Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady's statue in MSF Cemetery
Lectionary: 330

God saw how good it was, and God blessed them, saying, "Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas;
and let the birds multiply on the earth....
God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, saying:
"Be fertile and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air,
and all the living things that move on the earth."


 T he Bible has no doubt about our earthly, earthy nature. We are creatures of this earth, along with every other creature on it. If others creep and crawl on other planets in distant, inaccessible parts of the universe, they must also be fertile and multiply to maintain their creaturely existence. 

With the Baptism of an infant I have sometimes shared the wonder of a couple who have brought forth a child, made in God's image and likeness. Who are we that God gives us such power? Maybe storks should deliver them to deserving, capable couples who will appreciate the responsibility without feeling like owners of miniature self-images. Creationists suppose that God filled the earth with plants and animals without an evolutionary, sexual process. Wouldn't that be a better way to distribute babies to worthy homes? 
What is man that you are mindful of him,
and a son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him little less than a god,
crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him rule over the works of your hands,
put all things at his feet... Psalm 8:6-7

The privilege should be more astonishing for us than it was for the divine authors of scripture for we can see our unworthiness in the mess we have made of God's Earth. If every nation and every greedy person repented today and ceased our polluting ways, we might see significant, planet-wide healing within two or three centuries. If every fertile man and woman contemplated the wonder of sacramental marriage, and made and kept their wedding vows, children might not suffer so many traumas. There would be no abortion and no one would want it. 

When I hear God say, "For you are dust, and to dust you shall return," I wonder if he might have said, "What was I thinking? What did I expect?"

But here we are, God's creatures. And his word to Jesus still sounds in our ears, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” That is surely the same pleasure, greatly amplified, that we have heard this morning, from Genesis 1: "God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good."

He has no regrets. There were no mistakes. God's plan for our salvation is complete in Christ, for He and his dear Mother have more than satisfied God's expectations of the Earth and our human nature. That amazing destiny is far more complex and wonderful than anything we can imagine. It is still on course, and will unfold before our eyes in days to come

Monday, February 10, 2025

Memorial of Saint Scholastica, Virgin

Lectionary: 329


In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss,
while a mighty wind swept over the waters.
Then God said,
“Let there be light,” and there was light.
God saw how good the light was....
God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day

 W here Genesis supposed that God molded preexistent matter with form and purpose, later Jewish and Christian philosophies teach that God called being out of nothingness -- creatio ex nihilo -- and his creation remains as a bold, enduring challenge to emptiness, nothingness, ennui, cowardice, and nihilism. We humans then -- beings aware of our being -- must use the same godly courage to become fully human.

Neglecting that, we may lapse into nothingness. In the face of death and eternity, Greek mythology supposed that human souls, having crossed and drunk of the River Lethe, forget their former life on earth and survive eternally in vacuous, empty mindlessness. Homer's Greek hero Odysseus visited the soul of his former battle buddy, Achilles, and found him despondent. He said to him,
 
"For of old, in the days of thy life, we Argives gave you the same honor as the gods, and now thou art a great prince here among the dead. Let not thy death be any grief to thee, Achilles.”
Even so I spake, and he straightway answered me, and said: “Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death, oh great Odysseus. Rather would I live on ground as the hireling of another, with a landless man who had no great livelihood, than bear sway among all the dead that be departed.

Doomed to eternal idleness, the greatest warrior of all literature despised Hell and would have preferred slavery among the living to royal authority in the underworld. 

But whether we speak of ancient Greek or current Catholic mythology, we suppose the afterlife reflects our current beliefs about life. Is it ultimately without purpose, or will we find the courage, as our Creator God does, to eternally defy mindless idleness with creative, meaningful action? Humans cannot be content with simply being and feeling, we must also do; that is, create as God creates. Where he calls being out of emptiness, we shape time and matter into meaning and purpose. 

Many Americans today, facing this very challenge, take their own life, or waste their lives with mindless entertainment, alcohol, and drugs. 

Being made in the image of God we must become his likeness as well. And that entails risk with the possibilities of frustration, failure, waste, loss, and betrayal; but we cannot not act. We must do something. It is better to love and lose than never to love at all. 

After six days of creation, God looks upon all he has made and concludes that it is very good. Even human creatures are very good. And beautiful, we might add. For whatever God finds good must also be true and beautiful. 

Believers and lovers of God, we too create meaning and purpose; and find our lives have become, by the grace of God, very good. 

Sunday, February 9, 2025

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 75

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,


 T he Old and New Testaments insist, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." That fear can be understood as reverence, awe, respect, piety, awareness of God, attention to God, and so forth. Everyone’s experience is different and unique, and very personal. I can still genuflect whenever I enter a Catholic Church, and I do. I would be afraid not to! Is that fear or respect? It doesn’t matter; I love the Lord and I fear displeasing him.

Periodically, something happens which reminds us of God's mystery and wonder; and we are awestruck: 

  • Isaiah was among several priests, all of them singing psalms and swinging smoky censers, but he alone -- and only for a moment -- saw the Wonder of God's majesty. In that moment he was struck with terror and thought he must surely die. 
  • Saint Paul was going about his business of purifying the Jewish religion when he suddenly "saw" -- although he saw nothing -- that Jesus Christ is Lord. 
  • Saint Peter was overwhelmed with his unworthiness when he realized who he had taken on board his fishing boat. When the Centurion saw Jesus die, he said, “Truly, this was the Son of God.” 

The philosopher Rudolph Otto called the experience “Mysterium tremendum et fascinans,” a tremendous mystery, fascinating and terrifying. He described it as a “feeling that may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship.” 

John Wesley, who founded Methodism, reported, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

It seems that everyone has such moments, but we often misinterpret them. We might think we're going crazy, or if we talk about it people will think we’re crazy. We think no one would understand, and we should forget it; or we’re just too busy to pay attention to God even when he comes to visit. 

But with moments like these, the Lord sometimes speaks directly to our hearts, teaching us that reverence, awe, respect, or piety; and we should pay attention. The Bible insists, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Our fearful awareness of God’s goodness, sovereign majesty, and purity must be the beginning, the first principle, the foundation of all our knowledge, every decision, and our whole life as responsible human beings. 

We cannot build our lives on Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum – “I think, therefore I am.” Nor can we begin with I think, I feel, I want, or I need. Wisdom does not begin with me. Nor does wisdom begin with everybody knows, or everybody thinks, or everybody feels. Wisdom is not a majority opinion or common sense. The majority of people would not know the truth if it bit them on the leg, nor do they want to; and the Church doesn’t say what everybody thinks before we speak the truth.  

Nor does our wisdom begin with the catechism, morality, or theology. It begins with the discovery – the revelation! – of our contingency: that we are not necessary, but God is! “I was not at one time; and I might not be at a later time;” but God was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. 

We do not have to exist; the universe does not have to exist. As Stephen Hawking said, “We might explain how the universe came to be, but we cannot explain why.” That knowledge belongs to God. 

Wisdom begins with, 

“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.”

The world does not understand this, and does not want to. They think their wisdom begins with facts and theories, with science and opinions. They think like Scrooge, that those moments when they feel God’s mysterious presence might be “a slight disorder in the stomach;” or “an undigested piece of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or a fragment of an underdone potato.”

They see no reason for Fear of the Lord. They ask, "Why should we wait for something that might never happen, for something that might not be?" 

And because they refuse to fear the Lord they create nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction. They waste the earth’s bountiful resources on cheap entertainment, powerful machines, growth and progress that produces nothing but more garbage, more waste, more violence, and more suffering. They promote abortion and suicide, and rank people with artificial categories like black and white, gay and straight, cis and trans, citizens and aliens. 

They’re building a Tower of Babel called Artificial Intelligence,a synchronicity that is supposed to know itself. But no one knows what self-consciousness is, so how can they create a self-conscious machine? They’re not even sure that they think, feel, or exist; their existence is an opinion based on cogito ergo sum

We know the Fear of the Lord and we practice that fear with our Eucharist and sacraments, our liturgies and devotions, our daily and weekly prayers, our feast days and pilgrimages, our attention to human dignity and our moral standards. We know and believe and act as if God attends us, as if God holds us in the palm of his hand and never for a moment takes his eyes off us. 

We practice gratitude for all things great and small; even when we may not feel grateful for misfortunes, disappointment, sorrow, and suffering. "God is here!" we say in darkness and silence, with hope, courage, and wonder. 

And so we leave the secular world outside as we gather to pray in this Church, 
to worship and praise and give thanks to God our Creator, 
to God our Savior, 
and to God our Sanctifying, Healing, Holy Spirit. 

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Optional Memorial of Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin

Lectionary: 328

May the God of peace, who brought up from the dead
the great shepherd of the sheep
by the Blood of the eternal covenant,
furnish you with all that is good, that you may do his will.


 S ome time ago, about 1996 when the cloned sheep Dolly made international news, a forgettable cop-and-crook TV show depicted two cloned human beings as the bad guys. It ended after 42-48 minutes with the usual chase, implausible gun fight, and mandatory fist fight; and I suppose the suits were satisfied that they'd sold whatever products their sponsors were hawking. 

But the public apparently didn't buy the notion that cloned human beings are necessarily evil. So the gumshoe shows reverted to the usual pariahs, immigrants and African-Americans. The entertainment industry needs stereotypical bad guys; the public needs to fear someone. It sells stuff and keeps our fat world rolling.   

With a similar ploy, many politicians play on the insecurities of a guilt-ridden, anxious public to promote themselves. We saw plenty of that during the recent election cycle; and some people doubted the leadership of the Catholic Church who ordinarily support the least powerful and most vulnerable among us. One woman insistently told me that "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." (She didn't add, "And some, I assume, are good people.") I suggested that she listen to the Church rather than the propaganda of either party. 

Jesus saw what was really happening, that the poor were being exploited and driven by political and economic forces beyond their control -- as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. As cruel as our present capitalism is, we've seen worse, more abusive and wasteful systems, 

The poor followed Jesus into the desert as they hoped he would be the long awaited Messiah who would change everything. He did what he could at the moment for they were like sheep without a shepherd. He fed them first with the Word of God, and then with a miraculous display of God's mercy. 

Our first duty as Church is to announce the Kingdom of God to an unbelieving and skeptical world. And then we make our faith real by the practice of charity. We are called to give as God gives. 

I have heard preachers say, "Give until it hurts." But I suppose we should give as Jesus gave, until it stops hurting. For we know that God's providential generosity is inexhaustible. His mercy endures forever. 

Friday, February 7, 2025

Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 327

Let brotherly love continue.
Do not neglect hospitality,
for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.
Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment,
and of the ill-treated as of yourselves,
for you also are in the body.


As I recall my theological studies in the early 1970's, the study of Christian morality began with a simple question, "What am I, as a believer in Jesus Christ, to do?" Perhaps I misremember, but that's how I recall it. 

Today, I would put it differently: "As believers in Jesus Christ and members of his Church, how should we act?" I find the answer in Hebrews, "...for you also are in the body." American Christians need to be reminded frequently that we do nothing alone and every act has consequences for the body which is the Church. Saint Paul urged his Ephesian disciples 

....do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice.
Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. (Eph 4:30-32)

As we approach the Sacrament of Penance we do well to ask, "What is the Spirit of my community right now?" That community might be my household, my extended family, my parish, the company I work for, or my support/prayer group. Consecrated religious will consider their communities of sisters, brothers, or priests. 

The reflection will continue with, "...and what has been my response to this spirited or dispirited condition? Have my attitudes, thoughts, words, and deeds improved or worsened the situation?" 

Readers who cannot identify an immediate fellowship or community might ask themselves, "What have I done to isolate myself, and what should I do to escape this isolation before I am strangled by it?" Not even demons can endure solitude.

Although some of the New Testament writings are apparently addressed to individuals -- Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Theophilus -- none is written to that one alone. They are addressed to us and assume that we think, act, and move together. Our American predilection for individualism is a spiritual death trap; and self-professed Christians who cling to isolation, thinking they are saved, are lost sheep without a shepherd.  

Hearing the Lord's call to repentance, we turn away from self-interest and personal pursuits to find our place in the companionship of Jesus Christ. He has not promised an easy road but he has promised us abiding support and encouragement as we travel together. 

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Memorial of Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs

Lectionary: 326

He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick
–no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.

 M oses reminded the Hebrews as they finished their sojourn in the wilderness that, "...the sandals on your feet have not worn out." Perhaps Jesus referenced that ancient incident when he instructed his apostles to travel light. Their food will be provided as they carry the Good News from village to village, and their sandals will not wear out. So long as they're doing God's work they'll have no worries about their own physical needs. 

Brother Hugo recalled the Zambian children who always wanted to ride in the bed of his truck as he drove the fifty miles into town. Astonished, I asked, "But how did they get back?" 
"They walked." he said.
"Fifty miles? What did they eat?"
"Oh, there was food growing all along the way. Africa is like that." 

The Franciscan protomartyrs walked from Assisi to Spain, and took a boat to Morocco; the Rule forbade them to carry a penny along the way. The story tellers don't even mention how they were provided for. We just know that God took care of them. 

The first American Pentecostals carried the message from Azusa Street, Los Angeles across the country. They traveled by box car or "rode the rods" -- that is, the cables beneath the cars. They needed no suitcase. 

I knew an Italian priest in Australia who went home to visit his family in 1981. He wore his habit throughout the journey, and he carried in his briefcase a breviary and a single change of underclothes. I had arrived with a trunk. 

The Gospel urges Americans to simplify and accumulate less stuff. Not only can we not take it with us; we don't even carry most of it very far. It just piles up until our unfortunate heirs hire a dumpster and toss it all out. 

Simple math and the theory of symptoms tell us that when we add something, we must subtract something. Otherwise, we're accumulating stuff. 

Today's martyrs, Saint Paul Miki and his companions, remind us of what is important, and it's nothing we can own. 

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Memorial of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr

 Lectionary: 325

Endure your trials as “discipline”;
God treats you as his sons.
For what "son” is there whom his father does not discipline?
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.

 J esus faced a form of discipline along with his family, neighbors, and childhood friends as he returned to Nazareth, his native place. He and they were disappointed with what they found. If he was glad to see his old companions, people he'd known since his infancy, they were confused and distressed by what they saw and heard from him. 

He was inexplicably speaking with confidence, authority, and astonishing insight about a religion they thought they knew and thoroughly understood. His talk of God's Kingdom being here and now made no sense to them. They saw only the dreary familiar, and there was nothing new or special in that. His message and his presentation should be only the same old, same old with nothing fancy or schmancy. 

We cannot say how he saw them. The Evangelists do not probe the mind of Jesus beyond saying he was happy or sad. The Son of God remains as inscrutable as God the Father. As Isaiah said, 
Who has directed the spirit of the LORD,
or instructed him as his counselor?
Whom did he consult to gain knowledge?
Who taught him the path of judgment,
or showed him the way of understanding? (40:13)

But Saint Mark indicates this homecoming was a trial for Jesus: "...he was not able to perform any mighty deed there.... He was amazed at their lack of faith."

Discipline, like suffering and grief, usually has an unexpected quality about it. If I thought I was ready for it, I find that I am not. It's more demanding than I expected; it wants more than I thought I was ready to pay. The disappointment, however, may be short-lived if I quickly recognize its familiarity, rise to the occasion, and set my mind to obedience. Despite his disappointment Jesus healed "a few sick people by laying hands on them." 

The recent change in federal administration will demand much of many Americans. We are going a direction they did not want or expect. They consider the changes unreasonable, unjust, and unfair. Perhaps they have been persuaded by a deterministic ideology that says history must progress in a particular, predictable order. But that future that seemed so certain is passing, and will soon be irretrievably lost. The Kingdom they foresaw might not be God's Kingdom after all. 

Others will be disappointed that the excellent future they expected with Republican control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government does not appear. I suppose that no one will be especially pleased with the way things happen. 

And so we ask the Holy Spirit to give us more discipline than we like, more patience than we can muster, and more generosity than we intend to give.