The Quiet Corner,

a weekly meditation on the Sunday Gospel, by the Reverend John A. Kiley,

as published in The Providence Visitor since 1974.

The Quiet Corner             By The Reverend John A. Kiley              3 January 2008

       An advertisement featured recently on local radio begs support for a Roman Catholic missionary congregation that has earned justifiable renown over the last century.  This religious congregation of priests and sisters had brought the Gospel message, amid much suffering and persecution, to what today is often called the Third World.  They have a noble record.  This latest advertisement, however, promotes the work of this religious congregation solely on humanitarian grounds.  The name of Jesus Christ and their history as a Catholic congregation are never mentioned.  While it is certainly true that these priests and sisters and lay volunteers have fed the hungry and clothed the naked and consoled the sick and instructed the ignorant, their principal goal, at least until recently, was the proclamation of the Kingdom of God mediated through Christ and his Church.  To be blunt, their objective was to win converts to Catholicism.  Political correctness or, in this case, religious correctness has softened the thrust of their ministry and possibly the depth of their convictions.  The statement of another  missionary sister regarding the native people whom she served comes sadly to mind:  “They taught me more than I taught them.”  Perhaps sister did come to admire the family bonding of these indigenous people or their respect for their natural environment or their helpful responses to life’s crises.  But sister’s failure to recognize that the gift of “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” which she was commissioned to share with them prevailed over any natural or humanistic lesson they might have offered to her.  The Kingdom of God as mediated through the Catholic Church has fallen on hard times as secular priorities more and more capture the minds and hearts of Church professionals. 

        The solemnity of Epiphany celebrates the catholicity of the Kingdom of God and the universality of salvation.  The foreign kings who entered the house to worship the newborn king of the Jews were a slap in the face to the narrowminded Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day.  The new kingdom that arrived in the person of Jesus was and is a kingdom destined to embrace persons of every climate and nationality and culture.  To reduce the work of the Church to the mere improvement of living conditions is a distressing misreading of the Gospel message.  It is certainly true that the world has been enriched throughout history by the work of Catholic monks and missionaries and mentors.  But secular improvement was always a byproduct of “the stewardship of God’s grace that was…revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”  The Scriptures and the creeds and the sacraments and the Commandments and the prayers were the tools of this stewardship.  And reconciliation with God and eternal salvation in his Kingdom were its intent.  But time has sadly eclipsed eternity in the focus of many Church professionals.

       Vatican offices are reported to be aware of these challenges in the work of evangelization.   They recognize that there is "a growing confusion" about the Church's missionary mandate.  They warn that some think "that any attempt to convince others on religious matters is a limitation of their freedom," suggesting that it is enough to invite people "to act according to their consciences", or to "become more human or more faithful to their own religion", or "to build communities which strive for justice, freedom, peace and solidarity", without aiming at their conversion to Christ and to the Catholic faith. Others have argued that conversion to Christ should not be promoted because it is possible for people to be saved without explicit faith in Christ or formal incorporation in the Church. Recalling the words of Pope John Paul II that every person in the world has a “right” to hear the good news of God who reveals himself in Christ, church leaders conclude that therefore there is a corresponding “duty” to evangelize leading to conversion in the traditional sense.  Ruling out coercion or improper enticement that fails to respect the dignity and religious freedom of each person, Vatican officials also quote Pope Benedict:  "The proclamation of and witness to the Gospel are the first service that Christians can render to every person and the entire human race, called as they are to communicate to all God's love, which was fully manifested in Jesus Christ, the one Redeemer of the world."   Epiphany is the ideal feast to recall the universal mission of the Church and its worldwide mandate.       

                                                                     COMPLETE

       A couple of weeks before Christmas the Providence Journal featured an article on its Page of Religion that highlighted a few Protestant communities that reject the celebration of Christmas.  While the repudiation of Christmas by mainline American churches is rare nowadays, this was not always so.  Early American religious settlers often despised Christmas on the grounds that the feast was too papist, too Catholic.  Modern church communities that eschew Christmas claim that the feast is too pagan, too rooted in nature rather than on Scripture.  While it is true that the celebration of Christmas began a lot later in Church history than the observance of Easter, commemorating Christmas is actually a development that highlights the very essence of Christianity.

       Although the day and month of the first Christmas are not recorded in Scripture, the event itself certainly is. St. Matthew and St. Luke give ample testimony to the arrival of the Son of God into this world as a man born of Mary.  The Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, commenced at the Annunciation and brought to its fulfillment on the day of Christ’s birth, is certainly worth  celebrating.  After the Council of Nicea when the union of Christ’s Divine and human natures were solemnly defined, Jesus’ birth into this world was certainly worthy of commemoration.  The ancient Church, in its wisdom and backed by Jewish precedent, adopted an already popular event, the winter solstice, as an appropriate, if arbitrary, date to rejoice in the Word made flesh.  What could be more appropriate than to celebrate what the poet George Herbert called “love’s noon in nature’s night”?

       The pagan world marked late December’s longest night and shortest day as the return of sunlight to the earth.  From that late December day until the end of June, the days would grow longer and warmer and more fruitful.  Light and life would enter into human history once again after a few dark weeks of darkness and seeming death.  This was not witchery or Satanism or idolatry.  This was simply human nature expressing its hope that life on earth would be fruitful once again.

       Just as the Divine Son of God took on a human nature and filled his body and blood with his Divine personality, so the ancient Church took on natural, human celebrations – spring, summer and fall harvests, the vernal equinox and the winter solstice – and adapted them into the Christian calendar.  The Jewish community had done this, of course, centuries before.  Passover, Pentecost, Yom Kippur, even Hanukah, celebrated the great events of salvation history in conjunction with the natural cycle of the agricultural year.  The ancient Church, like the ancient Jews, capitalized on all that was good in human nature, all that was good in primordial traditions, all that was good in earth’s natural calendar.  Like Jesus adopting a human nature, the ancient communities of faith took man’s natural, annual cycles and exalted them, endowing them with eternal significance.  After all, grace does not shun nature.  Grace builds on nature.  This belief is at the heart of Catholic Christianity.

       Unlike Calvinistic Protestantism which viewed human nature as depraved and corrupt, Catholicism always understood human nature to be merely deprived and weak, needing to be redeemed rather than repudiated.  Calvinistic Protestantism severed all contact with Christianity’s human roots – no saints, no statues, no sacraments, no decorations, no cycle of celebrations, no bishops, no priests, and certainly no Pope.  Calvin and his constituents embraced Scripture alone as the sole rule of faith – anything else was from the evil one.  The Christmas baby was thrown out with the corrupt human bathwater.  

       Christmas and the other feasts of the Church’s calendar year are a pious endorsement of the basic goodness of human nature and the earth’s cycles.  Humanity is flawed, but not irredeemably so.  The grace of God, won by the man Jesus Christ, ennobles all that is earthly, all that is created, all that is human.   Through grace, time becomes a window on eternity and the believer can see hidden in the celebrations of this world the mysteries of the world to come.        COMPLETE

       Voice of the Faithful on-line newsletter, no doubt hoping to justify its own critical assessment of U.S. Catholicism, recommends its constituents read a recent article from Commonweal magazine regarding the “high stress, poor health, and low morale” of the diocesan clergy, specifically in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.  Milwaukee Archbishop Dolan could not have been too happy about this grim appraisal of his archdiocese especially since he is a noted author and lecturer on the priesthood as well as a former seminary rector.  Closer to home, Bishop Tobin reviewed this same article with the younger clergy of Rhode Island hoping to assess whether they shared the Milwaukee author’s “pain and disorientation in a foundering church.”. 

       The Commonweal article is particularly harsh on the younger clergy: Bishops in recent years have been too quick to fill seminaries with fervent men who may or may not have genuine vocations. As a result, our seminaries now house a new breed of unsuitable candidates, men with poor relational and leadership skills. Ordained into a U.S. church that is losing its vitality, these men often seek to turn back the clock by embracing disciplines and devotional practices that flourished in the middle of the last century.  These young priests are also vilified for having a “sense of their own sacred status.”  The author criticizes this attitude of “chosenness” that he sees in younger priests as well as their embrace of the sacramental nature of the priesthood.  He also disparages them for their lack of administrative preparedness since they are likely to be thrust into pastorates after only seven or eight years of parish life.  The heightened appreciation of the sacred element in Church life by younger priests and seminarians (as well as by some older priests) might be a justified reaction to the social worker mentality that many priests adopted in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.  Priests, and religious, became agents of change rather than ministers of the Gospel.  A roll proper to the laity was assumed by the clergy.  The transformation of the secular world became the pre-occupation of many priests while loss of faith in the supernatural grew apace among both clergy and laity. 

       The Milwaukee writer correctly observes that the world, society and the Church have changed over the past half century.  American Catholicism has changed drastically from the “shunned, ghettoized, immigrant, minority Church” into a “largely a suburban population, better educated and more affluent…joining the cultural mainstream, sending their children to public schools, and abandoning Sunday Mass in favor of soccer, TV, or shopping.”  This assimilation of mainstream Catholic America into (let’s be honest) mainstream Protestant America seems to call precisely for a renewed appreciation of everything that is uniquely Catholic: the parish priest as the embodiment of mediatorship within the Catholic community; the Eucharist as Christ’s sacrifice renewed by the priest at the altar; the assurance of forgiveness offered through the priest’s formal absolution; the word of authentic revelation and tradition preached daily from Catholic pulpits; the witness of celibacy as a firm affirmation of fulfillment in the next life;  and, precisely as indicated by Pope Benedict in his recent encyclical on hope, a keen spiritual focus on heaven, eternity and the world-to-come. 

        Priests should rightly be cautioned against what the Milwaukee author calls a “forced optimism,” naively neglecting personal and ecclesiastical failings.   And the first failing to be considered is a failure in Catholic faith, a failure in that informed commitment to the plan of Christ for his Church which is the true source of priestly confidence and ministerial strength.  The resolution of any malaise among the Catholic clergy today will be chiefly hastened not by an examination of priestly assignments (multiple parishes, struggling schools, inadequate CCD, empty pews, family disarray) but rather from an analysis of priestly faith.  The priesthood in America today is not so much facing a crisis of ministry as it is facing a crisis of basic spirituality.  An appreciation of the Church as sacrament, mediating eternity into time, and the priest as celebrant of the sacraments (not just presider), mediating the next world into this world, is exactly the refreshment required by a world-weary presbyterate.       COMPLETE

       Years ago the last week of January was celebrated throughout the Catholic world as the Church Unity Octave.  Beginning on the former feast of St. Peter’s Chair at Rome and concluding on the current feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, observers of the octave prayed for the unity of various Christian communities with the Church of Rome.  Each day a Christian community dating back to the Reformation as well as the older Orthodox communities were commended to the prayers of Catholic parishioners.  Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists, and other Protestant communities were accorded their own particular day on which they were remembered with prayer and on which their unique history would provide food for thought.  The dignity of the Anglicans, the hymns of the Methodists, the fraternity of the Presbyterians and the lives of their founders were considered, enriching the Catholic faithful in the knowledge of their “separated brethren.”  Over the last half century, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has gradually replaced the older Church Unity Octave and an emphasis on what unites Christians rather then on what separates the followers of Christ has been stressed.  The Sacred Scriptures, a common repertoire of hymns, preaching and prayer followed by home baked cookies and coffee became the substance of this midwinter observance. 

       During the 1970s and 1980s, ecumenical observances became very fashionable.  Late January and the eve of Thanksgiving and some civil holidays were occasions for ecumenical gatherings.  Area clergy from the assorted churches also met sometimes monthly for discussion and sandwiches.  Priests and ministers served more frequently on various civic boards.  On a higher level, Rome entered into dialogue with the various Protestant communities highlighting shared truths.  But then sadly, at least on the local community level, interest in church unity began to wane.  By emphasizing common roots and common objectives and common rituals, the impression might have been given that one church community was a good as another.  All that mattered was that one was a good person – how often has that observation been made.  By loosing sight of – or by ignoring – the unique characteristics of each religious community, an illusory and transitory fellowship evolved which stumbled when the critical moral issues of the late twentieth century surfaced.  It was not doctrinal differences that soured much recent ecumenism but rather moral issues that drew the line in the sand.

       Divergent views on abortion especially as well as on divorce, cohabitation, homosexuality, cell research, gender, ordination, religion in public life, and Sabbath observance, among other items, forced ecumenical participants to question exactly what they were celebrating.  A Catholic clergy pledged to uphold traditional marriage might question sitting cheek by jowl with United Church of Christ ministers who bless same gender unions.  Roman Catholic priests faithful to the male priesthood might wonder about the role of a female ordained in the Episcopal Church.  Obviously there is a lot more to be considered regarding the unification of churches than who is going to perk the coffee and bring the oatmeal cookies. 

       But God, characteristically, brings good out of evil and light out of darkness.  The Catholic community has lately found much in common – at least from a moral point of view – with the Evangelical and Pentecostal communities.  Pro-Life and Marriage and Family concerns have brought these Catholic and Protestant communities – so liturgically contrary – into a serious dialogue.   Perhaps true ecumenism will be attained more by ministry conducted in the streets rather than by ceremonies offered in sanctuaries. 

       Full Church unity is an eschatological reality.  A sinful Church will always be plagued with internal and external division.  Yet working toward authentic unity is clearly God’s Will as well as a moral duty and the goal of common sense.  Joy in what unites believers and honesty about what separates adherents must enliven all ecumenical efforts.  Thus the growth of all, and not just the conversion of some, should lead to more effective unity.                                                                COMPLETE

       Each beatitudes proclaimed in this Sunday’s liturgy celebrates a deficiency.  That’s right.  Jesus, through the pen of St. Matthew, honors our brothers and sisters in faith who lack some portion of life and whom others might dismiss.  The poor in spirit are believers who recognize their inner poverty.  They have gazed thoughtfully into their own souls and discovered an emptiness there that only God can fulfill.  Those who mourn are the brothers and sisters who have experienced a loss in their life – perhaps a death, perhaps a separation, perhaps a broken relationship.  Suddenly they are startled and sadden by the void that has surfaced in their lives.  The meek in Scripture are not the shy and diffident souls that today stand on the sidelines of daily life.  The meek of the ancient world were those without property, without resources, and therefore without power.  Compared to the mighty with clout, these were the believers lacking in influence, sway and authority.

       The very words “hunger and thirst” connote an absence.    Hunger indicates lack of food; thirst signals lack of drink.  These blessed are those who recognize the appetite and the discipline necessary to achieve holiness.  They remain unsatisfied.  The merciful are those who can extend sympathy and compassion to their fellow believers because they recognize how merciful God has been to them in their own sorry state.  Spiritually hollow apart from God’s grace, they can open their hearts and their hands to their fellows in need.  The clean of heart are deficient because they have willingly divested themselves of all earthly fascinations and attractions.  Their lives are focused on God; their thoughts are attentive to Him; they shun earthly enticement.  To be a peacemaker is to forego control, to cede the other point of view, to recognize the dignity of the other side.  A peacemaker admits that he still has things to learn, that others do have things to offer.  He is prepared to admit his insufficiencies and seek common ground.  The persecuted and the insulted are those who are ready to admit that they are not part of the larger community.  They are outsiders; they are misunderstood; they are maligned.  They are only too keenly aware that when it comes to social standing and acceptance, they are woefully in need.

       Jesus commences his memorable Sermon on the Mount by honoring these eight deficient groupings because he knows that, with faith, these inadequacies can become the occasion for spiritual growth.  Each one of these blessed clusters is dramatically confronted with the emptiness that is native to every human life.  Each one of these sainted categories is significantly challenged, not to despair over their lack, but to hope in the promise of God who alone fulfills every human need. 

       The Eight Beatitudes are the profound and poetic expression of one of the most basic truths of revelation:  Our God is a God who brings good out of evil, light out of darkness, life out of death.  Evil and darkness and death are deficiencies.  They fall short of the glory of God and of the dignity of man. But the God of revelation continually addresses evil and darkness and death.  He responded to the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt.  He reached out to the Jews exiled in Babylon.  He embraced Christ dead on the Cross and raised him anew on Easter morning.  He reaches into the heart of every repentant sinner and fashions there a new saint.  The blessed of the beatitudes are those who are willing to admit a fundamental evil, an essential darkness, an original sin, within their own souls and then invite God into their lives to transform their unique fatal flaw into an occasion of grace, an opportunity for renewal, a chance for growth. 

       God’s original creation was out of nothing; and man still admires his achievement.  God’s new creation through Christ is fashioned out of sin, out of evil, out of darkness; how much more wonderful is this new creation which the world calls Christianity.  The admission of faults and flaws by Christians is not a sign of weakness.  It is a sign of strength – strength that comes not from our own minds and hearts but from the mind and heart of God himself.  “Strength is made perfect in weakness” wrote St. Paul, summarizing perfectly, as one might expect, the spirit of the beatitudes.                     COMPLETE

       The National Catholic (the word is used loosely) Reporter recently praised the church in the Netherlands for its innovative response to the vocation crisis.  According to the Reporter, the Dutch Church mused that because the Eucharist is the essence of the Christian community, that community therefore has a right to the Eucharist. And if the Catholic hierarchy fails to bestow that right from above, local communities can claim it from below: “Where two or three gather in my name,” they can share Scripture, break bread, pass the cup, enjoy the Real Presence, take Holy Communion, and employ the freedom of the Holy Spirit to give charisms -- “with or without official permission”.  The Dutch are seeing the future with courage, the Reporter thrills, and are welcoming it as a Eucharistic people. Thus America can learn from the Dutch about how to be “church from below, with or without permission from above”.

       Church from below is just another description of Protestantism.  The very names of some Protestant communities indicate their confidence in being bottom-up organizations.  Congregationalists (now the United Church of Christ) view their authority as arising from the congregation not through any hierarchy.  Presbyterians understand their assemblies to be directed by church elders (presbyters in Greek), the senior members of the community.  Baptists derive their faculties from the common sacrament of Baptism which places all believers on a level playing field.  Unitarians proudly stand apart from any hint of an ordained hierarchy.  The distance that the Protestant churches place between themselves and any ordained priesthood or episcopacy is understandable if one remembers that the Reformation was basically a rebellion against the excesses of the Roman Catholic priesthood. A poorly educated clergy, superstitious rites, financial immoderation, and the politicization of religion understandably soured many people against the ordained clergy.  But, no matter how justifiable their gripes, the reformers threw the baby out with the bathwater and intrinsically altered the face of Christianity.  Protestant Christianity is fundamentally priestless Christianity – and they want it that way.  Protestant ministers are essentially presiders.  The gathered community does the action which the minister facilitates.  No matter how talented, adept or charismatic he (or she) might be, a minister’s mandate comes from the people.

       The Roman Catholic as well as the Eastern Orthodox understanding of authority in the authentic Christian community is radically different.  Catholicism is definitely a top-down religion.  Catholicism understands itself to be an apostolic religion not only meaning the preservation of the authentic deposit of faith received from the Apostles but equally in the sense of an unbroken transfer of authority from Christ through the Apostles to each successive generation of deacons, priests and bishops.  The Apostolic succession, as this tradition is properly termed, is vital to authentic Christianity chiefly because it links the believing community to the historical man Jesus Christ, to his remembered words, to his significant actions, to his enlightened decisions, to his salvific death and resurrection.  Any American today can sadly witness how far afield some of our Christian brothers and sisters have ventured (and how far some of our Catholic brothers and sisters would like to venture) from the standards that defined the original Christian community.  In the religious world today doctrinal precision and moral uprightness are often determined more by the trends of the times than by the will of Christ.  The Dutch (Catholic) church’s attempt to re-define the Eucharist, the American Episcopal Church’s flirtation with same sex behavior, the river boat ordination of women by questionable prelates, the toleration of abortion by many Christian communities, the displacement of Scripture in church services by works of literature (however worthy), a disregard for marriage as the locus of sexual activity – each of these phenomena displays a fall from traditional Christian ways.  And they have all arisen within the Christian community (both Catholic and Protestant) because the trends of the times have been heeded more than the Words of Christ.  Bottom-up fashionability has replaced top-down legitimacy in the manual of Christian conduct.  The weather-vane has supplanted the Cross as the guide to Christian  behavior.   The apostolic succession sensing firmly the will of Christ rather than the ways of the world is the Church’s re-assuring guarantee of perennial authenticity and enduring fidelity.   COMPLETE

       No one can blame Saints Peter, James and John for wanting to prolong the Transfiguration experience.  In his exhilaration St. Peter blurts out, "Lord, how good it is that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."  The apostle literally wanted to camp out there on Tabor and enjoy Jesus’ celestial presence.  But protracted euphoria was not on Jesus’ agenda.  No sooner did the elated apostles come down the mountain than they were exposed to a reality check.  The father of a lunatic son knelt before Jesus and requested the Master to release his son from the madness that threw him so often into fire and water.   The piteous man touched Jesus’ heart and the boy was happily cured.  The glory at the top of Mt. Tabor and the misery at its foot is a digest of the Christian life itself.  The believer works out his salvation amid grace and sin, between virtue and vice, yearning for heaven while living on earth. 

       This contrast between the next world and this world seems never more pertinent than when one considers the renewed discussion concerning Mass celebrated with priest and people facing together toward heaven beyond the church wall and Mass celebrated with priest and people focused on the Sacred Species there before them on a central altar.  Like the transfigured Christ on Mt. Tabor, Mass facing God somewhere out there elicits thoughts of Divinity, eternity, beatitude and fulfillment.  Such a Mass “turned toward the Lord” raises the worshipper to an otherworldly, supernatural, mystical ambiance that, along with St. Peter, one would like to enjoy as long as possible.  “Lord, how good it is for us to be here,” indeed!

       Yet, like the three chosen Apostles who had to descend the mountain and be brought back to their earthly senses, the Christian faithful must realize that while our hopes are in heaven our obligations remain here on earth.  Accordingly, celebrating Mass with the priest and people facing in the same direction toward God “out there” seems to exalt Christ’s Divinity at the expense of his humanity.  It would be wonderful if life on earth were the unending experience of Tabor.  But this is simply not the case.  And Christ himself taught mankind eloquently that life on earth is not all transfigured glory while he himself was here on earth in the flesh.  Jesus was the first priest to turn “toward the people” when he became a man, when he worked as a carpenter, when he worship in his neighborhood synagogue, when he pitied the poor, healed the lame, drove out demons and, pre-eminently, died on the Cross.  There is nothing wrong with contemplating the “beyond,” as the Apostles did on Tabor.  But Jesus Christ has become “the beyond in our midst,” as Anglican Bishop John A. T. Robinson so happily described him.  And to ignore the Incarnation in favor of a pre-Christian theology that sees God only “out there” would be most unfortunate.

       In January, Pope Benedict celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel with celebrant and congregation facing the same direction toward the splendid Cross on the altar against the chapel’s far wall.  Commentators justified this Mass with the Pope’s “back to the people” by citing the architectural beauty of the church that would have been compromised by a temporary table facing the people.  This argument from interior design makes sense.  But papal practice in Rome’s basilicas and oratories should not embarrass pastors and curates who bring Christ into the midst of the assembly daily on altars in front of which the faithful have convened.  Free standing altars with celebrants and congregants facing one another are a daily reminder and, in fact, a consequence of the Incarnation.  Jesus was the supreme realist.  His pauper birth, his controversial ministry, his criminal death evidence a Christ thoroughly immersed in this world.  Daily on our parish altars Jesus immerses himself once again into bread, which human hands have made, and into wine, the work of human hands.  Christ is present, once again absorbed with the hopes and fears, the work and worries, of the gathered faithful.  The occasional glimpse of a glorified future can be encouraging; but the new rite’s daily glimpse of God-and-grace-made-present is a vision modern believers would do well to prolong.                               COMPLETE

       One of the most authentic shrines in the Holy Land is the Samaritan well near Sechem where Jesus encountered the many wedded woman who had come to draw water.  The well that dates back to the time of Jacob was intended to be enshrined in the early twentieth century by a splendid Russian Orthodox Church which, like the Imperial family, was abruptly cut short by the 1917 revolution.  Certainly pilgrims who visit this site, and perhaps even Jesus himself as he sat there in the Palestinian sun, have had their thoughts turn to the important place water has occupied in the whole of Scripture.  New parents who are presenting their infants for Baptism in the present day church are treated to a summary list of the many water incidents that occur throughout the Scriptures.  They are indeed numerous.

       Water was present, of course, at the moment of creation.  The Spirit, the believer is told in Genesis, “hovered over the waters.”  Out of these primeval waters issued the whole of creation.  Water was abundantly available in the Garden of Eden.  The reader is told that there were four rivers in Paradise – a stunning oasis by any estimation. When God repented of mankind who had quickly fallen into sin and determined to make a second attempt at creation, it was through a flood of water that God wiped out the erring generation and through Noah commenced a renewed universe.  Recall also that Moses was drawn out of the waters of the Nile to become the paramount prophet of the Old Testament and that it was through the waters of the Red Sea that God led his people out of slavery and onto the Promised Land.  Crossing the Jordan under the guidance of Joshua after having been feed in the wilderness with the water from the rock, the Jews re-settled their ancestral homeland first awarded to Abraham. 

       After each of these water events, God brought into being a new community of his fashioning.  Out of the waters of creation God drew the first family of man, the ill-fated Adam and Eve, who had to abandon the rivers of Paradise to repent of their sins.  Out of the flooding waters that destroyed a sinful mankind in pre-history days, the family of Noah including his wife, his sons and their wives, were rescued and commissioned to renew the face of the earth.  From the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan, God’s new people, the Jewish nation, were molded into a community of worship and service.         And now it was Jesus’ turn to form a new people, the community of Christian believers, who would renew the face of the earth through the power to be unleashed through his death and resurrection.  Through the sacrament of Baptism that Jesus would institute, following the lead of the Scripture sagas already recounted and adapting the popular use of cleansing waters in the Judaism of his day, the Master would begin that race of “true worshipers” who “will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.”
Jesus knows that a renewed people is indeed the Father’s plan: “the Father seeks such people to worship him.”  This new community would not be modeled after the natural families of Adam or Noah.  Nor would this new family consist only of a chosen race.  No, this new family of Christ would have a spiritual basis – a bond not based on family or nationality but based on the presence of the Holy Sprit in their heart.  “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.”

       The new community of Jesus Christ, born of water and the Spirit, would be primarily a community of faith.  The denizens of this faith community will certainly be expansive in their charity and intent on justice.  They will assuredly regret their sins and strive for virtue.  Still it will be faith, an appreciation of the life of the Spirit made handy through Jesus Christ, that will define and direct this new Church of Jesus Christ.  Like the Samaritan community who first heard of Christ by the words of the woman rushing from the well but then made those words their own, the new Church of Christ will be able to say: “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”  Faith comes through hearing, as St. Paul would later write, but faith endures through the personal decision to live in accordance with that faith.  Faith is increased by prayer, by repentance, by charity.  But faith remains, in the hallowed words of Trent, “…the root and foundation all justification.”  Without faith, it is indeed impossible to please God.                                                                                                       COMPLETE

       The first recorded words, so to speak, from the mouth of God the Father were “Let there be light.”  These words, while certainly familiar, are also a bit provocative.  After all, God did not create the sun or the moon or the stars until the fourth day.  The source of this primary light remains a mystery – a mystery at least to those who understand science and philosophy and art to be the extent of knowledge.  Rather these first godly words to mankind indicate that God was about to bestow an illumination beyond the heavenly lights, beyond even human reasoning and human sensitivity, upon his new human family.  From the start, God shared with his new creatures a gift that later generation would call faith.  Like that primitive light on the first day of creation, God’s gift of faith would reveal a larger world, a newer world, a world outside this universe.  Faith goes beyond the natural, beyond the sun and the moon and the stars and all the excellence of creation, exposing an even more brilliant supernatural world of divinity, eternity and grace. Faith enables a man to reach beyond his grasp, as the poet wrote.  Faith is “the substance of things to be hoped for,” penned St. Paul,” the evidence for things unseen.”   Faith uniquely enables a believer to be larger than life. 

       God would continue his metaphor of illumination when he would meet Abraham at the flaming brazier and encounter Moses at the burning bush and lead the Jews through the desert as a pillar of fire.  God would employ the same symbolism when his Spirit descended on the gathered twelve apostles in the form of flashes of fire on that first Christian Pentecost.  But most of all God would bring his illuminating graces to fulfillment in his Son, Jesus Christ.  Finally after centuries of similes and metaphors and figures of speech, Jesus Christ arrived in this world to be recognized by John the Baptist as the final and authentic light of the world: “the true light, which enlightens every man, was coming into the world.”   Jesus himself accepted the testimony of his cousin John and declared later and boldly, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  

      Jesus’ claim to be the light of world did not indicate that he was merely a model of human excellence to be appreciated and imitated.  Jesus was not in this world simply to give mankind good example.  Jesus did not just reveal to mankind man’s best self – like the ancient philosophers and moralist might have.  Jesus truly came into this world to introduce the human race to truths beyond creation and specifically to The Truth beyond creation.  Christ did not just enlighten the world; Christ ennobled the world.

       The light which Jesus Christ brings to this world is the light that the Judaeo-Christian tradition labels revelation.  Through Christ God reveals to mankind truths that man would never perceive if left to his own resources.  The existence of the Trinity, the reality of the Incarnation, the drama of Redemption, the glory of the Resurrection, the power of grace, the efficacy of the sacraments, the inspiration of Scripture, the horror of sin, the certainty of judgment and the unconditional love of God – these truths would elude mankind were he not enlightened supernaturally. 

       Christians nowadays tend to view Christ more as a model than a mentor.   They view him as an heroic example of the valiant deeds of which mankind is capable.  Jesus is the man of peace, the man of compassion, the man of long-suffering, the man of justice.  Indeed Christ is all these things.  But even more so Jesus is the Son of God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word made flesh, the splendor of the Father and the savior of mankind.  Jesus leads the believer beyond this world into a much the larger world of faith, belief and eternal truth. 

       The man born blind in today’s Gospel was certainly thrilled when Jesus opened his bodily eyes and allowed him to perceive color, motion, depth and nature for the first time.  But Jesus had an even greater gift for the man when he opened his eyes to the Lordship of Jesus, to his Divinity, his Sonship, his Otherworldliness.  Faith is a true revelation, a true window on the next world.       COMPLETE

       The resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus Christ was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Previously the religious leaders were profoundly disturbed that Jesus Christ had exalted himself above the Sabbath.  “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath,” Jesus forcefully reminded the Scribes and Pharisees of his day.  He knew how much the Jews respected the Lord’s Day and indeed he himself observed the Sabbath religiously.  But he knew also that he had to declare himself above even this perennial sign of the ancient covenant with Moses.  Yes, the Sabbath was important but the Son of God become man was even more important. 

       Jesus also riled the religious leaders of his day by the ease with which he forgave sins.  “Who has forgiven sins except God alone?”  the Jewish leaders argued among themselves.  The forgiveness of sins was indeed a Divine prerogative.  Jesus nonetheless forgave the sins of the many who approached as readily as he healed their limbs, opened their eyes and unsealed their ears.  This ready forgiveness did not sit well with either the Scribes or the Sadducees.  The charge of blasphemy came readily to the lips of Jesus’ antagonists. 

       Still, it was not Jesus’ alleged disregard for the Sabbath nor his presumptuous compassion toward sinners that sent the religious leaders into a frenzy.  Rather it was the calling of Lazarus back to life that truly pushed the Jewish elite towards frustration, consternation and murder.  The religious leaders were angered that Jesus was attracting bigger and bigger crowds who reveled in his actions and were persuaded by his sermons.  The Jewish bosses were also upset that news of Jesus’ popularity might reach the ears of the Roman authorities and upset the political as well as the religious status quo.  Alarmed by this double threat to their leadership, the Pharisees and the Sadducees conspired in their treachery.  St. John writes tersely, “So from that day on they planned to kill him.”

       The Jewish leaders understood with ironic perceptiveness that the gift of life, both bodily life and spiritual life, was central to the message of Jesus Christ.  Jesus himself had lingered intentionally before rescuing Lazarus from the dead at Bethany.  Jesus wanted the reality and tragedy of physical death to sink deeply into the consciousness of Martha, Mary, the consoling crowds and his bewildered disciples.  Jesus was preparing to draw these mourners from the depths of grief to the heights of bliss.  Jesus was being calculatingly dramatic.  Those who were understandably appalled by Lazarus’ death would be joyously euphoric at his resurrection.  The contrast between death and life would be stunning. 

       Of course Jesus had worked miracles on the Sabbath and elicited a lot of talk for his bold activity.    Of course Jesus had forgiven sins at banquets in the homes of the rich and before services in the Temple and his compassion evoked much discussion.  Jesus had indeed been in trouble before.  But the resuscitation of his friend Lazarus from death to life was too eloquent a gesture on the part of Jesus to be endured by the religious authorities.  It was bad enough to profane the Sabbath and certainly rash to forgive sins.  But to call a person back from eternity was the final impertinence.  To display before crowds the ability to reach into heaven itself and call back a soul, to give convincing evidence that one was in touch with the very source of creation itself, to display mastery not just over limbs and eyes and ears and tongues but over existence itself, this exercise in boldness pushed the religious leaders over the edge. 

       Jesus restored life to Lazarus at the expense of his own life.  He was setting the stage for the redemption not only of a friend but actually of the whole world.  Jesus would give his life as a ransom for the many.  Just as truly as he give earthly life back to Lazarus standing beside that Bathany grave so he would give eternal life to whole world hanging on the cross at Calvary.  It is no wonder that the Jews were irate.  Jesus had penetrated the veil of eternity once for a friend and he might do it again for the world.  He had to be stopped.          COMPLETE

       The mid-century liturgical commission that revised the ceremonies for Holy Week was being subtly tongue-in-cheek or deliberately ironic when the members determined that Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday should be described as a “triumph.”  Only to the very discerning eye of faith could Jesus be said to enter the Holy City in “triumph” on the first day of that fateful week.  On the contrary, Jesus’ return to Jerusalem was to have disastrous consequences for himself and for the apostolic band.  Jesus passed through the city gates certain of betrayal, abandonment, brutality and death.  To the unbelieving eye, the first Palm Sunday was no triumph.

       Surely Jesus was aware of the ill treatment that awaited him in the capital city.  St. Luke warns his readers that Jesus turned his face “resolutely” toward Jerusalem and determined to carry out the Father’s challenging will there. The apostles, too, in their simple way, intuited the problems that Jesus faced in returning to Judea.  After the death of Lazarus, St. Thomas valiantly argued with his fellow disciples, “Let us go up to Jerusalem also and if needs be die with him.”  So everyone knew what was in store for Jesus as he passed from the Mount of Olives through the Golden Gate into the hubbub of the Holy City.  The procession that commenced Holy Week was no triumphal march reflective of grand opera.  If anything, Palm Sunday bordered on the farcical.

       Recall that while Jerusalem was a backwater capital of a third rate nation, it still was occupied by Roman troops.  This city not much bigger than a large village would have been accustomed to Imperial troops parading through its streets arrayed in scarlet cloaks, feathered helmets, gleaming breastplates, riding on mighty elephants, towering camels and powerful steeds.  Troops by the hundreds would draw awe from the curious spectators as Rome flexed its muscles before this Jewish minority.  A people that were used to Rome’s legions were hardly going to be impressed by a Galilean preacher seated on a donkey while street urchins waved palms branches along the route.  It would take a great deal of fanciful thought to turn the tawdry display of the original Palm Sunday into the triumphal pageant of today’s modern liturgical observance.  Yes, it would require a great deal of fanciful thought – or a great deal of faith.

       To the man in the street the first Palm Sunday display was almost a joke - a carpenter, a few fishermen, several children, maybe even some cats and dogs slowly worming their way into this regional capital.  But to the man of faith, this demonstration reflected the almighty Son of God, the Savior of mankind, the awaited Messiah, who deliberately divested himself of all earthly power – no elephants, no camels, no troops, no swords, no shields – and chose to rely solely on the Will and power and plan of God the Father himself.  Jesus chose purposely to play the fool in order to drive home to believers evermore that true power, true strength, true might derives not from the trappings of Imperial panoply but rather from the resolution to carry out God’s Will. 

       The entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was indeed a triumph.  But it was not a triumph that relied on cheering crowds and fresh palm fronds.  The triumph on Palm Sunday was entirely an interior triumph, a triumph derived from knowing that one was doing God’s Will.  Betrayal, harassment, agony, disgrace, heartbreak and death would certainly result from Jesus’ return to Jerusalem.  But the perfect accomplishment of God’s salvific Will leading to a victory over sin and the redemption of mankind would also result from Jesus’ determination to enter solemnly into the ancient Jewish capital. 

       The Palm Sunday liturgy is an invitation to the church of every generation to realize that true victory and true success can rarely be perceived with the human eye alone.  A true triumph comes only from a total correspondence with the revealed Will of God, a feat that might have to wait for eternity to be recognized.                                                                                                                COMPLETE

       Atonement for sin is a notion that pre-dates Christianity and probably even pre-dates Judaism.  Human nature has -- or has had -- a fundamental sense of justice whereby wayward deeds needed to be addressed and repaired.  Mankind knew instinctively that the record had to be set straight and that a balance between good and evil had to be maintained.  Failure to repent would result in a downward spiral that would just aggravate the human condition.   Atonement to the gods or atonement to God was one way mankind dealt with the guilt that he experienced when he fell short of the ideals of his own conscience or short of the decrees of Divine Revelation.  Atonement is simply a matter of justice.

       The Jews had a deep appreciation of atonement, making the autumnal Day of Atonement the most solemn of their holy days.  Their ritual sacrifices and cereal and animal offerings graphically illustrate their desire to make amends for their personal sins and for the sins of society. In Jesus Christ, of course, Christians believe that they have discovered the final and ultimate source of atonement for sin.  The repairing death of Jesus Christ on Calvary atoned for all the sins of all mankind – the original sin of Adam and Eve, the excesses of the pagan world, the infidelity of the ancient Jews, the disbelief of the modern secular world, and, of course, the ungrateful sins of the Christian community itself.  Atonement has been made and now simply needs to be claimed.  Atonement is there for the asking.

       Yet, sadly, atonement as a Biblical concept and even as a human concept has just about disappeared from the modern believer’s consciousness – and conscience.  The contemporary Catholic has little or no appreciation of a need to make amends for his or her sins.  The need to offer sacrifices to God – either the supreme sacrifice of Jesus Christ or one’s own daily sacrifices – has disappeared entirely from present-day Catholic practice.  There was a time when “offer it up” was a frequent if casual bit of advice offered among Catholics.  But a tolerance for any suffering or even any inconvenience is no longer viewed as virtue.  To consider offering up the torments of daily life would frustrate the modern need to be free of all restraint, all obligation, frankly, all duty.  Atonement is too vivid a reminder that a man has fallen short of perfection, has erred, has sinned. 

       The authentic Christian, modern or ancient, must first of all admit his own sinfulness.  “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” wrote the ancient sage of that dread that comes upon a man when he compares himself to God Almighty.  Man has to acknowledge his own inherent fatal flaws.  He has to have a sense of sin.  Once convinced of his sinful state, a man should intuit a need to repair that state through some sort of atonement.  Natural man is doomed to a life of frustration since he can never fully atone for his own sins, let alone the sins of the human race.  But the believer has Jesus Christ who died in atonement for the sins of all mankind.  Through faith and the sacraments the Christian believer can claim as his own the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, making himself worthy to stand respectfully once again before the throne of God.  Through Christ, satisfaction can be made for sin. 

       And more than that, the Christian believer can also join his own daily sufferings, insignificant though they be when compared to Christ’s agony, to the sufferings of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world.  The passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were infinitely meritorious.  There is no adding to the redeeming graces won by Jesus Christ.  Yet the graces won by Jesus Christ have yet to be shared with so many brothers and sisters throughout the world.  At best, one sixth of world can be counted as believing Christians.  Who knows the graces that are called down from heaven on the unbelieving and weakly believing world because some obscure Christian has offered his “pains, works, joys and sufferings” to the Father in union with Jesus Christ?  Holy Week is a graphic reminder, a living tableau, of the horror of sin and the kindness of God.  When the believer realizes that his sins have placed Christ on Calvary, some impulse to atone, some urge to repair, some need to set things right, should arise in the soul.  An offering, a gesture, a sacrifice, however humble, meets that need.             COMPLETE

       Herman Melville, known to most readers as the author of Moby Dick, lived much of his writing life in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  To this day, Pittsfield and its environs still maintain a rural quality and in Melville’s day (mid-nineteenth century) must have been quite rustic to say the least.  Perhaps in this antique pastoral setting Melville did occasionally encounter a jackal, a scavenger dog that feeds on small game and the carcasses of dead animals.  Maybe it was witnessing the work of these landbound vultures that moved him to write the following observation:  “Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.”  The suggested scene is certainly rather grisly and grim: lean foragers sustaining themselves off mortal remains.  Yet Melville is certainly justified in comparing the feeding habits of the jackal to the spiritual nourishment that supports the believing Christian.  The lesson of Easter is precisely that supernatural faith is conceived and preserved while pondering with Peter, John and the women the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.  Like the jackal, the more the Christian reflects on the starkness of the tomb that Easter morning the more he is driven to appreciate a life beyond the grave, a life beyond this earth, a life beyond time.

       Jesus offered his followers and still offers men of every generation a model of charity and justice, an example of compassion and forgiveness, a pattern of obedience and patience.  Jesus defended religion, gloried in the Scriptures, embraced prayer, and demanded sincerity.  Jesus welcomed the foreigner, treasured the poor, supported the handicapped, and guided the masses.  By anyone’s definition Jesus Christ must be listed as one of the great men of history.  Yet in spite of Jesus’ numerous good works and enduring good example, it is only amid the tombs, with the jackals, that the Christian believer confronts the real Jesus Christ.  Jesus was not just a prophet pointing out the way of truth.  Jesus was not just a healer offering respite from the aches of humanity.  Jesus was not just a saint transforming society by his prayers.  Jesus Christ was the eternal Son of God, one in being with the Father, through whom all things were made, who will come again in glory to the judge the living and the dead, and of whose kingdom there will be no end.

       At the empty tomb of Jesus, the believer comes to realize that the true work of Jesus Christ has just begun.  His career was not limited to numerous sermons, several miracles and a righteous life.  His career is to lead all men from the sad state of earthly existence to the joyous condition of eternal happiness.  The empty tomb at first suggests and then confirms a life beyond this life, a world beyond this world, an existence beyond the extent.  The faithful Abraham, the beleaguered Moses, the unifying David, even the reforming Mohamed, the reflective Buddha, and the insightful Confucius were undeniably great men of history.  But they were merely that: men of history.  Jesus uniquely transcends history, introducing mankind to an entirely new dimension – the supernatural, the celestial, the eternal.  Jesus is triumphant over the tomb and hence over death.  The empty sepulcher confirms this victory. 

       Engraved over the time-honored tomb of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem are the brief Latin words: Non Est Hic  ( He is not here ).   These three words confirm the entirety of the Gospel message.  Jesus is the eternal Son of God who comes to share everlasting life with those who accept him through the faith entrusted to the Church.  Jesus leads his followers beyond the grave, beyond this life, to a new and glorified life in union with God in eternity.  Jesus is indeed “not here.”   He is gloriously reigning at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for his brothers and sisters still here on earth, healing them of their sins, fortifying them with his grace, and offering them victory over the grave as well.  Through Christ, the grave of every believer will also be discovered empty as they rise to everlasting happiness on the last day.  As Melville wrote, faith is brought to its fullness by the contemplation of the fate of the dead.  Deceased loved ones are not simply dust mixed with the soil of a burial plot.  Dead believers are not merely ashes under a patch of grass.  Like the risen Christ, the faithful have been transfigured into eternity victorious over sin, death and the grave.          COMPLETE

       Pious Catholics often speak of various spiritualities – the spirituality of the priesthood, the spirituality of the religious life, the spirituality of marriage.  But spirituality is at best a pre-Christian notion and possibly even a non-Christian notion.  Jesus Christ did not come into this world as a spirit – he was not an angel, or a ghost, or an apparition.  Jesus came into this world as flesh and blood.  And it was through his flesh and blood, through his life-centered parables, his physical healings, his street interactions, his crowd feedings, his physical death on Good Friday and bodily resurrection on Easter Sunday that he revealed to mankind the truth about God.  It was through what author Christopher West calls “the language of the body” that Jesus revealed his Father’s plan for mankind.  The authentic Christian, then, is not so much concerned with spirituality as with incarnality, if there is such a word.  The genuine Christian will, like the incarnate Christ, attempt to reveal God to the world through his body language.  The true Christian will take the Gospel message of faith, charity and obedience and make it real by living it out, body and soul, in his daily life.

       Nowhere is this theology of the body more central and more critical than within a Christian marriage and especially within the marriage act itself.  A husband and wife by their fidelity, by their enduring commitment to one another, by the giving of their bodies exclusively to one another, reveal the permanent and personal love of God for each believer.  Marital fidelity is a daily, bodily reminder of God’s unfailing love for each of his children.  As the spouses are always there for each other so God is always there for each creature.  Similarly, although sadly and universally ignored nowadays, God has a message for the world to be revealed through marital fruitfulness.  The complementarity of the male and female bodies holds a Divine message that discloses God’s wise design of love to the attentive world. 

       The male body from the teenage years onward is readily fertile.  The female body, in contrast, is periodically infertile on a monthly cycle.   This distinction between male fertility and periodic female infertility allows a dialogue between an earnest couple who want to be “open to the transmission of life” and yet also responsible toward that new life.  The language of the two bodies – his permanent fertility and her periodic infertility – should provoke a discussion, a conversation, an exchange about fertility that will draw the couple together into deeper understanding, consideration and patience.  This openness of the couple to one another’s bodily differences during sexual relations symbolizes and highlights the openness needed in all areas of life.

       Honestly acknowledging the differences between the male body and the female body will necessitate self-discipline and, let’s face it, sacrifice.  Self-denial is not something that is ordinarily associated with sexual intercourse.  The media portrays sex as spontaneous pleasure and perhaps the individual expects sex to be always and instantly satisfying.  On the contrary, the believing couple who are open to the transmission of life will have to consider the man’s constant fertility and the woman’s cyclical infertility.  There will be times when the life-affirming couple may have to forego fill intercourse for more subtle signs of affection.  This temporary abstinence should actually increase the desire of the couple for full sexual relations later when practical.  These periodic returns to the chastity of courtship, so to speak, should lead to periodic honeymoons afterwards in which the couple appreciates their delayed sexual union all the more.  Periodic abstinence according to God’s plan also reminds the couple that no matter how satisfying sex might be in this world there is an even greater satisfaction awaiting them in the next world.  Sacrifice during sex signals a willingness to sacrifice in other aspects of spousal life as well.  And even more importantly, periodic abstinence is a reminder that the Cross, the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is the very fabric of the Christian life.  Today, artificial contraception, sterilization, and same-sex unions serve to “scramble the language of the body,” as one writer observes, obscuring and frustrating God’s message.  The Christian couple, rather, will gladly heed the language of their bodies, finding in each other a revelation from God himself.       COMPLETE

       Perhaps the most ancient representations of Jesus Christ portray him as the Good Shepherd.  Small statues and wall drawings in Rome and in Jerusalem illustrate Christ as a hearty, young shepherd with a tranquil lamb around his shoulders.  The synoptic parable of the lost sheep and the lengthy pastoral monologues from St. John encourage this representation of Jesus as a caring shepherd.  The Jesus in this Sunday’s Gospel passage is somewhat out of character, then, when he grows impatient with the Pharisees who do not grasp that Christ and his message are the sole path to salvation.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber.”  Jesus first offers this well-focused hint that the path to salvation necessarily leads through him and his Gospel.  When the religious leaders still do not get the message, a somewhat exasperated Jesus declares forcefully, “I am the gate for the sheep.  All who came before me are thieves and robbers….”  And to relieve all doubt, Jesus insists, “I am the gate.  Whoever enters through me will be saved…”  Jesus speaks elsewhere in similar, exclusive terms: “No one comes to the Father except through me…Apart from me you can do nothing.”  Early Christian writers offered comparable statements when they wrote famously, “Outside the Church there is no salvation”  and “One cannot have God for a Father who does not have the Church as a mother.”

       Yet the same Scriptures that can be read narrowly at times can also be understood broadly.  In the first reading from the Acts of Apostles this Sunday, St. Peter boasts magnanimously, “For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.”  God is not stingy with his grace and Jesus is not miserly with his salvation.  After all, “God desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of his truth,” St. Paul would instruct his readers.  And Jesus’ blood was poured out “for the multitude,” as the Master noted at the Last Supper.  There is nothing exclusive or restrictive about those phrases.

       Since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has tried to make clear that, while the Church firmly believes that the richness of revealed truth is preserved fully within its own framework, other churches and ecclesial communities have served as “instruments of salvation” leading believers through the sheepgate that is Christ into the green pastures of God’s Kingdom.  After all, the Orthodox Churches possess all seven sacraments and the Protestant communities firmly accept baptism and the bible and Jews are a people of the Book and many men and women of good will outside the Judaeo-Christian context embrace moral living in their daily lives. The Catholic Church insists that none of these righteous ways of life is wasted.  Catholics can look to the examples of recent saints like Elizabeth Ann Seton and Edith Stein who first powerfully met Christ in the Anglican tradition for Mother Seton or in the deep faith of Lutheran friends for Edith Stein.  Simone Weil was led to the edge of Catholicism and certainly to the state of grace although God never opened her heart to baptism.  There is indeed “a wideness in God’s mercy” as the traditional hymn celebrates. 

       Still, no matter how much largesse God might display toward the five billion persons on this earth who do not know Jesus Christ nor his Catholic Church, Jesus might well show a bit of exasperation toward those of his sheep whom he has led to the Catholic sheepfold but who are indifferent toward its assets.  History or geography might offer some human beings an excuse for not knowing Jesus Christ.  But the Catholic faithful have no defense for not embracing all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that God shares with them through Christ and his Church.  Catholics know that Christ is the gate.  Catholics know that Christ is the Messiah, the Savior and their Lord.  “Of his fullness we have all received,” St. John rejoices, and what a shame it would be to waste that fullness.   Catholics have an obligation first of all to be faithful to their own roots.  And then Catholics have a duty to encourage their neighbors to look deeply at all that is truthful and moral in their own traditions.   The growth of all and not just the conversion of some must be the mandate for all earnest Catholics     COMPLETE

       Two new books concerning Catholic New England offer compelling reading.  “Ambition and Arrogance,” by Douglas J. Slawson analyzes the dramatic interaction that involved the Archdiocese of Boston, the other New England dioceses and the various Roman congregations during the episcopal tenure of William Cardinal O’Connell, New England metropolitan from 1907 until 1944.  “The Faithful Departed” by Philip F. Lawlor traces the Irish Catholic cultural development that characterized Boston through the lifetimes of Cardinals O’Connell, Cushing, Medeiros, Law and O’Malley as well as their civil contemporaries James Michael Curley and, of course, the Kennedys.  These books are not for the faint-hearted.  In fact, it takes a strong stomach and an even stronger faith to persevere through the wheeling and dealing (and sometimes wheeling but not dealing) of our recent ancestors in the faith.  Happily the former bishops of Providence, namely Bishop Harkins and Bishop Hickey, appear very courageous in the often disturbing sagas.

       In comparing the terms of Boston’s first two cardinals, Lawlor remarks that Cardinal O’Connor was respected but not loved while Cardinal Cushing was loved but not respected.  This observation might comes as surprise to those who fondly recall the archbishop who would take a busload of nuns to a Red Six game or donate funds to rebuild Blinstrum’s famous banquet hall.  But by Cardinal Cushing’s era, cracks were beginning to appear in Irish Catholicism’s formerly solid foundation.  One may recall the non-judgmental words of the Cardinal to the press when Jacqueline Kennedy consulted him on marrying the divorced Onassis: “Why don’t people leave her alone?”  Lawlor’s point is that O’Connor would never have expressed such compassion – at least not publicly and perhaps not at all.  O’Connell represented an unyielding body of truth that people respected even when they did not like it.  Later generations (and not just cardinals) have tempered the truth with sympathy, often loosing respect in the process.

       My first pastor was ordained in 1916 – almost a century ago!  Probably he was respected but it is doubtful that he was ever loved.  No cohabitating couple would have approached him looking for a sponsor certificate nor would a pro-abortion politician stand in his Communion line.  Persons who were out of town on a Sunday made sure their budgets were made up the following week.  And when he told his curates that they had to be back in the rectory by 10 o’clock, they were sure that the door closed behind them no later than 9:59pm.  The pastors and priests of yesteryear embodied in their demeanor and made clear by their words exactly what it meant to be a Catholic – and let the chips fall where they may.  When they said Mass on Sunday, fish on Friday, married until death, nursery full of children, sons at LaSalle, daughters at St. Xavier’s, and Catholic even in the voting booth, they meant it.  Their firmness earned respect.  Our second thoughts have led to indifference and even total disregard. 

       In George Bernanos’ “Diary of a Country Priest,” the older Cure de Torcy remarks to the uneasy younger priest, “A true priest is never loved, get that into your head.  And if you must know, the Church doesn’t care a rap whether you’re loved or not, my lad.  Try first to be respected and obeyed.  What the Church needs is discipline.”  Certainly the modern Church is not noted for its discipline.  Everybody goes to Communion but nobody goes to confession.  Popes decry artificial contraception but pulpits sound no echo.  Babies are baptized and the family is not seen again until First Communion.  Couples are married in a meadow and every Catholic relative attends.  The dead are eulogized for their golf games and trips to Disneyland; their faith-life is never considered.  Somewhere towards the end of the last century fear of God yielded to fear of alienation.  Not a few prelates, priests and parents have been profoundly afraid to speak up lest they loose their audiences.  Well, their audiences are already lost.  And a broadminded Church is not offering them any inducement to return. The fictional Cure de Torcy is correct.  The Church’s main task is doctrine and discipline rather than self-esteem and self-affirmation.  “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,” insists Jesus in Sunday’s Gospel.   It is a dogmatic faith in Jesus that will lead to effective works toward one’s neighbor.  It is eternal truth that will lead to eternal life.  Our New England ancestors in the faith appreciated the value of uncompromised truth.  Authentic believers always have.                                                                                                    COMPLETE

       In this Sunday’s Gospel passage, while preparing his disciples for the Pentecost event, Jesus promises that he will send them “another advocate.”  Note carefully that Jesus refers to the anticipated Holy Spirit as “another” advocate, indicating that there has already been at least one previous advocate in their midst whose ministry they might not have fully appreciated.  Certainly Jesus should be included in any list of otherworldly advocates. Yet Jesus would not be alone on this list.  And when the other advocates are considered, the whole notion of advocacy becomes more obvious.  

       Certainly the Old Testament prophets would have to be included as advocates, as proponents and interpreters of the plan of God for his people.  When the Jewish people forgot God or ignored God or defied God, God would raise up a prophet to remind them of God’s designs for them.  Moses was indeed a prophet, an advocate for God’s plan.  Time and time again, he reminded the Jews in the desert of the noble calling to which God summoned them.  Elijah was undeniably a prophet when he called the Jews of his generation back from the excesses of Ahab and Jezebel to the purity of the old time religion.  The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel were definitely advocates for God when they warned their fellow citizens of the dangers of foreign alliances and the need for purer worship.  Amos and Micah were advocates not only for social justice within the Jewish community but more importantly they were advocates for God whose eternal justice the daily justice of the Jews reflected.  St. John the Baptist accepted the role of advocate for Jesus Christ, announcing the Lamb of God and the arrival of the Kingdom to the Jewish audiences of his day. 

       Jesus Christ, as one might expect, is the pre-eminent advocate in the Scriptures, promoting in his preaching an ethic of the Father, a mode of Christian conduct that would bring any observer towards a more intimate appreciation of the Father.  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus encourages behavior that runs entirely counter to human nature.  Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, offer your cloak as well – these responses to life’s challenges defy human nature.  They rely solely on God and his grace for a rationale.  Jesus also relentlessly advocates persistence and perseverance in prayer – not as therapy for the devout but as an act of faith in God’s unfailing mercy.  The salvific suffering and death of Jesus cannot be explained apart from total obedience to mysterious Divine plan.  Clearly God is central to the life of Jesus and God must be central in the life of anyone who would follow Jesus.

       Now Jesus promises his Church another advocate – the Holy Spirit – who will do for the Church what the prophets did for the Jews in the Old Testament and what Jesus did for the multitudes in the New Testament.  The task of the Spirit will be to keep the Church focused on the Father, to make the Church sensitive to the Father, to enable the Church to reflect the Father at every turn.  And this role of advocacy by the Spirit on behalf of the Father is vitally important for the Church in history just as the role of the prophets and the ministry of Christ were important in their eras.  The ancient Jews constantly neglected the Father, led astray by the affluence of their pagan neighbors, placing more trust in armies and animals than in God.  The multitudes that followed Jesus were easily misled, being more concerned with signs and wonders than with the God of whom these signs and wonders bespoke.  And modern man obviously forgets God, sometimes through outright atheism and agnosticism and sometimes through worldliness and indifference.  It is evident from ancient history and from contemporary history that God needs someone to speak up for him.  Sadly God needs an advocate – in his own world and even in his own Church.  In a sinful world, God desperately needs someone to promote virtue.  In a materialistic world, God greatly needs someone to sponsor the spiritual.  In a faithless world, God seriously needs someone who will campaign for the next world.  The task of the Spirit, the task of the new advocate and the task of all those whom the new advocate enlivens, is to be God the Father’s activist, God the Father’s campaigner, God the Father’s champion in the struggle to renew the face of the earth.          COMPLETE

       It has been proposed from time to time that Jesus never really intended to establish a church.  Some argue that Jesus came simply to offer moral guidance, astute insights, and good example to mankind, somewhat akin to the pattern left by Buddha and Confucius.  Jesus’ praiseworthy advice was then institutionalized, they say, by later generations of priests, preachers and prelates who feared that the Gospel without a Church would be too permissive, too relaxed, too accommodating.  Some argue that the institutional Church is the by-product of clerical control.

       Distinct from a spiritualized notion of the early Christian community are the vibrant church-founding experiences that occur during the forty days between Christ’s Resurrection and his Ascension when Jesus remained to reassure his Apostles.  Remember that the post-Resurrection Jesus is quite different from the Jesus met during his public life.  After the Resurrection Jesus preaches no more sermons to the multitudes; he works no more miracles for the masses; he argues no more with the scribes and Pharisees.  Rather Jesus focuses his forty day’s attention on the Twelve Apostles: empowering them, authorizing them, reminding them, and charging them.  During these forty days, a primitive outline of the later Church takes shape.

       The post-resurrection Jesus meets frequently with the Twelve in Jerusalem’s upper room and at the Galilean seashore.  He explains the Messianic Scriptures to them and breaks bread with them, a ritual that would eventually develop into the Mass.  Christ shares with the Twelve his newly won ministry of reconciliation, “Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven.” Later centuries would see this ministry take shape in the sacrament of Penance.  He singles out Simon Peter for a special ministry among the Twelve, “Strengthen your brothers…”  Today Pope Benedict XVI stands in this same tradition of exercising the primacy for the benefit of his fellow bishops and the faithful.  Jesus would of course charge the Twelve explicitly to preach, teach and baptize the entire world. 

       In these forty days of post-Resurrection appearances, Jesus solidified the groundwork that he had laid during his public life.  It would be an overstatement to insist that Jesus institutionalized the Church before returning to the Father but he did institute it.  The Twelve grasped that Jesus had made his express will known to them regarding the fundamentals of Church life.  The Twelve appreciated that Jesus had entrusted to them procedures and practices that had not been revealed to Jesus’ beloved masses or even to some other disciples.  For example, the first responsibility that the apostolic band assumed when Christ departed was to replenish their number after the defection of Judas.  The Twelve understood that their affiliation was no accident; their twelve man membership and the ministry attached to it were the will of Christ and they felt obliged to restore it as soon as possible.  This was not the decision of a free-wheeling, amorphous group, armed only with good intentions and lofty ideals.  No, these were founding fathers who comprehended their Master’s precise intentions and were resolute to carry them out.

       Jesus Christ never saw a confessional or a tabernacle or an alb and stole.  He never hired an organist or air-conditioned a church or conferred scapulars on a First Communion class.  Obviously the Church of the twenty-first century has little visible continuity with the apostolic Church of the first century.  Jesus will not recognize much of Church life when he returns.  But he will recognize a Church that is apostolic, sacramental, Scriptural, hierarchical, and otherworldly.  He will feel at home in a Church that baptizes, breaks bread, anoints, and reconciles.  He will appreciate a Church that treasures God’s Written Word and preaches Sacred Tradition.  He will be comforted by a Church that still honors the office of Peter and that respects the bishops, priests and deacons in communion with that pontiff.  Jesus will be honored to find a Church that still seeks “the things that are above” in the eternal kingdom to come.  Jesus will be thrilled with a Church that is faithful to its roots, roots made firm by the resurrected Christ who lingered with his Apostles for forty days making his will for them clear so that it might be effectively handed on to each succeeding generation.  COMPLETE

       The solemnity of Pentecost is often commemorated as the birthday of the church.  Such an anniversary is perfectly understandable.  The timid Apostolic band burst forth from Jerusalem’s upper room with a zeal that added three thousand souls to the Church that very day.  Partheans, Medes, Elemites and other ancient nationalities found a Christian home that day.  The universal Church was born.  Others view Good Friday as the birthday of the Church.  On that fateful afternoon, the historical activity of the man Jesus Christ came to an end and the sacramental activity of the Church, symbolized by the blood and water (Eucharist and Baptism) that flowed from the dead Christ’s side, commenced.  Hence, the Church was born from the wounded side of Christ. 

       Then again, Pope Benedict XVI, while still Cardinal Ratzinger, proposed that the most appropriate day to claim title to the Church’s birthday was Holy Thursday.  As the reader might suspect, the Cardinal’s suggestion makes a lot of sense.  Pentecost celebrates the Catholicity of the Church – the early Christian community’s first steps toward converting the Roman Empire. It is the birthday of the Church’s missionary efforts.  Good Friday marks Jesus’ personal act of obedience and atonement toward his Father which is the source of all saving grace.  It is the birthday of the Church’s reconciling ministry.  But, while conversion and reconciliation are integral to the Church, the Cardinal submits that it is Holy Thursday that celebrates the Church’s primary task, namely, the corporate and sacramental worship of God the Father.  Holy Thursday commemorates the first ritual act of collective worship by the infant Church.  Holy Thursday was the first time that the Church, with Christ as priest and the apostles as people, gathered to worship God the Father through the offering of the Savior’s Eucharistic Body and Blood.  Thus the quintessential Church was born.

       Without Pentecost’s outreach through the power of the Spirit, the Church would still be locked in an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem; without Good Friday’s redemption through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, the Church would still be in its sins.  These saving events are not to be ignored.  Yet, while these activities in the history of salvation are vitally important, they are still actions that focus on man.  Outreach focuses on man; redemption centers on man.  Worship on the other hand, when proper and authentic, directs all attention toward God.  And the Church exists basically and fundamentally for the worship of God.  Alas, contemporary man has abandoned worship.  He has turned altars into tables and praise into fellowship.  At Mass modern man has refashioned the service of the Word from a proclamation of the “magnalia Dei,” the wondrous works of God, into practical lessons on communal life.  The service of the Bread exchanges a sacrifice offered to God for a neighborly meal.  Modern liturgy is an exercise in self-affirmation rather than an occasion for adoration.  The worship of God has been replaced by the celebration of life, individual human life.

       Perhaps one reason why some Catholics recall the pre-Vatican II Mass fondly is that it was a clear exercise in worship.  The service of the Word was largely lost in mumbled Latin, only the Gospel and the sermon intruding into the silent adoration of the devout.  The service of the Bread gave little indication of a meal, offered obscurely at a thronelike altar with gilt vestment and jeweled chalice.  Every activity from silence to kneeling spoke of the worship of God.  The congregation either worshipped or day-dreamed.  There was no encouragement to build community or celebrate life.  The ritual worship of God was the sole reason for these morning assemblies.

        As the Quiet Corner has noted before, there is nothing wrong with the new Mass.  But priest and people who offer the Mass simply as an exercise in fellowship rob their celebration of its primary intention.  The Mass makes present Christ’s supreme act of worship, his total self-giving on the Cross.  Those who participate in the Mass are expected to join Christ in his