else the journey will be too long for you

 

NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

125^th Anniversary of St. Mary, Dell Rapids

Saturday, 10 August 2024

 1 Kgs 19:4-8

Eph 4:30-5:2

Jn 6:41-51

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       From the 1^st Book of Kings today we read about the prophet Elijah fleeing away from certain death towards God’s holy mountain in the Sinai desert. It is interesting to note that Elijah is just running toward God, he has made no provision whatever for his journey, no food, no water, nothing. God sends an angel to sustain him on just a little bread and water, not much at all.

       …the angel of the Lord came back a second time, touched him, and ordered, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!’ He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

       Just a couple days ago, on August 6^th, we celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration with the Gospel account of Jesus clothed in light and flanked by Moses and Elijah showing Himself to Peter, James, and John. That same Elijah (from our first reading today) is the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, witnessing on Mount Tabor to who Jesus is as the Son of Man. Today, we have this image again of the same prophet under the broom tree in the desert, fleeing almost certain death by Jezebel, and strengthened by the angel of God with that little bit of bread and water, walking forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

       Be it noted that we are also just a few days out from the National Eucharistic Congress which was held in Indianapolis, Indiana! I suppose just like you could say that bread and water even if delivered by an angel is not exactly substantial fare given the task at hand, not all that nutritious, so you could say that the Eucharistic Congress alone cannot be expected to turn around the crisis of faith in the Church, bringing back all those millions of Catholics across America, also here in South Dakota, who in recent years have abandoned the practice of the faith. Lots of those who turn their backs on the Church do so pointing a finger at Church leadership, accusing them of neglect and saying the laity are not being fed and that is why so many have abandoned the practice of the faith.

       As important as food and drink are to survival, physical nourishment is not everything. As we read in the account of Jesus’ temptation by the devil in the desert, quoting the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy: The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” [Matt. 4:3-4] It is by far more important that we place ourselves at the feet of God and take in His every word.

       The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven… whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

       This weekend we are celebrating the 125^th anniversary of St. Mary’s here in Dell Rapids! Going back 100+ years is just long enough to go beyond the limits of what folks in the pews can remember personally. The adults of the founding generation of the parish are all gone, but you the subsequent generations, their sons and daughters, are still here. We are thankful that, unlike many other of those early towns in South Dakota, Dell Rapids today is much more than a clump of trees out on the prairie marking where settlers tried to make a start, but which had to be abandoned maybe because the railroad passed them by. We are thankful that St. Mary’s Catholic Church is much more than a windswept hilltop marked by a couple of tumbledown headstones and maybe a crucifix or statue fenced off in the corner of somebody’s pasture. That your parish has not only endured but prospered up until today is truly something! Under the protection of the Mother of God, St. Mary’s Parish has fed you, sustained you with the Bread of angels.

       We give thanks and unlike Jesus’ audience in the Gospel of John we neither murmur nor grumble. Unlike the Israel of the Exodus in the desert, we do not complain about the manna which does not satisfy. We understand what is truly important and we profess our faith in the God Who feeds us with His own hand.

       After his trek across the desert to Mount Horeb God Almighty commissioned Elijah and sent him back to Israel for the homestretch of his prophetic mission. He drew the prophet’s distracted gaze away from all the mighty sounds and events the mountain could provide, aiding him to focus on a tiny whispering sound no more impactful on the course of events than the little bit of bread and water, which had strengthened him in his flight from present danger across the desert to God.

       Ultimately speaking, St. Mary’s parish today giving thanks for all that has been has a choice as to whether you will attribute all you have and are to the God Who made and saved you, or whether you complain about it all being insufficient and not worth your generation’s attachment and enthusiasm. My prayer would be that you would confess the hand of God at work in your midst and confess the Lord Who works wonders even in the desert and with very little.

       May Mary wrap you in her mantle and urge you on, encouraged by those who have gone before you to set the pace for the next 125 years!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

That angel of Satan to beat me

 

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

6-7 July 2024 - St. Lambert Parish

Ez 2:2-5

2 Cor 12:7-10

Mk 6:1-6a

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.

The prophet Ezekiel is speaking judgment in God’s name against the Israelites, calling them a rebellious people. In that regard, the Church in today’s Liturgy of the Word is comparing us, God’s chosen people of the New Testament, to these obstinate Israelites to whom God sent His prophet. St. Mark in his Gospel speaks of Jesus being confronted with a similar challenge. In his Gospel he makes note of the unresponsiveness of Jesus’ listeners in the synagogue.

“And they took offense at him… A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”

Actually, we as diocesan priests should be able to identify with these words. A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.

Unfortunately among priests you often hear another kind of analysis of this problem, which kind of denies the dynamics of the priest’s mission as a prophet to his people. There is a kind of “shop talk” which goes on in clerical circles and especially among the pastors of parishes that rates a given congregation kind of like you would spirited ponies. If a rambunctious horse is hard to break in, not suited for children to ride, then ultimately it may be the best sort of work animal for rounding up cattle, and so forth. In a sense, you may say that is how a priest might make excuses for a difficult parish or parishioners. In a sense though, that sort of talk could not be farther from the point of what the Gospel teaches. If the priest is doing his duty and leading his people to God, then just like Ezekiel and just like the Lord Jesus, he should be content not with applause but with grief, if he is not the one giving grief unjustly to his people, but is rather truly following in the footsteps of Christ. The Gospel is good news, but the reality is that faithful to Christ and full of His love, more often than not we are sent to a people more likely than not to turn away from him and the fulness of truth which comes to us from Christ in and through His Church. Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.

Having spent most of my priesthood at a desk, I have to rely on the witness of others concerning the ups and downs of parish life. Because of my diplomatic career in the service of the Holy See, I don’t have that ongoing experience of parish life. As such, I really can’t identify with the shop talk. Even so, I am convinced that parish ministry cannot be compared to breaking in a horse and training him for his work. We should be convinced that there are no good parishes and no bad parishes. The readings for this 14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time would seem to indicate a very different sort of challenge, namely that of preaching in season and out of season and generally being unwelcome when you are faithful to Christ’s message.

If I were giving a retreat on this topic to priests, I would probably say, “Reverend Fathers, prepare yourself to stand with Ezekiel and the Lord Jesus!” Don’t judge a parish as good or bad but be ready for pushback when you preach the Gospel in its fullness! Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.

But here and now I am not preaching to a group of priests or deacons but rather to you the faithful. I see you in living out the Christian life and I would hope you can see yourselves as going through a process of winnowing like grain, sifted or shook up such that all that is useless chaff can be borne away by the wind, leaving just the pure wheat of you on the threshing floor. Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. No! That you cannot be! If in your Catholic life and practice, Holy Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, honest recourse to the Sacrament of Penance, a regular life of prayer and devotion, including even a simple morning offering, your meal prayers, and your examination of conscience at bedtime, and you don’t feel just a bit of heartache, then you probably deserve a good one right along side the head, as they used to say.

The ordinary advice young priests receive as they prepare to hear confessions for the first time is to be as brief and even-tempered as possible so as not to frighten or drive people away from confession. I would invite you today to help your priests in confession so that they can help you. Do so by being less guarded in describing your sins and failings, by being eager for any counsel father might give. Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. Your panic or fear or embarrassment in confession has more to do with defensiveness and pride than it does with true sorrow for sin.

Take the leisure of this season of Ordinary Time and perhaps the slower pace of summer to think about living as a true penitent, who takes on penance in life or at least gladly embraces any hardships which life might impose upon you: be it aches and pains, health issues, or unjust accusations on the part of others who second guess your motives. If family or your coworkers tend to weigh on you a bit heavily, thank the Lord for this opportunity to be scrubbed clean of all the temporal punished still due for your sins yet after absolution in the Sacrament of Penance.

The second reading today from Corinthians includes St. Paul’s reference to the thorn in the flesh, the angel of Satan, which God allowed to beat Paul down. Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. We are only in the right place, when we humbly accept not really being able to handle all which comes our way in hardship but also to accept or embrace even all those who dish it out.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Beyond Belief?

 

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

29-30 June 2024 - St. John Paul II - Harrisburg

Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24

2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15

Mk 5:21-43 or 5:21-24, 35b-43

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       “She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”

       “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.”

       The message of Scripture for this 13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time is a tough one, not because it comes down hard condemning us for our lack of faith and consequently not living up to Christian ideals, but because we miss the point of its teaching. The good news of God’s boundless love for us His children goes right over our heads and leaves us doubting whether Jesus would do the same for us and our loved ones, as He did in the Gospel for the woman with hemorrhages that sapped her life and wouldn’t heal us as He did her. We find it somewhere between hard and impossible to imagine that Jesus, true God and true Man, would intervene on behalf of our loved ones as He did for the couple whose young daughter died before they could bring Jesus to their home to heal her.

My point is that it was not the strong faith of the woman that healed her, nor the parents’ confidence in the power of Jesus to raise their daughter from the dead that worked these miracles. Desperation seems to reign supreme in both cases before Jesus takes charge, bringing healing and life to the woman and to the young girl, confounding the mourners and bringing peace and joy to loving parents. Very simply, here we are confronted by the greatness of God’s unbounded love for us in Christ. On the one hand we are challenged to recognize God’s mercy on us unworthy as we are, and on the other to run to Him without hesitation confident that if we but ask He will take care of the rest.

       How does that translate practically into our life of faith and prayer? What should be our attitude as people of faith when it comes to asking the Lord for His favor, be it for a good harvest, be it for rescuing us from difficulties which place our family at risk, be it for cases of illness effecting family and friends, or maybe even our own life?

       We need to contemplate on the eagerness of the Son of God to come to our aid as readily as He described Himself really in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus is just that way, He is in charge, He wins out over sin, sickness, and death. We are challenged to let go of resignation and despair, to embrace the message of the Gospel, and to trust and put our lives in the hands of the King of the Universe.

       I am not talking about faith healing or something of that sort. There are many preachers of the so-called prosperity gospel out there, who claim that the only thing standing between us and health, wealth, and happiness is the weakness of our faith. They are wrong. They need to go back to today’s passage from Mark’s Gospel and to the constant teaching of the Church and know that our Almighty Lord can make something good out of our terror and even of our desperation, if we but reach out to touch Him as that poor woman did. Faith manifests itself here in humble submission and trust in the God Who made us and saved us in Christ.

       Already before Christ, in prophecy the Old Testament Book of Wisdom stated clearly just who God is and what is His Will for us whom He has favored with life and then in a much fuller way in Christ with the promise of everlasting life with Him in heaven. “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.”

       In moments of great sadness and vulnerability, we can stand there more or less helpless before our fate. To cheer or console or lift up someone suffering in this way is no easy task. Our general tendency is not to risk taking on the cost of solidarity, of sharing someone else’s pain or desperation.

       The dynamics of Jesus’ healing the leper Mark 1:41-45 illustrates well how God works in the face of another’s pain.

Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. [NRSV, Catholic Edition Bible: Holy Bible (pp. 2745-2746). Catholic Bible Press. Kindle Edition.]

       Officially, Jesus rendered Himself unclean by touching that leper, but in point of fact He manifest His power as God to save even from incurable illness.

       The two great Commandments are love of God and love of neighbor. If you took the pulse of contemporary society and of most Catholics, you would discover that is where we fall down on the job. Blame your cellphone all you want, but our estrangement from our world for failure to live out the two great Commandments is what has us condemned.

       Take time each day this week to contemplate Jesus there with that little girl on the bed and her parents standing helplessly by! “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. At that they were utterly astounded. He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.

       St. Paul challenged his readers to open wide their hearts. We should do so too.

       Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Don't Play Strange with God!

 

TENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

9 June 2024 – St. Joseph Cathedral

Gn 3:9-15

2 Cor 4:13—5:1

Mk 3:20-35

       Praised be Jesus Christ!

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

I think that many times as a boy (grade school age for sure and maybe even high school), reflecting on the passage we heard in the first reading from the Book of Genesis, about the fall from grace of our first parents, I sometimes thought that Adam and Eve got a raw deal, that they were tricked by the serpent and should have been forgiven straight off and given another chance by God. Back then there seemed to me something unfair about the consequences of original sin being passed on to all of humanity, leaving us outside of the circle of God’s family and friends. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

In a sense, I suppose, my childish analysis of the problem of the Fall, the Original Sin, was precisely the kind of thought process or lack of thought which has gotten us as professed Catholics into trouble in every generation and age of the world. It has kept us from repenting from our personal sins, from renouncing sin and Satan, and turning to God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Estrangement from God always starts on our part and is what gets us into trouble, ultimately leaving us unhappy and alone, not only far from God but far from our neighbor as well. We should recognize that outside the Garden of Eden is our normal condition. It is where we have been from the moment of our conception as a consequence of Adam’s choice to leave God out of his life and go his own way. Banishment from God’s presence, as Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, was ultimately the choice of our first parents. The bad choice, the disobedience to God’s precept was their choice. Genesis explains the Fall and its consequences as no more than God saying, “Well, look at you!” Then (God) asked, “Who told you that you were naked?”

Time for a little family history! All of us Gullickson children were on the shy side, and on various occasions I can remember Dad trying to draw me out of myself. For example, I can remember when walking on the street downtown with him, he catching me putting my head down as some boy and his father passed on the other side of the street, Dad would say, “Who is that?” And at my response, sort of under my breath, that it was a classmate from 8^th grade would snap, “Well then, say hi to him!” There is nothing particularly virtuous about that kind of shyness. It is little more than a refusal of the other and for no good reason. I remember at home, when we were being stubborn or otherwise contrary, Mother would challenge us with the admonition, “Stop playing strange!” I don’t really think the fruit of the tree at the center of the Garden was all that tempting. They had all the fruit in great variety that they could ever want. No, Adam and Eve were stubbornly choosing their own will over God’s will for them. They were playing strange with God.

Driven from the Garden of Eden by an angel with a fiery sword? Only because Adam and Eve had already put themselves out of God’s presence by ignoring Him, by hiding from Him, as if that were really a possibility in succeeding when you are dealing with the all-seeing and all-knowing God!

My intention is not to take anything away from the doctrine of original sin, but rather to look at us as we are in terms of actual sin, in terms of what we personally do wrong or fail to do. Granted, our situation pre-Baptism is one of estrangement from God. Through the lifegiving waters of the font we are born again to new life, we put on Christ, we enter into the circle of His family with Christ. It is our choice then in life whether to keep our place in that circle. “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

These days people put off baptizing babies with all sorts of excuses. They put off going to confession as well. Why? Some people with a rather defensive tone would basically challenge God or put Him in His place kind of like the serpent back in the Garden of Eden, claiming God would never punish or that there would be no consequence to the disobedience of Adam and Eve. I suppose rightly enough preachers of the word should be more energetic about preaching damnation. Somehow, looking at Adam and Eve, I wonder if it would be enough to bring certain people to their senses. With the grace of the Sacrament of Penance we know that dreading the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell is sufficient for the Sacrament to work its miracle of cleansing and reconciliation. Even so we seek to fulfill those other words in the Act of Contrition, “but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love.”

In the Gospel, Jesus is more straightforward in describing wherein lies our justification, namely in intimacy with Him. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Obedience, eagerness to do God’s will seems to be what assures us a place in the Kingdom.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Mercy opens Doors to Faith

 

6-7 April 2024 – St. Lambert Parish

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

(or SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY)

Acts 4:32-35

1 Jn 5:1-6

Jn 20:19-31

       My Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner!

For almost a third of my lifetime so far, the Church has also called the Octave Day of Easter Divine Mercy Sunday. The notion of God’s Mercy is nothing new, but the extraordinary focus for this Sunday, completing the 8 day celebration of the Day of the Resurrection of the Lord certainly is. At first some people wondered about this devotion, whose apostle was a thirty-some year old Polish nun, St. Faustina Kowalska, she having only a third-grade education. I remember people wondering whether the Church was overreaching by adding this name, Divine Mercy, to one of the most important second Sundays in the Church calendar.

With its emphasis on getting yourself to confession so as to be well disposed to receive all the graces of God’s Mercy, the Divine Mercy Devotion has always flown in the face of contemporary resistance to going to confession regularly. The message of Divine Mercy confronts in a unique way people’s resistance to embracing the dominion of Christ the King over our world, over all of society. The Divine Mercy Devotion really subverts or vanquishes the relativism which has clouded the worldview of so many and for so long. Divine Mercy Sunday brings us face to face with the demands of the two great commandments of love of God and neighbor, particularly as it challenges us to forgive all those who have caused us harm.

The assigned Gospel reading for the 2^nd Sunday of Easter is the same for all three years of the reading cycle. It recounts the institution of the Sacrament of Penance by the Risen Christ. “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.”

By recounting the appearance to the Apostle Thomas of the Risen Lord, showing him His hands and His side, this Gospel teaches us profoundly about Christ and what it means to have faith in Him. Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

A complementary theme of the readings this year in cycle B would be to describe the Christian life as one of great power witnessed in how the community of believers held everything in common. The apostles and that first generation of the baptized witnessed to the power flowing from the resurrection of Jesus Christ by their love and care for each other by their holding all goods in common, such that none of the believers wanted for anything. We are taught about the nature of this commandment to love in the 1^st Letter of St. John: And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Best of times – worst of times. I am beginning to think that we may be living not in the worst but in the best of times, as something entirely new seems to be on the verge of breaking through in our world. You’ll hear people comparing different ages of the Church, but to me it looks as though we are about to shake off the lukewarmness, the indifference, the political correctness of the present age in favor of a new zeal, a new enthusiasm. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

I think looking into the Divine Mercy devotions might be the way that opens the door to faith and conversion for many of you. I am going to recommend to my patron saint that he share his words with you and touch your hearts.

 Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

We live in the hope of the power of the living God, manifest at Easter in the Resurrection from the dead of Christ the Lord of Life!

Alleluia! He is Risen even as He said!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Ecce lígnum Crúcis

 

Christ’s Hour

Passiontide this year for me has focused in a particular way on Jesus’ embrace of His suffering and death upon the Cross. We learn that Jesus had to “fight” for His Cross so to speak, by withdrawing from certain situations of confrontation. Jesus even hid Himself from the crowds, thus choosing to exclude the possibility of His death by stoning. Just days prior to Palm Sunday, in the Temple on two occasions reported in the Gospel of St. John Jesus withdrew from almost certain death at the hands of the crowd. Our Lord did indeed choose the Cross as the instrument to complete the work of our Redemption.

In the 1962 Missal the passage from John 8:48-59 is put forward as the Gospel for the 1st Sunday of the Passion.

The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, ‘He is our God,’ though you do not know him. But I know him; if I would say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.” Then the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. [Harper Bibles. NRSV, Catholic Edition Bible: Holy Bible (pp. 2907-2908). Catholic Bible Press. Kindle Edition.]

The Gospel for Friday of the 1st Week of the Passion in the Novus Ordo from John 10:31-41 reports the Jews with stones in hand and Jesus once again avoiding arrest.

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If those to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’—and the scripture cannot be annulled— can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Then they tried to arrest him again, but he escaped from their hands. He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. [Harper Bibles. NRSV, Catholic Edition Bible: Holy Bible (pp. 2912-2913). Catholic Bible Press. Kindle Edition.]

Talk of Jesus avoiding death by stoning can readily be seen in the light of His obedience of the Father’s will in all things and moreover His destiny to suffer death by crucifixion and not some other way of His own choosing. See John 12:27-33:

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say — ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. [Harper Bibles. NRSV, Catholic Edition Bible: Holy Bible (p. 2918). Catholic Bible Press. Kindle Edition.]

For the first time really in my life, I have come to see the connection between the veiling of crucifixes in particular, starting from the 1st Sunday of the Passion and the clear significance of the unveiling during the Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday, with this act taking place as the priest ascends the steps of the altar intoning three times the words “Behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the Savior of the world!” Ecce lígnum Crúcis, in quo sálus múndi pepéndit. In Christ’s death upon the tree of the Cross the debt of the sin of Adam is remitted, and the way no long barred to the tree of Life.

In the Mass during Passiontide the Preface of the Holy Cross serves to further focus this reflection. It is truly meet and just, right and profitable for us, at all times, and in all places, to give thanks to Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: Who didst establish the salvation of mankind in the wood of the cross, that from whence death came into the world, thence a new life might spring, and that he who by a tree overcame, by a tree might be overthrown…

I always liked the Passiontide veils, but this year they make more sense. The thought of Christ withdrawing Himself from the gaze of those who would have stoned Him in order to make His date with the Cross on Good Friday makes it all just that much more profound.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

By Penance to God in Light

 

4^th Sunday of Lent

9-10 March 2024 – St. Lambert Parish

2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23

Eph 2:4-10

Jn 3:14-21

Laetare! Today is Laetare Sunday. Laetare is a Latin word which means rejoice! Rejoice why? Among other things because we are over half, nearly 2/3 of the way through our Lenten Penance. This Sunday’s message would be, that if these first weeks of Lent have gotten away from you, don’t give in to discouragement. Just jump right in today with the traditional Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It is not too late to make a good Lent. By way of a reminder, this would be the time for you to prepare yourself and to make a good confession now before Easter.

Doing penance, the whole prayer, fasting, and almsgiving business is very Catholic. Why do penance, why take on a special Lenten discipline you may ask? Well, it certainly has something to do with the Church’s teaching on Purgatory and unloading the burden of temporal punishment we have incurred because of our sins. The Lord wants us perfect in love, not only no sin on our souls but none of the residue left behind by what we have done wrong or have failed to do. God wants us, His Church wants us squeaky clean, if you will. The Church teaches that there are two types of punishment due to sin: eternal and temporal. Eternal punishment, the consequence of grave or mortal sin which has not been forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance, is what breaks off our communion with God, leading to the incapacity to enjoy heaven and hence for seeing God. Not seeing God in the world to come and for all eternity is hell; that is eternal damnation.

Temporal punishment, on the other hand, is the consequence of every sin, even venial sins, and that must be purified from our souls, scrubbed away either during our lifetime here on earth or after our death in Purgatory. The Sacrament of Penance remits the eternal punishment due to sin but may not always remit all temporal punishment, as God requires satisfaction for sins. Temporal punishment serves as a means of healing and conversion for sinners, challenging them to undertake a journey of profound conversion towards the fullness of life and love with God. Prayer, good works, indulgences, and the sufferings of purgatory are ways to remit the temporal punishment, to clean up the stains or scars which remain despite reconciliation or forgiveness. God's mercy aids the sinner in this process, using traditional forms of penance or self-renunciation to facilitate the sinner's conversion and healing. The goal is complete purification through our growth in fervent charity. Our Lenten penance helps achieve that, helps stir up love within our hearts, love for God and love for our neighbor.

I think the key concept to understanding penance is that of satisfaction. We can understand satisfaction as a sort of payback. Even humanly speaking, we can understand satisfaction which completes or perfects our sentiments and words of sorrow expressed for having offended someone we love. We see it at work already in our OT reading for today from the Book of 2^nd Chronicles explaining why the Babylonian Captivity came about. At the hands of the Chaldeans, the enemies of God’s People, came all the death and destruction back then in Jerusalem. After killing and plundering, destroying the temple and the city, they carried off the remaining people into the Babylonian Captivity. God let them return home only after the Holy Land had rested long enough to recover the sabbaths lost to the people’s wickedness. God claimed back the 70 years of sabbath rest owed by His People to Him. Before their punishment the Chosen People had gone about their own affairs and as a result of their many offences against God, in justice, they had to pay for this: “But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy.”

Today’s Gospel tells the same story, but without using the imagery of a reckoning. St. John’s Gospel notes God’s love for the world and the people’s condemnation for preferring the darkness to the light Who is Christ. This is God’s judgement on the world, on that people who rejected their Redeemer and chose darkness over light. In the Book of Chronicles the princes of Judah, the priests and people are condemned for infidelity, for practicing the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple. When Cyrus of the Persians sent the people back to Jerusalem, he sent them back to rebuild the Lord’s temple destroyed by the Chaldeans. God decreed through Cyrus that it was time to reestablish proper worship of the one true God.

It is never too late to take up the mantle of Lenten penance. We are called to do so in a truly Catholic sense as we heard on Ash Wednesday: Rend your hearts and not your garments! We do our fasting; we perform acts of charity not for the world to see but hidden such that the God Who is hidden and sees in secret will see and reward our penance.

St. Paul writes to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.”

Dating from the year 600, St. John Climacus, writing in a book entitled The Ladder of Divine Ascent, describes for his monk brethren the discipline and attitude needed to climb from the darkness of this world into God’s light. Already at rung 5 of that ladder we get a frightening description of a monastic prison, where monks remain filled with remorse for their shortcomings and failings. It all seems very foreign to us, but perhaps so only because we are not conscious enough of the greatness, of the heights of our baptismal calling, and of how determined Satan is to knock us off of that ladder which leads to heaven.

Laetare, rejoice! God would have us climb up to Him. Take up the challenge and seek the light Who is Christ! Now is the hour, now is the time, now is the day of salvation!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI