy co-incidence.  Then again…

       By twenty-first century standards (or lack thereof), the nineteenth century childhood of St. Theresa, born Therese Martin, the youngest of five girls, is idyllic and innocent, even naïve.  Her young life was permeated by religious faith and familial respect.   Yet her first years were not without torment.  Her mother’s death, her own religious anxiety and a severe delirium plagued her into her teenage years.  Her attraction to the religious life comes as no surprise to the viewer of the film or the student of her life.  The Church, from the Pope of Rome to the local mother superior to household devotions, is the very substance of her life. Once having entered the local Carmelite cloister, St. Theresa endures a convent life on film that is almost a parody of the pre-Vatican II experience of religious life.  The cranky elderly nun, the mean-spirited fellow sister, simplistic daily chores, and makeshift entertainments fill the short decade that Therese spent behind the grill.  Her early death from tuberculosis is physically painful but spiritually fulfilling as her lifetime longing for heaven is realized.

       The film Therese is more pictorial than analytical.  After all, it is a movie.  But the “devout Roman Catholic” (for whom, the Providence Journal suggests, this movie was made) can discern in this tasteful production an aspect of the Christian life that is somewhat ignored lately, namely, a sense of vocation.  Therese’s willingness to persevere into the cloistered life in spite of canon law, personal antagonisms, and the occasional loss of nerve is God’s gracious gift to her.  Therese is clearly called and guided by God himself toward a life of prayer and service at the Lisieux Carmel.  Clearly, she has a vocation.   She is a nun primarily by God’s Will to which she generously joins her own will.  Duty and obedience to God’s inner voice confirm her vocation.  Her life as a cloistered religious begins with an inner conviction, grows through youthful exuberance, develops among trials, and matures in her adult response to the childish contretemps of convent life.  Her vocation came from God.  But the response came from her, enabled by her family, her religion, her temperament, her talents and her courage.

       The piety of Therese’s family, her youthful innocence and the reassuring presence of the institutional Church are factors in her nineteenth century life that would be difficult to duplicate in our secular culture.  Yet while God might not speak so clearly today though the world around us, He continues to enlighten the heart of each believer.  Like Therese, each Christian should be convinced that he or she has a special call from God to respond to him in a unique way.  Priestly life, religious life, married life, single life – these are no accidents.  They are calls from God to which the believer, like Therese, should respond with gratitude and courage.                                                         COMPLETE

      As the Church’s liturgical year draws to an end, the Scripture lessons at Mass focus on those ominous times of plague and persecution that will beset the Christian community.  The sacred authors project not merely a cataclysmic end of the world – doom’s day -- rather they envision a constant testing of the believing community, decade after decade, century after century.  Jesus remarks today that there will be many false starts.  Self-styled prophets will suggest that the end is here or the end is there.  But the wise Christian will not believe them.   A lot of trial and error will occur before the final times.  It is by patient endurance that the faithful will save their souls.  Saints Matthew and Mark concur in this when they both write, “But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.”  Today St. Luke is not to be outdone in this matter, observing, “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

       Perseverance and patient endurance is the mark of the Christian believer in every generation and not only during the end times.  Challenges will come to the Church community not only at the apocalyptic end of the world but in year-in and year-out historical events.  “When you hear of wars and reports of wars do not be alarmed; such things must happen, but it will not yet be the end,” Jesus reminds his followers in today’s Gospel passage.  Opportunities for perseverance and patience will be afforded to every Christian, in every era.  Fidelity to the Gospel message is expected from everyone.

      Most re-assuring in today’s Gospel passage is Jesus’ promise of Divine assistance during difficult times.  This guarantee of Divine help is probably better known to students of Scripture in St. Mark’s wording:  “When they lead you away and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say. But say whatever will be given to you at that hour. For it will not be you who are speaking but the Holy Spirit.”  One thinks easily here of St. Stephen the deacon, the first martyr of the early Church, whose eloquent final words were a fine synopsis of the Gospel message.  Truly it was the Spirit speaking through the lips of St. Stephen proclaiming the Good News to the unwilling ears of an angry crowd.  Clearly it is the Holy Spirit who gets credit for most of the Church’s eloquence down through the ages.  Prophetic utterance is a gift of the Spirit.

       Yet in this Sunday’s Gospel passage from St. Luke, the observant worshipper will notice a slight modification when Jesus is giving his followers very similar advice: “Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.”   In St. Luke’s version of the End-times speech, it is not the Holy Spirit who will bestow insight and fluency on the persecuted Christian, but Jesus himself who will come to the rescue of his harassed followers.  “I myself shall give you a mouth and a wisdom…,” Jesus graciously and kindly promises.  Perhaps this is a small point.  Certainly there is no conflict between the work of the Spirit and the work of Jesus.  One might easily argue that the entire Holy Trinity is responsible for inspiring and sustaining the believer in difficult times.  Yet it is interesting that here in St. Luke Gospel version, the man Jesus does not want to be left out of the day to day history of the Church.  

       The Holy Spirit is not just a vague force permeating the Church, leading the faithful into a shapeless future.  The Holy Spirit is, as St. Luke would write elsewhere, “the Spirit of Jesus.”  The task of the Spirit is to refashion the faithful into the image of Jesus.  The example of the historical Jesus Christ is normative for Christians in every era.  His preaching, his teaching, his practice, his prayer life, as well as the foundation and organization of the Church he instituted are the standards by which every authentic Christian is measured.  There is nothing vague or formless or fuzzy about Christianity.  Jesus himself established certain parameters or specifications within which the Christian must work out his salvation.  It is the Holy Spirit who brings to the mind of the believer these authentic dimensions of Christianity.  “He will suggest to you all that I have told you.”  Jesus observes in St. John’s Gospel.   So there is no conflict between the Son of God and the Spirit of God.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The Spirit continues the specific work and ministry of the man Jesus Christ down through the ages.  COMPLETE

       National Peoples’ Radio, excuse me, National Public Radio recently aired a review of a new book from Great Britain entitled, “The Dark Side of Pope John Paul II.”  On the downside of the Pope’s career, some suggestions made are merely curious, some mean, and some destructive.  As is probably true of any ageing executive, the suggestion is made that the Pope is not really in charge of his pontificate.  He has become a mere figurehead for conniving cardinals to promote their traditionalist agenda.  I cannot prove or disprove from a rectory in Warwick this allegation but it is certainly not a novel suspicion.   The same assertion was made concerning Pope Paul VI toward the end of his tenure.  Another charge made by the author concerns the Pope’s quest for celebrity status.  On papal travels the Pope is regularly viewed alone, waving singly from his Pope-mobile or gazing solitarily from a presidential chair.  The author contends that the Pope is rarely seen as part of a group.  The Pontiff does not want to be seen as just another bishop.  He is not simply the first among equals.   Emphasizing his ecclesiastical uniqueness has become a papal obsession – according to our English friend.

Complete

       Dan Donahue, a LaSalle ’58 classmate and an indefatigable peruser of books and magazines, noted an article in The Atlantic Monthly on the horrors of internment camps in North Korea.  China regularly deports North Koreans back to that peninsula nation where they are imprisoned in what amounts to death camps or concentration camps.  Thousands perish from cold, sickness, dehydration and malnutrition.  Any babies conceived outside North Korea but then delivered to a refugee detained in these camps are routinely aborted or murdered at birth.  One witnessed explained that since North Korea was short on food, the country should not have to feed the children of foreign fathers.  This witness recounted seeing infants smothered or even buried alive or “stabbed with forceps in the soft parts of their skulls.”  Mr. Donahue’s tongue in cheek observation, written in the margin of the news item read: “How horrible!  Thank God we live in a Christian country.”

