Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 400

Put not your trust in the deceitful words:"This is the temple of the LORD....!
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds; if each of you deals justly with his neighbor...will I remain with you in this place, in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.

The Hebrew prophets relentlessly demanded repentance from their fellow Israelites. They often threatened terrible punishment; they sometimes promised blessings; but in either case they insisted that the People of God must be holy as God is holy. As a nation they should assess their attitudes, words, and deeds by the brilliant light of God's mercy. If they saw their corruption compared to the holiness of God; and if they saw how beautiful, fascinating, and compelling is God's goodness, they would see clearly how far short they had fallen. 

They would also realize how much more satisfied they would be in living by God's law. It's like comparing the beauty and ecstatic grace of a highwire walker to the misery of falling into the canyon below. They had only to trust in the LORD who promised to "remain with you in this place;" in good times and in bad. 

Given our knowledge of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and our memories of the saints and martyrs of every age and nation, we can recognize how the Lord suffers our losses and celebrates our gains. He is our blessed and delightful companion; and his company is worth far more than anything this world can offer. 

Despite the temptations to shortcuts, to Easy Street, to sin, we turn back to the narrow path and enter by his gate.

Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Lectionary: 399

Return, rebellious children, says the LORD,
for I am your Master;
I will take you, one from a city, two from a clan,
and bring you to Zion.
...At that time they will call Jerusalem the LORD’s throne;
there all nations will be gathered together to honor the name of the LORD at Jerusalem,
and they will walk no longer in their hardhearted wickedness.

We honor Joachim and Ann as the parents of Mary and grandparents of Jesus. Today's reading from the Prophet Jeremiah recalls God's promise of peace and prosperity to his holy city Jerusalem. 

During Jeremiah's brief time, that unhappy city was besieged and taken by an invading army. It's walls and temple were razed, its princes murdered, and its king viciously blinded and taken as a royal prisoner to Babylon. 

Jeremiah had predicted all this as he saw the city's long history of greed, graft, and corruption. They cheated God with cheap sacrifices, and one another with impunity. Why should the city not share the same fate of every other city that some men build and others destroy? 

But Jerusalem is also a prefigured type of Mary, the Mother of God; and the LORD had promised eternal fidelity to the city. If its citizens would persistently ignore the Lord as they exploited his blessings, if their greed would erode their willing enthusiasm for devotion and holiness while it turned the community into a den of thieves, they could be punished and their infrastructure demolished. But the holy city would remain. It remains always in the mind of God In the person of Mary.  

Christians recognize her as the new Jerusalem, the holy one of God, who gathers the Lord's disciples. We are her children and she teaches us to pray and trust in God again. She is not punished when her children are, but she suffers with them even as she suffered with her Son. Unlike those who are angry with God because bad things happen to good people, Mary remembers the promises of God and recognizes in human suffering the consequences of sin. Even as she grieves with her children, and prays for mercy with them, she does not take their side against him. 

Joachim and Ann represent that faithful strain that remained always in Jerusalem because of the Lord's promise. We do not suppose they were utterly sinless like their daughter, but they were honored to raise, educate, and protect such a child in their home. They taught her the customs, prayers, and rituals of God's holy people which they had learned from their ancestors. Although the city and the nation sinned against God persistently throughout its long history, their sins could not persuade the Lord to divorce them.  His faithful Spirit remains with them forever. 

We pray for our Church today, and we remain faithful -- sinners though we are -- as we honor our ancestors. If we have sinned like all our fathers and mothers, we have also kept the faith because God never gives up on us. 

And for that we are grateful. 

Feast of Saint James, Apostle

Lectionary: 605

We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;

perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
For we who live are constantly being given up to death
for the sake of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Saint Paul's reflection on his ministry, which we might regard as enormously successful, helps today's zealous Christian to put their own experience in perspective. If, upon coming to the end of an assignment, a significant anniversary, or retirement, we feel successful, there's probably something wrong. Our service of the Lord is not assessed by accomplishments, accolades, or success. 

If my experience is common, we remember as much confusion, uncertainty, and struggle in the darkness of controversy and conflict -- what soldiers call the fog of war -- as we do success. I often think of Thomas Hardy's line from his poem, Channel Firing. Disturbed in their graveyard by the roar of naval guns practicing,

...many a skeleton shook his head.

“Instead of preaching forty year,”

My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,

“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

(His name, of course, suggests the futility of his dull sermons as he laboriously listed his paragraphs, "firstly,... secondly,...thirdly,..." I shudder to think of how many irrelevant asides and downright idiocy might have infested my preaching.)

Life in Christ, whether we preach or listen to preaching, teach or are taught, pray or are prayed over, is Christlike; meaning it must end with a cross. Or its conclusion might not be as spectacular as Easter Morning. If Christ's death was punctuated by an eclipse of the sun and an earthquake, only the Evangelist noticed the coincidence. The rest of the world may have noticed an omen -- in those days they looked for omens in natural events -- they gave it little thought after that. 

Faith surrenders the need for assessment of one's life to the Lord. The only opinion that matters is God's, and who has known the mind of God? I sometimes remind the Lord that it's better to praise God from heaven than from hell as the psalmist says -- although that judgement too is God's business.

It is better to reside within the fog of battle, let God be the judge, and offer one's uncertainty as an evening sacrifice. 

LORD, I call to you; hasten to me;
listen to my plea when I call.
Let my prayer be incense before you;
my uplifted hands an evening offering. Psalm 141

 

Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 397

But the LORD answered me,
Say not, “I am too young.”
To whomever I send you, you shall go;
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them,
because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.

The Church takes seriously the duty of preparing seminarians for ordination. No one should be ordained who simply presents himself and feels he should be a priest. The Church, in the person of the bishop, must be persuaded that this man has been called by God and prepared with adequate training for the mission and challenges of evangelization. 

On the other hand, those who are called to ordination must also obey the Spirit that guides them to it. They should not say, "I am unworthy and will not answer." The young Jeremiah believed he was too young to be a prophet but God insisted that he take it upon himself. It was the Lord who made him capable, and not his own maturity, virtue, or strength. 

Having recently attained 75.8 years, I can look back on a lifetime of priesthood and regret my many sins, slipups, and failures. Ordained at twenty-six, I could say I was too young, too inexperienced, and too confident to preach, teach, or preside over our sacramental rites. I might complain I have nothing to show for all the years. I built no churches or schools, nor did I found any organizations. I might doubt that the world is better off for my having been here. 

But that's all nonsense. It doesn't matter what I think of myself or my career. The only judge is God, as Saint Paul insisted. 

If we live by faith we ask the Lord for guidance every day and let the Lord judge its results. While we should be aware of consequences, no one can see all the consequences of their words and deeds. I have been generously thanked for things I don't remember doing, while my greatest sacrifices and most serious efforts went unnoticed. Who can really say, "I accomplished this?" 

As Job said, "Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, and naked I shall go back again. We accept good things from the Lord, and should we not accept evil. The Lord gives; the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 396

“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

You can choose your friends; you're stuck with your family. Or so they say. 

Ben Wilson, in his book, Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention explains how large cities give individuals more choices about their coworkers, friends, and acquaintances. They can work for companies other than the family farm. They can explore different forms of entertainment, and develop artistic talents their families never imagined. Because the city comprises many nationalities, children can learn new languages and even develop their own codes, gestures, signs, and words their families cannot understand. 

Individuals can attend other churches, or no church; and their family is none the wiser. in the largest cities, some people might assume different identities with different names in different parts of the city; living with perfect respectability among family and kin, and wickedly among shadowy friends. The city offers companionship and solitude, respectable and bizarre entertainment, opportunity and reassurance. If the city is enormously complex and demands much cooperation and compromises from its citizens, individuals find it well worth the sacrifice. 

In the Roman Empire, the Lord's new religion was a phenomenon of the city. Individuals could be baptized and enter the Church without their family having much say in the matter. Eventually, when their numbers attained a critical mass, the empire was converted to Christ. Or it said it was anyway. 

But Christianity had a hard time spreading to the countryside. The word pagan originally meant villager or rustic, and became identified with the religious beliefs and practices of people who lived far from the city. Because these "pagans" had always resisted the fads and fashions of the cities and clung to their old ways, urban Christians suspected their unauthorized rites and unorthodox beliefs. 

Jesus's remark about baptized believers fits the milieu of the city. His "family" are those who believe in him. They might not be related by blood; in fact their families might be very suspicious of the freedom of the baptized, as Jesus's family was of him. They pray differently, make odd sacrifices, and spend time in strange company. Although they speak the same language, dress like everyone else, and eat the same food, they often renounce many of their family's attitudes and behaviors. 

Faith, the Gospels tell us, is a gift from God, and is acquired through a process of rebirth. And one's biological mother might have nothing to do with that mysterious event. Faith is not determined by one's family, race, language, or nationality. Although we're born into it, it's not the birth we received from mother and father. 

And newborn Christians often have much to learn from their new family. If their family of origin abused alcohol and other chemicals; if they routinely shamed, scolded, and berated one another; if their language and entertainment was crude or violent: these practices must be discarded and forgotten. They don't fit the new, reborn fellowship, as Saint Paul reminded the Ephesians 4:17-24, 

That is not how you learned Christ,
assuming that you have heard of him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus,
that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires,
and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene

Lectionary: 603

On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
"They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don't know where they put him."

Jesus responded to the Pharisees and scribes when they asked why he and his disciples did not fast, 

“Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.”

Those days came unexpectedly, like masked thieves in the night, to Mary Magdalene and the Lord's disciples. Suddenly, the Lord was savagely taken from them. He was tried, scourged, mocked in his helplessness, and hanged on a cross for hours until he died. His shocked, horrified followers were left with nothing. They'd abandoned their homes, families, and careers to follow the Lord. 

They'd been convinced and they had believed with all their hearts that he was the One, the long-awaited and divinely promised Messiah. He had given every sign and proof of that, and his teachings were both prophetic and messianic. There could be no doubt, and they had no doubt for every doubter had long departed. He was the One! 

But he was dead. They'd been permitted to bury him. They had nothing left but a tomb and their grief. 

And now Mary Magdalene was crying hysterically that "they" -- someone -- had taken his body! Why? Where? When? Who would do such a thing? And what's the point of it? Could they not leave well enough alone? He was dead, for God's sake. What else can they want from his tortured, disfigured body? 

it made no sense but the tomb was empty. When Mary broke the news, Peter and John ran to the graveyard to find it was true. The unthinkable had happened. But why? 

Our grief has no bounds. They won't even let us visit his grave. He is like the millions who disappeared in Stalin's Russia, and Argentina's dirty war. They went to work and never came home. The police were no help, and the bereft dared not ask the police for their help. Every association with the missing was also suspect and might disappear. Don't ask. Don't grieve. They never existed. They never were. Their children should be silent. They're spanked until they learn not to ask. No funeral. No memorial. No memories; no mementos. No nothing. 

The feast of Saint Mary Magdalene is a very happy occasion, but it is good to pause for a moment and remember the depth of her sorrow, and the sorrow of all his disciples, both men and women. Their grief continues as our wars continue, as repression of truth-speakers deepens throughout the world. The truth becomes illegal in our schools, hospitals, and public discussion. It is ignored in the courtroom and flouted in political speeches. 

And so we fast and do penance. We cannot eat; we have no appetite. We will neither eat nor drink until...

        "...the day when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father.” (Mt 26:29)

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 107

Woe to the shepherds
who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture,
says the LORD.
Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel,
against the shepherds who shepherd my people:
You have scattered my sheep and driven them away.
You have not cared for them,
but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.

People who hear our first reading today from the Prophet Jeremiah might assume he is talking about clergy who take advantage of vulnerable people in their congregations. Gullible children, lonely women, anxious men, disabled persons: to wicked men their needs look like invitations to use, abuse, overcome, and destroy. The innocent are often violated sexually, emotionally, or financially by powerful persons who avoid and deny all responsibility. When the stories come out the victims, rather than the perpetrators, suffer shame, blame, and guilt for what happened to them. 

But our just and merciful God stands with them. He sends the prophets to sound the alarm and warn everyone of the hellfires that await perpetrators. 

But Jeremiah's complaint includes more than the priests and Levites of ancient Israel. He condemned secular authorities; the kings, royal families, governors, and officials who used their authority to feather their own nests, and not to serve God’s people. Swindling merchants, unscrupulous tax collectors, and thieving slaves also twisted systems, and cheated honest men and women. Fraud, corruption, and shady deals don't belong only to the elite, sophisticated, and wealthy. There’s more than enough evil to be shared by rich and poor, healthy and sick alike. Any fool can think he's smart enough to cheat other people and get away with it.

In 2024 we can add to that list, political strategists who create propaganda for whichever party pays them more. They have no political agenda, but they can and will persuade voters to believe whatever they're hired to promote. These so-called “hired guns” use anxiety and fear like a musician uses a trumpet or a percussionist, a drum. If Tweedledee wins you should fear the loss of your privilege and entitlement; if Tweedledum wins he'll take your freedom, liberties, and rights. "Now you don't want that to happen, do you?"

And then there are the politicians who read the polls like Sacred Scripture as they surf the waves of popular opinion. Their ambition is power, and like Pontius Pilate, have never wanted or needed to know the truth. 

And so-called influencers hired to make cheap junk look like hot fashion, and modeling agencies with their unsexed men and women. Where an actor says with her face, “Love me!” a model says with her body, “Buy me!”  

Jeremiah's false shepherds include teachers who tell our children that the miracles of the Bible never happened and could not have happened, and therefore the Bible is nonsense. In fact, they say all religion is nonsense and will soon disappear from the Earth. Science is the new religion and the only truth is facts. 

Our children must learn STEM -- science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They don't need civics, history, literature, or music; and nobody needs philosophy. We tell children what to think; we teach them how to think – which is precisely like everyone else. 

The same teachers give our college students comparative religion, and tell us that all religions are good and no religious doctrine is bad. They’re like blind men groping an elephant; and no religion can say anything reliable about God, least of all our Catholic Church. Buddhists are better; Hindus are holier; and Muslims make more sense because they don’t have all that mumbo jumbo about three persons in one God, incarnation, transubstantial and consubstantiation. It sounds insubstantial to us. If your priests can’t say it in plain english, it means nothing at all.  

But there is no point in blaming politicians, merchants, or teachers for the compromises of our culture. Rather than argue with them, I want to sound the alarm like John the Baptist in the desert. We must realize what their propaganda does to our families, neighborhoods, churches, and homes. Their hostile questions and insinuations cast doubt and uncertainty upon everything that must be certain. 

If you know what we believe and what we stand for, there are many among your loved ones who don’t. If you know who you are and to whom you have given your life, many around you are confused; and that may be by the confusing signals you send. 

If you believe in God, why are you investing in a state lottery? If you believe in marriage and the holiness of sexuality, why are you watching sexualized entertainment? If you mean no harm, are you sure you’re doing no harm? 

Have you asked your family about your gambling, your drinking, your smoking, your shopping, or your guns? What exactly do your tattoos mean, and who gave you the right to needle diabolical signs onto the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Saint John the Baptist reminds us that our faith begins with the practice of penance. Every time we recite the Our Father we admit we have sinned. We begin every mass by confessing that we have sinned. We have sinned; we and our fathers have sinned.

And now, more than ever, we must return to that practice of penance. If you don’t like the way your world is changing; if you don’t like what this world says about your faith in Jesus, your response is not protesting, or complaining, or whining about how awful it is. Our response is penance, atonement, and gratitude that the Lord has opened our eyes and turned us away from the idiocy and nonsense that is all around us. 

We do penance by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We have many forms of public and private prayer. We fast by eating carefully, buying only what we need,  by moderating our use of social media and entertainment, and by living simply. We give alms with time, talent, and treasure. 

We don’t know where the nation is going, or the world, but we do know where we’re going because we’re going with the Man who has died to save us from this world, and from our complicity with it. 

P.S. Kudos to Father Michael Schmitz who preached penance to the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis on Friday!