Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Mass during the Day Lectionary: 587

Hear me, O coastlands, 

listen, O distant peoples. 

The LORD called me from birth, from my mother's womb he gave me my name.

He made of me a sharp-edged sword

and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow,

in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory.

Today's first reading is the second of four "servant songs" found in the Book of Isaiah the Prophet. They figure prominently during our Holy Week services as they are read on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Jesus found his calling in these psalms and the Church has always regarded them as templates for his mission. If you would know the Lord, study these four songs of Isaiah.

On this midsummer solemn feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, the Church recasts this second servant song as a prophecy about Elizabeth's son. He too was called from before his birth. In fact he danced in his mother's womb at the coming of Mary, "the Ark of the Covenant", as King David danced when his soldiers brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

The infant was named John at his mother's insistence when his father Zechariah could not speak, thus fulfilling the prophecy "from my mother's womb he gave my my name."

He was a sharp-edge sword as he called out the wickedness in Jerusalem and Herod's court. The prophets never hesitate to engage in politics; and like John they pay dearly for it.

Finally, the Baptist suffered the indignity of being hidden in Herod's dungeon and executed there. We can only imagine the terror of a man waiting in total darkness for days and weeks, suddenly confronted with blinding torches, thrown to the ground, and decapitated with neither explanation nor apology.

The second Servant Song had described the prophet's feeling of futility in that prison. Though he was a sharp-edged sword and a polished arrow, he was trapped in helpless idleness, hoping for a reprieve, praying for deliverance, until he was casually murdered by the whim of a dancing girl.

His only consolation was a promise he would not live to see fulfilled:

You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory.

I have often reflected​ on futility during my seventh decade of life and fifth decade of priesthood. I should have no more complaints than any priest who is not a bishop, cardinal or pope; but I suspect that same unease hounds Christians in every office high or low. In fact, it's probably more intense for prelates. We prayed, studied, trained, prepared -- for this?

Futility is another word for the doubt that accompanies faith, but it is more painful. Doubt is an intellectual problem. I might doubt that God is good or that Jesus saves, but I still hope my life, experience and suffering have meaning and purpose. "I am somebody!" I tell myself.

But futility is an existential problem that confronts us whether we believe in God or not. Presently America is afflicted with an epidemic of futility that arouses senseless violence, innumerable addictions and suicide. People are dying in vain and we don't know why.

The scriptures are well aware of this existential problem as they ask, "Whose life has meaning, the wicked or the virtuous?" During yesterday's Evening Prayer we read the 145th psalm and the words:

     Do not trust in princes to save you,

   they are only sons of men.

     One day their breath will leave them, they will return to the ground;

    on that day all their plans perish.

Happy the one whose help is the God of Jacob,

  whose hope is in the Lord his God,

     who made heaven and earth and all that is in them,

  who keeps faith for ever,

  who gives justice to the oppressed,

  who gives food to the hungry.

Saint John the Baptist, from his dungeon teaches us to recognize and finally embrace the sense of futility that accompanies Christian freedom. In the darkness he must have recalled the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

Though I thought I had toiled in vain,

and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,

yet my reward is with the LORD,

my recompense is with my God.

We hope not in our accomplishments but in the Victory the Lord has won for for us. The Lord would not let Adam, Cain, Herod, Judas or Adolf Hitler have the last word. As Saint Paul says,

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.

Romans 8: 18-25

Third Sunday of Easter

Lectionary: 46

Realize that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.

He was known before the foundation of the world  but revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.



The word futile comes up occasionally in health care. Everyone must die and there comes a time when certain treatments -- medicines, surgeries, and therapies -- that work for healthier patients should not be given to dying patients. They would only cause more stress and suffering even if they prolonged the patient's life for a few hours or days. That kind of care is called futile.

It's not always clear to everyone what care would be futile. Doctors, families and patients may disagree. Doubts, fears and suspicions arise in the hearts and minds of those involved. Sometimes the professionals may administer certain protocols just to ease the mind of the patient or his people. It's better to err on the side of life. 

