Choosing the Way of Prophecy

 

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

30-31 January – St. Mary’s in Salem

 

Dt. 18: 15-20

1Cor. 7:32-35

Mk 1:21-28

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        As we just heard in today’s Gospel of Mark:

        “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

Jesus is acting with sovereignty. He is calling the enemy (Satan) to step down. He is vanquishing the power of evil in the lives of real people. One of the great challenges of life as a Catholic today is identifying the players in the struggle for Christ and His Church, understanding how the sides line up and what are the key battles for the salvation of the life of the world which are being fought.

        It is odd that the people listening to Jesus there in the synagogue were so unfamiliar with the longstanding role of the prophet’s teaching for the guidance of God’s Chosen People. The prophet by the divine will has always had to prove his credentials, but if he did, then by God’s will he was the authority for Israel. This is the state of affairs in Israel and in the Church from the time of Moses in the desert all the way to the coming of Jesus, the promised Messiah. The notion of the role of the prophet in Israel, as we just heard in the first reading, goes way back in history to the time of Moses and the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. You wonder if those people who were scandalized by Jesus had ever read that passage from the Book of Deuteronomy. You wonder too if they knew the history of their own people forged as the Chosen People of God through Moses, during 40 years of wandering in the desert. You wonder if those people who heard Jesus in the synagogue, who witnessed him casting out demons, you wonder if they had any faith in God’s power to act then and now in the midst of His people.

Back at the time of the Exodus, God in the desert had spoken not only through Moses but directly to His People. With His thundering and majestic appearance on Mount Sinai, God had scared the living daylights out of them. They begged the God of Hosts for a prophet instead, a man like them, to communicate God’s word and the Lord Almighty agreed to their request. He agreed to go easy on them. We see God’s promise fulfilled in the sending of His only begotten Son, Jesus, truly God and yet a man like us in all things but sin.

        Prophecy, authoritative teaching, teaching with power is what has always securely guided God’s People. God has never abandoned His people; we have always been able to know just what we are about. After Moses and Joshua, the military leader, who were the judges if not a mix between heroes in battle and prophets who spoke with authority to the people on God’s behalf? As great as Israel’s kings were, they were all flanked and corrected by prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. Priests certainly had their role to play among God’s people, but authoritative power amongst God’s people was always shouldered by the prophets, people of true sanctity, who spoke in the name of the Lord.

        If I had a bone to pick with people in the Church today, it would be that just like those folk back in the synagogue, who witnessed the authoritative teaching of Jesus, so these people do not seem to get it. They feign being scandalized when the Church points out to them the straight and narrow way which they are to follow.   Too often they do not understand where true authority in the Church lies. They deny that it is the prophet, not the priest or the king, not the democratically elected official, the university professor or the so-called “self-made man”, no, it is the one who teaches with authority in God’s name, that is the prophet, who commands obedience. The same is true in both the Old Testament and the New, God never leaves His people without witnesses who teach in His name. Some of these prophets, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta or Padre Pio, were quite popular and were approved as authorities already during their lifetime. Some, like Edith Stein or Maximillian Kolbe, were accredited as true prophets by their martyrdom for their faith in the Lord Jesus, in whose name they taught.  

        “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

        Prophecy: teaching with authority! That is what Jesus did and that is what His Mystical Body the Church is called to do. To command! And yet, how common is it for us to experience people claiming to be Catholic and yet questioning at every turn the Church who speaks in God’s name.

        Can we give people, especially authorities, a break when they are skeptical about prophets, when they dismiss the Church’s teaching, let us say on moral questions, like the right to life of the unborn? No! Such behavior is unacceptable; it cannot be justified. God reigns supreme and no one can be exempted from His command. To profess belief in God cannot be separated from an unconditional submission to His Son, Jesus Christ. The Crucified One, the Risen and Glorious Christ continues to speak to us, to direct us through His Church.

