Sunday, April 24, 2022

Have Mercy on us and on the Whole World

 


SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

(SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY)

24 April 2022 – St. George, Hartford

Acts 5:12-16

Rv 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19

Jn 20:19-31

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        The Octave Day of Easter, this Sunday, has had and still has all kinds of different names. The most recent addition to the list, dating from Pope Saint John Paul II, is Divine Mercy Sunday and is tied to the private revelations of Our Lord to St. Faustina, a Polish religious sister. She was born in 1905 and died in 1938 and was canonized a saint in the year 2000. Her spiritual diary is the basis or inspiration for the Divine Mercy devotion and its chaplet, which have become very popular in recent years and now form the heart of this Sunday’s special devotions and prayers. The Octave Day is traditionally called Low Sunday (Dominica in Albis) and is still one of the principal dates for the First Holy Communion of children.

        As the Octave Day of Easter, we celebrate it as the last day of the eight-day celebration of the Feast which especially in the Breviary is observed as one big, long day, with daily liturgies filled with the accounts of the appearances to the disciples of the Risen Lord Jesus. Today focuses on the institution of the Sacrament of Penance: “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  

This happened on Easter Sunday evening in the absence of St. Thomas and then a week later there was Christ’s appearance with Thomas present. In today’s Gospel passage from St. John, the Risen and Glorious Christ challenges my patron saint to put his finger into the nail marks and his hand into Jesus’ side, to which Thomas responds with the unforgettable words, “My Lord and My God!”

         Our Gospel today concludes with the words: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.”

        You can think what you want, I suppose, of my patron saint, about his declaration that he would not believe that Jesus was truly risen until he could see Him with the Glorious Wounds of His Passion and actually touch His Wounds. The point, however, would seem to be another. Yes, Thomas was setting conditions for believing that Christ was truly risen, but the point would be that his conditions were no more extreme and demanding than what the disciples gathered in the Upper Room on Easter Sunday evening were telling him excitedly that they had witnessed. Jesus is risen from the dead and has appeared to Simon! Let it sink in!

        My point would be that St. Thomas was struggling with the announcement of the Resurrection. Maybe he effectively rejected his colleagues’ witness, but he did not lend them a deaf ear. Thomas was being far from indifferent; he truly wanted to believe and set down his conditions for doing so. For the 11 Apostles, for the women and other disciples who found their way back together after the Crucifixion and Death of our Lord, the Good News of the Empty Tomb and the Appearances of the Risen One moved them all deeply. The difference with St. Thomas was not that he was not moved but that in his sorrow over Christ’s Death he refused the witness of his brethren on Easter Sunday. “Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

        I know all kinds of believing people who are as personally invested in the Easter Proclamation as were those first disciples. I know some who refuse to believe with the stubborn passion of the Apostle Thomas, but I also know countless souls who cannot get beyond a certain dullness and indifference really to the word that Christ has conquered sin and death, that, Alleluia He is Risen even as He said! If the Devil, if Satan has a trick, a deception for our times, that would be it: not bitterness, not anger, but rather a failure to invest personally in this extraordinarily Good News.

        There are lots of people like that in the Church today, maybe nobody I am speaking to here today, but there are lots of people in the Church these days who do not have the fire in their hearts either for believing in Christ Risen and Victorious or for rejecting Him with a measure of anger or sorrow, they just don’t care and sadly I guess they belong to the Devil, or should we say they have fallen for his deception.

        From just a hundred years ago we read in her diary how Sr. Faustina agonized over issues of faith. Today lots of relatively young people would look right past her and not understand her anguished search for the mercy of God for herself and for her people.

        “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.”

        “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!” That’s how we pray in the chaplet. A lot of younger people are seemingly lost to issues of faith because nobody in their lives, neither at home nor elsewhere, really witnessed to the Good News of Christ’s Resurrection. These people knew no witnesses to Christ, neither as saints nor as sinners. We cannot let that be their fate, however. We cannot resign ourselves to leaving them in indifference, to losing them to the faith. That is ultimately the significance of what we are praying about in the Divine Mercy chaplet.

“Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

        Maybe a lot of people have wandered away from the faith because they have seen nothing of faith at home or elsewhere in the course of growing up. That is all the more reason for us to pray to God for His Mercy upon us and upon them.

        If you personally have issues with the faith, pray! Pray the chaplet and ask the Lord to do for you in His Great Mercy what he did for St. Thomas!

        “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One! Have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

        This Sunday is there as well to remind us that Christ in His Mercy has given the power of the keys to His Church, to His priests, to remit sin and for those who turn to Him in their last hour, yes, to open the gates of Heaven. Pray for sinners! May they repent, opening their hearts and lives to Christ Who loved us even unto death on a Cross!

        Christ is Risen from the dead, yes, He is truly Risen, Alleluia!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI


Sunday, April 17, 2022

VICTIMAE PASCHALI LAUDES

 


Easter Sunday - Resurrection of the Lord

17 April 2022, St. Lambert Parish

Acts 10:34a, 37-43

Col 3:1-4

Jn 20:1-9

 

        Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!

        Yes, He is truly Risen even as He said! Alleluia! Alleluia!

St. Lambert Parish follows the custom approved for the United States of using the formula from the Easter Vigil at all the Masses on Easter Sunday to enable the faithful to renew their Baptismal Promises. I like that! I think it makes just the right statement in terms of the significance of the good news of Christ’s Resurrection for each and every one of us baptized into His Grace. It is important to see that Easter is also truly a call to action, a call to go forth and conquer in the Name of the Risen One. As we heard from the Acts of the Apostles this morning:

“This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.”

Easter in our day and time has a message which is countercultural. Its message is that because of our baptism into Christ we are somebody, we are privileged, that we are favored by God. Correctly understanding the favor of God which we enjoy as His Chosen People is essential, it flies right in the face of all this equity business we hear repeated ad nauseam these days by the so-called legacy media and a lot of big business. In the glorious light of the Resurrection, the truth about God and about life in this world of ours is very different from the common social narrative. As Christ’s followers we have something to proclaim. “He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.” There are no alternatives, no options, no other ways, but only Jesus. He is the one, the Risen One in Whom is our life, our light, and our salvation.

How do we fulfill our commission to testify to Christ? Are we supposed to be the type of preachers who stand up on their soapbox in the middle of the town square? No! Rather we are called very simply to give testimony by the joy and sanctity of our lives to the hope which is ours in Jesus Christ. Our well-ordered and happily lived daily lives point people to Jesus now Risen and Glorious in His Might. The joyful authenticity of our approach to life is more than sufficient and reassuring for our family, our relatives and friends, for all those whose lives we touch.

It is of absolute importance for us to remember that we have been blessed with the good news of Christ’s victory over sin and death not so that we can enjoy any kind of esoteric advantage, but that we might be the Lord’s witnesses, just as the first disciples were, for the sake of the life, for the sake of the salvation of the world. Our witness should have the intention of bringing others to the joy of knowing the Risen One. It is for this we have been chosen, for this we have been set apart. Alleluia!

Some people tend to describe Easter as being less appealing, more distant from our hearts and our joy than the other great feast of the Church year, Christmas. I guess superficially it is understandable, but probably misses the point when it comes to the common object of both of these great mysteries. For either one, Christmas or Easter, the feast is there, on the one hand, yes, to commemorate the birth of God in time to save our humanity, and on the other, to remember and celebrate His saving death upon the Cross. Be mindful though that most centrally and significantly both of these sacred feasts celebrate mysteries which are there to empower us in Jesus Christ to announce glad tidings. Both feasts are about What and Who Jesus is for the sake of our salvation and for the joy of the world.

In the Christmas mystery the Lord Jesus wins the victory over darkness and draws us out of the shadow of death. That is part of the symbolism of the Star of Bethlehem. God’s true light comes back to our world for the first time since Adam, and we are personally enlightened as He takes on our humanity. The Son of God born into our world saves us by Himself becoming the Perfect Man. Then in His adult perfection, in His prime He nails that humanity to the Cross and raises it up for us to the fulness of life and grace. Regardless of all those things which weigh upon us day in and day out and either make us sad sometimes or make us wonder whether He has effectively parted the clouds and fog overshadowing our daily lives, by His Birth and by His Holy Resurrection we have been claimed for Heaven.

I guess I am thinking about all of those who might feel a bit weary. I wish that you or they would take heart in Christ offered up for our salvation, as we heard in the reading: “… seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.”  

We’re going to move into our renewal of Baptismal Promises now. It is a profession of faith, but no less a call for action. May we give the world the reason for our hope!

Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Yes, He is truly Risen even as He said! Alleluia! Alleluia!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI


Monday, April 4, 2022

Biting the Bullet on the Path to Glory

 


Lenten Parish Mission at St. Lambert

3-4 April 2022

In the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament

Pondering the Mystery of Suffering in the Christian Life

Part 2: Monday evening, 4 April 2022, starting with Exposition at 6:30 pm

Suffering and Christian Witness

Praised be Jesus Christ!

If there were some thoughts from last night’s talk on the scandal of suffering that I would like to build upon or have you keep present this evening they would be the following:

1. Seeing how Jesus permitted His own sinless Mother to suffer and suffer grievously on His account, we cannot cry “foul!” or protest unfair treatment by God when suffering comes our way in this life. Mary’s Seven Sorrows should help us keep the issue of suffering in our lives in context. The Holy Virgin deprives us of grounds for questioning, scandal of scandals, with either feigned or very real alarm just how a good and loving God could allow suffering in the lives of us His beloved children by adoption. With Mary we are in the best of company, yes, even in suffering. Who on this earth could Jesus have loved more perfectly than He loved His own Mother? And yet, as the Prophet Simeon foretold, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (If you, or a member of your family, or someone from your circle of friends and acquaintances blames God because you or they have to suffer, then you are mistaken, you are out of line, you have no idea what it means to be baptized into Christ’s death.)

2. Nonetheless, in a very real sense we are rightly scandalized by suffering in our own lives and especially in the lives of other people (think small children). Suffering is an imposition. It is always a bit of a stretch to call it a choice. Likewise, as you cannot make a virtue out of a person’s greater tolerance for pain, so the bigness or the smallness of what a person has to endure in life for suffering does not fall strictly into the category of free choice. Our suffering in this life is not something we can manage or in a medicinal sense for which we can kind of fix the dosage. Illnesses or misfortune can press us to the limits and even go beyond what we judge ourselves capable of enduring. Grief can hit us hard as well, especially parents who lose a child. Even so, God in Christ takes us nowhere where He hasn’t already carried His Sorrowful Mother. Fiat voluntas tua! Thy will be done, O Lord!

        Let us pray together the Our Father! Our Father…

3.  Suffering may not guarantee happiness, but it is not inconsistent to call it a factor in obtaining true happiness in this life. A full life cannot isolate us from the sorrows of life in this vale of tears. That goes both for suffering as it touches each one of us directly, as well as for sorrow in the lives of others which perforce has an impact on us as well. Real living does not and cannot spare us sorrow, nor spare us from having to share in other people’s sorrow. (By way of an aside or maybe to illustrate what I mean by that) In our world today, the avoidance of pain and discomfort is for all purposes an obsession. In society generally we notice a certain anxiousness about the risk of having to suffer pain or lose sleep due to physical discomfort, let’s say following some kind of surgery. I can’t say as I have any current statistics on opioid deaths here in South Dakota, but it is a real plague elsewhere in the United States. Pain medication is prescribed way too frequently by doctors, medicine cabinets seem to be overloaded with prescriptions for pain relievers not used up for the extraction of a wisdom tooth, let’s say, or maybe prescribed but not even needed. Perhaps not so much the person for whom the pain killer was prescribed, but unfortunately, for example, an unhappy adolescent in the family who gets into the parents or grandparents medicine cabinet and decides to take those pain pills for whatever reason. Overdoses in some states in the southeast of the country at one point were claiming so many young people’s lives that just a couple years ago some counties developed huge autopsy backlogs and families had a hard time getting closure through burial after such a tragic death.

4. As the Roman Martyrology seems to show, not only martyrdom but also sharing in the suffering of Christ by the saints generally is an indicator of spiritual fruitfulness. Suffering accepted or embraced in and with Christ the Lord brings life, hope and healing to our world. That’s why proving miracles is one of the requirements attached by Holy  Mother Church to the canonization process.

        There may be more things worth repeating, but I will stop there. Let me start off to discuss this evening’s topic, Suffering and Christian Witness, by sharing again yesterday’s 2nd Reading from the 5th Sunday of Lent (Passion Sunday)! St. Paul’s words are particularly appropriate to our theme for this evening. The Apostle to the Gentiles writes to the Philippians and to us:

“I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” [Phil. 3:8-14] Harper Bibles. NRSV Catholic Edition Bible (pp. 1085-1086). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

        Catholic life is truly lived in the shadow of the Cross. There is nothing serious or profoundly true about the old felt banner slogan, “We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song!” Granted: ours is not a doom and gloom religion either. Rather, I would say that on the continuum of the life of Christ the substance and depth of our faith come from its beautiful and profound mix of light and shadow. Contrast brings clarity. In that sense, I kind of hope that Mel Gibson’s project succeeds to film a sequel to his blockbuster movie on the Passion of Christ. Although any true work of art always has its limits, the best of sacred art can actually deepen and enrich our understanding of the mystery of faith. In any case, the joy of the Resurrection is not diminished but rather clarified by the shadow of the Cross. Yes, let me quote from our Philippians reading, St. Paul says it all.

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”  

        If I have a mission or duty as a Christian, if I have a witness to offer to the world then it is one delivered by my living in conformity with Christ’s death, by my living in conformity with His suffering and death. That is how I identify with Christ. There is no other way and nothing less. Despite the particular respect we might have for our priests we understand that holiness of life and identification with or conformity to the life of Christ may actually be better rendered by my grandmother or by a Saint Joseph type of workman who not only does his job well but knows how to pray and be of aid to his neighbor and to those in need.  Fortunately, I think, that message seems to get across better here in the United States than it does in Western Europe (I say that on the basis of my own life experience). I am not saying that your average American Catholic, your parish, or diocese for that matter, does not fall prey to the same typical burocratic pitfalls which have women in Germany, Austria or Switzerland pushing for priesthood as the full realization of what it means to be Catholic. What I am saying is that I am more likely to succeed in a Midwest American context in reasoning with people and leading them to see that Catholicism is a lived experience not tied to presiding over liturgy, or punching a time clock at the chancery, or having a shingle on an office door or a prominent place in some kind of official pecking order. That’s something that in another world or time we could better unpack in a second installment on this talk on suffering and Christian witness.

        From the passion of Our Lord and most specifically from the trial of Jesus before Pilate we come to understand more clearly why the Son of God became man.

“Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” They answered, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.” The Jews replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” (This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.) Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” [John 18:28-38] Harper Bibles. NRSV Catholic Edition Bible (p. 1011). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

        Suffering as opposed to prominence or notoriety is indeed what serves the truth. If I read the news item correctly, it seems that Elon Musk has bought enough stock in Twitter to be able to control that company. Guess you can do that when you are one of the world’s wealthiest men. The hope would be that he would straighten Twitter out and, if you will, give it back to the people. I wish him well, but I cannot see that we have anything more at work here than monstrous financial wealth contending for limited success in creating a positive or a neutral value space. Excuse my skepticism but to my mind it won’t or can’t do much of anything to make our world a better space. Wait and see!

        To get back to matters of faith, it is worth quoting the Request of the Mother of James and John to Jesus which comes just before the Passion in Matthew’s Gospel.

“Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” [Matt. 20:20-28] Harper Bibles. NRSV Catholic Edition Bible (p. 933). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

        In this account, drinking the cup of suffering stands out clearly as that path which will lead to the redemption of the many. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

        The call to embrace the ignominy of the servant instead of sorting out which throne will be assigned to whom in Christ’s Kingdom (yes, suffering) is the path forward. Some would call it biting the bullet, but it really has much more to do with our being confident that Christ can give us a share in His redemptive suffering. It is not that we have to renounce happiness and success, but rather we have to know where to find them and to understand that the reality is greater than we can imagine and most certainly bound to God’s saving will for each of us in His great plan.

        In terms of Christian witness, no field of the apostolate is more important than marriage and family. For all the joys which are there, just like for the life of Christ Himself and for our faith life in general, so too specifically for marriage and family the substance and depth of Christian witness in the midst of life come from that beautiful and profound mix of light and shadow. Contrast brings clarity. Happiness cannot be claimed without some share in the cup of suffering. Resurrected glory passes by way of the Cross.

        Over the course of my lifetime, speaking with married couples and parents, not so much to the two of them together but as they individually shared confidences with me about the joys and sorrows of married life, I would have to say that apart from situations of sin and betrayal folks regret the most not having risked the possibility of pain in their relationship, both fearing or dreading their own suffering and that of their partners. Granted, there are those unconscious or ungrateful spouses, but more often there are those who lose heart at the very thought of risking that vulnerability which can bring with it suffering either for themselves or for the one they love. Though rare, it is always a great joy to encounter husbands and wives who are best friends and truly partners, who communicate well despite the risks it can bring. I guess it is the sort of stuff that adolescent dreams are made of. But it is or can be even more true that we do not risk the cost of the potential suffering which might have to be endured in order to achieve that solid bond enabling one spouse to carry the other.

        For a good seven years while I was a boy Dad traveled a wholesale territory selling tires and so he was gone during the week. For that reason, Mom ended up carrying the burden of responsibility for disciplining my younger brothers and sisters (…). One of my brothers was particularly rambunctious, a very good boy, but rambunctious, active, maybe a bit hyper. At any rate, at some point Mom swatted him on the bottom for something and broke a bunch of blood vessels in her hand without leaving much impression on Bob. When Dad got home on the weekend, she told him, and he sympathized without indicating that he was ready to step in and be the weekend disciplinarian. The next week when he got home, perhaps because he regretted not having been more sympathetic and responsive toward Mom, he made a present to her from some tourist place up in Minnesota of a wooden paddle to use instead of her hand on my brother. I don’t know how Dad meant it, but Mom was not particularly consoled by this dubious show of support for her in the task of child rearing. At any rate, all of us kids found it rather funny, and the paddle was hung somewhere in the kitchen but never used for its stated purpose. Communication is not easy even in good marriages, whether it demands personal sacrifice or not.

        I can well imagine that whether he cared or not Pontius Pilate may have been puzzled by all the hostility of the Jews toward Jesus, as well as by the vehement physical and verbal abuse they heaped upon the Lord and His silence in suffering. Be assured that I do not want to advocate your provoking suffering for yourselves. That is not what Jesus did. The suffering came with Jesus’ very identity and mission. To the extent that we conform our lives to Christ and bind ourselves to Him we are bound to get old Satan thrashing around and set his minions against us as surely as they thundered against Christ. If I had to distinguish between the suffering which comes our way as a matter of course in life and that which is yoked to our witness to Christ, it would be on that very point. The devil is bound to go after those who are faithful to the grace of their baptism and who adhere to Christ. As the old saying goes, if things are going well for you in your life you are probably not following the Lord as you should.

        Indeed, we can be in the wrong and provoke others by our misdeeds, thus earning abuse or suffering. That would not be the point though. Your desire or aspiration to follow Christ, to be His witness before others, could in all likelihood bring down suffering upon you. If it is your faithful witness to Christ which brings down scorn on your head, then you are in good company. If everyone speaks highly of you, well then, look out! You are headed for a fall.

        I hope my observations cast some light on the mystery of suffering in the Christian life. It is not exactly “no pain! No gain!” Arnold, but rather an essential part of the mystery of what it means to share life with Christ, Who passed to everlasting glory by the way of the Cross.

        Thank you for your attention last evening and today! I hope these reflections may serve your personal preparation for Holy Week and Easter and lead you all the more surely to Christ.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI


By the Sweat of your Brow

 


Lenten Parish Mission at St. Lambert

3-4 April 2022

In the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament

Pondering the Mystery of Suffering in the Christian Life

Part 1: Sunday evening, 3 April 2022, starting with Exposition at 6:00 pm

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Talking about the Mystery of Suffering must perforce confront us with the scandal or bewilderment which having to endure suffering presents to the mind. Humanly speaking, suffering makes no sense and cannot be classed as particularly productive. Suffering or hardship in our lives is most apt to elicit an exclamation from us like “Why, Lord!” In terms of illness, misfortune, and grief as they impact our lives, as well as the lives of those whom we love, and the lives of all Catholics, suffering hardly seems a strategy for winning. Let me class what we are going to do in the next half hour as pondering, not puzzling, not shrugging your shoulders, but pondering, kind of rolling things around in your mind in the search for comprehension.

- * -

(By way of a parenthesis or clarification)

In line with the general theme of our Parish Mission, Pondering the Mystery of Suffering in the Christian Life, our two evenings of recollection taking place as they do at the beginning of Passiontide, besides fixing our thoughts on Jesus Who offered Himself up on the Cross for all of us, we can also and rightly focus on the Blessed Virgin Mary, our sorrowful Mother. The Lord Jesus spared sorrow and pain to neither Himself nor to His Beloved Mother. That is in a sense at the heart of the scandal of suffering. Christianity or Catholicism is not a pain and anxiety mitigation system or strategy. Our baptismal sharing in the life of Christ unto glory can be for us as well, no less than it was for Mary, a share in His cup of suffering. Most people would call that scandalous and I guess understandably so.

For a number of reasons, it is important to bring the Blessed Virgin Mary into our conversation. Really, she must be there. That statement may not be self-evident for many Catholics because for more than a generation, from some time in the late 1950’s almost up to the turn of the century, devotion to Mary was neglected in many circles, for years Mary was neglected in seminaries and sadly even in many of our Catholic schools. Praise God, that devotion to the Mother of God has made a comeback in our day! Nonetheless, because so many of our younger Catholics, even people 40 years of age, may not have clear ideas about the significance of the Virgin Mary for the life of the Church, it is important not to miss occasions to bring her clearly into the picture and address her particular role in the mystery of salvation. The Cross and the suffering of the Lord Jesus for our salvation do stand alone; the Redeemer’s work is sufficient unto itself. By His own divine will, however, He brings about the work of redemption not without His Mother Mary standing there silently at the foot of the Cross.

With the aim then of including the Mother of God in our reflection, it must be said that Passiontide is traditionally a time to consider the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Seven Sorrows of Mary commemorate key events in the life of Mary that brought her much pain. Mary though sinless was no stranger to suffering. The suffering endured by the Immaculate Conception, God’s own Mother, deprives us of any reason whatever to bemoan our fate as wretched sinners suffering here in the world. Important is that we suffer not as dumb animals but with and in Jesus Christ and for the glory of His Name, for His great Truth.

Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows is a primary way to discuss suffering’s role in the Christian life. The Devotion is very ancient, it takes its inspiration directly from the Gospels, in particular from the infancy narrative and the account of the presentation of Baby Jesus in the Temple. More precisely, devotion to the Sorrowful Mother of God takes its inspiration from the prophecy of Simeon recounted in Luke’s Gospel, which included that part touching on the sorrow which would come Mary’s way for love of her Son.

“And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:33-35).

The Seven Sorrows devotion owes its origin in part to the Servite Order, founded in 1233 by a group called the Seven Holy Founders. From the very beginning these men and their order sought to live a life dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. Through their spirituality they developed a list of the “7 Sorrows of Mary.” The devotion recalls seven events in the life of Mary when she experienced great sorrow. They are as follows:

1.    The Prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:34–35)

2.    The Flight into Egypt to escape Herod seeking to kill the Child (Matthew 2:13)

3.    The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem (Luke 2:43–45)

4.    The Meeting of Mary and Jesus on his Way to Calvary (traditionally listed among the 14 Stations of the Cross)

5.    Mary’s Experience of Standing at the Foot of the Cross (John 19:25)

6.    Jesus Being Taken Down from the Cross and placed in the Arms of His Mother (Matthew 27:57–59)

7.    The Burial of Jesus, where Mary arranges her Son’s Body in the Tomb (John 19:40–42).

        Here this evening, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament as we are, it is still right and proper to pray also to the Theotokos, the God-Bearer, and to remember in particular Mary’s suffering and the light it can shed on the Mystery of Suffering in the Christian Life, that is on suffering in our lives as well.

So, join me in a brief and familiar prayer to Mary! Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee to we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this exile, show unto us the blessed Fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.

- * -

Before we get into our topic for this evening, I must tell you that I am always happier when someone else picks the topic I am supposed to speak on. For me personally it is always easier to speak on an assigned topic, especially when I agree with the choice that others have made for me.

The title again for both evenings of our Mission is: Pondering the Mystery of Suffering in the Christian Life. The theme for tonight is: The Scandal of Suffering, specifically in terms of Illness, Misfortune, and Grief, as they impact our lives and the lives of all Catholics.

        Why the specific mention of Illness, Misfortune, and Grief? Are those the only generic types of suffering which might provoke scandal? The answer is: Not hardly, but in the case of illness, it is a form of suffering proper to an individual and for the most part not readily shared or sharable with others, unless we are talking about a contagious disease. Misfortune too, as in a car accident, a catastrophic bankruptcy, or as we are learning these days in Ukraine even in war, certainly causes a great deal of pain to the sufferer potentially at least through no fault of his or her own (think of war refugees!). Grief on the other hand is rarely mine alone. As connected as we are in family and society, we certainly share grief with others to a greater or lesser degree. This is particularly true when death strikes a family, as in the loss of a child, a young brother or sister, or a spouse. In the case of grief, we share our sorrow necessarily with others. Beyond that, grief as such has its moments and its intensity, as do both the suffering caused by illness and by misfortune.

No matter the origin of our suffering, whether taken on voluntarily or imposed upon us, to suffer is neither a lark nor an adventure. Our life this side of heaven is bound up in the mystery of suffering and, very simply, it hurts. As disciples of Jesus Christ our lives are bound up with His suffering and ultimately, our real happiness in life cannot be totally separated from bitterness and pain. I hope you will accept that statement at face value. If I wanted to sort it out for you, I would need another evening’s talk at least. Let it suffice to say that I am thoroughly convinced that in the Christian life suffering and joy are yoked together. I know of a young woman who fled from the responsibility for her husband of 18 months, left paralyzed by an accident. She fled a life of suffering with him, meaning him no harm but unwilling to embrace such a burden of care. I think in doing so, the good woman deprived herself of happiness.

As disciples of Jesus Christ our lives, just like that of His Mother, are bound up with His suffering. Ultimately, our real happiness in life, knowing Christ, cannot be totally separated from the rigors of His Passion, and from our own bitterness and pain as we face His pain and suffering as well. The booklet for the Way of the Cross, composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori, which we use here in the parish brings this home again and again in very beautiful fashion. In our own personal lives, we cannot not know suffering. Suffering is bound to the human condition. Beyond that and even more importantly, it binds us in intimate fashion to the Man of Sorrows, to Our Lord and Savior. He is the one in whom we find our joy and consolation.

        Why talk about the scandal of suffering? I think it is important to start out with a look at suffering as scandal not only for those who are pained to see us suffer and perhaps die, but also for how we experience suffering in our own bodies as scandal, as something unfair or unjust, as something not chosen but imposed upon us, as something which naturally causes confusion maybe, but certainly can bring forth from our hearts protest and anguish. I listed three key words: illness, misfortune, and grief. We have little or no choice when it comes to any of them and can easily feel ourselves victims. To be clear, although martyrdom is talked about as a radical form of Christian witness, in point of fact, we cannot really manage or even choose something like martyrdom.

The case of martyrdom as witness for Christ is clear, but exceptional. The witness of suffering in the Christian life which is closer to our personal experience is best exemplified by those the Church canonizes as confessors of the faith. Among these, you might have your favorites. Among mine would be St. John of the Cross, who endured imprisonment by his own brothers in religion for holding to a reform course for his Carmelites, inspired by the reform led by St. Teresa of Avila. Though he had committed no error, St. John was literally locked away in solitary confinement, there being nothing particularly romantic or poetic about his jail cell either. Short of dying as martyrs, obviously, lots of confessors of the faith teach us by their words and deeds of their identification with Christ Who gave up His life for all of us. In the old Church calendar, most every saint who is not a martyr or a virgin was classed a confessor. Not all of the confessors of the Church wrote books like St. John of the Cross, some wrote and taught extensively like St. Thomas Aquinas, or preached like St. Vincent Ferrer, but the Cross of Christ did shine forth clearly in all of their lives. Voluntary personal mortification, penance, had its place in all of their lives. Much hardship and pain came their way without their having any choice in the matter.

At the beginning of 2021 with my retirement back home here to Sioux Falls, I added the reading of the Roman Martyrology to my daily prayer. I bought a little paperback copy of it in English. It has a place of honor on my bookshelf next to my seat in my little chapel at home. For each day of the year, in just one small paragraph, the Martyrology recounts the traditional saints for the given calendar day, most of whom died for the faith, that is, who were martyred. The way the Roman Martyrology and its daily reading works is that in monasteries and religious communities, usually in choir at the recitation of the Divine Office for the hour of Prime, the reader for the day reads the short passage in chapel listing the saints for the next day. In some monastic communities I have experienced it as a reading centered on the saints of the particular order and done at the main meal in the refectory. The practice of reading the daily martyrology is also recommended for those like me praying the Divine Office privately. Lots of times, in just a very few words, not flowery, not particularly ecstatic nor glamorous, but often rather quite matter of fact and even brutal, there is recounted the death for Christ of a man, woman or child. The Roman Martyrology has made a big impression upon me. Without saying it straight out, it is clear that if you are not a martyr then you have to kind of hustle in the Church to make the cut. In the confessors, virgins, and other saints who did not meet a violent death for Christ, the holiness of their lives is more than evident because of the miracles which accompanied them both before and after death. The great tradition of the Church leaves no doubt that the Christian life cannot be divorced from suffering, a suffering which is lifegiving and healing. Whether we talk about following Christ or about imitating Him in our lives, we hold that my life as a person baptized into Christ cannot be unlike that of Our Lord and Savior, Who suffered and died to open the gates of heaven for us.

So then, here we go with martyrdom as the high road to heaven but suffering as that narrow gate into the sheepfold or that narrow path which leads to the Kingdom! Before you puzzle too much about whether there may be other options apart from suffering let me quote a passage from the Gospel of Matthew 16:21-28!

“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? ‘For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’” [Matt. 16:21-28] Harper Bibles. NRSV Catholic Edition Bible (pp. 929-930). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Jesus’ reprimand of Peter must have hit him hard, but it leaves us perfectly clear about Jesus’ mission and how we can share therein. As hard as this was for St. Peter to comprehend, rather than labelling suffering as passivity and a simple resignation to the unavoidable, Christ’s way is indeed proactive, dynamic. It is that of the Cross. “Get behind me, Satan!”

Okay! Readiness to suffer with and for Christ is one thing, Archbishop, but in your title for the talk you alluded specifically to illness, misfortune, and grief. Nobody gladly volunteers for such; none of those things are chosen but rather generally they fall upon us just like what they are, that is to say, they are bad luck. How does suffering, a very human thing as we experience it in life, become redemptive? Isn’t suffering rather tied to the human condition? What merit is there to it? How are we bound to Christ by the illness we may endure, by embracing misfortune should it come our way? How do we work through the tears of our grief to a more perfect identification with the Good Shepherd Who never leaves His flock untended?

I remember way back as a young deacon being totally flabbergasted by a woman in a small hospital here in the state, who looked as though she was going to die after good old-fashioned gallbladder surgery. She did not expect all the postoperative pain and was at risk of dying for being unwilling to endure that pain. After days of her life hanging in the balance, either the pain subsided, or she began to face it and her will to live and get back to family returned. I cannot tell you how many people over the years who blame God for having asked too much in claiming a young child or an infant. Their refusal to embrace suffering in life has deprived them of joy and keeps God at arm’s length.

Let me just kind of drop you there for this evening and go back to the 7 Sorrows of Mary to conclude for now! All seven are real sorrows but some of them truly more burdensome. In the Gospel we read that Mary pondered certain things in her heart. She suffered certainly as well. The flight into Egypt must have been a real terror for the young mother. I can’t imagine her accompanying her Son along the way of the Cross, and from the foot of the Cross all the way to the grave.

Humanly speaking what Mary suffered with Jesus was indeed scandalous. She conceived without sin had no need for penance or to make reparation; she was and is perfect in the eyes of God.

I would invite you to see suffering in the lives of little children and in your life in a somewhat analogous manner to what is recounted of Mary in her seven sorrows. Suffering is the portal which opens up the way to joy. I know that sounds paradoxical, but I am firmly convinced that it is true. The Christian life is neither bloodless nor pallid. When God set Adam and Eve outside of the Garden after their sin, He added toil to their life story. I cannot believe that they did not sweat in Eden, but in any case, Adam was to raise food by the sweat of his brow as a consequence. Sweat must be something which open doors, however. Christ, the new Adam sweat blood in His anguished prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The time has gone too quickly, so I hope you’ll excuse me if I just blurt it out and say suffering may seem a scandal, but it is actually the path to life and a reason for that hope which binds us through Mary to the Eternal Son of our Heavenly Father.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Our Lady of Sorrows, Mater Dolorosa! Ora pro nobis!


 

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Let the Crucified One Reign in Your Heart!

 


THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

April 2-3, 2022, St. Lambert

Is 43:16-21

Phil 3:8-14

Jn 8:1-11

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        The passage we read from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians started out thus:

        “I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law…”

        We may give these words lip service, but if we think for half a minute about their implications, they sound terribly radical and out of character with today’s typical approach to Catholicism. True or False? I will leave to each of you the duty of examining your own conscience in that regard. Maybe it is not a problem here, but in both Switzerland and Germany I was forever running into people who classed themselves “grown-ups” in the faith, in German mündige Katholiken, who for example were forever balking at traditional Catholic moral teaching and rejecting the authority of the Church to tell them what was objectively a sin and what was not. Total folly worthy of a scribe or a Pharisee!

These words of St. Paul also clarify or underline just what is at stake in the tension which marks the scene in the Gospel for today, which puts Jesus at odds with the scribes and the Pharisees. In the Gospel for today there can be no mistake that the scribes and the Pharisees reject Jesus and His message. There can be little doubt that this was a calculated, a deliberate rejection, which they sought to drive home by their attempt to corner Jesus on the question of what to do with this woman caught in adultery. The law says she should be stoned to death. What does Jesus the Teacher say?

This particular Sunday is a very appropriate time to address this question. Our Gospel from John Chapter 8 provides us with another perspective, besides the meditation on the Cross of Christ itself, for our Lenten prayer and reflection in this our season of Passiontide starting today. With the Fifth Sunday, Lent enters its final stage calling us to focus our thoughts on the suffering and death of Our Lord and Savior. We can see that the Cross of Christ is the high point, but with other passages from the Gospels we can better understand the scandal of the Cross and what is at stake in the suffering and death of Our Lord. We can understand better St. Paul’s message to the Christians at Philippi and to the Church right up to our day.

“I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law…”

Both in Christ’s own time and up until now, believing people who know and understand the message of the prophet Isaiah from the first reading were and must be heartbroken by such a failure on the part of the leaders of the people. The scribes and Pharisees were not just challenging Jesus’ authority, they were putting themselves clearly at odds with God’s Chosen One. In challenging Christ, the chosen people were balking at their own chosenness, their own election by God to be a people peculiarly His own. They were turning their backs on God’s favor for them; they were choosing to go their own way. “Wild beasts honor me, jackals and ostriches, for I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.”

There are various such confrontations between Jesus and the authorities of the people reported in the Gospels. Like the showdown in the Temple recounted today by St. John, time and again these leaders of the people are trying to press Jesus. This time they want to push Him on the basis of the prescripts of the law to condemn the woman caught in the act of adultery. Here especially it is all too evident that the scribes and the Pharisees could care less about this woman; they want to cancel Jesus, undermine His personal authority among the people. The whole thing is plainly brutal, demonstrating a total lack of respect for the woman. But it is Jesus Who brings everything back into focus with those memorable words, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

        Let me be clear! Jesus is not saying, who am I to judge? He is not cancelling the law of the Old Testament. Nor is He abdicating His own authority as God, but rather He is calling the authorities personally to account. “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” As far as the woman caught in adultery, He does not fudge either: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”

        Jesus is to be found in the midst of life and so is or should be our faith in Him. It is absolute truth and uncompromising. We may not be sufficiently catechized; we may be ignorant of our faith, but that does not permit us to deprive Jesus of His identity as the Son of God and Savior of the world. Nor can we deny the Church which He established on the rock of Peter and the apostolic faith to lead us all securely and sufficiently to Christ and heavenly glory. Sadly, however, lots of people, including priests and bishops, get nervous when we talk about the fulness of the truth or of the Catholic Church as the one true faith.

        “I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law…”

        Both the account of Christ’s Crucifixion and this incident of Jesus dispersing those appealing to the law as reason to execute this woman despite their own sins and bad conscious can help us understand the freedom which is ours and our obligation to choose Christ Crucified and Christ the Giver of the Law as the primary authority for our lives.

We are a week away from Palm Sunday. The communal penance services in preparation for Easter will be starting here in Sioux Falls. We’ve added a couple extra times for confession here at St. Lambert as well, which should appear in the bulletin or elsewhere. Your daily examination of conscience may have revealed real sins and failures to you. If not, I still won’t let you off the hook unless you can show your commitment to Christ and His Church as full and uncompromising. Without disrespect for non-Catholics, we have to challenge ourselves to hear Christ’s Word and put His law into practice. We have to place Christ on the throne in our hearts and lives which is rightfully His. Catholic Church teaching must once again in Christ recover the high ground for us personally and for our families.

        As horrible and accusatory as it sounds, my simple message would be that there is nothing to be gained in aligning yourselves with the scribes and the Pharisees. Hold, please, rather to the teaching of St. Paul!

        “I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law…”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI