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                        Fr. John A. Kiley                       8 January 2009

       Older Catholics will well remember when Catholics were distinguished by a series of good works.  Mass every Sunday, fish every Friday, fasting from midnight before Communion, throats for St. Blaise, ashes for Lent, palms before Easter, six holy days observed, early Mass on First Fridays, an aunt a nun in Canada, an uncle a priest in the missions, a wedding gift of the head of the boy Christ, a penny under the Infant of Prague, a rosary in the vest pocket – this litany of devout observances defined Catholic life for much of the last century and before.  This Catholic adherence to Church law and pious practice was not too far removed from the strict observance of Jewish ritual law by Jesus’ contemporaries.  The Scribes and Pharisees, the rabbis and the average Jew were meticulous, perhaps scrupulous, in observing what they ate, when they worked, what they were, when they washed, to whom they spoke and how they prayed.  Jesus himself grew impatient with their washing of cups and trimming their tassels and limiting their steps.  And of course it was St. Paul who roundly denounced the Jewish observance of the old law as a shallow substitute for a personal commitment to God in Christ. 

       The ancient Jews in the midst of the prevailing Greco-Roman culture were not much different from nineteenth and twentieth century Catholics in the midst of a Protestant or secularized world.  The ancient Jews clung to their Law as a source of identity.  The keeping of the Law differentiated them from the pagan world around them.  The Law made them unique; it drew them together; it gave them a sense of purpose.  Roman Catholics, perhaps especially in the English-speaking Protestant world, drew a similar sense of identity from their detailed attention to Catholic law and practice.  Amid a hostile Protestant world in northern Europe and America or amid a hostile secular world in the Latin countries, Catholic law and Catholic traditions afforded identity, unity and purpose to the self-protective Catholic community.

       Jesus and St. Paul especially and St. Peter as well understood the throwing off of the Jewish Law to be a significant act of liberation for the early Christian community.  The practice of the Jewish Law limited the grace of God to a single ethnic population.  The Law was a barrier between the Jews and the ancient world.  It was indeed a protective barrier that preserved the Jewish people from their mighty neighbors.  But it was also a barrier that also denied salvation to the larger world.  In striking down the Jewish Law St. Paul was markedly announcing that the Christian Gospel was intended for all men and women.  The dismissal of the Jewish Law was a notably step toward the Catholicity of the Church.  The Law had to go so that all humanity might feel welcomed.

       The prophet Isaiah announced that the coming servant of the Lord would not limit his salvific work to the Jews.  The servant was to bring forth justice to the nations; he was to extend his ministry even to the coastlands.  He was to be a light for the nations – for the Gentiles, the pagans, the entire imperial world.  St. Peter, in baptizing the household of Cornelius, came to the same conclusion that God shows no partiality: “Rather in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.”   St. John the Baptist for his part understood that the salvation to be wrought by Christ would not be earned by observance of the Law but conferred by a miracle of grace: “I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

       This baptism with the Spirit is a profound immersion in Christ himself.  It is neither the observance of the Jewish Law nor the practice of Catholic piety that saves the believer.  These honorable traditions are the evidence of salvation; Jesus alone is the Savior.  Authentic Catholic practice in any generation is rooted in a personal embrace of the saving Christ – Christ the teacher, Christ the healer, Christ the beloved Son, Christ alive in His Church.  The brief phrase often noticed in front of simple Protestant churches – “Jesus Saves” – is the Gospel’s most profound truth.  Individual pieties must emanate from this truth, otherwise they are at best shallow, often hollow and sometimes even hypocritical.  COMPLETE

       A peculiar idea that surfaces from time to time is the notion that Jesus Christ never intended to found an actual church.  A few have proposed over the years that Jesus came simply to announce a Gospel of salvation and reconciliation.  His ministry was simply to preach and teach, to heal and challenge.  Organized religion which subsequent generations would experience is considered an after-thought, an structural tactic, guaranteeing some order and continuity over the centuries.  Some might also unkindly suggest that organized religion is simply an abuse of authority, an effort to control the masses and place power in the hands of a few.  True religion would be simply a matter of the Spirit breathing where he will, an experience of personal conversion and gradual, individual development in the Christian life.  Any sense of church, any sense of community, would be accidental to the solitary soul maturing before God.  Church might be helpful to some or even harmful to others.  Either way, church was not part of the original plan.

       As generous as these notions might be with their rejection of all constraint and dominance, they simply do not square with the outline of salvation history as found in the Scriptures and the traditions of the Church.  God created Adam and Eve as a couple.  He saved Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives as a family.  He promised Abraham and Sarah a vast progeny, as numerous as the sands of the sea or the stars in the sky.  He raised up twelve tribes from the patriarch Jacob.  He bestowed his special blessing on the enslaved Hebrew community in Egypt, led them as a people through the wilderness and established them as a nation in Israel.  From these chosen people came the heralded Messiah.  The hundreds of decades from Adam to Christ and especially from Abraham to Christ have been the history of a people, of a community, of a nation.  The Jews were God’s instrument of salvation in the pre-Christian world.  Through the Jews the Messiah would be announced and through the Jews the Messiah would arrive.  God would hardly employ community life so practically and so symbolically in the Old Testament only to abandon the plan in the New Testament. 

       Frankly the New Testament abounds in organizational references.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus clearly calls Saints Peter and Andrew as his first two disciples.  Even at this initial stage of Church life, St. Peter is given his special name indicating his later role in guiding the Church community.   Next week’s Gospel will add Saints James and John to the Master’s growing list of disciples.  Eventually Jesus will come down from the mountain after a night in prayer deliberately to nominate twelve chosen men as his apostles.  These specially mandated ministers will receive personal instruction from the Master, insights not shared with the crowds.  Decades after these twelve men were chosen, their exact names would be recalled in the four assorted Gospel accounts.  This does not bespeak a haphazard beginning to the Church.  As Jesus’ life drew to a close he re-affirmed the prime vocation of these men at the Last Supper.  And he reserved his final commission for them at the Ascension. 

       Even among these twelve Jesus selected Peter, James and John for particular intimacy.  They alone witnessed the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration on the mountain, and a close view of the agony in the garden.  St. Peter’s confession of faith is given pride of place in all four gospel accounts.  It was truly a foundational event.   Even St. Paul, who never met Christ or an apostle before his conversion and whose ministry began as a miracle of grace, felt compelled to go up to Jerusalem to explain himself to the “pillars” of the church who were resident there.  And he was proud to receive “the right hand of fellowship” and the laying on of hands from the early Church’s first hierarchy to legitimate his ministry to the Gentiles.  Bishops, elders and deacons as well as a lay apostolate were in active evidence within decades of Christi’s return to this Father.  Christ might not have envisioned or even intended the hospitals, colleges, chanceries, basilicas, shrines, convents and cemeteries that constitute the Christian Church today.  But an enduring and effective structure was plainly in the works from the Sea of Galilee to the mountain of the Ascension.          COMPLETE

       Catholicism certainly has plenty of lists.  Every Sunday the Catholic faithful gather at Mass and recite a list of all those precious doctrines that constitute the fundamentals of the faith.  “I believe in God the Father Almighty…I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son…I believe in the Hoy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life…I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church…I believe in the life of the world to come.”  A basic catechism will list the seven sacraments: Baptist, Penance, Eucharist and so forth.  The Ten Commandments are a handy list of do’s and don’ts.  A few hardy souls might be able to list the precepts of the Church, of which there are now more than six.  The seven deadly sins, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the three theological virtues, the four moral virtues, the eight beatitudes, the twelve Apostles and let’s not forget the two great commandments of the Law. 

       Lists used to be par for the course in Catholic elementary education.  Alas in the last half of the twentieth century, lists, like the numerical tables, fell on hard times.  Lists, after all, can be a very superficial indication of one’s faith.  Being able to recite the Ten Commandments does not guarantee keeping them and rattling off the seven sacraments is no indication of how often or how worthily these grace-filled rituals are received.  By ignoring lists, well meaning catechists and preachers tried to introduce the faithful to a deeper level of Christian commitment, a personal encounter with Christ, without the burden of rote, repetition and reiteration.  Sadly this content-free spirituality overlooked the lesson that the Christian world has been celebrating from December into January.  The Incarnation of the Son of God in the man Jesus Christ is not only a fundamental Christian message, it also discloses an indispensable teaching method that sets the tone for all Christian instruction.  The Son of God did not come into this world as a spirit, as an angel, or even as God, so to speak.  Jesus came to his believing people as a human being, as some one they could see, someone they could hear, someone they could feel and touch.  Jesus introduced his Divinity to this world on an entirely human level.  He announced the Gospel message in very earthly terms – in folksy parables, in observable miracles, in kindly touches, in comforting healings, and sometimes even in stern warnings.  Jesus introduced heaven’s exalted mysteries through user-friendly examples.  Christian spirituality is still a progression from temporal realities to eternal truths, from earthly lists to heavenly delights.

       This coming Sunday January 25 is the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, a very significant date as the Christian world celebrates the two thousandth anniversary of the Apostle’s birth.  Struck down on his warring way to Damascus and hastily embracing his Christian mission, St. Paul’s transformation could appear a wholly spiritual event, a simple miracle of grace.  There was no catechesis, no sacramental preparation, no studying, no memorizing, no recitations, no lists.  St. Paul’s conversion was totally a supernatural, almost an unhuman, event – or so it would seem.

       Cardinal Newman observed that there is no such thing as a sudden conversion.  This is true even of St. Paul’s radical transformation.  St. Paul had been learning his lists since his youth.  Certainly he knew the Ten Commandments and the psalms and the Scriptures and festivals and rites of Judaism.  He had a firm grasp of revelation as it had been recorded in the Hebrew writings and celebrated in the Jewish festivals.  When he finally was confronted by Christ on that Damascus highway, his years of unwitting preparation were brought to completion.  The psalms, the prophets, the Torah, the rituals, the Law, the prayers suddenly took on new meaning.  The wisdom of the ages that Paul had committed to memory and heart was happily fulfilled in Christ.  Instead of meeting Christ at last, he had been meeting Christ all along.  It took this personal encounter to allow everything fall into place.

       The fundamentals of Christianity that the believer has been absorbing since childhood are the indispensable fertile ground which a mature encounter with Christ will bring to full flower.  The rudiments of Christianity are not learned idly.  They enable the believer to recognize Christ fully when the Master is finally met on one’s personal road to Damascus.                                             COMPLETE

       Oddly there are no exorcisms in the entire Old Testament.   The forty-five books of the Hebrew Scriptures certainly recognize the existence and horror of evil, but demon possession is never encountered within its pages.  Neither does the Gospel according to St. John feature any episodes of demon possession nor any demonic exorcisms.  On the other hand, the relatively brief Gospel according to St. Mark has thirty-four references to demon possession and demonic exorcism.  Clearly this is no accident of omission on St. John’s part nor is it an embellishment on St. Mark’s part.   

       Throughout St. John’s Gospel, Christ is very much the Risen Christ.  Jesus is decidedly and always the master of the situation.  Always in charge, the Master’s triumph over death and victory over evil is inevitable.    For St. John, the death and resurrection of Christ were the ultimate exorcism by which the devil and his demons were roundly vanquished once and for all.  There was no need to cite the minor triumphs over evil that are found in Matthew, Mark and Luke.  The empty tomb was enough proof of victory over demonic forces.

       St. Mark, on the other hand, is less concerned with ultimate victory and more focused on the daily struggle with evil that constitutes the Christian life.  Certainly St. Mark believed in the Resurrection and in Christ’s triumphs over sin and death.  But St. Mark also believed that Christians had to be reassured in the perennial struggle with evil that pre-occupies the believer this side of the grave.  Christ has triumphed over evil but evil is still very much a part of daily life, family life, community life, even church life.  Christians should not be discouraged if they experience sin and encounter wrongdoing and endure suffering even after their conversions to Christ.  Although Christ is already victorious, his followers must work out their personal victories “in fear and trembling,” as St. Paul sanely observed.  St. Mark is simply being a realist.  Life on earth is a vale of tears, as later generations of Christians would phrase it.  There are still a lot of demons that need exorcising, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively.  But the presence of evil in daily life should not be a cause for ultimate disappointment.  St. Mark deliberately reminds his readers that Jesus is still available and still alert to confront evil, to denounce evil, to evict evil.  Through Christ deliverance is accessible daily and not only at the end of time.

       Mankind continues to face evil on several levels.  There is, of course, the personal evil that finds mankind involved in the anger, envy, dishonesty and laziness that constitutes everyday life.  Some of these sins do not separate the soul from God but they certainly impede the work of virtue.  “A string can keep a bird down as well as a rope”, a spiritual director once advised.  The sins of the workaday world should not be neglected.  More egregious sins clearly have no place in the Christian life.  The Bible cites four sins that cry out to God for vengeance:  murder, neglect of orphans and widows, depriving the worker of his wages, and sodomy.  Undoubtedly this list of serious sins could be expanded:  total neglect of worship, marital infidelity, financial corruption, abusive treatment, among many others. 

       Besides personal sins, the alert Christian will recognize systemic evil, evil that is inherent in the structures of society.  History offers slavery as the classic evil which was built right into the fabric of society.  No doubt future generations will look back and cite contraception in its manifold guises including abortion, reproductive experimentation, same-sex unions, and infant neglect as an evil built into our contemporary lifestyle.  The recent economic collapse reminds believers that economic system may be replete with injustices, inequities and inequalities.  Christian believers have an obligation not only to examine their own consciences but also to be aware of the immoral and unethical and even criminal possibilities that have been absorbed into national life.  Corporate, national and even international sins are just as offensive to God as the personal evils that vex the devout Catholic.  St. Mark’s several exorcisms are reminders that the personal and systemic evils which mankind confronts every day are not trivial.  They constitute a daily battle from which the true believer must not shrink.                                                                                                     COMPLETE

       Shortly before Christmas Bob Kerr, columnist for the Providence Journal, wrote of two men with AIDS who visited a middle school in Lincoln to advise the eighth graders on this wasting disease.  The article and the presentation contained anecdotal suggestions for avoiding and dealing with this drug and sex associated illness.  Mr. Kerr records this dialogue between a student and the presenter:  “The kid eagerly raised his hand at the back of the room at the Lincoln Middle School. He had the answer. ““A condom,”” he said. Right he was. A condom is the safe way. Abstinence is probably not going to work for most people, Scott Mitchel told the class. “You can make a choice,” he said.”

       Just after Christmas the National Catholic Reporter offered an article by Rose Murphy on her disenchantment with the Church as she grows older:  “But I am more disillusioned by dogmatic bans on birth control that afflict poor women in developing countries and that too often obscure the core message of Christ’s call for compassion.”  Practicality and compassion are difficult arguments to contradict.  Quick measures with speedy results and empathetic measures with kindly thoughts win the day in modern America. 

       In great and reassuring contrast to the anecdotes of Kerr and the feelings of Murphy is an essay published in Ethics and Medics, by the National Catholic Bioethical Center in Philadelphia.  Douglas A. Sylva laments that the international community selected the condom as the only option for risk reduction and AIDS infection decrease.  “This, despite the fact that any significant level of protection would require condoms to be available in their billions, at all possible times and at all possible places, to be used 100 percent of the time, and to be used correctly 100 percent of the time. Nonetheless, condoms and their many imperfections were sold to the people of the developing world as “safe sex.” The nations that embraced this program most emphatically, such as South Africa, saw infection rates continue to soar.”

       Dr. Sylva also notes that at the same time, a few nations promoted traditional sexual morality—abstinence and fidelity—and they succeeded.  The victory in the Philippines, for example, was acknowledged by United Nations’ own research: “The Philippines remains a low HIV prevalence country [0.01 percent]. ... The number of HIV/AIDS cases is not expected to increase substantially over the next few years.”  The New York Times admitted that the victory was because of traditional sexual morality: in the Philippines, “a very low rate of condom use and a very low rate of HIV infection seem to be going hand in hand. AIDS-prevention efforts often focus on condoms, but they are not widely available here—and are mostly shunned—in this conservative Roman Catholic country.”

       The world’s AIDS epidemic has been used as a cudgel against Christianity, Dr. Sylva observes, especially the Catholic Church, (e.g., Ms. Murphy above). The Church’s stance against condoms allows the failure of the international safe sex campaign to be blamed on the Church.  A columnist for the New Statesman newspaper even eulogized Pope John Paul II by claiming that he “probably contributed more to the continental spread of the disease in Africa than the trucking industry and prostitution combined.” 

       The embrace of artificial contraception by the modern world and the corresponding denigration of abstinence and fidelity have clearly led to promises that secular powers cannot keep.  Had the time, energy, money and enthusiasm invested in artificial contraception been directed toward Natural Family Planning, the world would be a much safer and saner place.   Condoms are not compassion.  They are a cheat and a disappointment.  Enabling the modern world to understand and employ the designs of nature in family planning and in disease prevention is true compassion and true practicality.  Jesus is certainly noted for his compassion.  The people swamp him in today’s Gospel.  Jesus was also practical.  He had to push away from healing the crowds to preach the Gospel. Jesus had to make tough choices that were sometimes misunderstood even by the well-meaning Peter:  “Everyone is looking for you.”  Still Jesus never let popular stands or fashionable agenda compromise his mission.               COMPLETE                        

       America’s secularized society in which religion has become a personal and private affair will find difficulty in imagining how integral to daily life and community life was religious practice in the ancient world.  In fact, not the too ancient world.  Only since the so-called Enlightenment in the eighteenth century did religion begin to depart from daily public life. And even that rupture was not complete.  The community church was central to much of small town Protestant America.  The parish church was vital to urban Catholic immigrants even to our own day.  Some Jewish neighborhoods still find the synagogue fundamental to daily life.  But the separation of church and state in America and the disestablishment of state churches in Europe have pushed religion to the periphery of daily life.

       The recent rise to prominence of the Moslem world in the daily press and evening newscasts offers occasional glimpses of large groups of Islamic worshipers kneeling in prayer before God.  Westerners are often amazed at the number of young adults and perhaps especially the number of young men who take their religion very seriously in the Middle Eastern world.  Segments of Buddhist and Hindu believers are sometimes viewed en masse participating in religious rituals.  Religion is as essential to the daily life of these cultures as, sad to say, sports or entertainment are vital into American daily life. 

       Only when religious practice is understood as the very heart of a society can the manifold disgrace of leprosy in the ancient world be fully appreciated.  The ancient leper certainly suffered physically.  Sometimes the leprosy was merely a rash; sometimes it was seriously rotting flesh.  The ancient leper surely suffered socially.  He (or she) had to withdraw from society, dwell in the wilderness, and rely on the kindness of strangers for food and drink.  Leprosy was not only debilitating; it was also humiliating. 

        But perhaps the greatest curse to be placed upon the shoulders of the ancient leper was the inability to participate in religious life.  The Jewish leper could not attend the neighborhood synagogue.  The Jewish leper was banned from entry into the temple.  The high holy days could be enjoyed only in memory.  Ritual offerings, purifications, and acts atonement were beyond his reach.  The hours of prayer found the leper in the Judean wilderness or the Galilean hills.  His disease frankly amounted to excommunication. 

       Since religion was the very bond of society, the leper truly experienced estrangement and isolation, not only from his fellow believers but even from God himself.  Sickness quickly became sinfulness.  Despised by the religious community, the leper felt reviled by God.  His was a lonely and alienating existence.

       Then, low and behold, Jesus Christ the healer begins to walk the lanes of Capernaum and the streets of Jerusalem.  The lepers of Palestine hear of miraculous cures.  Scabrous skin is cleansed.  Putrid limbs are made whole.  Fetid rags are left by the roadside.  Welcoming doors are opened and loving arms are outstretched.  Livelihoods are resumed.  Trade is possible once again.  But most of all, the restored leper may go to church.  The returned outcast may hear the words of Scripture once again.  The shunned sick man may join in the prayers, the psalms, the chants.  The gates of the Temple are no longer off limits to the former leper.  His sacrifices are acceptable to the priests.  He is part of the chosen people once again.  His joy, his gratitude, his appreciation knows no bounds.

       As bad off as the ancient leper was, the sinner, ancient or modern, is in worse shape.  The sinner too has been estranged from his religious community and his God by sin.  The sinner is alienated from grace, paralyzed from effecting good, cut off from loving encounters.  But, thanks to Christ, the sinner too is not without hope.  Christ not only heals; he reconciles and can draw the sinner back into the community of the saved.  The sinner can once again pray, worship and offer sacrifice.  His joy, his gratitude, his appreciation should also know no bounds.       COMPLETE

       When Pope Benedict visited the United States last April he spoke to the bishops of this country assembled in Washington’s Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.   In a prepared answer to a question submitted before he spoke concerning the failure of some American Catholics to practice the faith, the pope made clear that he had two specific concerns on his mind for a lackadaisical American church.  The Roman pontiff reminded the American bishops of the urgent need for modern man to reflect on 1) salvation and 2) the end of the world.  That’s right.  A reconsideration of salvation and eschatology were the papal balm for curing America’s feeble observance of the faith.

       Pope Benedict defined salvation as “deliverance from the reality of evil and the gift of new life and freedom in Christ.”  His holiness located the possibility of a renewed appreciation of salvation in the context of liturgy.  The pontiff observed that it is in the celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments that the believer can best become more aware of how far man has strayed from a righteous path and how gracious God has been in drawing man back to that noble path.  The Eucharist, as well as the sacraments of Baptism, Penance, Confirmation and Anointing, emphasizes the sinful state from which man has to be delivered.  The sacrifice of Christ on the tragic cross, renewed on the altar by his sacramental Body and Blood, must be grasped as Christ’s effort to save man from the loss of heaven and the pains of hell.  Baptism and Penance similarly rescue man from a sinful state.  Confirmation and Anointing continue this process of recovery.  Yet modern man rarely reflects on the need to be rescued, the need to be healed, the need to be saved.  Having no sense of sin, no awareness of needing redemption, the modern believer can miss a vital point of these sacred rituals.  Why go to the Holy Sacrifice, why go to confession, why get baptized or anointed, if I am already at peace with God?  Once the need, the absolute need, for these saving sacraments is obscured, the desire to participate in them wanes.  The pope spoke of a “quiet apostasy,” whereby the modern Catholic does not leave the Church but simply neglects the Church because he has no feel for being saved.  Faithful participation in the sacraments and an ampler grasp of the meaning of the sacraments should lead to a renewed respect for being saved.

       The Pope lamented, as well, the “almost complete eclipse of an eschatological sense” in formerly Christian societies.  Eschatology generally refers to the “end times,” to that “dies irae” that sent chills up and down medieval spines, that era of final judgment.  But the Roman pontiff cautions the American church that the end of the world is not merely a question of one’s personal destiny (heaven or hell).  Eschatology more broadly refers to the fulfillment of all creation.  This wider concept of God’s mercy demands that the believer work not only for his own salvation but for “the building up of the Church and the extension of his Kingdom.”  The pope was reacting here to the contemporary tendency to view religion and spirituality as “a purely private affair,” a personal quest for wholeness that holds little regard for the salvation of the neighbor or the transformation of society into the likeness of Christ.  Again, the regular worship of God and the regular hearing of the Gospel in the midst of the believing assembly at Mass and during the sacraments will awaken a sense of community, a sense of broader responsibility, a sense of common destiny, among the faithful.

       Both salvation and eschatology compel the believer to look beyond himself: to look to Christ in order to be saved from sin, and to look at the surrounding world that eventually must be conformed to Christ.  In today’s Gospel, the friends of the paralyzed man go to great lengths to have him rescued from sickness and sin.  They saw the need of healing and the saw the need of sharing this healing with their friend. And they saw Christ as the unique source of healing.   A desire for healing, a facing up to sickness and sin actually led these men to Christ.  The pope asks American Catholics to confront sin, both personal and corporate, with renewed vigor and to share their gift of healing with the whole world.  COMPLETE

       Nicholas II, the murdered Tsar of Russia, died savagely ninety-one years ago with his wife, son, four daughters and a few family attendants.  Their execution in the cellar of a house on the edge of Siberia was preceded, however, by almost a year of incarcerated isolation.  They lived humbly for many months in their palace outside St. Petersburg, a few more months in an isolated, rural city and then finally in the even more remote place of their death.  During this forced retreat the Romanov family certainly had much time to think, to reflect on the past and to question the future.  A recent author placed these words on the lips of the Tsar’s daughters who, in 1918, were already young women: “Why do we live?  Why do we suffer?  If only we knew…if only.”

       The soul searching of the Romanov girls, who were very religious, brings to mind the soul searching of Jesus Christ who spent an attentive forty days sorting out his destiny in the first century.   It should be said from the start that Jesus was not going through an identity crisis, trying to sort out who he was, as older adolescents and young adults frequently experience.  Jesus knew exactly who he was.  He was the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the perfect, eternal image of the Father God Himself.  The challenge was not his identity but rather how that Divine identity, that Divine Sonship, was  to be acted out in human terms. 

       St. Mark’s account of the temptations of Christ, read this Sunday, is exceedingly brief.  St. Matthew and St. Luke have expansive and remarkably similar accounts of Jesus’ wilderness ponderings.  Jesus’ dilemma was not, “Who am I?”  Jesus’ quandary was “What do I do?”  How does the Son of God behave in human terms.  How does one render the Divine into the human, the eternal into the temporal, the heavenly into the earthly? 

       The eternal characteristic of the Son of God was complete orientation toward his Father.  The Son of God was always obedient, dutiful, respectful, worshipful.  The eternal Son never wavered from his Father’s Will.  Now this obedience had to be lived out on the roads and in the fields and within the homes and at the synagogues of Palestine.  This total orientation had to be reflected in the sermons, warnings, healings and roaming of Jesus’ public life.  As Saints Matthew and Luke narrate, Jesus’ temptations zeroed right in on his Divine Sonship.  “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread…If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down…”

       In the wilderness Jesus realizes that his Divine Sonship will not be well served by changing stones into bread.  That would show lack of confidence in his Father.  Jesus also senses that casting himself down from the Temple to be rescued by angels would be a false move.  That would presume too much on God’s Providence.  And certainly worshipping Satan was out of the question for the dutiful Son.  Jesus’ forty days of wilderness contemplation allows him to realize that his Divine Sonship, lived without flaw for all eternity, must continue to be lived out in time through demonstrations of trust, confidence, obedience, submission and fidelity.  “Not my Will but Thine be done,” spoken at Gethsemane, had actually been lived out since Bethlehem.  “Thy Will be done,” prayed instructively for the disciples, had been powerfully taught by Jesus’ venturing forth from his Nazareth home to preach the Gospel, by his courage in the face of Jewish opposition, by his audacity at the questioning of Pilate.  And, of course, the Cross was Jesus’ greatest act of Sonship, his final, human demonstration of total orientation toward the Father.  Truly, Christi’s Sonship, whether in heaven or on earth, was written in words of obedience. 

       The Romanov girls had plenty of time to ponder their lot in life.  Let’s hope their strong Orthodox faith sustained them through their bloody ordeal.  Jesus had all eternity to contemplate his role in God’s plan.  Christ’s successful resistance to Satan’s attempt to subvert his role powerfully illustrates that the Savior knew who he was and knew what was expected of him in human terms.                   COMPLETE

       The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ on Mount Tabor in the company of his three select disciples re-enforces the victory of the Savior over Satan that was proclaimed in last week’s Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent.  Last week Jesus was victorious by resisting temptation.  This week Jesus is victorious by embracing fulfillment.  Last week Jesus understood that there was no future in heeding the word of the devil.  Satan’s triple enticement to trust in God too much, to trust in God too little, and to mistrust God altogether by worshipping Satan was seen to be a cheat and a disappointment.  This week as last week, Jesus is affirmed as the faithful Son of the Father, the full revelation of God made visible in a man.  “"This is my beloved Son. Listen to him," the Father speaks from the heavenly cloud.  Thus again, the Sonship of Jesus Christ, the Sonship of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is upheld as the measure of all authentic religion, spirituality and holiness.  Jesus is the archetype to which all alert believers will gladly listen.  In Jesus is found the fullness of revelation.  In Jesus is discovered the height and breadth and depth of truth.  Jesus is God’s Word, God’s expression, God’s self-revelation.  There is no going beyond Jesus.  There is just deeper and deeper involvement with him.  He is the Truth.

       Both St. Mark and St. Matthew make a point of locating the Transfiguration “six days” after Jesus’ first prediction of his passion and death.  St. Luke for his part notes that it was “eight days” after Jesus’ sad prediction of his final sufferings that Jesus was transfigured on the mountain.  The reader might settle for the time frame of a week after Jesus’ maudlin announcement.  Understandably, the news of Jesus’ tragic betrayal and death was not well received by his loyal Apostles.  St. Peter even incurred the label “Satan” for suggesting that Jesus’ destiny lay elsewhere.  Even after a week’s time, Jesus still sensed that his passion, death and crucifixion were proving to be a scandal to his well-meaning but spiritually unsophisticated disciples.  They were, as might be said nowadays, down in the dumps. 

       The Transfiguration, then, was an opportunity for Jesus to raise the spirits of his closest friends in the hope that they in turn would brighten the aspects of their fellows.  Having told the Apostles that he would certainly suffer, Jesus wants now to assure them that he will also be glorified.  As he is to share in the sufferings of sinful mankind, so he will likewise share in the splendor of the Godhead.  First Golgotha then glory is the message of the transfigured Jesus.  

       The glory to come is also affirmed by the presence of the God the Father in the biblically traditional cloud.  Moses had met God the Father enveloped by the cloud on the height of Mount Sinai.  A cloud had descended on the finally dedicated Temple in Jerusalem symbolically indicating the treasured presence of God there.  The ascending Jesus would pass into the cloud signaling to those below his return to the heavenly presence of the His Father.  The alert believer will also not fail to note that the Transfiguration occurs on a mountain, on a raised platform, a step nearer to heaven, so to speak, as Moses had met God on the mountain and as Jesus had offered his most sublime thoughts on a mountain and would die and ascend on a mountain.  Through cloud and mountain, the nearness of God’s glory is resoundingly acknowledged.

       Jesus’ eventual transition from suffering servant to glorified Savior is also confirmed by the witness of Moses and Elias.  If two men found nothing but grief this side of the grave and had to wait for the next world to receive any compensation whatsoever, those men are certainly the prophets Moses and Elias.  Moses resisted the Pharaoh, led the stiff-necked Jews through the wilderness, and died on the banks of the Jordan without ever even stepping foot into the Promised Land.  His was a thankless task.  Elias fought the wicked Jezebel and the foolish Ahab tooth and nail in his attempt to restore the old time religion to Israel.  At one point, he retreated to the desert, sitting down under a tree to die so exasperated was he with defeat and ingratitude.  Another thankless task.  Yet eventually the work of Moses and Elias did bear fruit, success did follow their labors, glory did shine around them.  Moses and Elias were God’s pledge of eventual and certain fulfillment to Jesus’ followers.      COMPLETE

       Jesus was probably not the first Jew to become exasperated with the trafficking of birds and animals in Jerusalem’s Temple.  In fact, the money changers and purveyors of sacrificial matters were most likely quite used to fanatics upbraiding them for their lack of respect and rude commerce.  While their work was legitimate – only clean animals and clean money could be taken into the sacred precincts – their matter-of-fact manner must have dispelled the aura of worship that should have permeated such a hallowed place.  Ritual correctness was actually crowding out authentic worship.

      Worship is the fundamental spiritual disposition with which the Christian believer approaches God, either alone or in community.  Worship is the total orientation of the believer, both body and soul, both mind and heart, toward God the Father through Christ.  Worship and the rituals of worship bring a man spiritually and physically before the person of God.  Worship and the rituals of worship vividly and graphically display the inner orientation of the believer toward the eternal God.  Worship is the directing of the whole man toward God through acts of praise, petition, gratitude and repentance. 

       As the rite of ordination begins, the candidates for Holy Orders, be they deacons, priests or bishops, prostrate themselves before the altar and the ordaining prelate.  Thus these candidates place themselves actually and symbolically at God’s disposal.  Lying flat on the sanctuary floor, they surrender their entire selves to God’s Will, God’s plan, God’s design.  Their bodily submission supports and reflects their inner commitment.  Their bodily submission proclaims to the witnessing community that acquiescence to the Will of God defines their lives.  Prostration is a manifest and eloquent act of worship.

       The Catholic believer, less vividly but just as sincerely, makes an act of worship every time he genuflects before the Blessed Sacrament, every time he kneels in God’s Presence, every time he joins with his fellow parishioners in voices of communal praise to God.  Each of these simple gestures indicates a focus, a centering, a convergence on God.  Worship deepens through these traditional rituals. 

       The supreme act of worship was the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.  Jesus was vividly and graphically centered on God as he surrendered his own life in obedience to the Father.  The Crucifixion was Jesus’ ultimate act of submission.  Jesus’ historic act of worship is preserved and presented for each succeeding generation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  The Mass is first and foremost an act of worship.  The Mass is a shared, spiritual prostration before God.  The Mass is a communal centering on God.  Certainly the Mass has elements of proclamation – the readings and the homily.  The Mass definitely has community elements – the breaking of bread and the joining in prayer.  But the Mass remains essentially an act of worship. 

       The Mass is an invitation for the faithful to unite themselves to the worship of Jesus Christ once offered on Calvary and now renewed daily on the Church’s altars throughout the world.  Catholics must recapture the awareness that they have gathered in church as a worshipping community, a focused community, a community centered on God, a community spiritually prostrate before God.  The relaxed atmosphere, sometimes even a flippant atmosphere, which marks some assemblies unhappily dispels the aura of worship that should pervade our churches.  The rituals of worship – the processions, the prayers, the songs, the gestures, the ambiance – must clearly promote the interior worship of the faithful.  Unlike in the lobby of Jerusalem’s Temple, the rites of worship must never become a distraction.  God is the focus of a truly respectful congregation.  The center of the Mass, the Eucharistic prayer, is addressed to God, not to the assembly.  God, not the community, must be paramount at every Catholic Mass.                           COMPLETE.

       Guess the author of the following quote:  “We see faith, the root of all the Christian virtues, lessening in many souls; we see charity growing cold; the young generation daily growing in depravity of morals and views; the Church of Jesus Christ attacked on every side by open force or by craft; a relentless war waged against the Sovereign Pontiff; and the very foundations of religion undermined with a boldness which waxes daily in intensity. These things are, indeed, so much a matter of notoriety that it is needless for us to expatiate on the depths to which society has sunk in these days.”   No, these words are not from a column of mine from a few years ago.  Nor do these phrases belong to some elderly archbishop in today’s secularized world.  These thoughts were collected by Pope Leo XIII in 1889!  So the good old days that are remembered as producing plenty of priests and religious, when Masses were full, when kids knew their catechism, when nickels and dimes built magnificent churches, were perhaps not the religious Golden Age that modern generations assume. 

        The twenty-first century Catholic has completely forgotten the anti-clericalism, the anti-Catholicism, the cultural struggle, that consumed the nineteenth century in much of the Western world.  Religious orders were regularly expelled from formerly Catholic countries like France.  Germany did its best to squeeze the Catholic Church out of public life.  A uniting Italy saw the pope and his territories as the enemy.  At the beginning of the century, Catholics still could not hold office in England.  Convents were burned in America.  Very early in the century, Pius VII had been kidnapped by Napoleon.  An angry mob attempted to throw the body of Pius IX into the Tiber.  Times were tough.

       But then, in 1889, Pope Leo XIII, formally nominated St. Joseph, the spouse of Mary and the foster-father of Jesus, as patron of the universal church.   Since that time, the Church especially in the persons of our Holy Fathers, has grown immeasurably in respect and esteem.  Leo XIII is well remembered for his enlightened response to the Industrial Revolution.  His thoughts on social justice were much ahead of their time.  His successor St. Pius X had a tremendous influence on liturgical practice, on preserving the supernatural in a modernist era, and on renewing Canon Law.  Benedict XV actively worked for peace during World War I, arranging prisoner exchanges and outlining cogent peace proposals.  He was keenly interested in the Eastern Churches.  Pius XI finally settled the tension between Italy and the Vatican State.  He made insightful statements about marriage and family planning.  And he did speak out about Nazism, in spite of any claims to the contrary, and wrote very powerfully about Communism.  Pius XII will certainly rival his successors as the theologically most influential Pope of the twentieth century.  Practically all the seeds of Vatican II were quietly sowed during Pius XII’s pontificate.  The renewal of Holy Week, the proclamation of the Assumption, pronouncements on medical matters, among many others, show this Pontiff’s mastery of liturgical, doctrinal and moral theology.  And neither was he a friend of the Nazis.

       Pope John XXIII was undeniably a breath of fresh air within the Vatican City and throughout the universal Church.  His jovial disposition pleased the masses and his calling of Vatican II pleased many awakening voices within the Church.  While socially liberal, he was also firm in safeguarding Church tradition, for which he is given little credit.  Pope Paul VI presided over an age of increased liberalism, both within and without the Church.  Yet his decrees on Ecumenism, Family Planning, and Priestly Celibacy are courageously prophetic.  Pope John Paul II’s influence on the world at large and especially on Eastern Europe cannot be underestimated.  But his Theology of the Body, whose depths are still being plumbed, will probably prove to be his greatest legacy.  Certainly Benedict XVI is a worthy successor to these supreme ecclesiastical divines. 

       St. Joseph has fostered the life of the Church during this past century and a quarter with the same vigor with which he protected the Holy Family.  Progress has not been uneventful; but it has been enduring.  COMPLETE

       There is not a believer anywhere who has not demanded from the depth of his soul, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”  The words of the eager Greeks in today’s Gospel echo the sentiments of everyone who seeks a personal commitment to Jesus Christ.  Imagine the Christian who had Jesus Christ to himself for even half-an-hour.  Questions about eternity, sin, the church, redemption, personal salvation, and vocation would quickly consume those thirty minutes of fruitful dialogue.  Yes, the faithful would all like to “see Jesus” and garner for themselves the eternal truths Christ came to reveal.

       It is all the more curious then that Jesus seems completely to ignore the good faith question of these Greek suppliants.  Without addressing the Greeks or even acknowledging them, Jesus initiates a sermon on what later generation would call the Paschal Mystery.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.  Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”  Rather then allow the Greeks simply to enjoy his physical presence, Jesus wisely and cleverly introduces the Greeks to his deepest essence.  To meet Jesus, to encounter Jesus, is not simply to chat with the Master about eternal verities, no matter how insightful or rewarding.  Truly to meet Jesus is to experience the inner life of Jesus.  Truly to meet Jesus is to allow the life and experience of Jesus to be reproduced through grace in one’s soul.  To meet Jesus is to undergo his Paschal Mystery in one’s own life.  The core of Jesus was his dying on the Cross in obedience to the Father’s Will and his being raised up in glory on the third day.  This process of dying and rising, of Death and Resurrection, is the very heart of Christ’s life and message.  To share in this dying and rising is truly to meet Jesus.

       Jesus truly understands that the Paschal Mystery, his dying and rising, is the fundamental secret that must be appreciated by any who would believe in him.   Until Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection are completed, he will remain an obscurity to mankind.  But once his transition from death to life is accomplished, the whole Gospel message will begin to make sense.  People will then begin to perceive the real Jesus.  “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself."  Once believers come to realize the importance of the Paschal events in the life of Christ, then they will truly see him, truly understand him, truly recognize him, truly be drawn to him.

       This reference to Jesus’ being lifted up, made for the benefit of the inquisitive Greeks, is happily reminiscent of the words Christ made much earlier in his public life to the secretive Nicodemus.  Nicodemus, a distinguished member of the Jewish hierarchy, also wanted to “see Jesus.”  He called upon Jesus “at night,” as St. John carefully notes for his readers.  The encounter with this distinguished Jewish leader was all very cloak and dagger.  Nicodemus’ curiosity was greater than his courage.  Nonetheless, the nocturnal dialogue with this religious leader led eventually to same announcement from the lips of Christ, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."  Again Jesus insists that if someone wants to know him, if someone wants to comprehend his inner depths, that person, be he a Jew or a Greek, will have to mediate on Jesus’ being raised up on the Cross and then raised up from the dead.  The message to Jew and Gentile and to every believer down through he ages is the same.  To see Jesus, to know Jesus, is to experience in the depth of one’s soul the Paschal Mystery, the dying to sin and the raising to grace.

       The Christian community is about to experience through Scripture, through liturgy, through public devotions and through private prayer, the solemn re-enactment of Holy Week.  The betrayal of Christ, the suffering of Christ, the tragic death of Christ and the glorious resurrection of Christ will be universally celebrated by believers everywhere.  Every Christian will have the opportunity to renew the Paschal Mystery in the depth of his own soul.  Every Christian, just like the Greeks and the Jew Nicodemus, will have a chance truly “to see” Jesus.          COMPLETE

       To this day the Passover meal among Jews remains a family festival.  The Pasch, unlike the other great feasts of Judaism – Pentecost, the Day of Atonement – Passover was a day to remain at home.  There was no pilgrimage to the Temple at Jerusalem.  There were no assemblies in the streets of the capital city.  Passover was an intimate meal, presided over by the father, the head of the household, incorporating the youngest child, and even admitting the occasional hired hand to sit at the family table and enjoy the intimacy that aliens and strangers were customarily denied.  Passover was pre-eminently a family hour.

       Since the mood of Passover was deliberately intimate and personal, the fact that the betrayal of Jesus by Judas originated at this fraternal table makes Judas’ disreputable deed all the more treacherous.  Jesus himself draws attention to Judas’ disloyalty and to this disloyalty being compounded by its taking place at the Passover meal by remarking, “And as they reclined at table and were eating, Jesus said, "Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me."  Jesus perhaps recalled the words of Psalm 41 in which the psalmist had a similar experience of infidelity, “Even the friend who had my trust, who shared my table, has scorned me.”  St. Mark was not alone in stressing the hurt that Jesus felt when handed over by his friend.  St. John makes the same observation in his Gospel narrative of the Last Supper. “I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. But so that the scripture might be fulfilled, 'The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me.'”  The Scriptures do not know a more dishonorable exploit than the hypocrisy of breaking bread with someone who is about to be scorned or, worse, about to be crucified through one’s instigation.  The intimacy of the family table has been miserably compromised. 

       There was a time when Catholics approached the table of the Lord with fear and trembling, lest any sin, any violation, any transgression, give offense.  So tremulous were the steps that led to the altar in the Middle Ages that the Lateran Council in 1215 had to mandate the reception of Holy Communion at least once a year during the Easter season.  In St. Charles Church in Woonsocket there is a memorable stained glass window of Cardinal Borromeo bringing Holy Communion to a plague victim in Milan.   Perhaps the Cardinal was kind enough actually to place the host on the man’s lips, but it was not at all unusual for the clergy simply to bring the host to dying parishioners so that they could gaze upon the Sacrament for the last time so unyielding was their respect for the Sacred Species.  Until early in the last century Catholics had to ask permission of their confessor or spiritual director to receive Communion perhaps two or three times a month.  And of course confession on Saturday afternoon, fasting from midnight, kneeling at the rail, and scrupulously swallowing the host without It touching teeth or hand emphasized the solemnity and dignity of the sacramental encounter in the not too distant past.  Any treachery intruding at the Lord’s table would have been manifestly sacrilegious. 

       Jesus experienced betrayal when his friend Judas sat with him at table while he knowingly had darkness in his heart.  Jesus is no less betrayed when throngs of Catholics approach Holy Communion Sunday after Sunday without the slightest thought toward compunction, contrition, or repentance.  Missing Mass for two months?  Living with your girlfriend?  Voting for anti-life politicians?  A few private vices?  Haven’t been to confession in five years?  Forget about it!  God will understand.  No offense.

       The Scriptures are undeniably appalled at the callous betrayal by Judas.  Our ancestors in the faith were appalled at the thought of belittling the reception of the Body of Christ in any way.  The modern casual approach to the Sacrament is noticeably out of step with both Scripture and tradition.   No one is truly worthy to sit at the table of the Lord.  But each believer must make himself less unworthy, less undeserving, as best he can.          COMPLETE

       My appreciation of poetry inclines more toward Emily Dickinson or perhaps even Mother Goose rather than toward the nineteenth century English Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins.  A recent biography of Hopkins reveals that there is a lot more to admire about this convert from Anglicanism than his innovative poetry.  Hopkins was diminutive of stature and delicate by nature.  He always sensed a certain irony in his middle name.  Embracing Roman Catholicism toward the end of the celebrated Oxford Movement, he risked and received the consternation of his family.  To add insult to their injury, he joined the Jesuits rather than the diocesan clergy or Father Newman’s Oratory.  Again, oddly, although a talented student, he missed out on a final theological examination and never attained high status within the Society of Jesus. 

       Although Father Hopkins is remembered nowadays for his groundbreaking and even earth shattering poetry, his poetical fame is entirely posthumous.  For most of his priestly life, he was a very hard working parish priest and college professor.  In fact, when he decided on the priesthood he ripped up all his previous poetry since he wanted nothing to distract him from the ministry.  After seven years of priesthood, his superior encouraged him to write a poem about the tragic shipwreck of a German vessel in which five religious sisters on their way to America perished off the coast of England.  “The Wreck of the Deutschland” is one of the English language’s greatest works. 

       The Catholic parishes to which Father Hopkins ministered were largely urban congregations of Irish immigrants.  His lofty sermons were not always appreciated by his working class worshippers, even, on occasion, provoking laughter from his flock.  At other times he was enlisted to teach at lesser academies within the Jesuit system, never quite making it to the highest rank of academia because of that early undistinguished test grade.  Although Father spent much of his ministry in teeming cities like Liverpool and Manchester, he had a personal affinity for the countryside, walking miles and miles on a Sunday afternoon to visit friends or investigate monuments.  Father Hopkins died at the age of forty-four from an infection spread by fleas from the poor drainage in his Jesuit institution.  It was almost half a century before his works were published and his legacy recognized.

       Although there were no doubt many issues that led to Father Hopkins’ conversion from the Church of England to the Church of Rome, his youthful meditations on the Blessed Sacrament were the decisive factor.   Young Father Hopkins thought to himself that the Eucharist was either a symbol or a sacrament, a mere remembrance or a present reality.  The Real Presence drew the future Jesuit to the Church and it was the priestly ministry in the service of that Presence that insured his finding a home there. 

       The table of remembrance favored by Protestant churches has contrasted these four centuries with the altar of sacrifice that is central to the Catholic Church both architecturally and theologically.  Certainly the Mass is indeed a memorial meal.  The Mass recalls the Last Supper of Jesus with his chosen Twelve and it certainly recalls his saving death on Calvary.  But Catholics believe that the Mass is not only a devout recollection, it is a genuine renewal of the meal in the Upper Room and the death endured on the lonely hill.  “This is My Body,” and “This is the Cup of My Blood…,” are not mere reminiscences of the past; they are actualizations in the present.  The Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity present at the table on Holy Thursday and present on the Cross on Good Friday are now present once again in their fullness every time Mass is celebrated and every moment the reserved sacrament is at hand in the tabernacle. 

       The Eucharist is a logical outcome of the Incarnation.  Just as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took on a human nature and became the man Jesus Christ, so the Son of God continues to come to his spiritual brothers and sisters in a clear and vivid earthly guise – appearing as bread which is the body given and as wine which is the blood poured out.  G. M. Hopkins knew that these sacred items are no more make-believe than Jesus was.          COMPLETE

       Readers should go to their computers and google “The Bad Vicar” to watch a very amusing video about the contrast between religion and spirituality.  A contemporary couple bounce into church to say “Hello” and are questioned by the vicar regarding to whom they wish to say “Hello.”  The couple explain that they are not particularly “religious’ but they are “spiritual” and are “interested” in parish life.  The vicar repeats the words religious and spiritual and interested, and then remarks rhetorically “Are you testing me, Satan?”  The British video extends such sarcasm throughout its two or three witty minutes.

       Much more seriously, but just as provocatively, a new book entitled Sabbath by Dan Allender in the Ancient Practices Series from Nelson publishers offers worthy reflections on the meaning of the ancient day of rest that Christians, Jews and Moslems observe in respective ways.  The writer investigates assorted topics like silence, meals, joy, family life, work and consumerism, among others, and supports his considerations by various quotes from modern psychologists and Scriptural texts.  While most of what the author writes is insightful, the Catholic reader will be struck by the lack of appreciation for the sacramental, ritual and ceremonial aspects that are so integral to traditional religion.  It is true that Sabbath observance can degenerate into a hollow rite born more of habit than faith.  But the Sabbath (or the Lord’s Day for Christians) as a day of rewarding and gracious human enterprises seems more a postmodern invention than a Biblical mandate.  Ethnic foods, fine wines, quality films, frank conversations, an invalid warmly visited, a fine day fishing, and a football well tossed and well caught are gratifying experiences that ennoble the fabric of human existence and might even deepen one’s sense of the Divine.  But such a postmodern Sabbath without the faithful proclamation of Scripture, without authentic preaching on the Gospel, without the sacramental sharing of Christ’s Body and Blood, without the support of the believing assembly, is not the First Day of the Week celebration from which our spiritual ancestors drew their strength and through which our spiritual ancestors adored and worshipped God the Father through Christ.

       Clearly Christ is the operative word here. God is present and adorable throughout his whole creation.  He may be found in fresh tulips and insightful books and tasty dinners with homemade biscuits.  But Jesus Christ entered history two thousand years ago to offer mankind a more profound appreciation of God than the most satisfying human experience could ever suggest.  The entire Old Testament bore witness to Christ; the holy days of Judaism anticipated him; the challenged Jews cried out for him.  Then in the fullness of time, God’s Son took flesh through the Virgin Mary.  In the man Jesus Christ he denounced sin, called for repentance, won redemption, established a Church, instituted sacraments, and commissioned his disciples to bring his message of Good News to the nations.  Sabbath observance, or better, Lord’s Day observance that fails to focus on Jesus Christ and his historical mission falls far short of the significance of this hallowed day. 

      Certainly the Lord’s Day should find mankind pursuing nobler deeds than purchasing tires at Sears Automotive or taking advantage of coupons at CVS.  Undoubtedly fine thoughts in a meadow or a bracing walk on the beach or a contemplative visit to a museum or the camaraderie of softball are all restorative to the human person.  After all, “the Sabbath was made for man…”  But recall also that “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”  Sunday observance that fails to focus on the historical Jesus Christ and his legacy and his redemptive plan is not the refreshment that God’s faithful people must observe.  Just as Jesus is the center of history, so Jesus must be center of Sunday.  Sabbath fulfillment and Sabbath meaning are not the fruit of human aspirations. Authentic Sabbath joy is the result of faith in Jesus Christ who is heard in his Gospel, partaken in his Body and Blood, witnessed in one’s fellow worshippers, and sustained by ancient tradition.  A Sunday that is not braced by the Church’s traditional, sacramental, Christian ritual is an attempt at spirituality without religion and ultimately it will prove an idle hope, an unfulfilled promise, a cheat and a disappointment.                                          COMPLETE

       Last month two Connecticut legislators proposed a bill that would transfer parochial authority from an individual Catholic pastor to a board of elected lay members.  The suggested arrangement is probably not much different from what many Protestant communities and Jewish congregations already experience.  Connecticut has not been alone in experiencing some underhanded financial dealings on the part of a very few clergy and a few parish employees as well..  Thousands and in fact millions of dollars have apparently been filling clerical pockets rather than church accounts.  The scandal is undeniable.  Nonetheless, the average parishioner might not be aware of how many financial safeguards have been incorporated into parish life here in the Diocese of Providence and no doubt elsewhere.  Donations are brought from church to rectory in tamper proofs bags which are opened by rotating teams of four or more parishioners who co-sign the tally sheets and then deposit the weekly collection in the local bank’s night deposit vault.  Annual financial reports are submitted to the diocese and periodic audits are mandated.  Years ago, parish monies were handled very cozily.  A housekeeper or a janitor might have handled the entire matter.  Nowadays very little money passes through any one individual’s hands. 

       The Connecticut proposal was quickly withdrawn when separation of Church and state issues were brought up by vociferous parishioners.  Even the local branch of Voice of the Faithful which certainly yearns for more lay involvement in Church governance saw this legislation as inappropriate.  Parish priests have obviously not run every institution in the Catholic world.  One thinks of religious brothers and sisters, of monastic monks and nuns, of hostels and food pantries and book stores that have been ably run by non-ordained Church members for centuries.  And one might also think of the many other non-Catholic religious bodies in which authority rests clearly and effectively in the hands of the laity.  So the prevailing Catholic practice of an ordained priest being in charge of a parish is not just a matter of practicality or expertise or proficiency.  There has been many the mother superior who ran her convent better than the reverend pastor ran his rectory.  And some parish council presidents might be abler businessmen than the clergyman who signs the checks.  Rather, the Catholic priest is in charge of a parish for sacramental not economic reasons.

       In spite of any evidence to the contrary, the heart of the Catholic community is not the rectory safe or the parish checkbook or the residual value of the church property.  The central object of Catholic life is the altar where the Father is worshiped and the Son’s sacrifice is renewed and the Spirit’s grace is dispensed.  All other parish ministries – Catholic education, care of the sick, social justice, the liturgical year, mission outreach – all draw their strength from and exist to enhance what transpires at the altar.  And clearly in Catholic life, it is the priest who uniquely ministers at the parish altar.  Authority in the Catholic Church derives not from the consent of the governed as in civic life and as some reformers might want.  Authority in the Catholic Church derives entirely from the will of Christ who ordained that bishops, priests and deacons be his ministers and his dispensers of the mysteries of God.  The Catholic Church is fundamentally and inherently a sacramental church.  By placing both sacramental and financial authority ultimately in the hands of the ordained minister, the Church is emphasizing its own sacramental nature, its own priestly character, its own hierarchical makeup.  Appropriately (if somewhat crudely), he who dispenses the sacraments also dispenses the funds. 

       The Catholic Church may never exalt the will of the community, no matter how enlightened, over the will of Christ as expressed clearly in Scripture and continuously in tradition.  The uniqueness of the priest in parish life stresses the uniqueness of the altar in parish life.  Catholic life flows from the sanctuary out into the nave. Not vice versa.  Financial accountability has become more and more a part of parish life these past few years just as structural soundness has been more enforced for parish buildings and educational professionalism has been mandated for parish schools.  These modern accommodations certainly do not violate the will of Christ.  But a fracture between authority and altar would undoubtedly deflect the plan of Christ.                                                                    COMPLETE

       Shepherds occupy a prominent place throughout Sacred Scriptures.   In both the Old and the New Testaments, shepherds hold a special place in salvation history.  Recall that Abel was a shepherd and that his gift of a lamb to the Almighty was accepted.  Cain who was a farmer offered his fruits and vegetables to the Father but his contribution was rejected.  The tender of flocks was clearly acclaimed above the tiller of the soil.  One author views this Biblical favor of shepherds over farmers as a bit of nostalgia for the comfortable life of Eden.  In Eden, Adam and Eve before the birth of Cain and Abel enjoyed the relaxed life of the country side, freely picking fruits from the trees and benefiting from abundant harvests.  After Eden, Adam and his son Cain had to earn their keep by the sweat of their brow, toiling in inhospitable soil, reaping meager crops.  Abel seems to have been spared these chores, accepting a more benign role among the sheep, ewes and lambs.  Working the land became viewed as a curse. Idling while the flocks roamed the countryside looked like a blessing.  Perhaps it was a question of the grass being greener in the pasture than in the field.

       The exiled Moses is also cast in the role of a shepherd.  It was while he was tending his father-in-law’s flocks faraway from the hustle and bustle of Egypt that the prophet becomes attracted by the burning bush.  Moses meets God for the first time apart from the work-a-day world, apart from toil and labor, in a new idyllic Eden as it were. 

       Of course the pre-eminent shepherd of the Hebrew Scriptures is the boy David, who would become the most illustrious king of Israel.  In searching for a worthy successor to Saul, none of the mature sons of Jesse who are at home with their father minding the family business is deemed to be suitable for the royal task.  Instead the adolescent David is called in from the countryside, from the meadows, from Bethlehem’s grottoes and glades, to assume the regal mantle.  Like Abel, the inexperienced shepherd boy is preferred by God to his worldlywise brothers.  Like Moses, a marginalized youth is favored over more expectable candidates. 

       On a similar but less lofty plane, it should be remembered that it was to shepherds out in the countryside, tending their sheep by night, that the heavenly choir first announced the good news of salvation that a Savior had been born to them who was Christ the Lord.  The Sanhedrin, the scribes, the Pharisees, the rabbis, and the Temple merchants received no invitation to gaze upon the spiritual splendor of the newborn King of the Jews.  Only shepherds receive the Lucan summons into the Divine Presence.  What a fitting symbolism!  The newborn Messiah is here to commence the restoration of a new Eden.  Errant mankind is about to be released from the burden consequent upon man’s first sin. An acceptable sacrifice, reminiscent of Abel, will once again be presented to and accepted by the Father.  Shepherds had shared in God’s first generation through Abel.  Shepherds had witnessed the release of the chosen people though Moses.  Shepherds had participated in the formation of the monarchy through David.  And now shepherds were involved at the foundation of the Christian era through those awestruck flock minders on the plains of Bethlehem. 

       The Biblical image of the shepherd reaches its climax, of course, when Jesus Christ announces to his disciples and followers, “I am the Good Shepherd.”   Jesus is the authentic shepherd who will truly restore the lost Eden.  Instead of thankless labor, redeemed man will be led to restful waters, be  given repose in green pastures, and have his strength restored.   Even in difficult times, the good shepherd’s rod and staff will offer support to the faithful.  A bountiful table will be set; soothing oils will offer comfort; each cup will overflow.  Once again, under the guidance of the Good Shepherd, mankind shall dwell in the house of the Lord..  Mankind will finally be at home again in Eden.  COMPLETE

       It was not the front page or the editorial page or the letters to the editor in the Providence Journal a couple of weeks ago that caught my attention but rather the real estate section.  There amid the saleable mills and available apartments and new condominia was a photograph of Sacred Heart Church on Park Street in Pawtucket, my first priestly assignment.  The ample basilica style edifice dates from 1955 when Father Robert Cassidy built the flat-roofed, air-conditioned, rectangular structure to replace the original parish church lost in a fire.  At my arrival in 1966, Sacred Heart parish and its Pleasant View neighborhood were just beginning to recede from their glory days.  There were three priests in the rectory.  Over twenty religious Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield lived in the parish convent and worked in the parish grammar school and the parish girls’ high school.  The Sacred Heart Guild still sponsored perennial Christmas Bazaars supplying much of Pawtucket with homemade afghans, ceramics, and cakes.  The parish CYO was competitive in football as well as basketball. 

       Many of the old Irish families were still active parishioners at that time.  Mary Cronin, Helen Devlin, Mildred Kane, Anna McCabe and many others attended devotions, sold tickets, and generously supported their dear parish church.  James Doyle, John Nolan, Mike Leonard, Freddie Callahan and many other men gently offered advice to their pastors, ushered at church and collected for the Charity Drive.  Nellie Vance, Molly Acheson and Mary Barry were home bound Communion calls by the time of my arrival.  Their tales provided a marvelous continuity with the past.  They seemed to have been parishioners from the foundation.

       Two pastors guided the parish during my four year assignment.  Father Cassidy, also a Woonsocket native, was a bit of a martinet.  Curates had to be in the rectory by 9pm when “on duty” and by 10am on their days off.  Lay people could not be fed nor were they ever to be taken above the first floor (wise advice).  If guests or parishioners lingered too long in the rectory office, he would flick the hallway lights on and off as a signal that they had overstayed their welcome.  When the host-making equipment of the Sisters of St. Joseph broke down, they had to supply hosts from Cavanaugh at their own expense.  Father Edmund Mullen, originally from Boston, was my second pastor.  He kept a very nice house.  The rectory was painted and carpeted from bottom to top.  Rare roast beef was served every Sunday night.  Cocktails were offered during the Merv Griffin show on Fridays.  He would “cover” if you wanted to go to a Reds hockey game at the old auditorium.  If one did not mind a mammoth St. Bernard dog begging food at the rectory table, it was a comfortable life.

       A saying among priests promises, “Your first parish will steal your heart.”  Certainly this was true of my experience at Sacred Heart in all aspects.  Some lifelong friends were made at that parish.  My esteem for the Sisters of St. Joseph has never waned.  Respect for the traditional annual parish census was engendered.  The pulse of the parish could be taken by visiting Barry’s Drug Store in the afternoon or by dropping into the L’il Rhody Tavern in the evening.  The order and stability found in the inflexible parish routine was more re-assuring than frustrating.  The novelties from Vatican II unfolding piecemeal during that era were quite exciting then if somewhat embarrassing now.  And the novelties coming from President Johnson’s administration were equally invigorating.  The Blackstone Valley Community Action Program grew apace in its attempt to stabilize if not re-vitalize the old Pleasant View neighborhood.  Meetings abounded as both the parish and the public faced predictable change. 

       My four years in Pleasant View were supportive, affirming, and encouraging.  I was fortunate to experience in their final throes the workings of the old, pre-Vatican II church and the lasting bonds of an old, ethnic neighborhood.  Inevitably Pawtucket’s loss became Lincoln, Cumberland and Seekonk’s gain.  Parishes that were mere rural outposts when Sacred Heart flourished are now high on the diocesan personnel board’s list of desirable “plums.”  The American Catholic experience of neighborhood church, rectory, convent and school that arose in the nineteenth century and flourished in the twentieth century deserves a worthy successor to lead the church into the twenty-first century.       COMPLETE

       At this writing the prospect of so-called marriage between same-sex couples is being hotly debated in the state’s legislature, in the press, and on the internet.  In response to compromise legislation being offered regarding couples who were joined elsewhere being divorced here, I sent an E-mail to assorted elected officials arguing that marriage does not admit any compromise.  One man, one woman, in a permanent and exclusive bond, open to new life, has defined marriage since Western Civilization’s inception.  Polygamy, concubinage, cohabitation and divorce notwithstanding, there has been universal agreement on the nature of marriage since time immemorial.  Even the occasional nineteenth or twentieth century liberal who argued in favor of free love or open marriage knew that he or she was arguing against the permanent bond of one man, one woman.  The matter had been culturally resolved millennia ago.

       One RI state legislator took the time to respond to my E-mail.  Noticing my address as St. Francis Rectory, he observed, “I am curious to know whether you believe Saint Francis would be so adamant?”  Of course I responded in the affirmative:  Thank you for your prompt and personal reply.  I am absolutely certain that St. Francis would oppose any compromise on the meaning of marriage first of all for religious reasons but also, as a clever and insightful man, for sociological and familial reasons.  Innovative in some ways, he was a great lover of tradition and respectful of authority, always seeking Papal approval for his ventures.  He hardly would have compromised 6000 years of Western Civilization for a notion that sprang up in San Francisco (irony!) a decade or two ago. 

       People choose to recall St. Francis as the brown robed mendicant who loved birds and bunnies and maybe even barracudas.  They forget the defiant young man who stripped naked in the public square to announce his conversion to a new way of life.  They ignore the bold preacher who risked life and limb to confront the sultan in Egypt.  They disregard the determined friar who steeled his will to embrace a leper against all his natural instincts.  There was nothing sentimental about St. Francis.  And this is precisely the issue in the same sex marriage debate.  Sentimentality has replaced truth. Subjectivity stifles objectivity.  Partisanship has replaced facts.

       Science, given the chance, would clearly vote in favor of the traditional meaning of marriage.           Same-sex marriage proponents must overlook the clear evidence of biology as well as universal culture – to say nothing of common sense.  Same-sex activities actually do violence to both the individuals, denying their basic physical structure while encouraging disordered instincts.  To legitimize same-sex attraction in law is to fly in the face of reproductive and genetic truth.  Consequently  same sex attraction is a moral issue precisely because it is first of all a physical issue.  Same sex attraction subverts the clear design of the Creator and it ignores the obvious language of the human body.  Homosexuality is the triumph of feelings over facts and fantasy over truth.

       Jesus speaks touchingly and memorably in this Sunday’s Gospel of the need for Christians to love one another.  “This I command you: that you love one another.”  Some would take these words as a mandate to tolerate any inclination, tendency or preference.  Love is too easily reduced to feelings, emotions and sentiment.  On the contrary, love without truth is the triumph of the romantic over the rational and fantasy over reality. Love without truth is mere sentimentality.  Certainly Jesus was a man with feeling.  He wept over Jerusalem.  He sighed over the leaderless crowds.  But he also demanded the adulterous woman sin no more and that the Samaritan woman amend her love life.  Love never diluted the truth in the Jesus’ mind.  The state of Rhode Island has an obligation to the truth.  Law must not be based on inclination, fashion or trends.  To legalize error is never the loving thing to do.  To defend the truth might hurt some feelings now but it will serve posterity more authentically in the future.    