       Stabbing infants in their skulls certainly seems like something one would associate with life in a gulag or concentration camp or death camp.  In these camps prisoners perform dangerous physical labor – mining, logging, brutal factory work.  Starving prisoners are publicly executed for stealing food.  One horror compounds the other.  Yet there in the midst of these atrocities is a monstrous act that many Americans and some American Catholic legislators believe should be protected by federal law.  The nation’s troubled ban on partial birth abortion (read stabbing infants) is resented by many liberal Americans and, most sadly, is not endorsed by many legislators who profess to be Catholic.  When infanticide is linked with North Korean death camps, the average reader is aghast. But when partial birth abortion is discussed in American courts or performed in American hospitals, America’s horror is tempered by media references to reproductive rights, to women’s health, to viability, to safe medical procedures.  

       Infant stabbing by any other name remains a ghastly and cowardly act – as does all abortion, no matter how misleading a title might be affixed to it.  Sadly abortion in all its forms has become so routine, so accepted, in today’s American society that it is only when one reads of abortion in another context – like North Korea – that the very horror of the act is driven home.   A letter from Professor Vance Morgan of Providence College appeared in the Providence Journal shortly after the recent elections condensing the objections of American Christians to a liberal administration to issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.  The professor argued that America’s faith community was shortsighted and that other issues deserved equal consideration.  But thinking Christians know that the life issues (abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, embryonic stem cell research, and cloning) are but the heralds of more blatant immorality to come.  Rather than endure the  further ravages of relativism that have led society to the culture of death pervading it today, Christian voters and others of good will decided to hold the line and affirm a culture that protects life in its most vulnerable forms (abortion, euthanasia) while not neglecting life in its more complicated forms (justice, economics).   While Dr. Morgan favors the kindly Jesus of the Beatitudes, Catholics might do well to recall the same uncompromising Jesus who challenges the faithful to face tough decisions in every day life.  “You think I have come for peace?  I have not come for peace but for division.”  Thinking people, Christian or not, recognize that the dividing line has been reached and society will cross it at its peril.  Clearly it is time to take a stand – lest the distinction between the United States and North Korea fade even more.

       In these two years between Congressional elections, Catholics and other defenders of life should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that a cavalier attitude toward innocent human life has run its course in this country.  As Father John A. Sistare in an unpublished letter to the Providence Journal wrote quoting our American bishops, “Among the important issues involving the dignity of human life with which the Church is concerned, abortion necessarily plays a central role. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the 'rightness' of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.”  A plea for social justice that ignores the fundamental life issues is mere political correctness.                                   COMPLETE

       Saint John the Baptist and certainly our Lord Jesus Christ followed good Biblical precedents when they chose water as the key element in their rites of initiation.  Sinners joined the Baptist’s circle of converts by undergoing a bath of repentance at the Jordan River.  And sinners would enter Christ’s Church by accepting Baptism at the hands of the early Apostles and succeeding generations of Christian ministers.  “Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit,” Christ informed Nicodemus, “he shall not enter into the Kingdom of God.”  Students of the Scriptures are not surprised at this declaration since water was present at every Biblical community foundation since creation.

       The opening verses of the Jewish Scriptures remind the reader that “a mighty wind swept over the waters,” and out of that primeval water God brought forth light and land and sky and finally the family of man, male and female.  This first creation account is quickly followed by a second, colorful saga with the same initial imagery: “a stream was welling up out of the earth and was watering all the surface of the ground.”  From this damp soil God fashions Adam and the human community.  So water was there at the beginning when God made his first community, the human race.

       Even a Christian toddler is familiar with the lively tale of Noah and his ark.  God repented that he had even created mankind so wicked and sinful had his earthly children become.  The Creator decided that it was time to begin the human family afresh by wiping out the evil race with a flood and commencing the human experience anew.  “All the fountains of the great abyss burst forth and the floodgates of the sky were opened.  For forty days and forty nights heavy rain poured down on the earth.”  From these heavy rains and from the subsequent flood, the new family of man was born.

       The student of Scripture will not be surprised to see water taking a prime role in the liberation of the Jews and their settlement in the land of Israel.  Recently freed from enslavement in Egypt, the Jews are pursued to the shores of the Red Sea by a Pharaoh with second thoughts.  It appears that their longing to be a free people will not be realized, halted by the breadth and depth of the water before them.  “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord swept the sea with a strong east wind throughout the night and so turned it into dry land.  When the water thus divided, the Israelites marched into the midst of the sea on dry land, with the water like a wall to their right and to their left.”  Thus the new people of Israel are born out of water and their destiny as God’s chosen people continues.

       Not only history but prophecy in the Old Testament views water as God’s favored instrument in forming a community.  Ezekiel is brought by God to the entrance of Jerusalem’s splendid temple, the central symbol of Jewish community life.  As the prophet stands there he sees “water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple.”  First the water is ankle deep, then knee deep, then up to the prophet’s waist, then so deep that only a swimmer can cross it.  This abundant water is not only plentiful, it is healthful as well, nourishing trees and freshening the salt sea.  Thus the impending Kingdom of God, predicted by the prophets, employs familiar water imagery as the symbol of its future birth.

       So it is clearly no accident when Saint John the Baptist appears in the wilderness proclaiming a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  The Baptist is preparing a people who will be ready to acknowledge the Messiah when he appears.  But St. John’s ministry is only an introduction to the final and fulfilling ministry of Jesus Christ and his Church which will also welcome its new members through an inaugural bath.  When the words of St. Peter cut the Jews gathered in Jerusalem to the heart on Pentecost Sunday, they cry out in all earnestness, “What must we do, brothers?”  St. Peter’s words, founded on the teachings of his Master, Jesus Christ, are clear and to the point:  “You must repent and be baptized.”  From its inception, the Church, the new people of God, the new community of believers, is born of water.  The waters of Baptism squarely establish the Church as a family, a community, a society, a people, freed from sin and destined for heaven.       COMPLETE

       Scripture commentators have argued for centuries over St. John the Baptist’s question to Jesus Christ: “Are you he who is to come or should we look for another?”  Was St. John asking this question for his own benefit or was he hoping that the faith of his disciples would be braced by the answer?   Was the Baptist loosing confidence in Christ as the Messiah or was the Baptist intent on strengthening the confidence of his followers in the newly arrived Christ? 

       The footnotes for the New American Bible, the official United States version of the Scriptures, boldly place the burden of the query on the shoulders of the Baptist himself.  These commentators observe that St. John was already widely known for his fiery denunciation of the Judean leaders:   "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.  His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."  With sentiments like these, it is easy to see how St. John would become disillusioned with Jesus’ mercy-laden approach to the work of redemption. 

        The Baptist was anticipating a scorched earth, take-no-prisoners line of attack as the long awaited Messiah went about the business of saving mankind.   Clearly St. John for his part expected a no-nonsense Messiah who would set the world straight regarding righteous conduct.  The Baptist was frankly discouraged, even scandalized, when Jesus proved to be not an in-your-face leader but rather a compassionate healer.  St. John felt let down.  Jesus however understood the Messiah’s work to be a task of reconciliation rather than a tirade of denunciation.  In answer to his cousin’s question, Christ cites his many corporal works of mercy as the best indication of who he is and what he is about.  Clearly Jesus has not come merely to condemn the world but to begin the process of healing the world.  His miracles (the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, cripples walk) offer people a hope and a promise that the ravages of sin can be reversed.

        The miracles of Jesus were intended to be acted-out parables.  What Jesus taught with his lips he confirmed with his hands.  The miracles of Christ dramatically and graphically proclaimed the dawn of a new era.  Through Christ, the blind, deaf, mute and crippled of his day were transformed from a diminished physical existence into the fullness of earthly life.  So, too, the Gospel ministry of Christ would lead those blind to God’s existence, deaf to God’s word, mute at prayer, and crippled in their community life into the fullness of the spiritual life. 

       While Christ might not have been as condemnatory nor as judgmental as St. John, Christ did not come into this world merely to affirm men as they are.  Like the Baptist, Jesus was keenly aware of the harm and evil of sin.  Remember that Christ’s first message was also one of repentance:  Repent! And believe in the good news!  Change your ways!  Convert!   The preaching of the Baptist and the ministry of Christ were alike in their rejection of sin and error.  But, while St. John could merely denounce sin, Jesus was here to overcome sin.  St. John would rightly challenge the sinner; but Jesus would happily change the sinner.  St. John’s ministry looked to the past and the present, to humanity’s record of sin and need of salvation.   But Jesus’ ministry looked also to the future, to the nearness of redemption and the prospect of conversion.   The Baptist’s message gave men pause.   Christ’s deeds gave men hope. 

       Jesus praises his cousin St. John the Baptist as the greatest man born of woman and as the awaited prophet who would herald the end-times inaugurating the fullness of redemption.  Yet in the same breath Jesus exalts the humblest Christian who lives in a newer covenant with God, a covenant that, like the Baptist, calls first for self-awareness but, thanks to Christ, results in deliverance, healing, and transformation.                                                                                                        COMPLETE

       The familiar narrative of St. Joseph’s initial hesitation and then gracious acceptance regarding the unique conception of Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary is preceded in St. Matthew’s Gospel by a lengthy genealogy.  This Matthean genealogy is actually the Gospel passage for the vigil of Christmas, although it is rarely read by celebrants who shy away from the obscure Hebrew names that it contains.  A genealogy was to the ancient Jew what a coat of arms was to the medieval knight.  Noble families in the Middle Ages would choose a symbol for their armor which conveyed to an enemy or threatening neighbor the family’s thoughts about itself.  Perhaps a lion or a dragon or an eagle or a tower or a sword would be employed to convince the neighbor of the family’s strength and power.  Today a company’s trade mark would be a modern equivalent of the emblem on a medieval shield or banner.  So too the Jews, in researching their family genealogy, would make sure that the correct cast of characters appeared in the list of ancestors to convince their fellow townsmen that they were a family to take into account.  Having a patriarch or a judge or a king in one’s genealogy raised the family’s prestige a notch or two.

       In the genealogy of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew, the ancestry of the Savior is not chiefly noteworthy because of the men who constitute it.  Rather it is the women mentioned in St. Matthew’s account who reveal the Evangelist’s intention in opening his Gospel with this lengthy list of the generations that preceded Jesus in this world.  Five women are placed in Jesus’ ancestral line through whom St. Matthew hopes to convey the theological notion that the birth of Christ was chiefly the result of Divine Providence and not just a consequence of human history.  According to traditional Jewish practice and custom, these five women never should have had the children that they bore.  Their children were all born of unique circumstances – circumstances that flew in the face of normal Jewish life.  Thus Jesus’ own unusual entry into this world (the virgin birth) is underlined by St. Matthew.

       The first woman mentioned in the genealogy is the clever Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Jacob, by whom that patriarch had two sons, Perez and Zerah, thus keeping the family line intact even if unorthodox incestuous relations had to be employed.   Rahab the harlot was the heroic woman who sheltered the Israelites on their first approach to the Holy Land.  She was not a Jew but was welcomed into the Jewish community as a reward for her valor.  As a foreigner she would not ordinarily have figured into Jesus’ ancestry.  Similarly the celebrated Ruth, the grandmother of King David, was not a Jew but a Moabite and under ordinary circumstances would not have married into a Jewish family.  David for his part had offspring through Bathsheba who was already married to the ill-fated Uriah whom David had slain after discovering that Bathsheba had conceived David’s son.  Had normal Jewish family practices been observed in each of these instances the sons born to these women would never have come into this world.  God allowed the normal course of events to be altered – sometimes radically and outrageously – to emphasize that Providence not mere history would bring about the birth of the Messiah.

       The virginal conception of Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary – clearly outlined in both St. Matthew’s and St. Luke’s accounts of the birth of Christ – is of course the primary evidence for the arrival of Christ into this world being the work of God rather than the fruit of mere mortal intercourse.  In Jesus Christ not only are “the hopes and dreams of all the years” brought to fulfillment, but, more importantly, the plan and providence of God for mankind are realized.  Jesus is not just the worthy apex of humanity; he is the gracious condescension of Divinity.  Jesus does not just represent what is best in man; he proclaims what is most distinctive about God. Jesus is not a “from the bottom up” production; rather he is a “from the top down” result of God’s fatherly concern for the human family, for sinful mankind, for lost souls.  Just as God the Father took the initiative in the family history of Jesus Christ, guiding each generation according to his plan, so the Father continues to guide human history, bringing good out of evil and truth out of error.  God is always in charge of his universe -- regardless of any evidence to the contrary.       COMPLETE

       During this year of the Eucharist, our Holy Father has especially directed the attention of the faithful to Christ’s Real Presence in the Church through His Eucharistic Body and Blood.  Appropriately, the Advent retreat given to his Holiness and his Vatican staff this year has focused on the Eucharistic hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas, “Adoro Te devote, latens Deitas…”, that is, “I adore you devoutly, hidden Godhead…”  Adoro Te  is one of five hymns St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) composed in honor of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Pope Urban IV's (1261-1264) request when the Pope first established the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. The hymn is still found in the Roman Missal as a prayer of thanksgiving after Mass.  In the hymn St. Thomas observes that Christ is not only hidden today under the species of bread and wine, making sense only to the eye of faith, but he was equally hidden on the Cross, when in his bruised and broken body He appeared to be anything but Divine.  So the Real Presence of Christ has always been a challenge to the believing community – from the absent Saint Thomas to those who dismiss quiet of Benediction as an affront to action of the Mass. 

       Yet the Divine Presence has been an enduring theme and a perduring reality in both the Scriptures and the life of Church since the beginning.  One of the joys of Eden was the daily visits by God to our first parents who would discuss the affairs of the day during the breezy hours of the early evening.  The abiding and providential presence of God with the Jews on their wilderness journey – as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night – well bespoke the kindness and mercy and nearness of God to his people.  The ancient Jews firmly believed that God Himself dwelt in a special way over the Mercy Seat, a precious space above the Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple.  Five hundred years before the arrival of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem, the prophet Isaiah predicted that the coming Messiah would be called Emmanuel, a name which St. Matthew would later explain as “God is with us.”  The presence of God with his people was made even more real in the incarnation of Jesus Christ first in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary and then in the homes and shops and streets of Nazareth, Capernaum, Jericho and Jerusalem.  Yes, in Christ God was, and is, truly with his people. 

       Believers should not forget that this name Emmanuel – God is with us – would also be recalled at the end of St. Matthew’s gospel where the risen Jesus assures his disciples of his continued presence, "Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).  Clearly, this promise of Jesus' real but invisible presence down through the ages until the end of time echoes the very name Emmanuel given to him in the Christmas narratives heard so often at this season.

       Perhaps with a bit of premature enthusiasm for the Divine Nature of Christ, both St. Matthew and St. Luke in their infancy narratives have their token visitors – the Magi and the shepherds – prostrate themselves in adoration before the Divine Presence.  Whether these foreign kings and humble herdsmen actually understood the entire hypostatic union hundreds of years before the Church would formally define it is doubtful, or at least debatable.  Regardless, they were awe-struck.  But what is more important here, however, is St. Matthew and St. Luke both including quiet adoration as the only suitable response to the nearness of God in Christ.  In a sense the kings and the shepherds were anticipating the reaction of the Christian community to the Real Presence that would evolve over the centuries.  Awe in the Divine Presence is still, or should be, the response of the believing Christian who encounters Christ sacramentally in the Church. 

       Even on the level of human interaction – spouse to spouse, parent to child, sibling to sibling, friend to friend -- to be present to one to another is a marvelous gift and an astounding achievement.  To often in life persons are side by side but not together.  The best of us can be distracted, anxious, or restless in one another’s presence.  The ability to focus, to concentrate, to share is a rare commodity.  Christ enduringly present in the Blessed Sacrament is an invitation to rest from one’s activity, no matter how legitimate and compelling, and to enjoy the company, the companionship, of God Himself, hidden but truly present among his believing people.  Merry Christmas!           COMPLETE!