Some old people refuse treatments that would relieve distress because they figure they won't live long enough to make it worth the expense. The family, doctor or minister might ask, "But you don't know that, do you? You might live another twenty years and this knee- or hip-replacement will make those twenty years far more comfortable!" And what is expensive in the service of life? That's what money is for! 

Some people might say the word futile should never come up in the discussion about human life, but Saint Peter reminded his disciples of the futility of their past way of life which they inherited from their ancestors! Not only you, but your parents and grandparents spent your lives in vain, pointless, unprincipled and useless effort. 

The Psalmist asks, "How long, O people, will you be hard of heart? Why do you love what is worthless and chase after lies?"

There's no need to be scandalized by the question; it's very familiar to the Old Testament. "Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity!" said Qoheleth. "I uselessly spent my strength" cried the Isaiah's suffering servant. And Job cursed the day he was born for forty chapters! 

In the United States the question of futility has yet to appear in partisan politics but that may be coming soon. The plagues of suicide and death by overdose tell us that millions of Americans find no meaning in a life touched with disappointment, loneliness or pain. Rare is the family, business or church that has not been challenged by a member's decision to terminate her life; leaving the rest to pick up the pieces and start again. The VA is daily shaken by an average of 22 suicides among Veterans. 

While the federal government is hamstrung by its own futility, cities and counties are addressing the issues without partisanship but we don't seem to be making headway. Is the pursuit of happiness  another vanity of vanities? 

As a hospital chaplain I meet dying patients whose only ambition is to live a few more weeks or months. They want to see something specific; the birth of a first grandchild, the graduation or marriage of a daughter, or a fiftieth wedding anniversary. Then, they suppose, they'll be content to die. Often they manage that goal and they are satisfied! 

But human life is not about goals and ambitions; nor is there an explanation for human life. If you find a religious or philosophical reason to live, you probably won't find it persuasive. 

Realize that you were ransomed... not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.

Eating the Precious Body of the Lord and drinking his Precious Blood we find the one who is our way, truth and life. Jesus is not a reason, explanation or goal to be attained. He is the Savior who takes each of us by the hand and leads us on a step-by-step, day-by-day journey out of futility. He walks with us, as we heard in today's gospel; and while he walks with us our hearts are burning within us with delight and satisfaction.  He is the Life we live, the Truth we believe and the Way we must follow. 

Tuesday of Holy Week

Lectionary: 258

It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

Do I speak only for myself if I admit I am sometimes afflicted with a sense of futility? There is in my heart a conceit that I was made for greater things than this, that I have wasted my "time, talent and treasure" and my one opportunity to make a difference. 

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I was supposed to be somewhere else and doing something else, though I have little idea where it might have been or what it could have been. 

When I was a young, newly-ordained priest I sometimes wondered if I spent all those years in school for "this?" All that arcane study of exegesis and the hermeneutics of eschatological assertions was for this? 

Later in life, I am grateful to be of any use at all to the mission of the Church, but that gratitude reflects a fear of the abyss that opens just beside the narrow path I tread. What if it is all for naught? 

One of our older friars, retired and blind, wondered if he had done any good with his life. In fact he had accomplished amazing things, far more than I have ever dared to attempt. But, in his last years, he too struggled with a sense of futility.

Today's first reading recalls the prophet's anxiety: "... I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength...."

But this prophecy concerns the Messiah and describes his mission. To accomplish his work, he must know the "vanity of vanities," the insatiable existential emptiness that abides in every heart. If he did not drink deeply of futility he would be like the hotshot new lieutenant who demands that his battle-weary troops rush again into combat. To save us from futility he must be swallowed up by it.

Thomas Merton finished his lovely paean to the Holy Spirit, Hagia Sofia, with, "A homeless God, lost in the night, without papers, without identification, without even a number, a frail expendable exile lies down in desolation under the sweet stars of the world and entrusts Himself to sleep.

The Church offers Isaiah's "suffering servant" in Holy Week because we must recall the suffering of Jesus: "by his stripes we are healed."  If I suffer momentary qualms about my purpose in the comfortable familiarity of my room, how much more intensely did Jesus feel such anguish as he was tormented? 

Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 349

You have been born anew,

not from perishable but from imperishable seed,

through the living and abiding word of God, for:

"All flesh is like grass,

and all its glory like the flower of the field;

the grass withers, and the flower wilts;

but the word of the Lord remains forever."

This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.

With its marvelously deep roots, up to seventeen feet on some American prairies, grass may seem more like a symbol of persistence and durability than futility. The Prophet Isaiah and Saint Peter could see only the living, green blades above the soil, that part exposed to wind, sun, rain and fire. They could not know that grass lives for centuries in the stable, moist darkness beneath the surface. Harvest, drought and fire are no more challenging than a haircut to deep-rooted grass. Indeed, life has taken deep root on our Earth, as has human life. Though neither is indestructible, they persist.

The question of futility appears in today's readings, first in Saint Peter's reminder that, "you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors...." and his allusion to Isaiah, "all flesh is grass." This may seem a harsh judgement of one's ancestors but the recently-baptized Christians, recalling the gods they had known and their fearful, sometimes contemptuous attitudes toward these gods, had to admit they were better off in the Church.

Secondly, we hear of futility in Jesus' grim prediction of his passion and death. As they journeyed toward Jerusalem with their confident rabbi, the disciples certainly had their doubts. 

Finally, it appears in the feuding and fussing among the disciples as to who should sit at Jesus' right and left when he inaugurates his kingdom. With their narrow minded conceits, they are like minor characters in a play that shows little promise of going anywhere.

In our time, given our philosophy of existence as an individual's private experience, futility threatens those who suppose they should live forever. They think their successes are important; their achievements, lasting; and their failures, catastrophic. 

Indeed the life of the "individual," uprooted from history with only tenuous ("virtual") connections to other people, is like rooftop grass which, as the psalmist says, may sprout in the spring rain but bears no seed in summer.

The Catholic has a different experience of life. Our Mass and Sacraments, rooted in a daily practice that spans millennia, teach us a different perspective. The Holy Spirit assures us that nothing worth doing can be accomplished by one person within one lifetime.

The best anyone can hope for is to echo the words of Jesus, "I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do." (John 17:4) and "It is finished!" (John 19:30); or Saint Francis on his deathbed, "I have done what was mine to do; may Christ teach you yours."

Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 480 

For creation awaits with eager expectation
the revelation of the children of God;
for creation was made subject to futility,
not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it,
in hope that creation itself
would be set free from slavery to corruption
and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.

 

We know that “Creation was made subject to futility”  especially when an institution is in decline. Whether that institution be a business, church, or nation, discouragement stalks those who are dedicated to it. Whatever we do seems bound to fail. 

Having acknowledged that America will never be great again – whatever that expression meant -- futility revealed itself. Alcoholism, drug abuse, obesity, violence, and suicide were its harbingers. The exorbitant costs of education and health care cancelled any vision of a bright future. The bright promises of progress through technological innovation has proven to be empty glitter for a dispirited people. 

It is precisely in this era of widespread depression that our faith must check in. We see a phoenix emerging from ashes, babies baptized in deep baths of water, and Jesus leaping from his tomb. We find courage, willingness, generosity, and confidence welling up from the empty cisterns of our hearts. They are unexpectedly full of grace.

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Lectionary: 254

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death."

So the Jews said to him, "Now we are sure that you are possessed."

"Everything, insofar as it is in itself, endeavors to persist in its own being." So said the great philosopher Spinoza, as quoted by Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher. He added to Spinoza's insight,

"The endeavor whereby each individual thing endeavors to persist involves no finite time but indefinite time. That is to say that you, I, and Spinoza wish never to die and that this longing of ours never to die is our actual essence."

Should I lose my longing never to die I will cease to exist.

I see that longing daily in the VA hospital. Sometimes my utilitarian mind wonders why does this fellow want to keep going. He has so many comorbidities! He'll surely never see another Christmas. And then he turns up again on my new admissions list, five years later. What kept him going? I wonder.

But we're all familiar with that craving for life. Should we come across a dying animal in our daily walk -- a fallen bird or a wounded mouse -- it will strive mightily to escape our hands. Even if we would "put it out of its misery" it flees from us.

But there is something irrational about that urge. When Jesus promises us, "...whoever keeps my word will never see death." his rational opponents declare him possessed. Oddly, they don't argue with his claim of authority to raise the dead or deliver from death; they argue that Abraham and the prophets are dead!

But if the heroic ancestors are dead, what hope can they have for themselves? How or why do they persist in being if even Moses, the "Intimate Friend of God," is dead? As Michael Martin Murphey sang, "And if love never lasts forever, tell me what's forever for?"

The believer will never be content with a doctrine of eternal, endless death. We know in our sanctified bones that cannot be right.

But it's is a struggle nonetheless. There are innumerable forces around us and within us that whisper "futility!" A child will raise the question when he asks, "Why should I make my bed? I'll just muss it up again tonight!"

More urgently, heroin reminds the user, "You will want this relief every day for the rest of your life. You will never forget this craving." Why should he even try to quit? It's so painful.

Warriors who have killed, or engaged in killing, or sent others to their death have looked through that narrow opening and seen nothing.

But this challenge of futility, as urgent as it seems, is nothing new. The world's most ancient literature, including Gilgamesh, the Book of Job and Spencer's Fairie Queene have worried over it. I especially appreciated Spencer's story of the Red Knight and his encounter with Despair. Thank goodness Red's girlfriend Una rushed into the cadaverous cave to haul him out. Despair had successfully shown him the futility of virtuous living and he was about to stab himself.

Jesus, by his life and death, has validated our actual essence, our longing never to die. We do not want to die and we have no intention of dying. Until it comes we will continue planning to live -- employed or  retired, with assisted living, in the nursing home and in hospice -- if it comes to that. From natural conception to natural death. As the Lord made us.

Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 480

For creation awaits with eager expectation
the revelation of the children of God;
for creation was made subject to futility,
not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it,
in hope that creation itself
would be set free from slavery to corruption
and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Critics of our faith who have a bent for astronomy like to point to the billions and billions of galaxies, and deride our confidence. How can a human creature boast of any significance or meaning in the face of such enormity? 

I heard one fellow recently claim -- as a mathematical certainty but without a shred of proof -- that there are gazillions of planets identical to earth in the infinite multiverse. In fact there are other readers identical to you, and writers like me, who are reading and writing precisely the same text. It makes sense to him. And, though he was on the radio and it was hard to tell, he seemed to make this claim with a straight face!

Saint Paul presents a very different vision of creation. The word implies a creator, which the comedienne qua mathematical astronomer also dismisses without a shred of proof. The Apostle sees God's creation paying close attention to God's children. It watches with eager expectation for our maturity in grace and our rising with the Risen Lord. Unlike the skeptical scientist, we rely on the Word of God rather than mathematical certainty or credible proof. But we do have experience of both human and divine fidelity, and we know the world we have built depends upon the fidelity of its creators. 

We take our place in God's creation because we are not subject to futility. Yes, we've engaged in futile projects. Sinners that we are, we have invested much time, energy, and some money in projects in which God had no interest. We thought they were important. But we have learned through disappointment to listen to the Spirit of God and seek direction from the Creator even as we carry the crosses assigned by our Redeemer. 

We find that caring for the least among us -- the poor, the elderly, the sick and infirm, and the despised of the earth -- is work worth doing. It doesn't pay well; and is sometimes thankless; but the impulse is divine and that is very satisfying. In fact, all creation is delighted by our work as it fits and makes sense in God's plan. It is, to use His favorite word, good. 

Third Sunday of Lent Year B

Lectionary: 29

“Take these out of here, 
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, 
Zeal for your house will consume me.

Visit any shrine in the United States, or in the world, and you'll find a gift shop. Whether it's Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu, consumers want souvenirs, tourists bring money, and the shrines are desperate for cash. 

The young and idealistic might complain about these shops full of kitsch, made in Hong Kong, China, or Taiwan, but they have to pay overhead and salaries; and they often support a local monastery or worthy cause; and not many visitors give large donations without receiving something in return. 

The temple in Jerusalem, visited and invaded by the Lord, was no different. Jewish pilgrims, coming from Spain, Italy, North Africa, or India brought funny money from all these places and it had to be exchanged for local currency which local merchants could use to pay their bills. If the ancient economy was like ours today, the tourist/pilgrim industry was not lucrative; only a few well placed individuals might get wealthy in the business. 

Jesus's disruption, although his opponents remembered what he did rather than what he said, was a prophetic act. Prophets are known for complaining loudly. But sometimes they write essays, songs, poetry, or manifestos; or they paint pictures and posters, or they build sculptures. And sometimes they silently act out their message. Jeremiah strutted through Jerusalem wearing nothing more than a loin cloth -- ancient BVDs -- to show how naked and helpless the city was without God's help. When Ezekiel's wife died he refused to wear mourning clothes; he said the day was coming when people would be dropping like flies and there'd be no time for the rites and rituals of grief. 

When Jesus invaded the temple, opened the cages and upturned the tables, he was predicting the temple's destruction, which arrived less than forty years later. He warned unfaithful Jerusalem that, regardless of their wealth or security, they could not survive a Roman siege without God's protection. And why should it survive since they'd made the Holy City and the House of the Lord into dens of thieves. They had failed to practice the holiness God demands of his people. 

Our first reading today present the Ten Commandments, the "holiness code" of God's people. We must be a people unlike any other, for we are holy before the Lord regardless of whether we act like it or the nations know it. Our way of life must be different. First of all, we worship God alone, and cannot be bothered with idols of money, success, security, pleasure, or comfort. Our hearts are focused on the Lord, and are not divided by other concerns.

Secondly, we respect human dignity and human life. We must not, and dare not, manipulate, coerce, or force people to do anything which violates their freedom or integrity. There is no expendable human life. We will not engineer a superior race with birth control, abortion, artificial insemination, or surrogate mothering. We will not remold our bodies or sabotage our sexuality to fit the latest fashions. We cannot use our sexuality to sell merchandise.

As God gives us children, boys and girls, we accept them, and teach them our ways of holiness. Should we fail to do so, the Lord's passion and death will have been in vain, and the Earth with all its human creatures and its godlike beauty will disappear in worthless futility. The universe has no need of us, and no use for us; only God thinks human beings are worth salvaging. 

But that cannot happen; first. because God will not quit on us; and second, because the Lord will punish us if that's what it takes to turn our minds back to him. 

Lent is a protest engineered by God against a world that is spinning off into empty, useless futility. It is our resistance to a world which would take us down with it. Our fasting, prayer, and almsgiving -- our entire way of life -- challenges the world to remember there is only one God; and God alone is worthy of our sacrifice. 

Should we fail to practice Lent, we invite the same horror that fell on Jerusalem in 70 AD, when not one stone was left upon another. 

Saturday in the Octave of Easter

On this seventh day of the Easter octave, we come to the first “epilogue” of Saint Mark’s Gospel, a passage that was written by another author at a later time. It is unquestionably canonical – that is, it is Gospel – but it’s not Saint Marks’original ending. Apparently some people felt that more should be said. This passage is a recap of several appearances of Jesus as discovered in all three synoptic gospels – which brings us to a puzzling conundrum:

If the resurrection of Jesus is so important, why are there so few stories about it? We’ve run out of material and, after setting aside one for Low Sunday, we’ve not even finished the octave! And why isn’t there a coherent narrative running through all these stories. I cannot answer these questions, but that won’t stop me from having an opinion! J

First, a little more about his appearances. There are two different narratives about where he appeared: in Mark and Matthew, Jesus told the women he will appear to the disciples in Galilee; in Luke and John, he appeared in Jerusalem.

Secondly, we should notice the common thread that runs through most of these visions, they did not recognize him. Invariably, after he appears to his disciples, he shows them a sign that it is truly him. It seems they never recognize him at first:

• In John, Mary of Magdala thought he was the gardener.
• And, appearing in the upper room, Jesus shows his disciples his hands and his side;
• in Luke he breaks bread;
• later that evening he invites them to touch him, look at his hands and feet, and then he eats bread and fish.
• And in Matthew, some still doubted his final appearance.

One thing we can say for sure is that Jesus has not returned from the dead to take up where he left off, as if he never died. He does not walk the dusty roads with his disciples. He does not chat with them, or reminisce about old times. These visions of his resurrection do not negate the fact that he died.  

Rather, they throw a new light on the meaning of death. We have always thought that death is the end. It is the ultimate insult to our human dignity, happiness and potential. It is an enormous waste of human wisdom; how many wise and brilliant people with marvelous memories of the past have succumbed to the idiocy of death? How much wonderful knowledge did they take to the grave with them?

Death has seemed the proof of futility for all human life. Why should we live or expect or hope if all must die? Why would married couples go to that much trouble if their life together must finally end in death and sorrow? Why do parents sacrifice for their children knowing they too will die? Wouldn’t it be better not to live or love or laugh about anything? Many people, in the face of these questions, conclude we should “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” (Ecclesiastes 8:15)

But now we realize we were totally wrong about death. It is not the proof of futility but of meaning. It is not a sign of anger, hate or vengeance but of God’s infinite love. It is not the end of our love life but the satisfaction of everything we longed for in love. Though death might seem ugly, it adorns our human life with unspeakable beauty. 

Death has become for us proof of God’s love and authority and wisdom and mercy. This is a vision only the faithful can see. Jesus’ death and resurrection invite us to live each day as if we have died to ourselves and live in him. 

Memorial of Saint Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr

Lectionary: 269

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

John 3:16 is often sited as the most important verse of the New Testament. I would not name any bible verse, prayer or tradition as the last word on the Christian life; nor am I inclined to display the placard at football games; but I enjoy reflecting on, "God so loved the world...." It's an excellent place to begin one's religious life. 

Many people grow up in violent households, study in violent schools and play on violent playgrounds; they naturally suppose that God must be arbitrary, vindictive, dangerous, profoundly unhappy, satiated with power, and generally unpleasant. John 3:16 teaches another message. God loves the world and is supremely pleased with it.

God gives his "only-begotten Son." The expression recalls the Lord's test of Abraham; he should sacrifice "your only son whom you love." Although God intervened before Isaac was murdered, Abraham certainly satisfied God's demand. He was a hundred years old and had waited eighty years for the birth of his only heir, but the Patriarch proved his total dedication to God. John 3:16 invokes that memory when we ask, "Who is Jesus?" He is the Beloved; he is given for our salvation.

This verse insists that God never intended human life to end in futility. We are not an idle experiment of a mindless universe. Nor are men and women playthings of the gods, pushed around on some cosmic battlefield like Trojan and Greeks warriors of the Iliad. Most people experience futility; we are betrayed by loved, trusted friends; and we cope with 'moral injuries." 

These painful moments empty our souls of spirit. There seems no reason to hope. But they should not lead us to despair. Rather, they direct our hearts and minds to the Living God who empties himself in love for us, as Abraham emptied himself when he bound his twelve-year-old son to a makeshift altar.

If we are discouraged because we thought keeping faith should not be so difficult, if we thought the practice of religion would bypass roadblocks, John 3:16 reminds us it wasn't supposed to be easy. If we thought we should not be brought to the edge of despair the Gospel shows how Jesus willingly and generously dove into the vortex of despair. 

Saint John underlines the deliberate nature of Jesus' sacrifice when he tell us how the Lord dipped a morsel and gave it to Judas Iscariot and said, "Do it." Now it begins, he added.

The death of Jesus cannot be called a tragedy. It was a sacrifice "so that everyone who believes in him might not perish. but might have eternal life." We do well to promote John 3:16 as an entry to religious life. so "that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned...."

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 114

Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill,

and yet to another who has not labored over it,

he must leave property.

This also is vanity and a great misfortune.

Today the Church prefaces Jesus' parable about the wealthy, self-indulgent farmer with ominous words from Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities! Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!" We know little of their author, Qoheleth. His voice is more like the voice of doom heard in a darkened theater. It is the threat of futility that stalks us throughout our lives.

As human beings we face an extraordinary challenge, the question, "Why am I here?" No other animal, so far as we can tell, must deal with this problem. They may suffer hunger, cold, heat, injury and disease but they don't ask, "Why do I bother?" What am I trying to prove?" "Where is this going?" "How much longer do I have to put up with this?" Many don't even mind being pets, that is slaves to human beings, so long as they are fed and safe. Whether they're required for work or play or to swim around in a tank, they're happy to serve us.

But we're different. For some reason, even before we left the primeval forests of Africa, we chose to walk on two legs. All other mammals sensibly walk on four legs. Standing upright and walking like that are the hardest things we ever learn. And they are difficult to sustain in old age. We defy gravity with this posture. The head, balanced atop the neck, is the heaviest mass in the body and gravity is always pulling it down. We see its slow tumble as the muscles of the back grow weary with age. The spine curves and a hump appears, sometimes to rise higher than the head.

I think of gravity as a metaphor for the challenge of existence. As a chaplain in the VA hospital, I encounter this challenge often. It comes in many forms, but its end is often the same -- a pathetic surrender to the inevitable. If not in so many words, they seem to say, "I just want to lie down and die. I can't deal with the complexity, the loneliness, the work, the pain and misery of being me."

But that's the last stage. Before that there are the distractions. The illusion of control and the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, power, fame, friends, adventure, knowledge, experience, success; while avoiding failure, sadness, disappointment, pain, discomfort, loneliness. Given a modicum of good health and the basic structures of human society, we can enjoy the challenge for a while. We may think we're pretty well on top of it!

And then things go wrong.

Some patients are quite sure their being in the hospital is only a momentary crisis. "Just let me get back to normal." they say. Sometimes the crisis is only a warning shot across the bow. "Stop what you're doing and live right!"

Sometimes they think all this pain started in the hospital. "I didn't have this pain at home. Let me go home!" 

But in many cases, what was normal is gone forever. The new normal will be more confined and less free.

It's the curse of our human nature, the severe limitations of the flesh. All the freedom and pleasures of the body seemed to disappear one day. The joy of dancing, singing, eating, of walking into the kitchen to open the refrigerator. Are they gone forever?

Our Christian faith remembers the God who created this distressing universe with its overwhelming size and staggering complexity, who took up a cross like any man and carried it to his own crucifixion.

If human life is a journey of futility, the faithful walk with Jesus.For we have seen in his resurrection a promise of complete satisfaction.

Feast of Saint Bonaventure

O Lord, oppressed by your punishment,
we cried out in anguish under your chastising.
As a woman about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pains,
so were we in your presence, O Lord.
We conceived and writhed in pain,
giving birth to wind;
Salvation we have not achieved for the earth,
the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth.
But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise;
awake and sing, you who lie in the dust.
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the land of shades gives birth.

Few poets have described the futility of life without God as well as Isaiah the prophet. He knew this anguish not as one who had wasted his youth. That is too easily undone by returning to church and prayer. Isaiah knew futility as the best efforts of his beloved city Jerusalem were invested in a covenant with slavery. 

Jerusalem struggled valiantly against the siege of the Assyrian army. Every effort was made and no sacrifice spared. But Isaiah dared to say what no one would hear  -- only God could save them. The power that had already consumed Elam and Mede and Israel was irresistible. And yet they would not turn to God.

Instead they appealed to Egypt, a powerful nation with a navy, phalanxes of infantry and a  cavalry with iron chariots. Jerusalem “conceived” a covenant with the pharaoh, “writhed in pain” as they waited for the Egyptian army, and felt utter desolation when the Africans did not come. 

Fortunately, much to everyone’s surprise and the bafflement of historians, Jerusalem was spared. The siege was lifted. Perhaps a plague forced the enemy to retire. Expeditionary armies often melt away in foreign territory as they drink unfamiliar water and encounter alien diseases. Or political trouble at home drew the general and his armies back to Damascus. 

Whatever the explanation, Isaiah saw the hand of God in it. For your dew is a dew of light, and the land of shades gives birth.

William Faulkner's comment about poets might be said also of prophets: 

The poets are wrong of course. … But then poets are almost always wrong about facts. That's because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple and natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

 Lectionary: 34

Thus says the Lord GOD:
O my people, I will open your graves
and have you rise from them,
and bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel is fond of reminding us who we are and where we find ourselves in God's plan of salvation. We are certainly important to God, but not as important as we might suppose. Speaking for God, the Prophet insists, "When I do these things, then you shall know that I am the Lord."

As the wise man Sirach wrote several centuries later, God uses us to show the world his holiness; and for that purpose Jesus, Mary, the saints and martyrs, the Church, and the Jewish people are everlasting signs – despite the sins of the Church and the Jews.

Every year, during the Easter vigil, the cantor sings Saint Augustine’s “O felix culpa,” O happy fault which merited such a redeemer.” Human sin, as dreadful, horrible, and unspeakably ugly as it is, rather than being a total catastrophe, has given God a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the generous, superabundant Grace which outshines billions of stars and gazillions of galaxies in our universe. We have seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, and touched with our hands the God made human flesh who gave his very life to win our salvation and our everlasting gratitude.

Yes, it is possible to exponentially multiply Infinity by infinity; God has done it in the death and resurrection of Jesus; and we are his witnesses.

But that infinite goodness can be revealed to us only so far as we are able and willing to see it. And so God is born of Mary, an otherwise unknown Galilean virgin, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. The same God grows up as all children do, and begins to demonstrate his singularity only as an adult, and only with signs and wonders visible to our eyes. As Saint John said, that which “we have seen and heard, and touched with our own hands...."

Were He to appear as a royal prince riding an Arabian stallion, or an American president in an Abrams tank, his glory would be ridiculous. Can you set off a diamond with the sun? Precious gems are set off with dark fabrics that attract no attention. Sunbeams sparkle through its facets and flaws but disappear in a black matte setting.

Likewise, it is fitting that we should see our God only in the smallest things: a wafer which appears to be bread, and a liquid drop which tastes for all the world like wine. God presents himself in a human body suspended between heaven and earth, before the dark futility of death. He wears a crown of thorns, not of silver or gold; his suffering is mocked by an angry mob. That’s how we know he is our God.

We see these small things – things which the world ignores – and we know what they mean. We know God because we believe in him; and are glad that no other sign will be given. Consider Lazarus. The poor fellow was dead and buried for four days! Can anyone be more dead? Can any reasonable person hope that he might return to the land of the living? Even his grieving sister will remind the Lord, “He’s been dead for four days; there’ll be a stench. We cannot open the grave.” But Jesus had predicted, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself.” When Lazarus heard the voice of his friend and Lord Jesus, he came out, as you and I will come out of our tombs when we hear his voice. Some will come reluctantly to their doom; others will come joyously to celebrate forever God's mercy and justice. In the wonder of God’s face, we will see infinite goodness and beauty multiplied exponentially. We have heard that voice. We know it from our life of prayer. We’ve heard it in churches, chapels, and cathedrals; we’ve heard it in your solitary room. It’s as familiar as a mother’s voice, which we learned to recognize weeks before we were born! The Voice of Jesus is just that sweet, charming, and attractive. It overcomes our resistance, and makes our stubbornness look foolish. It’s a voice with authority and wisdom, and when he calls us from the grave we will sing out, “Here I am! You called me!”

Ezekiel reminds us that God will demonstrate his holiness and power by saving us from our sins, a small thing of no great significance in the eyes of the world. But to us it is heaven itself.

Lent reminds us that we must choose our God over every evil thought, word, deed, or impulse. And we must be acutely aware of our sins as we turn to the Lord for mercy. We pray continually with King David and his 51st psalm,

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your merciful love;  
according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me completely from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

We have that choice during Lent; we still have two weeks before Easter. We can turn away from sin, believe in the Good News of Jesus, and obey his voice. We too can come back to life as we hear the prophet’s words:

O my people, I will open your graves

and have you rise from them,

and bring you back….

Then you shall know that I am the LORD,

when I open your graves and have you rise from them,

O my people!