COMPLETE

       My father’s sister lived most of her married life in Lyndhurst, Ohio.  In the early 1950s, my father drove my mother and me through a rather roundabout route to visit my aunt at her home in this Cleveland suburb.  While traveling through West Virginia, we stayed at a guest house in Parkersburg where the host turned out to be a Jehovah Witness.  When he found out we were Roman Catholics, he fire a barrage of Biblical questions at my parents clearly designed to unsettle the unsuspecting believer.  He asked why Catholics still call their priests “Father” when Jesus clearly instructed his followers to “call no man father.”   He questioned the virginity of Mary since the Scriptures refer to her “firstborn son,” implying that Mary had other children.  He made a big deal as well over the “brothers and sisters of the Lord” often mentioned in the Gospel.  But the remark that exasperated my father most of all was the host’s allegation that Jesus Christ did not die on the Cross.  My father’s incredulity was met by a quote from St. Peter who indeed did say that Jesus Christ was “hanged on a tree.” 

       It is a well known tactic of some lesser sects to quote the Bible randomly in order to confound the unwary faithful as well as the weary traveler.  The Scriptures do report some curious items that might confuse the easy going believer who has never read the Bible with a critical eye (or never read the Bible at all for that matter).  For example, as much as Catholics might associate the three wise men with the Christmas story, nowhere is the number three mentioned and St. Matthew clearly states that the Magi found Christ when entering “the house.”  The stable or manger scene is not associated with these visitors from the East.  No one’s eternal salvation hinges on these quotes but these and similar citations can be unsettling.  If the Church, the priests, the Catholic School teachers have misled believers on these small items, how much other misinformation has been handed on by Church authorities?  Doubts are easily placed in the mind of naïve Catholics by some of the more predatory sects.     

       The most confusing Biblical texts are those associated with the ascension of Christ into heaven after his resurrection.  St. John actually has Jesus ascend into heaven on Easter Day itself.  “Do not cling to me,” Jesus advises Mary Magdalene early in the morning, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father.”    But then in the evening he is back dispensing the Holy Spirit to his loyal disciples.  The Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost all take place in one day according to St. John.  St. Luke has Jesus ascend into heaven from the village of Bethany, about two miles outside Jerusalem in the heart of Judea.  This fits well into St. Luke’s geographical theme in which Jesus’ life begins with Mary conceiving up north in Nazareth and ends with Jesus dying down south in Jerusalem.  To have Christ ascend from Galilee in the north would be backtracking to St. Luke’s mind.  For St. Luke, Jesus’ life was one of inevitable progress toward Jerusalem where salvation would be accomplished.  There was no retreating for Christ.

       Saints Mark and Matthew, however, clearly have Jesus ascend into heaven from a mountain in Galilee.  “The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them,” St. Matthew writes plainly.  St. Mark also definitely locates Jesus in Galilee but Christ is last pictured with his eleven disciples “at table” where he rebukes them for their temerity and then commissions them to preach the Gospel to every creature.  Then he is “taken up into heaven” and takes ‘his seat at the right hand of God.”  So the first and second Gospel accounts agree on Galilee.  But did Jesus take his leave from a mountain or from a meal? 

       The Ascension is indeed a dogma of our faith.  But the practical details of Jesus’ leave-taking are lost to history. This is a clear illustration of why the Bible must be read in community, in the midst of the believing assembly, respectful of the deeply believed but unwritten traditions that constitute our faith.  With all due respect to Jehovah Witnesses in West Virginia and elsewhere, the teaching Church is the final arbiter of our faith.  Biblical questions regarding the Ascension (Galilee or Bethany? Easter day or forty days after? from a meal or from a mountain) as well as all Scriptural interpretation must defer to the teaching authority of the Church.  Written contradictions notwithstanding, believers must trust the teaching authority of the Church as their standard and their norm.          COMPLETE 

       Jesus left no doubt in the minds of his Apostles, nor should there be any doubt in the minds of later believers, that Jesus’ ministry would be brought to a joyous completion by the Holy Spirit.  The risen Christ bestowed the gift of the Spirit initially on Easter Sunday night when he challenged his disciples to administer his newly achieved ministry of reconciliation.  “Who sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you hold back, they are held back.”   Jesus understood his own work of redemption was not a solitary event, accomplishing the deliverance of mankind in a single stroke.  Rather he viewed the work of redemption, the ministry of reconciliation, to be spread out over time, lavished upon mankind through the power of the Spirit and the cooperation of the Church.  The work of Jesus and the work of the Spirit and the work of the Church would embrace all of history.  The work of Jesus would effect salvation.  The work of the Spirit would promote salvation.  The work of the Church would dispense salvation.  The same mystery accomplished on Good Friday and Easter Sunday would be infused into the minds and hearts of the Apostles on Pentecost and bestowed on the faithful in every successive generation.  What Jesus began, the Spirit would foster and the Church would happily complete.  Jesus, Spirit, Church – God’s three-fold machinery for drawing mankind back to himself.

       St. John in his Gospel makes especially clear the continuity from Christ through the Spirit to the Church.  It is Jesus who will send the Spirit, St. John writes, and this Spirit will in turn testify to Jesus.  Jesus observes that when the Spirit arrives, “He will not speak on his own… He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”  So there is no new Gospel, no new Savior, no new redemption.  Christ is the unique redeemer of mankind.  Christ’s Gospel is comprehensive; there is nothing more to be revealed.  The Spirit will simply extend Christ’s work of redemption.  The Spirit will continue the work of Christ; he will not replace it.  The Spirit’s task is to glorify Christ, magnify Christ, share Christ with the entire world.  In another similar passage from the Last Supper, St. John quotes Jesus saying the Holy Spirit will “bring to your minds all that I have spoken to you.  Other translations, including the Latin, convey this same message with the interesting word, “suggest.”  St. John writes that the Spirit will suggest to believers all that Christ has spoken to mankind.  What a gentle word, suggest.  Surely the Spirit is powerful and effective and resolute.  Yet the Spirit is respectful of the believer’s dignity and freedom and autonomy.  The Spirit will gently suggest to each believer the truth, the beauty, the goodness of Christ’s message, confident that the mere suggestion of the glory and splendor that is the Gospel will convince the believer to embrace Christ’s invitation to repentance and eternal life.

       And then, St. John notes, the Church will “also testify” to Jesus and his work.  “And you also will  testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”  While the power, energy, and enthusiasm behind the spread of the Gospel derives uniquely from Christ and the Spirit, the task of cooperating with Christ and the Spirit falls to the Church.   It is the Church that must absorb the message of the Gospel, live it out resolutely in its daily occupations, and gently convince the world of the merits of Christ’s teachings.  The Church has borne manifold witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus down through the ages.  The age of Roman martyrs spawned the era of missionaries who bore the Gospel to the lands of our ancestors.  Their success in the Mediterranean and European worlds gave rise to the monasteries which sheltered the faith through the Dark Ages and engendered the universities of the Middle Ages.  These scholars were followed by the resolute mentors of the Catholic Reformation who guided the Church through the challenge of revolt and rejection.  Again missionaries brought the faith to the New World and to this day they continue to share Christ’s teachings with the developing world. 

       So the trinity of evangelization mentioned at the beginning – Christ, the Spirit, the Church – still recall that eventful day of Pentecost when the message of Christ’s life, death and resurrection suddenly fell into place for the Apostles, who were then filled with power of the Spirit, and then courageously burst forth on the gathered crowds at Jerusalem, adding three thousand souls to the company of believers that very day.  COMPLETE

       Ponder the threats to traditional marriage that contemporary society is experiencing nowadays.  Consider not only the menace of same-sex marriage but also the more widespread hazards of divorce, single parenthood, cohabitation, and abuse.  Since traditional marriage is the very foundation of society, it might have been appropriate if God had revealed himself to mankind under the pleasing triple symbolism of husband, wife and child.  Imagine looking at the traditional family unit of dad, mom and the kids and seeing an immediate reflection of the inner life of God.  First person of the Trinity loving the second person of the Trinity; second person of the Trinity loving the first person of the Trinity in return; the third person of the Trinity being the very embodiment of this love.  The human family as a reflection of the Divine family is not too far fetched.  What an exaltation of traditional home life this might have been!

       And yet, as believers well know, God did not revealed himself to mankind as husband, wife and child, but rather as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This deliberate and focused revelation should not be overlooked by the faithful.  God as Father, Son and Spirit is especially worthy of thoughtful consideration as the Catholic world celebrates the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity this Sunday. 

      Even though the nuptial relationship is very loving and intimate, God did not reveal the Blessed Trinity to mankind under the guise of husband, wife and child because in the Divine plan God’s spouse was to be the Church, not his Son.  The Church is the unique bride of Christ which the Son will present to the Father redeemed and renewed, without stain or wrinkle or blemish of any sort.  God through  Christ fulfils the Church, completes the Church, leads the Church to its full potential, as earthly spouses do for one another.  Such fulfilling complementarity is the traditional role of husband and wife.  Spouses complete one another.  They fulfill one another.  They maximize one another’s potential.  A husband becomes more of a man because of his wife’s feminine love; a wife becomes more of a woman because of her husband’s masculine love.  Man and woman, husband and wife, need one another to arrive at the peak of their promise.  The spousal bond is a complementary relationship.

       In the Triune Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Spirit are not complementary.  The Father is fully God, sharing the Divine nature completely and perfectly.  The Son is fully God, sharing the Divine nature completely and perfectly.  Both Father and Son, and the Spirit as well, are perfect.  The Father adds nothing to the Son; the Son adds nothing to the Father.  All three are fully Divine.  Consequently, as the Gospels relate, those who see the Son see also the Father.  Those who listen to the Son hear the words of the Father.  The works of the Son are the works of the Father.  The Son, then, is the image of the Father, the reflection of the Father, the likeness of the Father.  In embracing the Son, believers embrace the Father.  In heeding the Son, the faithful heed the Father.  In accepting the Son, the Church accepts the Father.   The Spirit likewise bears total witness to the Son, not announcing a new message but bringing to mind teachings the Son has already voiced.  The Trinity then is the continuous sharing of the one Divine nature.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit are indeed three distinct personalities yet they operate from that one Divine nature that is God.   The Trinity does not connote complementarity so much as it signifies continuity.  The Triune God is eternally and continuously one perfect being.  God cannot be enhanced or complemented.  He is already and always perfectly fulfilled. 

       God wisely exalted the complementarity of husband and wife in a spousal relationship as his prime emblem signifying his relationship with the Church through Christ.  But God with equal wisdom preserved the perfect continuity of the Godhead by revealing Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternally distinct, yet eternally sharing one Divine nature and eternally announcing one saving message.

 COMPLETE

       My father, mother and I attended the 9am Mass every Sunday at St. Charles Church in Woonsocket.  Originally this was the children’s Mass, but even in my teenage years we continued to go at this hour since Catholics rarely went to Communion at the later Masses in those days.  One time my father was kneeling in the pew with his eyes closed.  He was no doubt meditating.  Two teenage girls were seated in front of us, gabbing back and forth as if they were at a soda fountain.  My father knelt up straight and in his most stentorian voice, barked, “Shut Up!”   The two girls turned around and were greeted by a look that almost withered them.  Sunday Mass at St. Charles was not always this dramatic.  But there always was Mass at St. Charles.  Except for an infrequent illness, I never recall missing Mass in my life.  Nor did my parents ever miss Mass, even in old age.  Sunday-go-to-meeting was an inviolable aspect of Kiley family life.  And, of course, in those days the Kileys were not alone.

       A recent survey of religious life in America singled out Mass attendance as the prime indication of a stable faith life.  Regular worship, that is, Mass on Sunday, was clearly correlated with continued faith. Among both Catholics and Protestants, high percentages of those who have stayed in their churches were active participants in the religious church services of their youth.  Those who regularly attended Mass as children and teens were more likely to have remained Catholic. Curiously participation in religious education as a child or in youth groups as teens appears to have had little statistical difference in whether childhood Catholics are still Catholic.  But eighty-six percent of people who are still Catholic said they attended church weekly as children and sixty-nine percent of current Catholics attended church regularly as teens.

       It is naïve to think that merely being present in the church building on Sunday is going to guide and direct a person’s life in later years.  Pastors can sadly cite those Confirmation students who are made to sign in at the Church door every weekend but then are never seen again until they show up to get their first baby baptized.  But pastors also know that those dads, moms, and kids who are present together every Sunday of a child’s life reflect a home life that is as ordered, disciplined and committed as their church life.  A contemporary family that takes the time and effort to worship regularly is probably going to take the time and effort to be conscientious about other obligations as well. 

       The lamentable drop in Sunday Mass participation by Catholics (65% in 1965, 25% in 2000) corresponds to an equally lamentable drop in much of family life at home.  Divorce, remarriage, single parenthood, contraception, drugs, Sunday shopping, Sunday working, a laissez-faire attitude toward Church law and Church practice, the penetration of the entertainment industry into the home, secularity, and other social ills have drastically challenged American home life.  A Catholic family that succumbs to these threats, in part or in whole, may frankly feel unmoved or unworthy to go to Mass on Sunday.  The Church rightly has high standards and parents who regularly fall short off these standards might question the usefulness of sitting in a pew each Sunday.  Families however that face the struggles of contemporary life and come to church not out of self-satisfaction but looking for self-improvement through worship bequeath a marvelous legacy to their children.  These families do not view Church as a contradiction to home life but rather as a support for home life, no matter how challenged that home life might be.  It is sad that compromise at home often means compromise at Church.  Concessions at home distressingly mean concessions regarding Church.   But commitment at home will similarly translate into commitment concerning Church.  Parents who have not given up on their home life will be less likely to give up on their parish life. 

       A Baptist family lived just around the corner from my family in Woonsocket.  One of the boys revealed one day that his church was not holding services during July and August.  My astonishment at his announcement is still vivid after almost 60 years.  Sunday without church should still be something that astonishes a Catholic, not something that is taken with a shrug of the shoulders.         COMPLETE

       The Gospel according to St. Mark, which is being proclaimed from Catholic pulpits during this liturgical year, is often thought to be the oldest of the four canonical accounts.  Some scholar claim St. Mark’s text was used as an outline by St. Matthew and St. Luke who later wrote their extended versions.  Just possibly St. Mark wrote his brief Gospel after the deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome about 63AD.  St. Mark might have thought that with these two pillars of the Church now gone to eternity that the authentic good news would be lost if the early Church relied only on oral tradition.  In the interest of saving St. Peter’s eye witness narrative of the life of Christ, St. Mark put pen to paper.  St. Mark had also been closely allied with St. Paul, probably being a secretary to the Apostle.  And possibly St. Mark had been the young man who ran off naked after the arrest of Jesus.  So while St. Mark was not an apostle and possibly not even an original disciple, being too young, he was involved with the early Christian community from the beginning. 

       When St. Mark decided to write his narrative it would appear that it was to the recollections of St. Peter that St. Mark turned for much of his information.  Other written documents and sources on the life of Christ were probably already in circulation and perhaps St. Mark drew on this information as well.   But there are so many vivid and visual details included in the Gospel according St. Mark that the reader must rightly conclude that St. Mark is relating first hand accounts from the privileged perspective of St. Peter.  It would not be too fanciful to label this ancient text as the Gospel according to St. Peter.

       St. Mark’s Gospel chiefly highlights the activities of Jesus Christ.  He omits the lengthy sermons, commissions and admonitions that are found in St. Matthew and St. Luke and especially in St. John.   St.  Mark has gathered the chronicles and tales of Christ that St. Peter preached with fondness and nostalgia.  The abundance of colorful and practical details in this Gospel could only have come from the lips of an eyewitness.  For example in this coming Sunday’s Gospel narrative of the violent squall that blew up at sea, the writer observes that “Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion (4:38).”  Not only the spot but the manner of Jesus’ nap is recalled.  The fortunate man from whom the demon Legion is cast out was remembered after the expulsion to be “sitting there clothed and in his right mind. (5:15)”

When Jairus’ daughter is saved by Christ from imminent death, the Master kindly instructs those in attendance on her that “she should be given something to eat (5:43).”   This is no manufactured bit of concern.  The splendor of the multiplication of the loaves was still not enough to make the narrator forget that the miraculous incident took place “on the green grass (6:38).”  The Syro-Phoenician woman who was hassled by Christ himself was still overjoyed to return home where she “found the child lying in bed (7:30).”   And the apostle who was not too fond of the children that pestered them in the streets could still remember that Jesus blessed these urchins by “placing his hands on them (10:16).”

       The inconsequential details that abound in St. Mark’s version of the Good News lend an aura of authenticity and reality to the writer’s inspired text.  Like the Incarnation of Jesus Christ himself, St. Mark’s Gospel supports eternal truths with down-to-earth, tangible realities.  Even in the midst of exorcisms and miracles, the Christ in St. Mark’s Gospel is alive and human, not at all theoretical or ethereal.  In fact, sometimes Jesus comes across as too human, for example when St. Mark reports that in Nazareth Jesus “could” work no miracles there due to their lack of faith.  St. Matthew tempers his report of the same incident by writing that Christ “would” work no miracles in that faithless community.  St. Mark also unashamedly targets the sons of Zebedee themselves as asking to sit at Christ’s side in the kingdom.  St. Matthew has the mother pose their embarrassing suggestion.  As usual, St. Mark seems closer to the source.

       All four Gospels are certainly God’s inspired Word.  Nothing has been included or excluded unless God himself intended it.  St. Mark’s brief, ancient, first-hand account of Christ’s life has made both Christ the miracle-worker and Christ the suffering-servant quite realistic for later generations.  COMPLETE

       Over the centuries even pious believers might have pondered why it was Eve rather than Adam whom the ancient author of Genesis depicted as succumbing to the tempting serpent. By singling out Eve rather than Adam, the inspired writer intended that Eve should stand not for womanhood but rather for mankind in general.  In the act of human intimacy, woman is biologically the receiver.  Woman opens herself to the man and receives him into the very core of her being.  In the spiritual life, mankind is the receiver.  The whole human race must open its heart, its soul, its mind, and, yes, even its body to receive the vivifying grace of God.  God is the supreme and unique giver.  Man is the intended and predestined receiver.  Eve’s sin, as Pope John Paul II pointed out in one of his weekly talks, was that she was not content to be a receiver; so she became a taker.  Eve (actually all mankind) was not satisfied with the bounty of Eden that God had given her.  The flora and fauna of paradise were not enough.  She had to reach out and grab that forbidden fruit, the solitary item denied her by God.  The Father had showered his gifts upon her lavishly.  She had certainly received a sufficiency.  Yet she wanted more.  Not pleased with God’s largesse, she usurped the role of the giver.  She began to give to herself whatever she wanted, whatever she desired.  She (and thus all mankind) was determined to be a giver, defying her own human nature and denying the Divine nature.  Original sin turned God’s plan upside down.

       Original sin was really an attack on the Fatherhood of God.  In Eve, mankind listened to the devil and thought he knew more than God.  Man was sick of receiving; he wanted to be in charge.  Thus man dethroned God and set himself up as the arbiter of right and wrong, of good and evil.  Original sin was man attempting to become God.  The serpent even promised, “You shall become like God.”  Conversely, in Jesus Christ the believer sees the original order of paradise restored.  Jesus Christ is completely open to the will of his Father.  Jesus is willing once again to receive from the hand of God, to acknowledge the Fatherhood of God, to refrain from manipulating history to his own advantage.  “Thy Will be done,” is Jesus’ motto in prayer as well as in desperation.  Through Christ, God is restored to his rightful place as Father of the universe, as the giver of all good gifts.

       This Sunday’s Gospel depicts a woman who has experienced a hemorrhage for over twelve years.  She has understandably sought a cure from many doctors but to no avail.  In her desperation the women reaches out and grasps the hem of Jesus’ garment.  Perhaps this frantic measure will assure her of the cure that has been forbidden to her these past dozen years.  If she cannot receive, maybe she can take.  Jesus senses that someone has taken advantage of his miraculous powers and is mildly perturbed.  “Who has touched my clothing?” Jesus inquires of his disciples.  “In fear and trembling,” the woman admits her daring.  The woman recognizes that she has taken things into her own hands and now expects to be chastised for her boldness.  Yet, unlike Eve who was punished for reaching out and grabbing the forbidden fruit, this woman is commended for her faith-filled grab at Jesus’ miraculous power. "Daughter, your faith has saved you,” the Master re-assures her, “Go in peace and be cured of your affliction." 

       The Christian life is not a passive acceptance of fate.  The woman with the issue of blood would not have been more virtuous had she endured her flow until her dying day.  Actually her desperate grab was an act of faith, whereas Eve’s seizure of the fruit was an act of defiance.  The afflicted woman saw the hand of God working in Jesus and fully intended to take advantage of God’s kindness.  Eve saw the hand of God working in Eden and was not satisfied with God’s Providence.  Eve though she knew better than God.  The nameless woman knew she could do no better than to reach out to God and wanted to take advantage of his healing will made visible in Christ.  Eve wanted to be God and take charge of her own life.  The woman wanted God effectively to be God and grant a cure that was beyond all human capacity.  Eve had pride.  The woman had faith.  Through Christ, sinful mankind can acknowledge once again the Fatherhood of God and receive once more the healing gifts bestowed by his Providence.

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