        Granted, we have people in positions of authority in the Church, who would pass themselves off as prophets, but who do not have the credentials. They are to a greater or lesser degree possessed by unclean spirits. By their fruits you will know them. It is the Lord Jesus Himself and those speaking prophecy in union with Him who require our allegiance. No one gets off the hook or is excused. Everyone is called to submit to Christ.

Certainly, there are people who did not have the benefit of a good Catholic upbringing, but even they cannot be justified in their denial of Christ’s authority over them. Charity (God’s love for all of us, every one of us, His children) urges us to seek to draw all to the fullness of truth, of life and of grace in Christ. Not even the tragedies of a lifetime can be the excuse which could put us off from Christ. The Lord will not abandon us. My challenge is to reform my life such that Christ shines in me for the sake of the life of the world.

Let your challenge this week be one of seeking to repent of sin and to identify more closely with the prophetic teaching of Christ in His Church. We need to move to the right side in this fight, for our own sake and for the sake of all whom we love.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Repent and be Reconciled

 

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

24 January 2021 – Salem, St. Mary’s

Job 3:1-5, 10

1 Cor 7:29-31

Mk 1:14-20

 

    Praised be Jesus Christ!

St. Mark’s Gospel starts off today:

“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

        This coming Monday is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, which concludes our annual celebration of the Octave (eight days) of Prayer for Christian Unity. We do not just work but rather we pray for Christian Unity because it is something which depends first and foremost on our cooperating with the divine will. The unity of Christ’s Church is not simply manmade. Unity among Christians requires of each one of us conversion, renouncing sin and totally embracing the Gospel of Christ. We all have a part to play, but it cannot happen just because we want it or think it something reasonable. In the real world, in the Church and before God, that is, in this world centered as it must be on Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, things always reach their climax when hearts change, when people confess their sin and repent of their evil ways.

On the road to Damascus, Saul, later St. Paul, was blinded by the light which is Christ. He repented of his former ways, of having persecuted the Church, and hence Paul became the Apostle to the Gentiles. He spread the faith like nobody else in those early days of the Church. Paul’s message was the message of Christ. He preached conversion; he lived conversion. He was a repentant soul; he was most attentive to the word of God. St. Paul let that word transform his life.

We heard in today’s first reading from the Old Testament Book of Jonah that the great city Nineveh was saved from doom and destruction because its people listened to God’s prophet and gave up their sinful ways. Everybody in that city was moved by Jonah’s message threatening judgment from God, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed…” and from least to greatest, they repented in sackcloth and ashes and God spared the city and all who lived therein.

“Repent” is the word which best sums up Jesus’ message to the world, His call to you and to me. Before the verses 14-20 from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, which we heard today, the very first verses of that Gospel tell of the Messiah’s Precursor, of John the Baptist, who prepared the way of the Lord, by preaching a baptism of repentance. John’s word too, his cry was to repent. Repentance is basically a change of heart and it is what gives us life by leading us to Christ. We are not autonomous agents. Our identity, our welfare is in community, bound up in the mystery of God.

         The Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity is about our hope, our desire for unity on many levels: among Orthodox Christians and Catholics, certainly, but it is also about overcoming differences between Catholics and Protestants. Above all, it is about beseeching God for reconciliation among Catholics themselves who may be at odds with each other over any number of issues big and small.

We pray for unity because we cannot succeed on our own to bring it into being. Unity is God’s work, just as saving Nineveh came about not through Jonah’s polished rhetoric or convincing speech, but because God touched hearts. Those people chose in freedom to tremble and bow before the Almighty, yes, Who through the preaching of Jonah threatened them with destruction. They believed and their hearts changed.

“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

        Having lived outside of the United States for so long, especially the last five years in Switzerland, I get people here at home asking me whether it was not terribly oppressive to live over there in those secularized societies, as opposed to in the good old United States. Usually, I respond by telling folks about the wonderful Catholic laity of all ages whom I had the privilege of getting to know over there. Indeed, the front-page story in most of central and northern Europe is anti-Catholic, in the sense even of so-called Catholics (especially church employees) refusing the Lord Jesus and insisting on going with trends having nothing to do with Him and His message of repentance. Over there the lines between faithful Catholics and let us call them “neo-modernists” are more clearly drawn than they are here. In the face of a semblance of decency, people here have a much harder time sorting out just where they stand in terms of faithfulness to Christ. That is why the word “repent” is so important. As hard as it is for some folks to grasp, radical conversion of heart, changing our way of living, is what opens us to the Kingdom, allows us to enter into Christ’s reign and share His victory.

        Jesus in the Gospel called Simon and Andrew, James and John from being fishermen on the Sea of Galilee to being fishers of men. He called them to leave their fishing tackle, father and family behind to be His apostles. The message was and will always be uncompromising: “Come, follow me!”

        There should be no surprise in any believing person’s mind as to why the Roman Catholic Church requires celibacy of its priests or why religious orders of priests, sisters or brothers call their members to live the Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. It is Christ, Who through His Church, calls us to Himself and without compromise. Repenting, changing our hearts, means leaving all behind, especially my own will over and against that of Christ.

        They tell me that young people today are skeptical about the commitment involved in Christian Marriage, in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony until death do us part… Repent! Repent! Repent! Whether it is Christian Unity or our living out discipleship in any walk of life, it requires of us a change of heart in order to adhere totally to Christ’s Law and draw our strength from Him and His Gospel.       

        Let the lives of the saints, their generosity to Christ’s call, and the stunning example of the Blessed Virgin Mary encourage us to submit our lives to Christ and find grace in His Kingship over us and there the fulness of light, happiness and peace!

        Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

The Essential Dialogue

 

The Bishop of the Abandoned Tabernacle. 

Schneider, Victoria.

 Scepter Publishers. 2018. Kindle Edition. 

    A dear priest friend recommended to me this little book summarizing the teaching of St. Manuel González, Bishop of Malaga and later of Palencia canonized in 2016, one of the confessors of the Church amidst all the tumult of early 20th Century Spain. The saint was born in Seville in 1877 and died at Madrid in January 1940.  

    Father classed as life-changing for him his encounter with the teaching of St. Manuel on the Holy Eucharist, so aptly laid out by Victoria Schneider. It is a beautiful book and I understand his point. For me, this first encounter with St. Manuel provided some invaluable insights into the true dynamics of keeping our Eucharistic Lord company in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the Tabernacle. 

    Much of what you read written by priests or seminarians about the daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament frankly leaves me perplexed, as the tone of the well-meaning descriptions of this exercise differ little from that of getting in your 100 pushups or sit-ups per day. As unfair as that jab may be, St. Manuel offers better.

    That said, I will wholeheartedly encourage you to take and read. Victoria succeeds quite will in bringing out the greatness of heart of this holy priest and bishop, who was totally caught up in the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, waiting for us in the solitude of the Tabernacle.

    St. Manuel's teaching can offer us a new handle for understanding the recent findings of the Pew Research Center on the small percentage of Catholics professing belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Saint rightly underlines the key role of priests in leading people to Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

    As hard as it is for me to believe, I am already three weeks into my retirement and that will make three weeks at home here in Sioux Falls, come Sunday evening. My private chapel here in the house is still a work in progress. The sisters up at the Cathedral are busy sewing veils for my tabernacle and my altar is a loaner from the diocese. I have a carpenter working, but no timeline. Candles and sanctuary lamps stand at the ready. Hopefully, next week I can get a man in to help me hang the pictures to go on the wall. For now St. Kateri Tekakwitha has an honored place on a window sill, but hopefully in the not too distant future a pedestal to give her due prominence. 

    Despite the imperfections of the room, I have begun celebrating the Vetus Ordo exclusively here at home. In Switzerland I had found great consolation in the public celebration of both Pontifical High Masses and the Missa Praelatitia. Now I have this additional and incomparable joy.

    Just yesterday I was overjoyed to learn that one of my sisters and her husband have found refuge in the Mass of All Ages. Yes, oh so gently, the Old Mass is unfolding its arms to embrace and draw God's People to their Eucharistic Lord. It is enough for me, Lord. Thank you for your wisdom and great kindness!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Responsiveness - Tripartite Living

 

2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

17 January 2021 – Salem, SD

1 Sam 3,3b-10. 19

1Cor 6,13c-15a. 17-20

Jn 1,35-42

 

        Praised be Jesus Christ!

‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ … ‘We have found the Messiah’ …

        Most folks miss the earthshaking impact of these words from the Gospel for today. Lamb of God… Messiah? To so identify Jesus is epochal; it is or should be world changing for us. Nothing could or should be more important in our lives than finding Christ, than confessing Jesus for Who He is, the Anointed of God.

        Talk to anybody, or better, observe carefully the truly good people in your lives, and you will find them centering their lives on Christ. They are, to say the least, discreet about it, not sounding the trumpet or drawing attention to themselves. You will find them seeking the Lord in prayer not by playing the Pharisee, but by withdrawing from the traffic of daily life to be with the Lord. May I encourage you, too, to seek the Lamb, to claim the Messiah, Christ, for your own! Give yourself over to prayer in your everyday life!

        The important thing to remember, however, is that this seeking the Lord does not start with us. It is the Lord Himself, Who created us and destined us for Himself. It is the Lord, Who saved us through His Death upon the Cross and glorious Resurrection. It is up to us to respond to Him. We need to be responsive, like John the Baptist’s disciples in the Gospel. St. John pointed out the Lamb to them and his disciples went after Jesus. We are talking about an interplay of God initiating, of my responding, and significant persons in my life pointing the way. Faith life works that way.

        ‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ … ‘We have found the Messiah’. 

Let me quote again from today’s First Reading:

        “Eli then understood that it was the Lord who was calling the boy, and he said to Samuel, ‘Go and lie down, and if someone calls say, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

        “The Lord then came and stood by, calling as he had done before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ Samuel answered, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’

        “Samuel grew up and the Lord was with him and let no word of his fall to the ground.”

        Vocation and discernment! I recognize these two words, vocation and discernment, as the overriding mystery in my life. That is as it should be in the life of any Catholic, no matter what his or her walk in life. In terms of that mystery of vocation, my life’s calling from God, and discernment, that is, claiming that calling for my own with the help of Christ’s Church, this back and forth between me and God is and remains unto death unfinished business. I will never nor can I get tired of meditating on the implications of my calling. I guess that is what makes the passage for this Sunday from the Book of Samuel so important for me. Samuel’s parents, especially his mother, pleaded with God to give the couple a child, and in recognition and genuine thanksgiving, they returned to the Lord for all the days of his life this gift from God of their firstborn and only son. To say the very least, this was a radical response on their part to God’s gift. Radical, perhaps, but fitting and proper: the offering of Samuel’s parents was consistent with the truth of who we are and where we come from. We are not our own; all we have and all we are comes from the God Who loves us.

        In the face of this great truth, we (I mean older folks like me) can only beg the Lord to forgive us our lack of generosity in returning thanks to Him. I could have done much better in my life, if only I had responded whole-heartedly to the Lord’s calling! We, the elderly, have only reason to be thankful for God’s many gifts. We beg pardon for having fallen short in returning thanks to Him, for failing to cooperate fully with His many graces bestowed upon us.

        In a sense though, this Sunday’s message is meant especially for the children and youth. In that sense, I would surely like to encourage young people, especially young parents, to be very generous in responding to the Lord Who bestows His gifts upon them and their children. It is the Lord Who calls them to cooperate in His plan for our salvation and the salvation of the whole world. It is the Lord, Who speaks to them as surely as He did to Samuel. I say, be generous, but perhaps the right notion would be “unreservedly”, to give ourselves to God without holding back. Samuel answered, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’  That is how we should be in responding to God. God speaks, maybe not for our physical ears to hear, but He speaks to our hearts. In return, we owe Him all we have and all we are.

        Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will. The point being that we can never go wrong or have regrets for having turned our lives over to Christ. That kind of responsiveness without reserve to God’s call, embracing His plan for my life, is an act of obedience, but that act of obedience to His call sets me free for all I can be.

        Today’s Second Reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians uses similar words, but makes a very different point about steering clear of fornication and unchastity.

        “Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you since you received him from God. You are not your own property; you have been bought and paid for.”

        Chastity, purity of heart, stands in that same logic of vocation and discernment. It is about singleness of purpose. We are simply not our own. My life plans are not mine alone to decide. My body is not mine to dispose of as I please. We belong to God in the sense not of a servant or a slave, but of a chosen son or daughter, someone well-loved by the Heavenly Father.

        I said earlier that our living out of the faith is a tripartite thing: it is an interplay of God initiating, of my responding, and significant persons in my life pointing the way. One of the greatest burdens in life is facing those betrayals of our trust by significant persons. Both in the Church and in society, people entrusted with leading us through life seem destined to fall down on the job. Too often, they betray us and leave us defenseless. They can lead us down the wrong path and then abandon us.

        My simple and short message for today is this: PRAY WITHOUT CEASING! Put yourself in the Lord’s Hands! Be attentive to His Voice! Simple, honest, virtuous living, through attentiveness to God’s Word in prayer will make of you an anchor, a source of refuge for our world. We should start young to respond to Christ and when we fail, we should ask pardon of God and of His Church and start over again. My prayer for you would be that people could say of you what they said of Samuel: “Samuel grew up and the Lord was with him and let no word of his fall to the ground.”

        Do not delay another moment! Place your life in God’s Hands! Give yourself to constant prayer like Samuel!

        Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

One Week into Retirement

     Truth to be told, it is way too early, after only one week of my new status, to pronounce judgment on how retirement and I are doing. Despite the many challenges to a first time homeowner, when it comes to setting up a household, one thing is clear about my new status. I do indeed perceive retirement as substantially different from annual vacation. Let us say that I find the experience very much in order and not the least bit disturbing, despite the fact that what I am experiencing is still very provisional in character. I won't even venture to define the marks of a retirement duly launched and under full sail.

    Just short of one week and I am already picking up loose ends, though. By that I mean that the prayer blocks of my priestly life seem to be coming back in place in much less labored fashion. After COVID tests and controls passing through various airports (Five!) just to get home, I will concede myself a bit of huffing and puffing, especially in getting the hours of the breviary back to their rightful times. As you can imagine, with jet lag, matins in the depth of the night is actually the easiest by far.

The flight was indeed long (from start to finish, I think nearly 26 hours), but I cannot remember another trip where people have been so cordial and helpful. Honestly, I did not find the airline food all that much worse than before all the pandemic restrictions. Opening a container of fruit salad from the grocery store the other day proved more challenging that the packaging of the food on my various flights last Sunday. People in the airports and on the planes, just about everyone, seemed nicer too. Maybe I am kidding myself and perhaps I look more like a retiree than I think and as such that might explain why younger people treat me with compassion. It is all good.

    If I had to confess one downfall of my Exodus experience from "Old World" to "New", passing from my life in Bern to the promised land of Dakota, it would have to do with reading. I haven't even spent that much time on the computer during a week of shopping for car and bed and paying bills, but sadly not a page of a book, either for study or simple reading pleasure, has been turned. That is then my resolve for Week Two of retirement. With respect to the principle of gradualness, maybe I will set aside my big biography of Edward the Confessor and do some Chesterton or Waugh. But read I shall. It has to be part of a man's life. 

    Keep me in your prayers, as I do you!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI