17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12; Rom 8:28-30; Mt 13:44-52

The story of Solomon from the Book of Kings
is reminiscent of one of those folktales
in which a magical being appears
and offers someone three wishes:
God says, “Ask something of me 
and I will give it to you.”
In folktales, this rarely turns out well.
Usually, the second and third wishes
end up being used up trying to undo
the damage wrought by the first wish,
because we human beings are not very good
at figuring out what is really valuable
or the consequences of our choices.
The things we think we want
often find a way to make us miserable,
or cause unexpected damage 
to people around us.
We choose badly
because we are congenitally foolish.

For Solomon, the problem is even worse,
since he is not given two additional wishes
with which to undo an initial foolish one.
A lot is riding on his answer.
Should he ask for the kinds of things 
that kings usually want:
a long life or riches
or the death of his enemies?
All seem desirable choices,
ways to be known far and wide
for his power and success;
ways to ensure a glorious reign.
But they all might also bring 
unforeseen consequences.
A long life might be lived out 
in pain and misery.
Riches might be stolen or incite jealousy.
The death of one’s enemies 
might just create new enemies.

So he asks instead:
“Give your servant…
an understanding heart
to judge your people 
and to distinguish 
right from wrong.”
He asks for what is truly valuable: 
a wise heart and understanding.
Only the choice of wisdom 
cannot be foolish.
And this is because, ultimately, 
in choosing wisdom we are choosing God,
whose wisdom guides all creation,
making all things work together for the good
for those who love God.

But our congenital foolishness
typically makes us seek lesser goods,
things like riches,
things like physical beauty, 
things like fame or honor or glory.
And the problem with these lesser goods
is that they are limited in their scope,
so that they put us 
in competition with each other.
However rich I am, 
there will always be someone richer;
however much looksmaxxing I do,
there will always be someone more beautiful;
however much recognition I receive,
there will always be someone more famous.
I seek the kind of fine pearls and treasures
that can be had 
only by denying them to others.
And I am haunted by the idea
that there might be 
an even better pearl
out there somewhere;
a richer treasure in some other field.
So my life becomes 
an anxious and restless competition 
for the limited goods of this passing world.

The great fourth-century Church Father,
Augustine of Hippo, 
looked at his own world,
the world of the declining Roman Empire,
and saw how the desire for power and glory 
that drove its citizens
simply ended up making them miserable
as they scrambled to dominate others,
to surpass them in wealth and beauty and fame.
The problem, he said,
was that they chose limited and passing goods
rather than goodness itself.
For only goodness itself is eternal,
and only goodness itself 
is a treasure that increases
the more that it is shared in.
Augustine wrote: “the possession of goodness 
is by no means diminished 
by being shared with a partner…; 
and one who is most willing 
to admit others to a share of it 
will have the greatest abundance 
to himself” (Civ. Dei 15.5).

The more people who share in goodness,
the more goodness there is.
The more people who share in wisdom,
the more wisdom there is.
The more people who share 
in justice and compassion,
the more justice and compassion there is.
The point is simple to grasp,
but hard to live out,
because we are congenitally foolish.
Though in the course of my life 
I have had my share of achievements,
I fixate on those who have achieved more.
Though I have riches sufficient for my needs,
I fret and worry about not having enough.
My life is like a treasure 
that I have fallen fortunately upon,
and yet I abandon it, 
worrying that there might be 
a better treasure
in some other field.
It is like a fine pearl
that I will not buy
out of fear that somewhere else
there is a finer pearl.

In my foolishness I fail to see
that God is always already 
offering me my heart’s desire
if only my heart is fixed on wisdom.
God has uncovered the treasure in the field.
God has placed the pearl in my hand.
And the price of purchase is simply
a heart given over to wisdom,
a heart that desires the highest good,
a heart that is not fearful and anxious,
a heart that is not constantly looking
at what others possess and have achieved.

That’s all it takes,
but we are congenitally foolish; 
it is a condition into which we are born.
It is for this reason that Christ,
who is Wisdom incarnate, 
has come to dwell among us
within out foolish world,
“so that he might be the firstborn
among many brothers and sisters,”
so that we might be reborn 
in the image of Wisdom itself.

Let us pray that God 
would give us a heart,
that is wise and understanding.
Let us pray that the heart of Jesus,
in whom are all treasures 
of wisdom and knowledge,
would speak to our hearts
and make them like unto his.
And may God who is merciful
have mercy on us all. 

16th Week in Ordinary Time: Tuesday

Weekday homily at the Aquinas Studium, Dover MA.

Readings: Micah 7:14-15, 18-20; Matthew 12:46-50

This is a slightly disturbing passage 
for a Thomist.
Disturbing not because of 
the mention of Jesus’ “brothers,” 
nor because of the seeming disrespect 
that he shows to his Blessed Mother.
But because of the way in which his natural family
seems to be replaced by the supernatural family
that he has gathered around him:
“stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said,
‘Here are my mother and my brothers.’”

Whatever happened to 
gratia non tollat naturam, sed perficiat?
Jesus’ natural family might seem to be taken away
in favor of a new family, created by grace.
But I think this is not entirely 
a case of destruction:
Mary, after all, will be present 
at the Cross and on the day of Pentecost,
and James who is called Jesus’ brother 
will lead the disciples in Jerusalem
and meet his death for the sake of Christ.

But grace does not perfect nature
simply by bringing it 

to some expected conclusion;
grace perfects us 

by diverting and disturbing
the trajectories of our lives.
Gratia perficiat naturam, true.
But often it is the case
that this means gratia turbit naturam:
grace disturbs nature,
prodding and poking it 

in unexpected directions.
And here we see the natural family
prodded and poked and disturbed,
by the closed circle of kinship
being broken open to become 
the graced family of disciples.

But Jesus is suggesting something 
even more disturbing.
The graced family of disciples
can become simply another version
of the closed circle of natural kinship
unless it orients itself away from itself,
unless is becomes the sign
of the glory of the Kingdom.
We Thomists can focus so much 
on gratia perficiat naturam
that we forget that 
gloria perfeciat gratiam:
glory perfects grace.
And like grace perfecting nature,
it perfects by disturbing:
gloria turbit naturam.

After gesturing to the gathered disciples
Jesus says “whoever does the will 
of my heavenly Father 
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
This “whoever” suggests to me that,
when grace gives way to glory, 
those of us counted among the redeemed
might well be surprised 
by who we find there with us.
As important as the community of disciples is
as a sign and foretaste of the Kingdom,
that sign must always point away from itself 
to the greater reality of the Kingdom—
the new creation whose scope is God’s secret.

Gratia turbit naturam
and gloria turbit gratiam,
and thanks be to God for that,
for the presence of grace and the hope of glory
with which the Spirit inspires us
ought to prod and poke us 
out of our closed circles
and into the wild mystery of divine love.
May God who is merciful
have mercy on us all.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Wis 12:13, 16-19; Rom 8:26-27; Mt 13:24-43.

VIDEO

Have you ever thought:
we could fix what is wrong with the world
if only we could get rid of those people?
Admit it.
You have had that thought.
We all have.
We might fill in the blank 
represented by those people
in different ways—
conservatives, liberals,
fascists, communists,
immigrants, nativists, 
peaceniks, warmongers,
feminists, misogynists,
people who cut you off in traffic
or talk in the movie theater,
those who like the Latin Mass
or the music of Marty Haugen—
but we all have people we think
the world or the Church
would be better off without.

The problem with eradicating those people
is made clear by Jesus’s parable today:
good and bad, 
wheat and weeds,
children of the Kingdom
and children of the evil one,
grow up together in the world
and in trying to eradicate the bad
you risk eradicating the good as well.
We can see this pretty clearly 
if we look at human history:
from the French Revolution 
to the killing fields of Cambodia,
in attempting to create an ideal society,
we human beings create terror instead,
uprooting the good with the bad.

But the problem is deeper than that.
It is not just that those people live mixed in
with the good people of the world,
and we can’t eradicate the bad
without eradicating the good;
the problem is that we often have trouble
distinguishing the good from the evil.
The word that our translation 
renders as “weeds”
is in fact the name 
of a specific weed: zizania—
a weed that looks very similar to wheat.
To untrained or hasty eyes
the two are indistinguishable.
Likewise, the children of the Kingdom
and the children of the evil one
might be indistinguishable 
to our human eyes,
and the problem with thinking 
those people are the problem
is the problem of
distinguishing good from evil.

And we often fail when it comes 
to taking the measure 
of goodness or badness.
We mistake the bad for the good
and the good for the bad.
In today’s Gospel, 
between Jesus’s parable 
of the wheat and the weeds 
and the explanation of it that he
offers to his disciples,
St. Matthew’s Gospel provides 
two other short parabolic sayings:
the kingdom of God 
is like the tiny mustard seed
that becomes a large bush,
and the kingdom of God
is like the bit of yeast 
that leavens the whole dough.
A mustard seed is very small,
and yeast—
a single-celled organism—
is even smaller.
If the kingdom of God
begins as something so seemingly insignificant,
something so small as to escape our notice,
something that needs time 
to germinate and to leaven,
surely we might miss its presence
within another person.

Perhaps someone’s goodness
is a small, hidden trait
that we do not see.
Perhaps the seed of the kingdom 
is buried within 
a life of struggle and failure,
a difficult personality
or the legacy of poor choices.
Perhaps a child of the Kingdom
looks to us like one of those people.

Mark Ji Tianxiang was a Chinese Christian
who lived at the end of the 19th century.
He had become addicted to the opium
he used to treat a stomach ailment,
For thirty years he was denied the sacraments
because clergy at the time saw addiction
as a sign of moral weakness.
Yet though he was denied 
absolution and communion
he faithfully attended Mass daily,
no doubt crying out to God
with inexpressible groanings,
shamed by his weakness and failure.
Perhaps some of his fellow Christians thought: 
this man could have been a saint
if only he weren’t one of those people, 
the addicts who have wasted their lives
indulging their appetite for drugs.
As it was, he was seen by them
as a weed among the wheat,
a social plague whose eradication 
could only make the world 
a better place.

In the year 1899, the so-called Boxer Rebellion—
an anti-Western and anti-Christian movement—
broke out in northern China.
Mark Ji Tianxiang and members of his family
were seized and imprisoned
and told they would be executed
if they did not renounce their Catholic faith.
Mark remained steadfast in his faith 
in Christ and his Church,
even though that Church had denied him
the grace of the sacraments for three decades. 
He asked to be executed last,
so that no one else would have to die alone.
On July 9, 1900
he watched his family members 
go to their deaths one-by-one
as he sang the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary
to strengthen and encourage them,
until he himself was finally beheaded.

A hundred years later
he was canonized as a saint
by Pope John Paul II.
Through the passage of time
the holiness hidden during his life
by the struggle of addiction
was now revealed.
The tiny mustard seed had become a great bush;
the bit of yeast had leavened the whole loaf.

We would like to think we could fix 
what is wrong with the world
if only we could get rid of those people.
But who are those people?
Maybe it is not the person addicted to drugs
or the person who cuts me off in traffic
or the person who votes 
in a way I disapprove of
or whose customs and language 
are alien to me.
Maybe it is I myself, 
who presume to judge.
Maybe we, 
who judge by appearances,
in haste and in ignorance,
are those people.

We certainly can and must 
judge actions to be good or bad;
but the judgment of souls?
Jesus’s counsel in his parable
is that we leave that judgment up to God,
the one who searches hearts,
the master of might 
who judges with clemency.
He will send his angels 
in his own time
to execute his judgment
and eradicate evil,
but woe to those 
who would rush that judgment.
For the mustard seed needs time to germinate;
the yeast needs times to leaven the loaf.

So let us pray 
for those children of the Kingdom
who suffer the judgment 
we pass in our ignorance.
Let us pray for ourselves,
who stand condemned 
by our own ignorant judgment.
And let us pray that God, 
who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang,
pray for us.

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a; Rom 6:3-4, 8-11; Mt 10:37-42

VIDEO

Last year a company called 2Wai
had its viral moment 
when it put out an ad
showing a pregnant woman 
talking with her mother by videochat,
getting advice, as one does, 
on pregnancy and parenthood.
The ad skips to ten months later,
when the same woman, 
now with her new child,
is again talking 
by videochat to her mother,
who tells the child a bedtime story
that had delighted the woman 
when she herself was a child.
If you’re paying attention,
you notice that the grandmother
is wearing the same outfit she had worn
in the first conversation,
which is strange, but, whatever…
The ad then skips to ten years later,
and the baby is now a boy,
talking with his grandmother on the phone
as he walks home from school,
sharing with her about his basketball team
and his latest crush.
You notice that the grandmother
is not only wearing the same outfit
as in the previous videochat,
but does not seem to have aged 
in the past decade.
The ad then skips to thirty years later,
and the boy is now a man,
talking with his grandmother on his phone—
still in the same outfit,
still unchanged by time—
telling her that she is becoming a great-grandmother,
getting from her the same advice on parenthood
that had been given to his mother many years before.

By this time you realize that all along
his “grandmother” in an AI avatar 
that his mother created
before he was ever conceived,
using a mere three minutes of video
that she had the foresight to record,
an avatar that is a product you can purchase.
2Wai’s CEO posted the ad with the question
“What if the loved ones we’ve lost 
could be part of our future?”
He probably should have added:
as long as your keep 
your subscription paid up.

We human beings 
like to distract ourselves
from the fact that we will die,
that our loved ones will die,
that the institutions and causes
to which we devote our lives will die.
We distract ourselves with games
both trivial and serious:
with hobbies and entertainment,
with politics and empire building.
And when we can distract ourselves no longer
we try to convince ourselves that death is a problem
that our technology will one day fix,
consoling ourselves with the hope
that immortality is within our grasp.
Yet these distractions and consolations
are simply a sign that, in some sense,
we are already dead,
because we live lives that are shaped
by the fear of death,
and by our schemes for ignoring it
or evading it.

“Whoever finds his life will lose it.”
Whoever finds his life
through diversions that distract us
from the inevitable reality of death,
will lose that life.
Whoever finds her life
through a technological fix
that promises to halt the flow of time,
will lose that life.
Whoever finds his life 
through some app on his phone
that can make his long-dead grandmother
an ongoing part of his life,
will lose that life.
Because in all these cases
the life you think you’ve found
is not life but a simulation of life.
For life, by its nature, is fragile and risky;
and this fragility and risk is a sign
of our essential dependence on God
and our dependence on each other.

But there is another choice.
We can die.
“Whoever loses his life 
for my sake will find it.”
Whoever is buried with Christ 
through baptism into his death,
will find life.
Whoever takes up his or her cross 
and follows after Christ,
will find life.
Whoever prefers the love of Christ
to that of father or mother
or son or daughter
or even AI avatar grandma,
will find life.

This losing of your life
might involve physical death.
Down through the centuries
and in many places today,
to follow Jesus is to risk being killed.
But it often takes less dramatic form.
To lose your life may be to live it
without the consoling distractions
that allow you to ignore 
the essential fragility of life,
that divert you from the truth 
that life is risky and always involves loss,
always involves dependence 
on God and each other.
To lose your life is to live it
without the comforting illusion
that there is or soon will be a technological fix
that can restore lost loved ones to us
and us to them.
To lose your life is to see it
no longer centered on yourself,
but recentered on Jesus, 
crucified and risen,
living eternally for God.

Hear the good news:
You have died with Christ in baptism.
This news is good because it means
that the thing you fear most,
the thing looming over your life
that you seek to evade or avoid,
is something that you have already 
lived through in Christ.
Paul says, “death no longer 
has power over him.”
And death no longer
has power over you,
for you have been raised with him
and are now free to follow him
on the way of the cross.
You are freed to live a life
that is fragile and risky.
You are freed to live a life
that depends on the generosity 
of God and of each other.

We have no need for diversions
to shield us from death’s reality.
We have no need of avatars
who promise us eternity.
We only need Jesus
and his cross and resurrection.
May God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Jer 20:10-13; Rom 5:12-15; Matt 10:26-33

In today’s Gospel, Jesus begins 
by telling his followers to fear no one,
and then goes on to tell them to fear God,
and then again not to fear 
because of God’s all-knowing care.
But isn’t this a bit strange?
Which is it: fear or no fear?

Our Catholic tradition suggests that 
we need to distinguish different sorts of fear.

The first is what the tradition calls “worldly fear,”
by which we mean fear of losing our worldly goods.
This is the sort of fear Jesus speaks of 
when he tells his followers,
“do not be afraid of those who kill the body 
but cannot kill the soul.”
This sort of fear can become sinful
when fear of losing life or wealth or reputation 
holds us back from doing what is right.
It is sinful because it is a sign
that we love something more than we love God
and that we do not trust in the power of God,
who, as Jeremiah says, rescues the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked.

The second is what the tradition calls “servile fear.”
This is the sort of fear Jesus speaks of 
when he tells his followers,
“be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna”—
which was the term that Jesus 
and other Jews of his day
used for the place 
where the wicked will be punished.
This fear of God
is like the fear a servant has of a master;
it is a fear that if one steps out of line 
swift and just retribution will follow.

This fear, unlike worldly fear, is not sinful,
since what you fear losing—
your eternal heavenly reward—
actually is something of surpassing value,
and so it can help keep you from sinning
or make you feel sorrow when you sin,
because you, as the old act of contrition puts it,
“fear the loss of heaven and the pains of hell.”
But while his sort of fear is not sinful, 
in the way that worldly fear is,
it’s also not particularly holy.
The problem with this servile fear is that,
because it is about what I might gain or lose, 
it ultimately remains self-centered 
and not God-centered.
And so, it is not, in itself, a path to holiness.

The path to holiness involves, rather, 
what the tradition calls “filial” or “holy fear”—
the fear akin to worry a child might have
of doing or saying anything 
that might disappoint a beloved parent,
even a parent who would always forgive them,
the fear of disappointing one who is, 
as the old act of contrition puts it,
“all-good and most deserving of my love.”
This is not fear
over what you might lose or gain
but is an awareness of 
the overwhelming presence 
of the all-holy God.
This holy fear is rooted in a sense of awe 
that is akin to what you might feel 
standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon,
safely behind the railing and so not in danger,
yet feeling yourself fading into insignificance
before something so vast.

But it is something more than even this,
because while the Grand Canyon might be
the object of our admiration,
it can’t really be the object of our love,
because it doesn’t love us back,
and all true love is an exchange of love
that grows out of a mutual knowing.
The awe-inspiring Grand Canyon 
is something we can come to know
but it is not something that can know us.

God alone is the object of our holy fear
because God knows us and loves us, 
even better than we know and love ourselves.
This holy fear is not fear of Gehenna,
but an awe-filled standing in the presence 
of the one who knows and loves perfectly,
who sees each beloved sparrow’s fall,
who counts each precious hair of our heads.
This holy fear is the way in which
we come to share in God’s own holiness.
This holy fear persists and is perfected in heaven,
when we live fully in God’s presence
and know God even as we are known.

Which brings us back 
to the seeming contradiction 
in Jesus’s words:
fear or no fear?
We ought to say “no” to worldly fear,
for those who can destroy the body
cannot destroy the soul that is known by God.
We ought to say “yes…but” to servile fear, 
for, if it is the best we can manage,
God can use our self-interested anxiety
over our own salvation
to hold us back from the abyss of sin.
But ultimately the only fear 
that we ought to say “yes” to without qualification,
that we should seek as the pearl of great price,
is the holy fear that grows from knowing and loving 
the God who knows and loves us.

This is the fear that can make us brave,
can make us lose our worldly fear
and even our servile fear,
because it is the fear 
that turns us from ourselves 
and what we can and can’t do
and turns us to Christ 
and what he has done for us,
a gift surpassing all transgression.
As the poet George Herbert wrote
“…all things were more ours by being His;
What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.”

So let us seek an ever-deeper awareness
of the awful mystery that knows and loves us,
let us foster the fear that makes us brave
so that we can serve Christ and not count the cost,
and let us pray that God, who is merciful,
will have mercy on us all.

Easter 5

Readings: Acts 6:1-7; 1 Ptr 2:4-9; Jn 14:1-12

VIDEO

“It’s in the syllabus!”
This is something professors repeat constantly;
some have even gotten it printed on tee-shirts.
The syllabus is the carefully designed document
that outlines the goals of the course
and the means by which those goals 
are to be attained:
readings and assignments and policies.
You typically go over it 
on the first day of class,
and tell students to look there first
if they have a question about anything.

Then, over the course of the semester,
usually when a test is coming up,
students ask you questions
that are already clearly answered in the syllabus.
It is as if this document does not exist for them,
or maybe it’s just easier to ask the professor,
and you begin to wonder what the point was 
of the hours spent carefully laying out
the course goals and methods,
and so you reply to these questions,
with barely concealed exasperation,
“It’s in the syllabus!”
And then you go ahead 
and answer the questions anyway.

I sort of imagine this is how 
Jesus might have felt when, 
at the moment that his hour had come,
Thomas and Phillip pop up
with the most basic of questions.
Jesus called the disciples to follow him,
and now Thomas claims 
that he does not know the way.
Jesus revealed divine power
through his signs and miracles,
and now Phillip asks 
to be shown the Father.
When Jesus says, 
“Have I been with you for so long a time
and you still do not know me?”
I hear him saying something like, 
“It’s in the syllabus!”
I have laid all this out so carefully for you:
in telling you that those who follow me
will walk in the light, for I am light;
in telling you that I am the good shepherd
who guides and guards God’s flock;
in turning water to wine;
in feeding multitudes;
in opening the eyes of the blind;
in raising Lazarus from the dead.
And still, you do not know me?
Now you ask me about the way,
now you ask me to show you the Father,
when the final test is upon us?
It’s in the syllabus, guys.

But, like any good teacher, 
Jesus does not let exasperation 
get the best of him.
Like any good teacher he knows that, 
as carefully as you may spell out
the means and ends of the course,
students tend not to take in information
until it becomes relevant to them.
And it typically becomes relevant to them
when the time of testing has arrived.
So too with the disciples:
all that Jesus has said and shown to them
seems to have washed over them to no effect.
But now that the hour has come
and they are gathered in the upper room
on the night in which he will be
betrayed and arrested,
now they ask questions:
How will we know the way?
How can we see the Father?
The answers may be in the syllabus 
of Jesus’ words and signs,
but it is only at 
the final moment of testing
that the disciples begin 
to have the questions to those answers.
And so he answers their questions
in some of his most eloquent and enigmatic 
expressions of his own identity:
“I am the way and the truth and the life”;
“I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

For those with faith,
for those who sense 
that the hour of testing is near
and that they need 
to know the way forward,
for those who dare to ask,
Jesus can become the cornerstone
around whom their spiritual dwelling 
can take shape;
for those without faith, 
those who are not seeking,
those who think there is always more time,
those who think the path and goal are clear,
Jesus is merely a stone of stumbling.
This suggests that faith may often be more 
about asking questions than possessing answers.
Though Jesus might have felt the impulse
to reply to Thomas and Phillip’s questions
by growling “It’s in the syllabus!”
he also sees that they are finally truly seeking,
that they want to know the goal 
and the way to get there.
Even as they question, he tells them, 
“You have faith in God,”
and he bids them,  
“have faith also in me.”

For us too, 
it is often only when we sense 
that the hour of testing is upon us,
when we want to know what it is 
that is worth living and dying for,
that we get around to asking 
the essential questions.
It is often when confronted 
with illness or death,
or when we struggle fruitlessly 
against the world’s evils,
when we have stumbled one time too many
and realize we do not know the way,
that we finally ask the questions
to which Jesus has been the answer all along.

And even if the answer has always been there,
spelled out in the syllabus 
of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection,
it is better to ask than not to ask.
For like any good teacher,
Jesus does not scorn our questions.
Indeed, he joyfully answers them
by welcoming us to enter 
into his risen life,
the eternal dwelling he 
has gone to prepare for us,
the glory that lies on the other side
of the hour of testing—
the enduringly mysterious answer 
to all our questions
about life and death 
and meaning and purpose.
So let us seek him fearlessly
in our hour of testing, 
let us seek the one who is 
the way, the truth, and the life,
who is calling us out of darkness into light,
praying that God, who is merciful,
will have mercy on us all.

 

Easter 3

Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-33; 1 Pt 1:17-21; Lk 24:13-35

VIDEO

“Breaking bread” is one of those biblical phrases,
like “putting words in someone’s mouth”
or “going the extra mile,”
that has woven its way 
into the English language
and is often used 
without any awareness of its source.
It originates in our Gospel reading for today—
“he was made known to them 
in the breaking of bread”—
and recurs in the book of Acts
as the name for the sacred meal
that we today call the Eucharist or Mass.

In our culture, even those 
with no knowledge of the Bible 
use this phrase to speak 
of a particular kind of eating.
No one speaks of “breaking bread”
when eating alone,
for the phrase suggests shared food.
And we tend to use it for 
particularly significant and meaningful 
instances of eating together:
perhaps a meal in which you bond with a new friend,
perhaps a meal at which you reunite or reconcile
with someone you have not seen in a long time 
or with from whom you’ve been estranged.
To break bread is to find a unity 
in the midst of brokenness and separation,
a meal of intimacy and companionship.
Hidden in this phrase “breaking bread”
are the Gospel values of generosity and justice,
of mercy and reconciliation,
and above all of solidarity and sacrifice.

But when a phrase like “breaking bread,”
and the notions of solidarity and sacrifice
that it enshrines,
are cut off from their Christian roots,
they can become only distant echoes
of the true promise of the Gospel,
echoes that might be misheard 
or, even worse, manipulated.
Separated from the story of salvation—
the story that Jesus unfolds
for the confused disciples
on the road to Emmaus—
the solidarity and sacrifice of broken bread 
might come to mean something quite different, 
and even opposed,
to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Christian notions of solidarity and sacrifice
can be used to bless and sanctify 
other sorts of costly human undertakings
that do indeed unite people 
but which are at odds 
with the bread of peace
that Jesus breaks with his disciples.

The writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
best known for the classic book The Little Prince, 
was an aviator who lost his life
in the Second World War.
Reflecting on the way in which 
armed conflict can give meaning and unity 
to those who fight on the same side,
he wrote, “Men can, of course,
be stirred into life 
by being dressed up in uniforms 
and made to blare out chants of war. 
It must be confessed that this 
is one way for men 
to break bread with comrades 
and to find what they are seeking, 
which is a sense of something universal, 
of self-fulfillment. 
But of this bread men die” (A Sense of Life).
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry knew firsthand
how easily one might mistake
the feeling of solidarity attained in warfare
for the unity of God’s kingdom,
the sacrifice made to the nation
for a sacrifice made to God,
breaking the bread of death
for breaking the bread of life.

Unless you’ve been living 
in a remote monastery 
or in an underground bunker
(both of which might seem
like sensible life choices these days),
you are no doubt aware 
of the furor that has been stirred up
by Pope Leo’s remarks concerning peace,
in particular his questioning of
the justification of the war in Iran
and his statements that 
“God does not bless any conflict.
Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, 
the Prince of Peace, 
is never on the side of those 
who once wielded the sword 
and today drop bombs.” 

The ensuing furor has included 
the U.S. President taking to social media
to criticize the Pope as “weak on crime,”
to claim that Leo supports a nuclear-armed Iran,
and to take credit for Leo’s election as Pope,
as well as the Vice-President cautioning the Pope,
“If you're going to opine on matters of theology, 
you’ve got to be careful.”
Speaking for myself,
I have no idea what to make 
of the President’s remarks
(except to say that they are false),
and while I certainly agree 
that one ought to be careful 
when opining on theology,
I hardly think the Pope needs 
to be reminded of this
by the Vice President.

The general reaction 
of the Pope’s critics has been
that he ought to stay in his lane
and not meddle in politics.
But I think this criticism betrays 
a profound misunderstanding 
both of the nature of politics 
and of the role of the papacy.

Politics is not some 
amoral sphere of statecraft
where the will of the majority
(much less the will of the executive)
determines right or wrong,
good or evil.
From the right to life 
to the economy
to foreign policy,
our politics must be subjected
to moral evaluation and judgment.

And the role of the Pope 
is to aid us in making that moral judgment.
The role of the Pope
is the role we see Peter exercising
in the book of Acts:
to bear witness to the risen Jesus,
who is the king who lays claim
not to some small sliver of our lives
but to the whole of life,
to matters of wealth and poverty,
of peace and war,
good and evil,
life and death.
The role of the Pope 
is to ensure that the Word of God
is not a series of faint cultural echoes
that sanctify the schemes of men
but the two-edged sword that penetrates
“even between soul and spirit, 
joints and marrow…
able to discern reflections 
and thoughts of the heart.”
The role of the Pope 
is to help us see the difference 
between breaking the bread of death
and breaking the bread of life.

Pope Leo is not telling us
that we cannot be good Catholics
and good Americans at the same time.
But he may well be telling us
that being a good Catholic
might have to redefine
what it means to be a good American.
He is telling us that 
if we break bread with Jesus
so that our eyes are opened 
to his presence with us on the way,
we might have to walk that road differently
than we did before.
As Leo’s predecessor of blessed memory,

Pope Francis, put it:
“we who share this Bread 
of unity and of peace 
are called to love every face; 
to mend every tear; 
to be, always and everywhere, 
builders of peace.” 

So let us pray for our Pope Leo,
let us pray for our President and nation,
and let us pray that God,
the compassionate,
the merciful, 
might have mercy on us all.

Holy Thursday

Reading: Ex 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Jn 13:1-15

Most of us like our religion clear and orderly.
We seek clear answers to our questions
and orderly practices 
that give structure to our lives.
But as we embark upon 
these most holy days of the Christian year
our Scriptures point us toward
a region of human experience
that is mysterious and messy,
a wilderness in which we lose our bearings
and must trust the Lord himself to lead us.

Our first reading 
places us in the midst 
of an undeniably mysterious and messy
element of human religion:
the offering of sacrifice.
An animal slain: 
its innocent life given as an offering 
to the power that has given life to us,
bearing away the sins of the guilty;
a lamb’s spilled blood 
daubed on doorposts
as a protecting sign 
that keeps at bay
the destructive blow that falls
upon the first born of the land.
This is a mystery the Israelites 
are called to enact and remember,
not a puzzle that they 
are expected to explain.
Indeed, if we try to explain it 
we will tie ourselves into fruitless 
and probably blasphemous knots
as we seek to make 
the messy mystery 
of God’s justice and mercy
fit into our human categories.

Saint Paul raises the stakes 
on mystery and messiness,
as he recounts Jesus’s words and deeds 
at the Last Supper,
for now we begin to see 
that the life-saving lamb is Jesus himself;
the blood that will seal the saving covenant
and provide shelter from the power of death
is the blood that Jesus himself 
will shed on Calvary;
the lamb we are to consume 
is his true flesh and true blood.
His disciples are not called
to puzzle out how this could be,
to explain how this man 
is the true lamb who bears away our sins,
to grasp how the horror of the cross
is somehow the true Tree of Life.
They are simply called, 
like the ancient Israelites,
to “do this in remembrance of me”:
to enact and remember 
this mystery of salvation
that has been handed on to them.

Our Gospel presents us with what might be 
the most mysterious and messy thing of all:
the Lord of the universe,
who holds in his hands 
our life and our death,
to whom we offer sacrifice 
for forgiveness and protection,
strips off his garment of glory
and stoops to wash 
the filthy feet of his followers.
This too is not some puzzle 
they are expected to untangle
so that it yields a clear moral lesson
about how to be of service to others.
Jesus tells them: “What I am doing, 
you do not understand now.”
Light will only begin to dawn
once he has loved them to the end,
through the cross and into resurrection.
Only then will they be able to glimpse the truth
that this is the mystery of God made human,
of the creator become a creature,
of glory emptied into humility
in an intimacy that disturbs and transforms,
a mystery that they can never explain,
but are called to remember and enact:
“as I have done for you, 
you should also do.”

We hear these words of Scripture 
calling us forward, 
out of our religion 
of clear answers 
and orderly practices
and into the wilderness 
of mess and mystery, 
where God will purify his people
of their idolatrous desire 
for a God they can control.
God commands the Israelites at Passover:
“You shall eat like those who are in flight.”
You cannot eat this in a place 
where you are enslaved to your desire
for clarity and order.
And this is no less true of the Eucharist
that Jesus institutes on this night.
This is not a meal at which you settle in,
but food hastily grabbed 
as you flee toward freedom
in a future that you cannot see. 

It is perhaps fitting that we conclude tonight’s Mass,
in which we eat like whose who are in flight,
with a procession through the streets of Baltimore
to repose the sacrament at Corpus Christi.
It will be a mysterious and messy journey:
some will straggle and some will surge ahead,
some passersby will stare 
and wonder what we’re up to; 
some may think that we 
are simply wayward pedestrians 
with no idea of where we are going.
And they won’t be entirely wrong.
Because we wandering walkers
don’t really know our destination,
for it is glory beyond our imagining.
But we do know Jesus,
and in knowing him we know the way,
for he will lead us on this journey,
this mysterious and messy journey of our life.

To follow Jesus is to take 
what the novelist Graham Greene called 
“a short cut to the dark 
and magical heart of faith—
to the night when the graves opened 
and the dead walked.” 
It is a journey out of clarity and order;
a journey in which we remember and enact 
lambs slain and feet washed,
bloody sacrifice and disturbing intimacy,
glory cast aside and glory taken up again.
It is a journey mysterious and messy 
and it is really the only journey worth taking.
So let us follow him where he may lead,
even into the wilderness,
even to the cross.
And may God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.

 

Lent 5

Readings: Ez 37:12-14; Rom 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45

VIDEO

We don’t know what became of Lazarus

after Jesus called him forth from his tomb.

John’s Gospel speaks of him 

immediately following 

the passage we have just heard

as being present at a meal 

given in Jesus’ honor,

and tells us that 

the priests in Jerusalem

had decided to kill not only Jesus

but Lazarus as well,

for his very life now witnessed

to the power of Jesus.

But we don’t know if they succeeded.

After this point, the Scriptures 

fall silent with regard to Lazarus.

But Christians down the centuries

have tended to imagine him

going on to lead a long life,

and over the centuries have 

filled in those extra years

with legends and traditions.

The Eastern Orthodox have told tales 

of him becoming a bishop in Cyprus; 

Medieval Catholics claimed that he

became a bishop in Marseilles

and was martyred during the reign

of the emperor Domitian.

There is also an odd medieval legend 

that, having seen the unredeemed

during his four days among the dead,

Lazarus never smiled or laughed again.

But, as I say, 

these may be simply 

made-up stories.

We don’t really know 

what became of Lazarus.

But we imagine a life

spent bearing witness, 

even to the point of death, 

to the one who gave 

that life back to him

by calling him out of his tomb.

For what else would you do

with the gift of such a life?

We try to imagine it,

and we are right to do so,

because in thinking of the life of Lazarus

we are really thinking about our own lives,

for we too are Lazarus:

buried with Christ in baptism

we have been called back into life 

through the Spirit 

who raised Christ from the dead

and will give life to our mortal bodies.

We are Lazarus,

our graves of sin opened,

the shroud of death unwound,

invited to recline with Christ at his table.

We are Lazarus,

graciously given a measure of days

in which to bear witness 

to the power of Jesus.

Of course, we might not think 

of ourselves this way.

 

We might think of our baptisms 

as simply benign rituals of belonging

or nice naming ceremonies for a baby,

something that sets us on the course

of an ordinary and respectable life.

We might think this way

because we would prefer to live 

an ordinary  and respectable life

rather than what we might call 

a Lazarus life.

For a Lazarus life is a life unbound 

from the shroud of death,

a life called forth 

from the tomb of sin, 

and so a Lazarus life is one that bears

the dangerous memory of Jesus

and gives testimony to his power

even in the face of opposition.

For what do you do 

with a life that has been 

lost and found again?

How do you spend the days 

that have been pulled

free from the tomb

and given back to you as a gift?

Surely you must live those days differently

as you live them not according to the flesh

but according to the spirit of righteousness.

Surely you must live a life 

that can risk compassion and mercy,

a life of peacemaking 

and hungering for justice,

a life not dedicated to anxious grasping 

for security and control and power

but a life lived with open hands.

 

Surely you must live a life that seeks

to give to others the gift of new life

that you yourself have received.

Surely you must live a life

that weeps with those who weep

even as it bears witness to the one

who is resurrection and life itself.

The world needs Lazarus lives,

because our world is beset by death:

physical death wrought 

by war and oppression,

and spiritual death 

wrought by sin and self-seeking.

The world needs Lazarus lives

to show that another way is possible.

So in these waning days of Lent

let us ask ourselves 

whether the lives we live show forth

what it means to live a Lazarus life,

a life that has been raised from death.

And let us pray to our gracious God,

who called us out of death in Baptism,

that all those whom we meet

might see in us a people 

who live out the measure of their days 

as a gift graciously given;

may they see in us what it means 

to live free and unafraid

to the glory and praise of God.

And may God who is merciful

have mercy on us all.

Lent 1

Readings: Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11

VIDEO

We know that the devil is a liar,
and that when he tempts us
he does so by lying.
Sometimes he lies by telling us
that something evil is in fact good,
so that our will is drawn to things
that are harmful to us.
But our first reading and Gospel today
suggest that there is another sort of lying 
by which the devil tempts us:
he lies about God,
telling us that there is some good thing
that God wants to deny to us
that we should grab for ourselves.
This sort of temptation
stands at the head 
of the story of humanity,
suggesting that perhaps this 
is the more fundamental kind of temptation,
because it involves the more fundamental kind of lie:
the lie that God is stingy with the good.

In the Garden, 
where God has lavishly provided for humanity, 
there is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
a tree from which God has forbidden 
the man and woman to eat.
The serpent tells the woman,
“God knows well that the moment you eat of it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods
who know what is good and what is evil.”
The serpent tells the woman that God 
wants to keep godlikeness to himself,
that God wants to keep 
wisdom and insight to himself.
But this is a lie.
Indeed, God has already 
breathed his Spirit into humanity
so that, unlike any other earthly creature, 
they might live by sharing in God’s own life.
God has already given them 
a share in godlikeness,
which will grow and develop
into full wisdom and insight
if only they can recognize that it
can never be anything other than a gift,
can never be something that they
reach out and grasp for themselves,
can never be claimed as their right 
or their private possession.
The forbidden tree 
is there in the Garden
to remind them of that.
And, when the woman and the man eat,
the only knowledge that they gain
is knowledge of their own nakedness,
knowledge of their own vulnerability,
stripped as they are of the gift they have lost
only because they refused to receive it as a gift.

In the desert too 
the devil tempts Jesus to think
that there are godlike goods 
that God wants to keep from him,
and that he ought to reach out
and grasp for himself:
the good of miraculous works,
the good of divine protection,
the good of power over kingdoms.
But Jesus knows 
the deepest truth about himself,
in a way that Adam and Eve did not.
Jesus knows himself to be 
the beloved Son of God the Father,
born of the Father before all ages,
born in time of the Holy Spirit 
and the Virgin Mary. 
Jesus knows that his existence itself,
in both eternity and in time, 
comes from the overflowing generosity
that is the very essence of the one he calls Father.
He knows the truth,
and so he is immune to the devil’s lies,
for he knows his Father is not stingy,
because he shares divinity itself 
with his Son and Holy Spirit.

And in the events that follow in Jesus’ life
we see the devil’s lies revealed.
Jesus would prove his Sonship
not merely by turning stones to bread
to satisfy his own physical hunger,
but by feeding multitudes 
with five loaves and two fish,
by healing those afflicted with diseases
or possessed by the devil’s minions,
by calming storms and raising the dead.
Jesus would show his trust 
in God’s care for him
not by throwing himself down
from the top of the Temple,
but by letting himself be raised
on the tree of the Cross,
mocked by those who would say,
“He trusted in God; 
let him deliver him now 
if he wants him,”
handing himself over in love
for us and for our salvation. 
Jesus would gain power
over the kingdoms of the world
not by bowing down before Satan
but by enduring his passion and cross
so as to be raised up 
as the one who now reigns
in the kingdom of heaven,
a kingdom whose beauty outstrips
all the kingdoms of the world 
in their magnificence.
Jesus knew himself,
and so he knew that all 
that the devil said 
God wanted to deny him
was already his.

And it is already ours, as well,
if we but know ourselves truly
as beloved sons and daughters of God.
All that is good is already ours
because it has been given us in Jesus Christ.
St. Paul tells us:
“if by the transgression of the one, 
the many died,
how much more did the grace of God
and the gracious gift 
of the one man Jesus Christ
overflow for the many.”
The story of the capitulation 
of Adam and Eve to the serpent’s lie 
that God would not give them
every good gift
has been overwritten 
by the story of Jesus’ faithfulness,
his fierce conviction that he is 
the Father’s gift of life to the world,
overflowing for the many.
Our first parents reached out their hands
to grasp the fruit of the forbidden tree;
Jesus Christ extended his hands 

to embrace the tree of the Cross,
becoming himself the fruit that hung upon it,
the fruit upon which we feed in the Eucharist,
the bread of immortality that makes us godlike.

So let us enter into this season of Lent, 
not fearful of the devil’s temptations
or beguiled by his lies,
but confident in the gift of God
that is given to us in Jesus.
Let us turn from the lie
that we have only
what we can grasp for ourselves,
and turn toward the God 
who desires nothing more
than that we might be made 
partakers of eternity.
And may God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.