O Sacrament Most Holy!

 

The Solemnity of

THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

(Corpus Christi) 18 June 2022, St. Lambert

Gn 14:18-20

1 Cor 11:23-26

Lk 9:11b-17

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        Corpus Christi: The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

        This week, in the runup to our celebration of Corpus Christi, I have had to take another look at what has been described as a crisis of faith among Catholics in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I am doing so in the light of statements I have come across made by relatively younger men (young for me would be not yet 50 years of age). I have been confronted by statements by various younger men, all of them seemingly faithful Catholics, who express their understanding for the results of that recent Pew Research survey and other surveys which peg faith among Catholics in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist at 27% or less. It would seem that over 70% of Catholics polled in these surveys, do not believe that the Blessed Sacrament is really and truly Christ; they refer to the symbolic value of the consecrated bread and wine, but no more, and some even less.

I was sort of taken aback to discover that this story of the last year, which has a lot of people expressing their shock over the lack of faith in one of the central teachings of the Church doesn’t seem to shock these younger men. They are not happy about it, but they claim they can understand it, where it is coming from and how something as tragic as this could happen. For two generations now children have not been taught the faith either at home or in their Catholic schools; they have no idea what the Church believes and teaches. Let me give you two examples of such men and their observations which recently came to my attention!

In the one case, I just listened to a podcast by Fr. Mike Schmitz (a priest of the diocese of Duluth and quite popular on Catholic media). Fr. Mike comes from a good Catholic family but does not seem to have avoided in his own life as a child a major crisis of faith, and this already in elementary school. In the video in point, he recounts his own personal conversion at age 15, his conversion to faith in Jesus Christ really and truly present in the Eucharist. The other man, an Irishman who discerned out of a religious community in favor of marriage and family, expresses himself in his video as quite convinced that practically no one in Ireland born after Vatican II has actually been formed in Catholic faith. For him it is obvious that people without any formation in the faith cannot be expected to believe in Christ present in the Sacrament. Remember, this man says this of himself, having been a professed religious, who should have been better formed in the faith.

        Until I took time for these men’s opinions, I was shocked by the lack of faith pointed out by the surveys and which I had encountered in the lives of Catholics, let us say, around the world. I had my own theories about remedies for the situation, but which I fear fell short of the real problem of the countless number of people in the Catholic Church who simply do not know Who Jesus is.

Let me say that this is not a new crisis in the history of the Church and that in some ways it takes us back to the origins of the Feast of Corpus Christi, which was historically intended to reaffirm the faith in the transubstantiation, in Christ really and truly present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the forms of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist. The beautiful office composed for this feast by St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us what we must needs believe, what the Lord Jesus Himself taught and which we find recorded in the Bread of Life Discourse in Chapter 6 of the Gospel of St. John (cf. vv. 47-51). “Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

        There are people who claim that the Feast of Corpus Christi is no more than a duplicate of Holy Thursday. Some approved authors argue in favor of this duplication simply for the fact that as Holy Thursday is situated right in the middle of our reflection on the Lord’s Passion that it is good to have another feast so that we can focus on all that is contained in this great mystery. Which mystery? That of the real Presence in the Eucharist of Jesus Christ, True God and True Man! With all of its beautiful old hymns and customs, Corpus Christ is intended as an aid to our faith, to help us embrace the great truth that Our Savior has not abandoned us, but at Holy Mass in the memorial of His Passion, He comes to us really and fully in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. In the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar the Son of God feeds us with His very Self and strengthens us with heavenly nourishment for life’s journey to the Kingdom.

        Our first reading this year is taken from Genesis and speaks about Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High, bringing out bread and wine to Abraham, a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. From this Old Testament passage Abraham’s reverence for the priest-king Melchizedek and for the sacred gifts he bears is all too evident. And to think that the Eucharist is so very much more!

        In today’s Gospel passage from St. Luke, we read about the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, Jesus feeding over five thousand, feeding their bodies and by His teaching feeding their souls as well. “They all ate and were satisfied.” … “Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God.”

        Traditionally, a big part of Corpus Christi were always the beautiful outdoor processions with the Blessed Sacrament, Christ carried out of church and through the streets to encounter and bless His people. One of the most hopeful signs in the Church of our times has been the rise in the practice of Perpetual Adoration. Here at St. Lambert’s, we have public adoration of the Blessed Sacrament here in church from after Thursday morning Mass nonstop for just short of 24 hours until just before Friday morning Mass. Other places, like the Adoration Sisters chapel across from the Cathedral are open for prayer before the Blessed Sacrament all day, every day, with one of the sisters in turn keeping watch and praying the whole time.

        Some of the youth retreat movements and other Church events and celebrations incorporate times of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and we have lots of testimony to vocations inspired or confirmed in the hearts of young people who spend time with Christ adoring Him in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

        My duty today is obviously to confirm you in your practice of coming to adore Christ here exposed on the Altar at special times, or at any time here reserved in the Tabernacle. If you are not in the habit of taking even a little bit of time on a regular basis to keep our Eucharistic Lord company, then I am here to challenge you as well to come and give Him His due. Christ must rule in our hearts and moving our bodies to come and kneel before Him is the best evidence that we are doing our part to seek His Holy Face. “Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God.” … “They all ate and were satisfied.”

        O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Rejoice with Me! Up Close and Personal

The Solemnity of

 THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

Saturday, 11 June 2022, St. Lambert

 

Prv 8:22-31

Rom 5:1-5

Jn 16:12-15

Praised be Jesus Christ!

On today’s solemn feast it is proper to make some mention at least of the Doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity: One God in Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! There is no other day in the year quite like Trinity Sunday, prone to lead us into theological and even philosophical discourse. It would be the appropriate day to offer outside of Mass some kind of educational, catechetical content on the nature of God. I say outside of Mass, because homilies were never intended for lectures, but they should kind of point us toward where we ought to be going. Study, reflection, meditation should be an integral part of our Christian life, for both priests and religious, but no less for all the lay faithful, for all the baptized. Repurpose some of your Sunday, if you will, for the things of God! Make it truly the Lord’s day!

So not having a Sunday afternoon lecture on the calendar, if I can leave you with nothing else, it would be that we are duty bound to be aware, to reflect on the place of God in our lives. Not God in any generic sense of the term but as God the Most Holy Trinity: One God in Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

        Personally, I am a firm believer that even as we grow older, we never stop learning. For instance: one of the things I have learned in the last year is that among the general non-churched population, especially in the world of scientific research, you don’t have to be an atheist anymore. Believing in God is back in fashion among scientists and mathematicians. I would say it this way: Atheism is no longer a viable or reasonable option for serious, grownup people. Granted, there are people who may not be all that sure about God. They may have doubts, but they do not deny His existence, that is, if they have anything intelligent or intellectual going on in their lives, they admit God even if they fail to name Him.

Atheism has become what it always was: it is or was either an attitude held by angry people, or it is or was a political stance. The tenets of atheism cannot be held in good faith by people of good will. At some point in recent history, the questions which thinking people tend to ask on an ultimate level have changed. “Does God exist?” “Is there a Creator, Who brought all things into being and holds them in existence?” These are not the big questions anymore. Serious science seems to be aware of its limits in describing reality. People have moved beyond much of the pretense of the 19^th and early 20^th Century. In the face of its own discoveries and a clearer understanding of the limits its methods impose upon it, science seems to have become more respectful especially when it comes to speaking about matters of faith.

        The question of the day seems rather to be: “Who is God?” And we respond, God is Trinity in Unity. We can know God clearly in the Person of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus has shown us the Father and sent the Holy Spirit forth into our midst.

I was watching a year-old video the other day. It was a discussion between the very popular Jordan Peterson and Bishop Robert Barron. Jordan though a clinical psychologist is not an atheist. Nonetheless he has not yet succeeded in making a faith commitment in life, at least not one which goes beyond generic Christianity. Most people who know and admire Peterson expect that at some point he will take that final step and will probably convert to the Catholic faith. For now, he speaks about Catholic faith with respect, but also as a friendly critic, as an outsider who wishes us well. In the video he makes a general statement noting all the people, especially young people, who are walking away from the Church, who are abandoning the Catholic faith. They are the same people whom Bishop Robert Barron and many others refer to as “nones” (people who on a questionnaire when asked about their religious affiliation say they have “none”). Peterson places the blame for this exodus or abandonment by the young of Catholicism in our day on the leadership of the Church, on the hierarchy. His thesis would be that the Church has failed the young in particular for not really demanding enough of them, for not espousing high enough ideals. He thinks being a Christian and fulfilling the demands of the Church has become too easy.

        Peterson makes that accusation despite a deep respect for the things of God and of His Church. I suppose it could be true, that the Church is not demanding enough. Personally though, I think young people falling away from the Church has more to do with their failure to grasp the uniqueness of our faith. I doubt if Peterson would disagree with me, but I would challenge his analysis from outside of the Church which complains that faith practice today is not demanding enough. Granted: the goal of getting everyone in and out of church on Sunday in less than an hour is slack; it does not inspire. Doing away with abstinence from meat on Fridays except in Lent is slack; it is not serious. I won’t deny the relevance of Peterson’s observations. He has something to say, but I think more central to the abandonment of church life is the failure to grapple with the question of God’s personhood, that He can be named. We are not just talking about God in any generic sense of the term but of God as the Most Holy Trinity: One God in Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Sadly, most folks’ commitment to the Church is not one which goes beyond generic Christianity. I remember back in high school already learning about the teaching of the II Vatican Council, which warned against the temptation to a false irenicism in areas of interreligious dialogue or even ecumenism. For all the warnings, that seems to be the trap we have fallen into. Our respect for others who do not share our faith ends up in promoting religious indifference: one church, temple or house of prayer ends up mistakenly being considered equal to another. The notion of the fulness of truth in Jesus Christ in His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church gets emptied of its meaning. The gift of the Holy Spirit no longer seems to be grounded in such an urgent call to Baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Our first reading today was from Proverbs in the Old Testament. It starts out: “Thus says the wisdom of God.” Not only is there a God, Who brought into being all that is and holds it in being, but He saved us from everlasting death in and through His Son. God showed us His Face. Our faith is in Jesus Christ alone. As St.  Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “…we boast in hope of the glory of God.” We usually use Luke’s Gospel Chapter 15 to illustrate the Church’s teaching on penance and reconciliation. On Trinity Sunday we could apply it as well to God’s love for us and His eagerness to bring us to share in His joy: rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep… rejoice with me because I have found the coin I lost… but, son, we had to rejoice because the brother of yours who was lost, who was dead, has been found and has come back to life within the circle of the family.

If our notion of God is not shot through with our awareness of the Almighty as Person, who created and saved us out of love, then we might as well check the box which puts us in the “none” category. Glory then be to the Father, God, to the Son, God, and to the Holy Spirit, God, one in Being and threefold in Person. To Him be glory now and for ages unending. Amen. 

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

In Thy Sevenfold Gift Descend!

 

Pentecost Sunday

4-5 June 2022, St. Lambert

Acts 2:1-11

1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13

Jn 14:15-16, 23b-26

        Praised be Jesus Christ!

Come, Holy Spirit!

        “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit … As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”

        Even before I started to prepare my homily for Pentecost, for some reason (call it inspiration?) the Genesis reading about the Tower of Babel was roaming around in my head. The thought which accompanied this little distraction was about how in Sacred Scripture Old and New Testament, that is to say in God’s inspired word, confused speech, speech with no commonly held point of reference, was and is considered a curse: Babel (the word says it all).

When in 2001 I moved from Bonn, Germany (at the heart of the very culturally Catholic Rhine Valley) to Berlin (bottom land, marsh land, sort of Protestant, but mostly just secularized and without any particular geographic points of reference) I learned that one of the things Berliners were quite proud of was referring to themselves as “multiculti”, multicultural. As many of these same people in that big city were often prejudiced against foreigners, that multiculturalism usually boiled down to a rejection of what were for their parents commonly held pre-WWII German values, usually Christian values about matters of faith and home life. With this multiculti business, it was as if they were celebrating the chaos in the Book of Genesis which came as a result of the confusion of speech which put an end to the project of building a tower to heaven (Babel!). They were effectively not embracing foreigners and diversity of culture so much as they were rejecting hearth and home as they relate to traditional Christian values and customs. In other words, many of the rather outspoken people living in Germany’s capital city when I was there 20 years ago were being doubly foolish. Not only did they refuse to place themselves under God or to espouse the traditional values of their ancestors, but they basically refused any kind of common social project for the present or for the future. They were being multiculti, or so they said!

My simple message to you is that “multiculti” (you can supply the word “woke-ism” if you like) is not the miracle of Pentecost. The tongues of fire and the multiple languages with which the Apostles taught on that day were far better, because they effectively communicated. They did not divide but actually taught people, offering singleness of purpose. God is not about division and confusion but rather about unity, experienced as favor and grace. If we are going to build up our world, this world, then we will do so on Christ and no one else. We will do so by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost was and is the showering of His gifts upon the faithful. We know who is faithful and truly favored by God by the fruits of their lives, the fruits of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our hearts, in our Church.

“Come, Thou Holy Spirit, come!”  

        “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.”

        I don’t mean to pick on the Berliners, but back then they were for me a perfectly illustrated example of unfounded pride which had lost its way. Life is about virtue, and it is God-centered, or it is not truly life at all. Before we moved to the old/new capital of reunified Germany, my boss had sent me ahead to Berlin to interview candidates for the position of chauffeur for the Nunciature. The idea was to recruit a man from Berlin to come to Bonn to work for the last couple months before our move, so that then back in Berlin he would be at home with his family. After interviewing 11 candidates, I settled on the guy who seemed the cleverest and most engaging. Reporting back with my recommendation to my boss, with my top three picks, he reacted by telling me I was mistaken to favor as number one a guy without church affiliation rather than to pick the less flashy but much more solid Catholic man, my number two among those I interviewed. As it turned out, he was right. Flashy quit almost immediately (no real strength of character). He did not even make it through the couple months left in Bonn before the move. The Catholic guy, in the meantime, had been hired by the Cardinal of Berlin and served faithfully and well for many years. He was steady and his life was marked, yes, by virtue.

        Life in the Holy Spirit is virtuous living. Virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do good. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that the human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and the will that govern our acts, order our passions, and guide our conduct in accordance with reason and faith. There are moral virtues and there are theological virtues. The moral virtues grow through education, deliberate acts, and perseverance in struggle. They can be grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Divine grace purifies and elevates them. The theological virtues dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object— God known by faith, God hoped in and loved for his own sake. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. They inform all the moral virtues and give life to them.

        Many of the more charismatically inclined members of the Church seem to be drawn by the flashy. They seem to ignore basic Catholic teaching about what the true gifts, the higher qualities in life are. The moral life of Christians is sustained by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are permanent dispositions which make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Already from the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah we class these gifts as numbering seven. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them.

        Several of the communities of nuns I have worked with over the years had the custom of preparing holy cards with the name of each of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit on them and then each one drawing a card out on Pentecost at breakfast. The card you drew was the gift you were to work on and pray for, for yourself, during the Pentecost Octave especially.

There are also the fruits of the Spirit. They are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: “charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.”

[cf. Church, U.S. Catholic. Catechism of the Catholic Church: Second Edition (pp. 502-504). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.]

        On this Sunday or during the Pentecost Octave, look in the mirror at your own life to see what kind of perfections the Holy Spirit is working in you. “Charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity”, not much of what you would call “flashy” there and not particularly marked by multi-anything either. There is steadiness, however, something wholesome that you can build on for your own sake and for the sake of the life of the world.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Come, Holy Spirit!

 PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

An Anathema or Two to Clear the Air

 

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

21-22 May 2022

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29

Rv 21:10-14, 22-23

Jn 14:23-29

 

Praised by Jesus Christ!

         From the Acts of the Apostles today we read about the decision taken by the very first Council of the Church held at Jerusalem not to impose the Jewish custom or rule of circumcision on the new Gentile Christians. When asked to resolve the controversy which had arisen over whether the observance of all the Old Testament precepts was required of non-Jewish converts, the elders of the community of Jerusalem wrote back to the Church at Antioch. Their response began with the words: “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us…” The Apostles could not have been clearer in expressing themselves in their letter. They were deciding the case brought to them by appealing to the authority of God. “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us…” God was speaking through them; they claimed the authority of the Holy Spirit for the decision which was properly their own as those who presided over the Church at its beginnings, after Christ’s Ascension into Heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

        Governance is no small or easy matter. You may have picked up on the news that just yesterday the Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco, announced that he was banning Speaker Nancy Pelosi from receiving Holy Communion until such time as she publicly renounces her pro-abortion stance, repents of her great sin of pushing her agenda in Congress and seeks reconciliation with the Church through Penance and sacramental Absolution. We’ll have to see if Pelosi comes back to the Church or not. But no matter what she does, thanks to the clarity of the Archbishop’s statement and his respectful but firm stance, everyone else in the Church should be confident in what is to be expected of a Catholic in terms of respect for innocent human life. No one has the right (so-called) to take the life of a child born or not yet born.  

Abortion is only the most obvious of a whole series of controversies which need resolution by means of clear teaching from the successors of the Apostles according to the mind of God. It appears, however, that both inside and outside the Church today wisdom and courage seem to be in short supply among our leaders. We are sadly in need of much more from the Church hierarchy in faithfulness to Christ. Decisiveness of action on the part of our leaders is an all too rare commodity, as the happy example of Archbishop Cordileone points out.

Part of their hesitancy may be explained by the lack of responsiveness among the lay faithful to their leaders’ teaching and directions. Some would try and justify this opposition to authority in the Church by shaking their heads and saying, “No way! Whether the problem is one of Church discipline, of morality, or of the faith itself, I don’t want any priest or bishop quoting the Catechism or some Church document and telling me what to do!” Typically, people often do not seem to like taking orders. Or they may seem to think that majority votes can settle most everything, even if the vote comes out contrary to God’s law. “Dialogue” is the catch word you hear in lots of Church circles, and just about everything appears to be up for discussion. In Germany or in Switzerland today the Church establishment and quite a few lay people would just bristle or fume at the words from the Book of Acts: “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us…” Honestly, it is not uncommon even here in the United States to encounter Catholics who would assert that appealing to God for the authority of our commands is a bit too much to claim. Granted there are some people who are just as rebellious as we read about in the Book of Genesis. In Adam and Eve fashion they do not stop at challenging people set over them in the Church. Fundamentally they reject God’s authority flat out (Gen. 3:2-5 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”). Perhaps more common however is a kind of foot dragging or hunching our shoulders, being less than eager to place ourselves without reserve under God’s law. In this lawless world, everything tends to get relativized or flattened. There is a kind of stubbornness or resentfulness which holds back or refuses to take anyone’s authority without a challenge. Then too, people do not seem to be ready to take the path less traveled through life and refuse to live heroically by following in the footsteps of our loving Lord and Savior.

Sometimes, I suppose, it is simply wanting to have a say or to have the last word on certain topics. Ultimately though, the question is not whether the Pope or a Bishop is drawing me into the decision-making process, whether he is listening to me or taking my input into consideration, but whether we can have confidence in those who are speaking. “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us…” We may have reason to doubt whether a given priest or bishop is truly acting on God’s behalf, whether what he says or does truly reflects faithfulness to God within His Church. Nonetheless I cannot offhandedly reject all Church authority.

The rebelliousness we encounter is a rejection of the Holy Spirit in favor of the spirit of the age. To say it more simply, too often we just follow the crowd while turning our backs on God as He speaks to us through His Church. We are caught up in the prevailing world view which overvalues self-indulgence at worst, and perhaps not much better promotes or insists upon things like so-called social progress or future orientation. Such are not categories for believers, whereas faithfulness to tradition is. We are called, for love of God, to be faithful to Christ, to conform our will to His, as it is mediated by those within the Church possessing and properly exercising legitimate authority.

The big question, of course, is how does that work? Jesus in St. John’s Gospel today could not be clearer. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.”

        Keeping God’s word, by very simply obeying Him, by conforming my will to that of the Almighty! How do we do that? There’s an ancient legend about St. John the Evangelist, the only one of the original twelve Apostles to live to an advanced age and not die a martyr. The older he got, the more St. John limited his teaching of the faith to repeating the two great Commandments: you shall love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The Evangelist clearly understood that by holding faithfully to these two, the Christian would be fulfilling everything contained in the Law and the Prophets. “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us…”

        Praised by Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Unconditional Love through Unqualified Contrition and Penance without Reservation

 

Fourth Sunday after Easter

15 May 2022, St. Dominic, Canton

James 1.17-21

John 16.5-14

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        Already on this Sunday the Easter Season shifts its focus over from the accounts of the appearances of the Risen Lord Jesus to thinking about the why and the wherefore of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, which is now just three weeks away. In some ways, you might say that this Sunday stands at a high point on the road, looking back to Easter and forward to Pentecost and affirming our empowerment by God’s holy will to be that new creation in holiness and truth, not anxiously grasping at anything or clenching our fists but simply being filled with God’s light and being born in newness of life by His word of truth.

St. John’s Gospel today sums up in just two sentences the essence of what is at stake in the great mystery we are called to ponder on this our day of rest.

“But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go, for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you. And when He is come, He will convince the world of sin and of justice and of judgment.”

        We can see the Easter Alleluia blossoming into the fire of Pentecost and thereby empowering us to cooperate in heaven’s work of renewing all things on earth for the glory of God’s holy Name. We find ourselves very much at the center of events in being called to bring forth our genuine sorrow for sin, to amend of lives, and to make reparation for our sins and offenses both for our own sakes and for the sake of the life of the world.

        One of the mistaken impressions we often have growing up is to think that those we read about in the Gospels, who lived back in His time, those who followed Jesus in this life, had some great advantage over us. I am not saying that the Lord’s closest followers didn’t have a privilege which is not ours, namely of coming to know Jesus in the flesh. It is understandable that we envy the kind of life in Christ which His followers experienced back in His own day and time. We may tend to see our share in Christ’s life as less real or less intense than that of the Apostles and the disciples and women who accompanied Jesus through His public ministry, who were with Him in His suffering and death on the Cross all the way to the joy of His Resurrection from the dead. But we would not be justified or excused in doing so. That is not the teaching of Christ. Our Catholic Faith teaches us that this impression of our being at a disadvantage because we are separated from Him by nearly two millennia is just that, it is just an impression. The Gospel for Divine Mercy Sunday makes that eminently clear. “Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and have believed.”

        Our faith may be centered on Christ, but in the fullest sense by the Divine will our faith is Trinitarian. We are indeed marked by the Sign of the Cross, which we make In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. We live out our faith in the One God in Three Divine Persons within the community of the Church founded by Christ. “But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go, for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you.”

A discovery which I made a lot of years ago was that included in the supplementary documentation to the Roman Catechism published especially for parish priests by the Council of Trent there is contained an Index of all the Sunday Gospels included in the traditional Missal. Each Sunday’s Gospel passage is noted in this Index with specific references to the Catechism. For centuries, priests who held faithfully to this Index in preparing their Sunday sermons could practically get their congregation through the whole Catechism in the course of a year’s preaching at Sunday Mass.

        For the passage from the Gospel of St. John assigned to this 4^th Sunday after Easter, the Index in the back of the Catechism references the two sentences I just quoted and notes the relative sections of the Catechism dealing with the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity and the Sacrament of Penance.

        It is the second sentence I quoted which interests me today. In the relative section of the Catechism treating the Sacrament of Penance it refers especially to our need for sincere contrition for our sins both great and small. It addresses our need daily to be voluntarily doing acts of penance in reparation for what we have done or have failed to do against God and our neighbor. “And when He is come, He will convince the world of sin and of justice and of judgment.”

        Our faith would have us reject all in our lives that is of sin. We are exhorted to detest every sin for love of the Creator Who made us for His love, to detest all sin for love of the Savior Who ransomed us from sin and death by His Most Precious Blood.

        Let me leave you some homework for your quiet time on this Lord’s Day, this day of rest, this day which is yours in so far as you keep it with the Lord. In the light of the Catechism and of its references to St. Thomas Aquinas and to St. Augustine, and to the teaching of the Council of Trent, my question for you to ponder would be this: Can you honestly say you detest all that is of sin in your life? Is there some part of your life that you are failing to reform? Some place where you are holding out on God’s law? Keeping the laws and commandments to 99% is not enough. Your holdout undermines all the rest and renders your love of God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength something less than honest or complete.

        I can remember two novelists over the years being recommended to me by two different superiors who made me the gift to read of a classic novel by each author. Both books ended up in the trash and for the same reason. The protagonist in both cases was supposed to have an intimate relationship with God and enjoy all kinds of spiritual favors. The books described their respective heroes as having some sort of mystical union or communion with God, as enjoying special favor and protection by the Almighty. At the same time, however, these novelists would have the reader believe this to be true even though both heroes regularly violated the 6^th and 9^th Commandments. Into the trash! One grievous sin puts us at odds with God on all fronts and fallen from grace all around for lack of true love of the Lord. The first and greatest command, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength admits of no reservations or compromises.

        The Catechism this Sunday urges us to a genuine hatred of all sin without exception, to real sorrow for all of our sins out of love for God. Even with a couple weeks remaining in the Easter Season, we may be well advised out of love for Christ to let penance mark our lives and open us to the indwelling of the Paraclete sent to us by Christ from the Father’s Right Hand.  “And when He is come, He will convince the world of sin and of justice and of judgment.”

Praised by Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Simon Peter, do you love me?

 

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

30 April – 1 May, St. Katharine Drexel Parish

Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41

Rv 5:11-14

Jn 21:1-19

 

Praised be Jesus Christ! Alleluia! Alleluia!

        I think that a good choice for a single word to epitomize the Third Sunday of Easter would certainly be the word “WITNESS”. It fits really well with our celebration today of First Holy Communion too! Our duty as baptized Christians is to give witness to Jesus Who was Crucified and Died for our salvation, and Who rose again from the dead on the third day opening for us the Gates of Heaven. We have news which is just too good to be kept to ourselves. The whole world should benefit from what is ours in Jesus. It makes absolutely no sense for us not to give witness to the Resurrection, to the Kingship of Jesus Christ.

How do we do that? Well, we certainly testify to Christ as our Savior and Lord, showing we truly believe, by the character of our lives as people of faith. Our clearest witness, however, comes when we assist at Mass each Sunday. Thinking of First Holy Communion today, we know that if we are free of mortal sin, we can take that witness of assisting at Mass to a whole new level by not just being present in church for the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but also by receiving our Lord, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in Holy Communion. “He who eats My Body and drinks My Blood will have life in Me”, says the Lord. This, we firmly believe, is the only kind of life which really has any importance.

Today we read in the Book of Acts that the Apostles were willing even to suffer in order to give witness to the Risen One, to testify openly to Christ’s victory. The big question is how does that legacy, our standing in the same line with the apostles as witnesses to Christ’s Resurrection, how as spiritual descendants of those first witnesses do we live out that truth in our lives today?

Given the special opportunity we have this weekend, let’s talk about our mission as witnesses for Christ in terms of First Holy Communion, of receiving the Lord Jesus as the children will do today, receiving for the first time Jesus Who feeds us in this Sacrament with His own Body and Blood. In the Sacrament of the Altar, we are invited to receive the Lord and to bind ourselves to Him at His invitation. In terms of Church law, we know that Catholics, once we have made our First Holy Communion, we are conscience bound to assist at Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. From the very earliest days of the Church, we have the words of St. Justin Martyr who told the pagan judge who condemned him to a martyr’s death, that the saint and his fellow Christians would not renounce the Lord Jesus, they would not give up Sunday Eucharist. St. Justin explained very clearly that without Sunday, without Sunday Mass, a Catholic Christian cannot live.

        More recently (St. Justin lived between 100 and 165 AD), less than a hundred years ago that same faith of the earliest Christian martyrs perdured in the Church. Even without martyrdom being here in a free country, the Catholics of my mother’s generation understood very clearly that our witness to Christ was not first of all one of going out and preaching on a soapbox either in a virtual or in a real public square. Faithful churchgoing is an eloquent witness all by itself. In other words, we Catholics profess our faith in our Risen and Victorious Lord by simply getting up and moving in faith, crossing the threshold into church for Mass on every Sunday and Holy Day. My mother and most Catholics of her generation were convinced just like St. Justin Martyr that without Sunday Mass we cannot truly live. Obviously, if you don’t live within walking distance of church, then that obligation for young children right after First Holy Communion still falls on the shoulders of the adults into whose care they have been entrusted ever since their Baptism. The only difference is that now it goes beyond setting a good example of true faith, goes beyond teaching your children their prayers, teaching them the difference between right and wrong. It involves giving them the possibility of fulfilling their Sunday obligation. With their First Holy Communion it involves enabling them to give their witness to Christ in the great tradition of St. Justin Martyr by going to Mass.

        Witnessing to Christ by word and deed! The apostles responded to the officers of the Sanhedrin by professing: “We must obey God rather than men.” For them that played out by them risking punishment and persecution for the sake of the Name of Jesus. For all of the Apostles, except St. John the Evangelist, that ultimately meant giving their own lives as martyrs for the sake of Christ’s Holy Name. We are called to do the same.

        Our second reading today from the Book of Revelation shows Christ’s Sacrifice and our participation in the Lamb’s Victory as something cosmic, as bigger than anything that is or can be in the world. The Book of Revelation may seem far from our experience of the faith. Maybe that is why the Church also gives us the Gospel account of the disciples gone fishing on the Sea of Tiberias. It may be more personable and easier to comprehend than the Revelation passage, and as such may be more relevant to our personal or emotional needs to connect with Jesus personally. Out fishing and catching nothing in their nets, the disciples encounter Jesus Risen from the Dead. Everything about the scene and the miraculous catch of fish shows us just how personal such an event could be. In the Gospel here encountering Christ the Victor King becomes an experience we can identify with. Jesus sets them at ease, as He calls them His children. He feeds them breakfast on the seashore. Then He asks Simon Peter, “Do you love Me?” He asks three times, and in response to Peter’s Yes, Yes, Yes, Jesus gives the prince of the apostles the shepherding commission, “Feed my sheep!”

        There are no tricks or illusions in what the Risen One is asking of Peter in terms of a witness to be exercised in leading His Church and guiding the baptized. He says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

        There are no tricks or illusions in what the Risen One is asking of us as Catholic Christians. It can be as easy as never missing Sunday Mass through our own fault, but it could just as well demand of us the ultimate sacrifice of our lives in the face of hostility, in order to say, Jesus is more important to me than life. As I say, we are not called to be preachy or to pretend that we are particularly better than others, but just very simply to say… without Sunday I cannot live.

        Praised be Jesus Christ, Who loved us even unto death, death on a Cross. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing.”

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

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