Christmas: Mass at Dawn (Shepherds' Mass)

Readings: Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20

VIDEO

The Christmas story that we know and love

involves Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus,
and a journey to Bethlehem and no room at the inn, 
and a stable and a manger and a donkey and an ox,
along with angels and shepherds, 
and three good kings and one very bad one.
Assembled from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke
with a bit of the prophet Isaiah thrown in,
this is the story depicted in our nativity pageants 
and in the manger scenes in our homes.

But for the first Mass of Christmas day,
much of that story seems missing.
Our Gospel reading from Luke 
does give us shepherds,
but not the exciting part with the angels 
who exhilarate and terrify them,
announcing the birth of the world’s savior
and peace and good will to all people,
but rather the part where they arrive 
once the excitement is over
and see what to all appearances 
is an ordinary newborn child.
We have Mary and Joseph and the child, 
but we hear not of the search for shelter
or of the birth itself,
but of a moment of repose
when “Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.”

We may feel that we, like the shepherds, 
are arriving in the early light of day
once all the excitement of the night is over.
But in fact we, like Mary, 
have arrived at a moment
of contemplative stillness 
amid momentous events.
And in that stillness we hear 
the true mystery of Christmas.
St. Paul, without mentioning
any of the elements of the Christmas story,
speaks to us of what we celebrate this day:
“the kindness and generous love 
of God our savior appeared, 
not because of any righteous deeds 
we had done
but because of his mercy.”

This is the great mystery we celebrate
each year at this time.
Not the stable, not the manger,
not the donkey, ox, or angels,
not Mary nor Joseph, 
not even little baby Jesus—
but the kindness and generous love
of the one who comes to save us,
not because we are good,
but because God is good.
This is the mystery made flesh
in the infant born in a manger,
watched over by donkey and ox.
This is the true marvel for which 
the shepherds glorify and praise God.
This is what Mary cherishes in her heart.

St. Bede, in a commentary on Luke’s Gospel,
imagines Mary’s reflection on this mystery:
“As I contemplate his greatness, 
which knows no limits, 
I joyfully surrender my whole life, 
my senses, 
my judgment, 
for my spirit rejoices 
in the eternal Godhead 
of that Jesus, 
that Savior, 
whom I have conceived 
in this world of time.”
Cherishing all these things in her heart,
Mary holds within herself still
the mystery to which she has just given birth:
the God whose greatness knows no limits
born within the limitations of time and place
out of love for us 
and for our salvation.
Mary surrenders to that mystery,
so that the joy of Christ conceived in her
might be hers for eternity.

We too are called 
to cherish in our hearts
this mystery that teeters 
on the edge of the incomprehensible:
this divine love that 
no goodness found in us calls forth,
but which explodes into our world 
in a shocking, disorienting, thrilling act 
of sheer mercy given to us 
who deserve no mercy.
The 17th-century mystical author 
known as Angelus Silesius wrote,
“If Christ is born 
a thousand times in Bethlehem 
but not in you,
you remain still forever lost.”
This is the work Christmas calls us to
in this morning of contemplative repose; 
it calls us to the work of Mary:
the work of surrendering ourselves to God 
whose mercy we can never merit,
of cherishing the memory of that mercy, 
so that its mystery might seep into our souls,
of letting that mystery be born in us anew
so that we might become vessels
bearing mercy to our world,
so that God in his mercy
might have mercy on us all.

Advent 4

Reading: Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24

VIDEO

I often end the introductory theology course
that I teach at Loyola University
by asking the students 
how they would spend their time
if they knew that the world was ending 
in twenty-four hours.
A few, in an obvious attempt to curry favor,
say they would pray or go to confession.
But most give more honest answers,
and many of their answers are unsurprising:
spending time with family and friends,
traveling to a place they’ve always wanted to see
or revisiting a place they love,
maxing-out their credit card on a shopping spree
or going skydiving.

This year, one student said she would forgive
those who had hurt her in her life.
She said that she has been told by others
that while she forgives, in the sense of moving on,
she never forgets who it is who has hurt her
and she cuts them ruthlessly out of her life
so they can never hurt her again.
But, she said, if the world were ending
she thought she could really let all that go.
When I asked her why that was,
she said that she would no longer be afraid
that those who had hurt her in the past 
could hurt her again in the future.

Her words sounded a theme 
common in my student’s answers:
they don’t do what they really want to do
because they are afraid.
They are afraid 
that if they do not follow the safe path
of degrees and careers and societal expectations
then they won’t be able to make their lives secure,
to control what happens to them,
to keep pain and sorrow at bay.
But the prospect of the world’s end,
while in one sense terrifying,
in another sense frees them from fear
because it frees them from the illusion of control;
it frees them to live their remaining hours differently.
In this one student’s case, the difference
is between a simulated, half-hearted forgiveness
that is focused on managing hurt
and a forgiveness that is genuinely freeing
both for the one who forgives
and for the one who is forgiven.

I thought of her words as I reflected 
on today’s story of Joseph.
The angel in Joseph’s dream does not simply
offer Joseph an explanation of Mary’s pregnancy
that exonerates her of wrongdoing.
Rather, the angel tells Joseph, “Do not be afraid 
to take Mary your wife into your home.”
Do not be afraid of what the future holds.
Do not be afraid to plumb the depths of mercy.
Do not be afraid,
because the world’s time has grown short,
and the world you know is about to end.
Not, of course, in a chronological sense.
After all, here we are over 2000 years later.
But the world we seek to manage and control
even as it runs ruthlessly toward death,
is about to be brought to an end 
by the birth of Emmanuel—
God who is with us.
The angel announces 
not simply the birth of a child
but the birth of a new world 
and the death of an old one.

In the face of that world’s end,
rather than putting Mary aside,
Joseph puts aside his fear 
and his desire for control
and in mercy welcomes Mary.
St. John Chrysostom says
that when Joseph does this,
“It is like the sun not yet arisen, 
but from afar more than half the world 
is already illuminated by its light.”
The light of mercy that will flood the world
with the birth of Emmanuel
is already appearing in Joseph’s act
of grace and mercy.

And for us who live 
on the near side of that birth,
how much more ought we to live 
lives of fearless mercy?
St. Paul tells us that 
“whoever is in Christ is a new creation: 
the old things have passed away; 
behold, new things have come.”
To believe that Jesus Christ is Emmanuel,
is to believe that the light of God is even now 
pouring into the darkness of our fears,
and bringing the world ruled by fear to an end.
To believe that God was in Christ 
reconciling the world to himself
is to be freed from the task
of making our lives secure,
for it is to believe that even now,
within the dying shell of the old world
a new world is ceaselessly being born,
a world of grace and mercy.

So I ask you, what would you do
if you knew the world was ending 
in twenty-four hours? 
Would you not do that thing 
that is most important?
Would you not spend that time
on acts that can endure beyond this world,
on acts of grace and mercy?
And what is keeping you
from doing those things now,
on this day?
For the world of our fears is ending,
and God is calling us to step into
the world of Emmanuel,
the world of the God who is with us.
Let us pray that God, 
who calls us to mercy,
will have mercy on us all.

 

Advent 1

Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44

VIDEO

As we embark upon this season of Advent,
St. Paul exhorts us: “You know the time;
it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.”
Paul's words suggest that our lives 
are a kind of fantasy, a waking dream,
anesthetized by sensual pleasures
and worldly ambitions:
orgies and drunkenness,
promiscuity and lust,
rivalry and jealousy.
Even if we refrain 
from orgies and drunkenness,
can we really pretend we are free
from rivalry and jealousy?
But now it is time to wake up
and to clothe ourselves in Christ.

This passage from Paul
played a key role in the conversion
of the great theologian Augustine of Hippo.
Augustine had been a smart 
and ambitious young man
from North Africa, 
the hinterlands of the Roman empire,
who had made his way to Italy
and found his footing in the center of power.
But his restless heart kept telling him
that there must be more to life,
even as his lusts and ambitions
pushed him up the ladder of success.
 
He had become convinced 
of the truth of Christianity,
but found himself unable to break free
from those lusts and ambitions;
he knew what he should do,
but was unable to will himself to do it.
He describes his situation as being
“like the efforts of those 
who would like to get up 
but are overcome by deep sleep 
and sink back again.” 
We say, “Just a little longer please,”
but, Augustine notes, 
“‘Just a little longer, please’ went on and on 
for a long while” (Conf. 8.5.12).

One day, praying in anguish in a garden, 
he hears the distant voice of a child,
saying in a sing-song chant,
tolle lege, “take up and read.”
He goes and gets a copy of Paul’s letters
and, opening them at random,
reads the passage that we have just heard:
“put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision 
for the desires of the flesh.”
Augustine tells us,
“I neither wished nor needed to read further. 
At once, with the last words of this sentence, 
it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety 
flooded into my heart. 
All the shadows of doubt 
were dispelled” (Conf. 8.12.29).
 
I tell the story of St. Augustine in some detail
not to suggest that reading a magic Bible passage
can make all our doubts and hesitations vanish,
can rouse us from our spiritual dream state,
but because the message that woke Augustine up
is a message that we need to hear today:
“put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”
We, no less than Augustine 
and the Roman Christians to whom Paul wrote,
seek to indulge our desires—
to satisfy not only our bodily appetites,
but also our appetites 
for power and control and security.
We, no less than they,
drowsily respond to the call of God’s Spirit,
“Just a little longer please.”
Please let me linger just a little longer 
in this waking dream that I call my life,
in which I believe myself 
to stand stable and secure.
Leave me to my lust and my rivalries,
my self-indulgence and my petty ambitions.
Leave me in my old way of life.
We, no less than they,
have let “Just a little longer please”
go on and on for a long time.
 
But today Christ calls to us 
to wake up and to stay awake,
for the day of the Son of Man
will come like a thief in the night—
the day of judgment,
when the desires of this world 
on which we have spent our lives
will fade away like a dream, 
a dream that seemed 
so real as we slumbered
but which we 
cannot quite remember
in the bright light of day.
Those things that loom 
so large as we dream—
plans and programs, 
ambitions and awards,
grudges and gambits—
all will fade away
with the dawning of that day.

And what will remain?
What of this life can endure
the bright light of day?
Jesus Christ, 
in whom we have been clothed
through the saving waters of Baptism,
on whom we have fed
in the sacrificial banquet of the Eucharist,
through whom we have become 
friends of the living God.
He alone will remain,
who came among us in great humility
so many centuries ago,
who comes to us still 
in the guise of the needy stranger,
who will come in power and glory
to judge the living and the dead,
who reigns for all eternity
as the victorious lamb
giving light to the city of God.

The Church gives to us
these precious weeks of Advent
to let God’s Spirit wake us up,
so that we might not live a waking dream
but see the light of Jesus Christ,
the light that endures in God’s eternal kingdom.
Let us not spend these days drowsily murmuring
“Just a little longer please.”
For the time is now.
“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38

VIDEO

In this month of November—
adorned with falling leaves,
and begun with the commemorations 
of All Saints and All Souls—
the Church turns our attention 
to the passing away of this world
and our hope for the world to come.
But what is it that we hope for?
Certainly, we hope that 
whatever has given life in this world 
meaning and joy
will be somehow continued 
beyond this world,
that the things and people 
in whom we have delighted in this life
will continue to delight us in the next.

But in today’s Gospel 
Jesus seems to throw cold water on those hopes.
Asked whether those 
who will be raised from the dead
will still be married,
Jesus responds, “those who are deemed worthy 
to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die,
for they are like angels.”
Jesus seems to suggest that marriage
is a temporary provision 
necessitated by the fact that we all die, 
and if we did not procreate 
the human race would die with us.
His words also suggest that all those relationships
that are so important to our life in this world
are perhaps simply temporary provisions 
and will no longer be relevant in the life to come.

Maybe to think that God’s kingdom 

involves having husbands or wives
or parents or children or friends
is simply a failure of imagination
and an inability to grasp 
how different eternal life will be,
where we will no longer die, 
and will be like the angels,
who know and love God 
in a direct and unmediated way.
Perhaps to mourn the passing of those loves
is to be, as the philosopher Eleonore Stump suggests,
“like a child who reacts with dismay when he is told 
that he won’t be sucking his thumb when he grows up.”

Is it simply the case 
that the loves forged in this life
vanish into the love of God—
are something that we, as it were, outgrow?
Do we forget the personal histories
by which we became who we are,
in which spouses and parents 
and children and friends
played vital, irreplaceable roles? 
Is all of this simply swallowed up 
when God becomes all in all?

Maybe this is not the whole picture.
If our Gospel suggests that the life of the world to come
is radically different from our life in this world,
our first reading suggests that even in this radical difference
there remain threads of continuity 
between this life and the next.
We hear in this reading a part of the story 
of the torture and execution
of seven brothers and their mother 
during the Greek persecution of the Jews 
who remained faithful to the Law of Moses. 
Our lectionary spares us 
the gruesome details of their dismemberment,
but we do hear the words of the third brother,
who, as he extends his tongue and hands to be cut off,
says to his tormentors,
“It was from Heaven that I received these;
for the sake of his laws I disdain them;
from him I hope to receive them again.”

This story gives us an example 
not simply of faith and courage,
but of hope as well. 
Read alongside Jesus’s words in the Gospel,
it suggests that the life from God for which we hope
is somehow in continuity with the life
that we have already received from God,
and yet it is unimaginably more;
it is a blessedness toward which 
the blessings of this life gesture,
but which they ultimately cannot express.

In the case of the blessing of marriage,
St. Paul tells us in the letter to the Ephesians
that the love of husband and wife
is not only for the sake of procreation,
but is also a sign of the love 
between Christ and the Church.
Even amid struggle and misunderstanding,
the sorrow and the loss,
that seem to mark all our loves in this life,
our faithfulness to the bond of marriage 
gestures to the ultimate union with Christ in love
that we hope for in God’s kingdom come.
But in the blessedness of God’s kingdom
we will no longer need signs,
we will no longer need to gesture,
because we will possess that love in its fullness. 

And yet, while the sign of the marriage bond will pass away,
surely the love that forged that bond will not.
In this life, the bond of love between spouses,
always faltering and imperfect,
is a sign by which we orient ourselves in hope
toward the unimaginable love of God;
when we possess that divine love in its fullness,
surely we will find encompassed within it
the love had by spouses in this life,
no longer marked by struggle and misunderstanding,
no longer afflicted by sorrow and loss,
no longer faltering and imperfect,
but gloriously transfigured by the light of Christ.

And so too with all our loves forged in this life:
the love of parent and of child and of friend.
Our hope is that they too 
will be present in the life to come,
no longer as signs and gestures 
that dimly hint at the love of God
but healed, perfected, and transformed by the light 
that streams forth upon them from the very heart of God.

Jesus tells us in the Gospel that our God
“is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.”
So as our minds turn,

amid November’s falling leaves
and remembrances of the dead, 
to the passing away of this world,
let our hope be renewed 
that the loves with which God has blessed us in this life
will not finally pass away but be restored to us,
for these loves are eternally alive 
in the God of love who is their source,
from whom we have received them,
and in whom we shall possess them in eternity.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18; 2 Timothy4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

VIDEO

This parable should come with a warning label.
On the face of it, it seems pretty clear.
There’s a bad guy and a good guy—
a Pharisee and a tax collector.
The one is bad 
because he exalts himself
and the other is good 
because he humbles himself.
You should aspire to be
like the tax collector, 
not the Pharisee.

Things get a little less clear, however,
once you recall that Pharisees 
were not notorious hypocrites
but were largely thought by their fellow Jews
to be sincerely pious people,
and that tax collectors 
collaborated with the Roman oppressors
and often cheated people to enrich themselves.
So perhaps the Pharisee is right to thank God
for all the good God has enabled him to do.
After all, he doesn’t sound any more boastful
than Paul in our second reading:
“I have competed well; 
I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith….
the crown of righteousness awaits me.”
And even if he seems a bit snooty
in thanking God 
that he is not like the tax collector…
well, even the tax collector 
doesn’t want to be like himself.
Can we really blame the Pharisee?
So things are a little complicated.

But things get even more complicated
once we place ourselves within the parable
and ask, whose side do we want to take?
With whom do we want to identify?
It seems clear that we are meant to identify 
not with the arrogant Pharisee, 
but with the humble tax collector;
we want to be those 
who humble themselves
so as to be exalted,
not those who exalt themselves
and end up humbled.
The parable almost invites us to say, 
“O God, I thank you that I 
am not like that Pharisee—
arrogant, proud, and self-satisfied.”

Of course, once we say this
we have fallen into the trap: 
we have become the Pharisee.
Even if we adopt 
the outward trapping of humility—
lowering our eyes and beating our breasts
and standing as far from God as we can get—
inwardly we see ourselves as the righteous ones.
We exalt ourselves in our humility,
and are proudly contemptuous 
of those who are proud.
Seeing that we have been caught,
we attempt to extricate ourselves,
and we find ourselves saying something like,
“O God I thank you that I am not like a tax collector,
who thanks you that he is not like that Pharisee,
who thanks you that he is not like that tax collector.”
But no, we are still stuck.
We are ensnared in a trap 
from which we cannot free ourselves.
Like I said: this parable 
should come with a warning label.

Is there any way out of this trap?
Perhaps the way out 
is to return to Paul’s words, 
words that he writes from prison
having suffered beating and abuse and rejection
for the sake of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Before Paul speaks 
of the crown of righteousness that awaits him,
he writes, “I am already being poured out like a libation,
and the time of my departure is at hand.”
A libation was an ancient form of sacrifice,
in which some valued liquid—
often an alcoholic beverage—
was poured out on the ground.
It is a practice found 
in cultures around the world,
including in ancient Israel.
Among the Romans it was common at burials,
because it was a sacrifice that could be afforded 
by even the poorest person.
Paul, imprisoned and facing death, 
compares his life spent in service to Christ
to the poor man’s funeral offering.
It is, in the words of Sirach,
the prayer of the lowly one,
that pierces the clouds
and does not rest till it reaches its goal.
Whatever good Paul has done 
has been because God’s Spirit
has stood by him and given him strength, 
has filled the empty vessel of his efforts;
the crown of righteousness he hopes to receive
is God’s crowning of his own work in Paul.

In other words, 
Paul does not make it all about him.
He makes it all about Christ.
The gifts with which God has filled Paul
are put to work in Christ’s service,
not turned into precious objects 
admired for their scarcity—
into things that God has given Paul
by denying them to others.

And if we too—
if we turn our eyes away from ourselves
and toward Jesus Christ and his Spirit—
can find a way out of the trap
in which this parable has ensnared us.
If we turn our eyes toward Christ,
if we let our lives be poured out in his service,
then we will no longer need to thank God
that we are not like other people,
we will no longer need to puff ourselves up
by putting others down,
and we will be freed from the vicious circle
of treating God’s love like a limited commodity,
a trophy that we gain and keep 
only by denying it to others.
If we let our lives be poured out in his service,
we will know Christ’s love in its abundance,
an abundance that can fill Pharisee and tax collector
and even we poor sinners who hope in his mercy.
May God have mercy on us all.

 

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

VIDEO

I like religion.
So when people tell me 
that they are spiritual but not religious
I am often tempted, in my annoyance, 
to reply that I myself am religious 
but not spiritual.
I don’t actually say it,
because I am from the South,
where our mothers teach us manners,
and to say “bless their hearts”
rather than what we are really thinking.
But, still, I am tempted.

The serious point behind this snarky remark
that I am tempted to say
is that things people often dismiss
as “religious” and seemingly therefore “unspiritual”—
things like rituals and creeds and institutions—
in fact have a vital role to play in our spiritual lives.
We human beings are embodied, social animals
who only flourish when we share our lives with each other,
but who need habits and rules and boundaries
in order to do this.
And this is no less true of the common life
that we live in the presence of God.
When we need to pray in times of crisis
a spontaneous prayer may not come to our lips,
but an Our Father or a Hail Mary might.
When we are lost in spiritual confusion
and do not know exactly what we believe,
we can draw comfort in words that express
the faith professed by the saints down through the ages.
When we find ourselves in times 
of cultural transition or upheaval
we can look to the Church 
for a sense of stability
and a source of guidance.
I like religion 

because it answers to a deep human need 
for structure and stability,
even—especially—as we seek to stand 
before the face of the living God.

And Jesus, 
contrary to what some will tell you,
also likes religion.
He lived his life immersed
in the rituals, creeds, and institutions of Israel.
He was a devout Jew who embraced
the traditions and Law of his people
as the God-given means by which 
one could live in God’s presence.
He was circumcised on the eighth day,
he visited the temple in Jerusalem as a boy,
he read Scripture in the synagogue as a man.
And we can see Jesus’ pro-religion views 
on display in today’s Gospel,
for in healing the ten lepers
he instructs them to do 
what the Jewish Law requires:
to show themselves to the priests
and to have themselves declared “clean.” 

So Jesus liked religion
and entered fully into the practice of Judaism.
But as much as he liked religion,
as much as he recognized its necessity,
he also recognized that it was not enough.
He recognized that religious practice itself
can so occupy us that we miss its whole point,
which is to sustain our relationship with the living God.
Nine of the ten lepers in today’s Gospel
are so focused on fulfilling the demands of the Law
that they fail to recognize in Jesus
the God who gave the Law 
and who has healed them.
It is notably the Samaritan, 
the foreigner who is an outsider,
the one who believes in God
but does not worship in the Jerusalem Temple,
who recognizes what Jesus has done for him
and returns to give him thanks.
As important as proper religious practice is,
its presence did not guarantee that the nine 
would recognize how the power of God 
was at work among them,
and its absence did not prevent the Samaritan
from glorifying God,
from falling at the feet of Jesus, 
from giving him thanks for his healing.

It is really no different among us Christians.
St. Augustine wrote: 
“Some people may indeed, 
through membership of the Church 
and acceptance of all her doctrine, 
be free from spiritual leprosy: 
but they fail to recognize 
the one who cleansed them, 
and become inflated with pride” 
(Questions on the Gospels, 2.40).
We can behave as if our religion
and its rituals and creeds and institutions
are all we need.
We receive our sacraments at the appropriate moments
and we go to Mass on Sunday, at least most of the time,
and perhaps we even pray before meals
and in moments of crisis.
And all of these are good things, holy things.
But they are the floor, not the ceiling.
They make possible an encounter with the living God,
but they are not a guarantee that we will recognize him
or even notice his healing touch.
And, at their worst, they can become, 
as Augustine noted,
a source of pride.
They can tempt us to think
that we have the God-thing 
managed and under control,
that we know where to find God when we need him
and how to obtain from him what we want.

But, as the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar noted,
“If we treat God as a sort of religious vending machine, 
he will show us that he is anything but that—
that he is a free, living God” (Light of the World, 355-356).
Religious practice is not a prison
in which we lock God up,
so that he is ready to be at our beck and call. 
As St. Paul put it in writing to Timothy,
“the word of God is not chained.”
And if we think our religion 
contains God in this way,
then perhaps we need outsiders,
maybe even those who claim 
to be “spiritual but not religious”
(bless their hearts),
to remind us of the unchained Word of God
who took flesh among us in Jesus Christ,
who scandalized the pious
and died on a Roman cross 
accused of blasphemy.

It is right and just that I like religion.
But while I like religion,
I should love Jesus,
for in the end it is Jesus who will heal me and save me,
not my adherence to rituals and creeds and institutions.
So let us practice our religion with joy and humility
for God has given it to us in freedom
so that we might recognize Jesus,
and let us pray that all of us,
insiders and outsider,
religious and spiritual,
might come to know the mercy of God.

 

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Amos 6:1a, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

VIDEO

Luke’s Gospel contains many 
of Jesus’ most memorable parables:
the unjust steward and the rich man,
the prodigal son and his sullen older brother,

the man fallen among thieves 
and the Samaritan who helps him.
But today’s Gospel reading is the only parable
in which a character is given a name: Lazarus.
Why might this be the case?

The name “Lazarus” is Aramaic, 
which was the language spoken by Jesus,
and is a form of the Hebrew name Eleazar,
which means “God saves.”
So it is certainly a fitting name for the poor man
who receives from God a heavenly reward.
But Jesus could also have given symbolic names
to other characters in his parables.
The shepherd who goes seeking the lost sheep
could have been named Adriel,
which means “flock of God,”
or the prodigal son’s older brother
could have been named Mara,
which means “bitter.”
But Jesus chooses not to give them names,
perhaps so that we would be more inclined to see them 
as representative kinds or types of people
with whom we might more easily identify.

Yet Lazarus is named.
Perhaps more significant 
than the meaning of his name 
is the simple fact that he has a name at all.
For to have a name is to have an identity
that is more than simply being
a kind or type of person.
To have a particular name is to be unique
and not reducible to an identity category 
like “shepherd” or “older brother.”
To be an individual person and not simply a type
is to be recognized as capable of acting in ways
that are not “typical” or “predicable”
but are surprising and free and often delightful.
To have a name is to become irreplaceable.

This is important in the parable
because the rich man’s sin 
is that he fails to see Lazarus as anything more
than one more poor person he steps over
on his way to another sumptuous meal 
in his purple garments and fine linen.
Though he seems to know Lazarus’s name,
this does not lead him to see Lazarus 
as an irreplaceable individual,
but simply as one more poor person
who is no concern of his,
unless it is to be his servant.

The funny thing is,

by his actions the rich man shows himself

to be nothing more than one more rich person,

behaving in typical rich-person ways:
stepping over the poor as he proceeds
to indulge his appetites and satisfy his desires.
It is the rich man who is locked into actions 
that are typical and predictable,
who has reduced himself to a mere category type
and, in a sense, made himself replaceable,
since there are many of the same type
who are ready to step into his shoes 
and act in the same way.
And when both he and Lazarus die,
and Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham
and the rich man is in the fires of hell,
the rich man seems unable
to break out of that category type.
Even as he begs for mercy he still presumes
that the poor man should act as his servant,
bringing him water to slake his thirst 
and taking messages to his brothers.
His punishment is unrelenting
because he cannot cease acting in the way
that led him to his sad destiny.

In the Christian tradition, 
the rich man comes to be referred to as Dives,
which might seem like a name,
but is simply the Latin word for “rich.”
His individual identity has been completely lost
and he is nothing more 
than a parody of a human being.
Perhaps this is what hell is:
to cease being an irreplaceable individual 
with a name known by God,
to lose one’s capacity to act in ways 
that are surprising and free and delightful,
to be condemned to following the script
that we once chose for ourselves
but now determines our every action.

Of course, Jesus does not tell this parable
simply to inform us about the afterlife.
He tells it to get us to examine our own lives now.
As Abraham says to the rich man,
we don’t need a miraculous visitation 
from the realm of the dead
to tell us what God thinks of our self-indulgence
and our neglect of the poor.
We, like the rich man and his kind,
have Moses and the prophets,
and the prophet Amos says to us this day,
“Woe to the complacent in Zion!”
Woe to those reclining 
on fancy beds and couches.
Woe to those drinking fine wine 
and getting spa treatments.
Woe to those who see 
the poor one at their gate
as simply a category of human being
that can be dismissed and ignored
as a “panhandler” 
or “welfare queen” 
or “illegal immigrant,”
and not as someone with a name and a story
and an irreplaceable God-given identity,
an identity that we ignore at our peril.

Even more, Jesus is asking us
to look at ourselves and to see
if we have chosen to live our lives in such a way
that we have reduced ourselves to a mere category-type
and lost our capacity to act in ways 
that are surprising and free and delightful.
Do I simply conform to the expectations 
of my social class
or my political ideology
or my generational cohort
or my racial or ethnic identity,
rather than letting God call me by my unique name,
calling me out of any class or ideology or cohort or identity
other than that of “child of God,”
the irreplaceable brother or sister of Jesus
and of all those for whom he died?

Christ is calling us this day
to let ourselves be named by God,
and to learn the names by which he calls
the irreplaceable ones whom we would ignore.
Let this call give us hope that God, 
“the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone has immortality, 
who dwells in unapproachable light,”
will, in his boundless mercy.
have mercy on us all.

 

A Reflection on the Occasion of the Celebration of Thomas and Courtney's Marriage

Reading: "Inversnaid," by Gerard Manley Hopkins 

Thomas and Courtney, 
as this celebration of your marriage 
has been approaching,
I have been thinking a lot, 

as one does,
about 17th-century philosophers.
Two in particular: 

Baruch Spinoza and Blaise Pascal.

Spinoza and Pascal
lived in a much larger universe than people
who lived just a few generations before them.
The inventions of the telescope and the microscope
revealed a world both much larger and much smaller
than the tidy, earth-centered cosmos
that humanity had lived with 
since time immemorial.
It was dizzying, and kind of threatening,
to be displaced from the center of the universe
into some undetermined place 
between the infinitely large
and the infinitely small.

For Spinoza,
this dizziness could be cured by thinking,
because he believed that 

as far as the universe extended,
thought extended just as far.
At least in principle, 
we could calculate all causes 
and understand the how and why of everything.
He seemingly found peace in this.

Pascal, on the other hand,
believed that thinking could only do so much:
we can think just enough to recognize
how fragile and uncertain our lives are,
how we might be taken out 
by something immensely big, like a class-five rapid,
or by something immensely small, like a virus.
But at the end of the day, this thought
seems only to increase our dizziness
or, as Pascal put it, our wretchedness.

But the limits of thought 
were not the end of the story for Pascal,
because he believed that in addition
to the thinking capacity of reason
we have a capacity that he called “the heart,”
and, as he famously put it,
“the heart has its reasons 
about which reason knows nothing.”

It is the heart that can acknowledge 
reason’s inability to master the universe,
and yet embrace that universe, 
in all of its danger and promise,
with a kind of humility. 
It is the heart that speaks 
in Hopkins’ poem “Inversnaid,”
in which words slip the bounds the reason,
abandon their mission of meaning,
so that our hearts can feel and know and love
the wet and the wildness of the streams
cascading their way down to a highland lake. 
It is the heart that seeks the still point
amid the rushing immensities
of the infinitely large
and the infinitely small,
the still point where we can stand
as we take the infinite into ourselves.

For Christians like Pascal and Hopkins, 
as for me,
that still point is found above all in Jesus,
whom Pascal described as “a God 
whom we approach without pride,
and before whom we humble ourselves
without despair” (Pensées 245).
But, as Hopkins says in another poem,
“Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”

Thomas and Courtney,
I believe that amid the glorious chaos 
of this infinite world 
your hearts have found the still point
in one another’s faces.
You have found in each other 
that point of equipoise 
that turns the wildness of the world 
from threat into promise,
that point where you can stand 
to take in infinity,
to rejoice in the wet and the wildness,
the weeds and the wilderness.

May the one who plays in ten thousand places 
bless the love you have pledged to each other,
opening your eyes to the miracle of one another,
speaking to your hearts in times of hardship,
and giving you and those you love years of joy.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32

VIDEO

We human beings 
have a rather remarkable capacity
for self-deception,
a capacity to willfully overlook truths 
about ourselves and our situation,
truths that by all rights should be quite clear to us.
I think of myself as a kind and generous person,
always willing to help out and volunteer,
while somehow not noticing the way in which
I neglect my spouse and children.
I believe that others have succeeded more than I
because of favoritism and backroom dealings,
when in fact they are just better at their jobs.
I tell myself that I am a social media edgelord
unmasking hypocrisy and subverting paradigms,
when actually I’m just a jerk and a bully
spouting off on Twitter.
Truths about ourselves 
and our place in the world,
are denied and deflected,
often through strenuous effort.
The truth lies before us, 
and we choose not to see it.
We are not the people 
we think ourselves to be.

Self-deception not only pervades our world;
it pervades our Gospel reading today as well.
We see it at work 
in the younger brother,
who desires independence so much
that he drastically misjudges 
his capacity for “adulting,”
as they call it these days,
and seems also to believe 
that his inheritance is limitless,
though a little basic math 
might suggest that it is not.
We see it in the older brother as well,
who is convinced that he is a dutiful son,
showing true love and respect for his father,
when in fact he is seething with resentment, 
not simply toward his brother,
but toward his father as well,
whom he seems to have served out of hope for gain
rather than true devotion and affection.
The truth lies before them, 
and they choose not to see it.
They are not the people 
they think themselves to be.

Self-deception is a funny thing.
It is different from being ignorant or misled.
It is not a lack of information about ourselves,
since the truth about ourselves is readily available
and often perceived, and commented upon, by others.
It is also different from being lied to,
because in self-deception,
we are both the one deceived 
and the deceiver.
We willfully mislead ourselves,
which is quite the trick 
when you think about it,
since it seems to involve
both knowing and not knowing
what it is we are doing,
both seeing and not seeing
the truth we are avoiding.

We deceive ourselves by focusing 
on one truth about ourselves,
and letting the other truths 
that make up the total picture
fade into a kind of blurry background.
I focus on my immediate desires 
and my grandiose dreams
in order to overlook 
my limited skills and resources.
I keep in the front of my mind
years of dutiful service and obedience,
to divert myself 
from the anger and resentment 
that seethe within me.

Self-deception requires us to simplify the world,
to avoid seeing reality in all its complexity,
in order to avoid hard and painful truths.
It might seem like an effective coping strategy,
but it requires an immense outlay 
of psychological effort:
it exhausts us, 
and diminishes us,
and deadens our lives.
Plus, reality has a way of catching up with us.
Like the way that famine in the land 
left the younger brother hungry and penniless,
looking longingly at the food of pigs.
Our Gospel translation says that “he came to his senses”—
the original Greek says literally “he came to himself.”
His eyes were opened to the truth of himself,
the truth of his situation.
He encountered reality,
and reality was merciless in its truth telling
and humbling in its mercilessness.

We deceive ourselves 
because we fear the truth about ourselves.
We fear that if we let reality come into focus
we will not be able to carry on 
in the face of that merciless reality,
that we will see ourselves revealed
as unlovely and unlovable.
But the parable of the prodigal son,
is not simply a story 
of being humbled by merciless reality.
It is the story of the merciful God,
who rejoices that 
we who lay dead in self-deception
have come to life again,
we who were lost in lies
have been found by the truth.

For, in the end, to be found by truth
is not to be subjected to merciless reality;
it is to be found by the God
who came to dwell among us in Christ,
who is the way, the truth, and the life.
The face of reality is the face of Jesus Christ,
and the deepest truth about ourselves 
is that we are children of a loving father,
a father who runs out to embrace us
when our illusions collapse
and we see ourselves as we really are.
The reality of our situation 
is that even as we seethe with anger and resentment
God seeks us out and invites us to join the banquet.
God calls us out of self-deception 
not simply to humble us—
though learning humility is a part of it—
but so that we might come to see,
as the two brothers in the parable 
must come to see,
that we are beloved,
that we are embraced,
that we are invited to the banquet of life
prepared for us from all eternity.
God calls us out of deception and into reality
so that God who is merciful
might have mercy on us all.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10; Hebrews 12:1-4; Luke 12:49-53

Video

I imagine that many of you 
did not come here today 
expecting to hear Jesus say,
“Do you think that I have come 
to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.”
With all of the division in the world right now,
did Jesus really come to make it worse?
Didn’t he come, as Zechariah said,
“to guide our feet into the way of peace”?
Didn’t he tell the disciples he sent forth
to let their first words upon entering a house
be “Peace to this house”?
Weren’t his first words to his disciples 
after his resurrection “Peace be with you”?
This is the Jesus we are used to,
and whose words captivate us.

Jesus’ words of peace captivate us because
they speak to our deepest desires in a divided world.
St. Augustine said, “peace is so great a good
that even in relation to the affairs of earth
and of our mortal state
no word ever falls more gratefully upon the ear,
nothing is desired with greater longing,
in fact, nothing better can be found” (Civ. Dei 19.11).
Everyone desires peace.
But despite this fact,
we live in a world of conflict and division.
St. Augustine says that this is because
while we all want peace, 
we want it on our own terms,
and those terms usually involve 
having someone else under our thumb.
Our desire for peace is often only satisfied 
when we win and others lose;
division and conflict are not healed but hidden
underneath the cloak of power.
We see this play out on the international stage,
within our own country,
and even within our own families
as we jockey to bend others to our will.

In such a world, those who herald true peace,
a peace built on justice and not on domination,
appear as a source of division and conflict.
And indeed they are,
for by embodying true peace
they unmask the false peace of the world
and make visible the conflict and division 
that lie just beneath its surface.
Jesus’ words today stand as reminder
that proclaiming the Gospel of peace in a divided world
might heighten conflict rather than alleviate it,
because it unmasks all those versions of peace
that depend on our side coming out on top.

Jesus is a realist, not an idealist.
He has no expectation that the Gospel of peace
will receive a warm welcome.
He doesn’t think peacemakers are blessed
because everyone likes a peacemaker.
He doesn’t think that the peacemakers are blessed
because they can magic away conflict.
He thinks peacemakers are blessed 
because they bear his image,
the image of the one who, 
as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us,
endured opposition from sinners—
endured the cross, despising its shame—
for the sake of the joy that lay before him.
They are blessed because they speak 
a word of truth in a world of falsehood,
a world in which wars are fought for peace
and peoples divided for the sake of unity.

In recent days we’ve seen a striking example of this
in Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Nicaragua,

a kind of modern-day Jeremiah,

who has not been lowered into a well,

but has been placed under house arrest 
by the government of his country. 
A long-time thorn in the side 
of Nicaragua’s authoritarian rulers,

bishop Álvarez was charged 

with inciting violence
and, in a curious turn of phrase, 
“crimes against spirituality.”
I can only presume that in this case 
“spirituality” is supposed to refer to 
a way of practicing the faith
that comforts troubled consciences
and numbs the pain of oppression—
a faith never causes offense,
never creates conflict,
never results in division,
never sets the world on fire;
a faith that aids and abets 
the false peace of domination.
Bishop Álvarez, like Jeremiah, 

rejects this sort of spirituality,
and so he is charged 

with being a source of conflict.

But we do not need dramatic examples,

like bishop Álvarez or Jeremiah, 

to know how faithfulness to Jesus’s gospel of peace

can uncover conflict, division, and tension.
We can look around our own nation and see
how faithfulness to the social teachings of the Church
on the dignity of all human life, 
migration and poverty,
the environment and war
will put you at odds 
with the platforms
of both major political parties.
We can look within ourselves
and feel the conflict between 
that part of us that is willing to settle
for a spirituality that comforts our conscience
and numbs the pain of life,
and that part of us 
that wants to follow Jesus no matter the cost,
knowing that, as the Letter to the Hebrews says,
“In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted 
to the point of shedding blood.”

But conflict is not the last word.
Even in the midst of the struggle
that comes with faithfulness to Christ
we can find true peace.
In a recent video message, bishop Álvarez said,
regarding those who have persecuted him,
“Our hearts are full of forgiveness. 
That’s why we’re at peace. 
Our hearts are full of the mercy of God, 
and so we’re at peace…. 
we are at rest in the hands of the Lord.”
Jesus, who passed through conflict into joy,
is “the leader and perfecter of faith,”
and has come to give us true peace—
not the false peace that hides conflict
beneath the cloak of power,
but the peace that the world cannot give,
the peace that overcomes conflict
through justice and mercy 
and self-sacrificing love:
the peace that sets the world on fire.
Let us pray that we would receive that peace,
that we would become that peace,
and that God would have mercy on us all.

18th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Matthew 16:13-23

God says through the prophet Jeremiah:
“I will place my law within them, 
and write it upon their hearts…. 
No longer will they have need 
to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.”
While this may not be entirely good news
for those of us who teach theology,
which in its better moments
seeks to help people see how to know the Lord,
it does seem to be good news for humanity as a whole.
It is good news that we will no longer experience God’s law 
as something external to us,
something alien and imposed upon us,
for that means that we will know God, as Augustine put it,
as interior intimo meo: closer to me than I am to myself.
And, as St. John Vianney said, 
“This union of God with a tiny creature is a lovely thing. 
It is a happiness beyond understanding.”

And what Jeremiah proclaims as coming,
our Gospel suggests has already arrived.
For when Peter confesses Jesus to be
“the Christ, the Son of the living God,”
Jesus proclaims, “flesh and blood 
has not revealed this to you, 
but my heavenly Father.”
Peter did not learn how to know the Lord
from friends or relatives 
or those who thought Jesus might be
John the Baptist or Elijah or Jeremiah 
or one of the prophets.
The Father himself revealed Jesus to Peter
within the depths of his heart;
the Spirit, who is the new Law of the Gospel,
was written on Peter’s heart through faith.
The days that are coming
seem to have arrived.

But, of course, Peter’s faith is yet imperfect.
He still thinks not as God does
but as human beings do.
For he cannot accept that Jesus must walk
the path of rejection and suffering and death.
But this is the heart of God’s new covenant,
and to reject it is to become 
not the rock upon which Christ 
would build God’s Church,
but the stone of stumbling,
the obstacle that must be left behind.
What Peter could not accept,
what we so often cannot accept,
is that while God has promised 
to write his Law upon our hearts,
the instrument with which he does this writing
is the cross.

To have faith is to embrace the cross,
the cross upon which Jesus bore our sins,
and the crosses that we are called to take up,
the crosses through which we come, over time,
to be conformed to the one 
who laid down his life in love for us.
God’s promise is 
that “all, from least to greatest, 
shall know…the LORD.”
But to know the Lord is to know his cross.
Therefore, each of us, from least to greatest,
is called to take up our cross
so that God’s law, God’s Spirit,
might be written in our hearts.
And this is happiness beyond understanding.

 

18th Week of Ordinary Time, Tuesday

Readings: Jeremiah 30:1-2, 12-15, 18-22; Matthew 14:22-36

 

So, here’s the bad news:
your wound is incurable,
you bruise is grievous,

your running sore has no remedy
and your lovers have forgotten you. 
Your boat is being tossed by the waves
and the wind is against it. 
This is life under the condition of sin
when we justly suffer the consequences of our sin. 

Sometimes, of course, we get away with it,
at least for a time.
We don’t experience the consequences of our sin;
we even prosper and flourish and grow fat
on the fruits of our sin.
But, as God tells Israel through Jeremiah,
no one has escaped God’s justice:
“I struck you as an enemy would strike,
punished you cruelly.”
And when we are struck,
we come to a moment of realization
of exactly how dire our situation is,
exiles mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

And this is also grace.
It is grace to recognize that we are in exile,
to recognize that our wound is incurable,
our bruise grievous,
our boat swamped
and the wind against it.
It is grace to awaken to the truth
that our sin has placed us in opposition 
to the very source of our existence.

But that is not the end of grace.
For Jesus walks toward us through the storm,
and calls to us:  
“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
And he calls us to come to him,
just as he called Peter.
He calls us to step into the storm unafraid;
as God says through Jeremiah:
“When I summon him, he shall approach me;
how else should one take the deadly risk.”
He calls us to trust that he comes 
not only in justice 
but also in mercy, 
to heal the wounds of sin
and to rebuild our ruined souls.

But, of course, the life of grace,
like life lived under the condition of sin, 
is not a moment but…well…a life.
And these two lives are intertwined.
We like Peter feel faith flow and ebb,
grow full and drain away,
flourish and whither
over and again.
We boldly step into the storm at one moment
and flail and sink the next,
and so our lives are a continuous calling out:
“Lord, save me!”
And this is right and just,
for the storm that rages 
is the flow of time in which we live,
it is our inconstant natures
that even under grace
suffer the sickness of sin.

But the glad tidings is that this sickness
is not a sickness unto death.
For Jesus has called us to him
and Jesus has grasped our hand and caught us
and Jesus will not let us go. 

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 18:1-10a; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

Video

As I suspect was the case with many of you,
I was transfixed last week by the first images
coming from the James Webb Space Telescope.
They were not only beautiful,
but they made visible 
the immense size of the cosmos,
in which vast galaxies appear as tiny spots of light,
as well as its immense age,
capturing light that originated from stars
thirteen billion years ago,
at the very dawn of the universe.

That vastness-made-visible awakened in me 
feelings like those expressed by the 17th-century
scientist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal:
“When I consider the short duration of my life, 
swallowed up in an eternity before and after, 
the little space I fill engulfed in the infinite immensity 
of spaces whereof I know nothing, 
and which know nothing of me, I am terrified. 
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”

And yet, at the same time, 
these very same images elicited in me 
a sense of wonder and gratitude,
and the thought that 
what is important about human beings
is not our physical place in the universe,
but the fact that we, 
fragile creatures that live
on a small rocky formation 
in an obscure corner of the cosmos,
sustained and protected 
by a thin layer of gas clinging to its surface,
limited in time and space,
can look up into those silent, infinite spaces
and bring into ourselves
the vastness and beauty of the universe 
through the miracle of thought and understanding.
Pascal went on to say:
“By space the universe encompasses 
and swallows me as an atom… 
by thought I comprehend the world. 
Man is but a reed, 
the most feeble thing in nature; 
but he is a thinking reed.”
Our discovery of the scope of the cosmos
should increase our sense of awe and wonder 
at the power of God’s creative activity
and at the immense privilege of being 
witnesses to that activity,
the glory of knowing even a small slice
of what God is doing in creation.

This sense of awe mixed with terror, 
this sense of a mystery beating in the heart of things
and holding our universe in existence,
is something we as Christians share with all people,
even those who do not call this mystery
by the name “God.”
Who knows? 
Perhaps this sense of awe and mystery
is shared by other intelligent beings—
other “thinking reeds”— 
living on other rocky formations
in other obscure corners of the cosmos.

But, St. Paul reminds us today,
our Christian faith tells us
that there is an even greater mystery 
at work in our world,
for the infinite creative force
that holds the universe in existence
has come to dwell among us in the flesh,
a fragile reed among other fragile reeds,
so that we might know the fullness 
of the riches of his glory 
and live eternally in the light of that glory.
Paul makes it his life’s work to reveal to all people
“the mystery hidden from ages 
and from generations past”
but now made known to God’s holy ones:
the mystery of the infinite power of God
present among us in Jesus Christ crucified.

In our Gospel today we see
Mary of Bethany sitting at the feet of Jesus,
heedless of her sister’s complaints,
because she sees the mystery
that Martha is too busy to recognize:
that the creative force that forged the cosmos
and adorned it with such beauty
is present in the flesh,
as a human being,
in their home,
on a fragile rocky formation
in an obscure corner of the cosmos.
Mary sits at the feet of Jesus 
because she knows that in his presence
she is in the presence of divine glory,
a glory surpassing the beauty
of the stars and galaxies and nebulae
that so captivated us this past week.
She has found the one thing necessary;
she has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her,
for it will lead her into eternity.

Pascal saw in the vastness of the cosmos
cause for both wonder and terror.
But he also saw within himself
an even more vast emptiness.
He wrote, “There is a God-shaped void 
in the heart of each person 
that cannot be satisfied 
by any created thing 
but only by God the Creator, 
made know through Jesus Christ.”
The vastness of creation—
the unimaginable scope of space and time—
is mirrored within us by an equally vast yearning,
and knowing this vastness without knowing Jesus Christ
can lead us to despair,
for what hope can we fragile reeds have
amidst such immensity
if all we know is our own fragility?
But in Jesus Christ God has come among us
with a human face and a human heart
to fill the empty space within our own hearts,
to reveal to us the mystery of eternal love
here on this tiny rocky formation 
in this obscure corner of the cosmos.
Pascal writes that because Christ shares 
our human condition,
“Jesus is the God whom 
we can approach without pride 
and before whom 
we can humble ourselves without despair.”

Paul tells us that Christ in us is the hope for glory,
a glory surpassing anything 
that we poor thinking reeds can conceive.
As we ponder the beauty 

and terror of the cosmos,

let us ponder as well 

the hope of glory revealed in Christ,
and let us pray that God would give us that hope,
that God would fill us with that glory,
and that God would have mercy on us all.

 

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 66:10-14c; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 

Video

In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah 
offers an interlocking set of images:
the image of the human mother who feeds her child 
from the substance of her own body;
the image of God as a mother
who seeks to comfort and console us
in our need and in our fear;
and the image of the city of Jerusalem as a mother
whose nurture and whose care extend to all her children.
Each of these images is worthy of our attention.

First, we have the image 
of the human mother and her child.
We have heard a lot, in recent days, 
about the relationship of mother and child,
a relationship that is, as a matter of biological fact,
unique in its intimacy and in its complexity,
in its intricate intertwining of two lives,
particularly during the months of pregnancy,
but continuing in the years that follow. 
If those on opposite sides of the question
of the legality of abortion agree on nothing else
(and it sometimes seems that they agree on very little),
all acknowledge the uniqueness of that relationship
and its life-changing power.
Indeed, it is precisely this uniqueness and power
that makes the issue so volatile, and so important,
and why the Church teaches the need 
to protect and foster that relationship
in ways that honor both mother and child.

Second, we have the image of God as a mother, 
which might be initially startling,
accustomed as we are to praying to God as Father.
Isaiah suggests, however, 
that in the unique and complex intimacy
of the relationship of mother and child
we see an image of God’s intimacy with us,
an image of the God who brings us 
to birth in the order of nature
and rebirth in the order of grace.
Indeed, some saints have suggested 
that we see in the pains of Jesus on the cross
the labor pains of God incarnate
bringing forth that new creation
of which Paul speaks in our second reading.
Julian of Norwich, writing in the 14th-century, 
says, “our true Mother, Jesus, who is all-love, 
gives us birth into joy and endless living.” 
As Isaiah and Julian suggest,
the image of God as mother
surely has an important place among
the many metaphors that we use
to speak of the mystery of God’s love,
and should shape our understanding
of the dignity of human motherhood.

Finally, we have the image 
of the city of Jerusalem as a mother,
who shares her abundance with all her children.
Isaiah shows us God not simply promising
that the city will prosper,
but that her prosperity will be 
spread abroad among her children, 
reaching far and wide 
so that all will receive her motherly care.
This vision is at the heart 
of the social teachings of the Church:
the political community exists to ensure
that the goods that God 
has lavished upon the world
are shared in justly by all people, 
most especially the weak and the vulnerable.
We might have legitimate disagreements 
on the precise balance 
between public policy and private initiative
in this distribution of goods,
but for us as Catholics 
whatever way we strike that balance
must respect the Church’s teaching that,
as St. John Paul II put it back in 1981,
“the right to private property is subordinated…to the fact 
that goods are meant for everyone” (Lab. Ex. §14).
Or, as St. Ambrose put it in the 4th century,
somewhat less technically and with a bit more bite,
“The earth belongs to everyone, 
not to the rich” (De Nabute c. 12 n. 53).
Saints John Paul and Ambrose teach us 
that our vision for our own city, state, and nation,
no less than Isaiah’s vision for the holy city Jerusalem,
should be of a community in which all are given
what they need, not simply to survive, but to flourish,
and that our politics must be rooted not in self-interest,
no matter how enlightened,
but in concern for the least of these our brothers and sisters.

In recent days many people have said
that with the overturning of Roe versus Wade
the time has come for the pro-life community 
to step up and advocate
for an economic and social order 
that will address the inequalities 
that have often led women
to seek abortion as a solution 
to an unexpected or undesired pregnancy.

This seems largely correct,
though I would add that this is something 
that some have been doing all along.
But more needs to be done,

and more of us need to do it,

and this must be a matter of concern for our nation
and not simply for us as private individuals.
Saint John Paul wrote,
“it is not enough to remove unjust laws…
[T]here need to be set in place 
social and political initiatives 
capable of guaranteeing conditions 
of true freedom of choice 
in matters of parenthood” (Ev. Vitae §90).

Our Catholic faith calls us to embrace fully 
what John Paul called “the Gospel of Life,”
which focuses our concern on life 
at its most vulnerable stages—
its beginning and its ending—
but also addresses questions 
of economic justice, war, the death penalty,
the dignity of migrants, and the environment.
All of these are elements 

of what John Paul called “a culture of life,”
a culture that embraces its children 
as a mother embraces her own,
feeding and nurturing them,
a culture that we are called to labor for,
by word and example,
as we make our journey to God’s kingdom.
We must answer this call, 
going forth gently, like lambs among wolves,
armed with nothing but the love of God.

The task lies before us.
The harvest is abundant.
Let the laborers not be few.
May God, who cares for us 
as a mother cares for her child, 
prosper the work of our hands,
and may God who is merciful
have mercy on us all.

 

Trinity Sunday

Readings: Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

Video

In our Creed we say, 

“I believe in God, the Father almighty…”
and “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God…”
and “I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life.”
Notice that we do not say,
“I believe that God is the Father almighty…”
or “I believe that the one Lord Jesus Christ,
is the Only Begotten Son of God…”
or “I believe that the Holy Spirit
is the Lord, the giver of life.”
In the Creed we profess at Mass 
we do not simply state the content of our belief—
what we hold to be the case about God—
but we make an act of personal commitment.
It is about believing in 
as much, if not more, 
than it is about believing that.

Of course, the Creed does state 
what it is that we believe 
about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In particular, it states that we believe
that the Son, and by implication the Holy Spirit,
are “consubstantial with the Father”—
that is to say, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
while being distinct from each other 
and from the Father,
are just as much God as the Father is,
and everything that is true of the Father as God—
eternity, omnipotence, omnipresence, and so forth—
is true of the Son and the Spirit as well.
We most definitely believe that this is the case,
and this is what we call the doctrine of the Trinity.

But saying the Creed, 
like the rest of our lives as Christians,
is not ultimately a matter of 
accepting facts about God. 
To say the Creed is not 
to recite the answer to a puzzle
but rather it is to let ourselves be drawn 
into the mystery that is 
at the very heart of existence,
the mystery that we call “God.”

Saint Augustine distinguished three different ways
we might speak about believing (Tractates on John, 29).
First, there is what he calls in Latin credere Deum,
that is, affirming that there is a God
in the way that we might affirm
that there is grass on the ground 
or clouds in the sky.
We assent to the fact of God’s existence,
though, of course, even the devil does that.
Second, there is what he calls credere Deo—
a change of a mere two letters—
and this is to “believe God,”
that is, to accept something 
because God has revealed it.
Finally, there is credere in Deum,
that is, to believe in God.
This is not simply to affirm 
that there is a God,
or to affirm what God has revealed,
but is to make God the object of our love
and the goal of our living.
This is to promise ourselves to God:
to ask God to be our God
and to commit ourselves to be God’s people.
 
And this is what we do when we say the Creed.
St. Thomas Aquinas says that faith 
weds the soul to God (Exp. in Symb. Apost. a. 1),
so we might think of saying the Creed
as something like speaking wedding vows.
When a couple marries, the vows they make
involve both a belief that and a belief in.
I vow myself to you because I believe 
that you are a good person, a loving person,
an honest and steadfast person.
But more than that, my vows are the sign
that I believe in you:
I profess my faith that you will be good to me,
and I will be good to you;
that you will be loving to me,
and I will be loving to you;
that you will be honest and steadfast to me
and I will be honest and steadfast to you.
In believing in you, I join my life to yours,
I join my fate to yours,
I say, wherever you go, I will go,
until the day I die.
In making this vow,
I come to dwell in our shared love.
 
And when we say the Creed,
we certainly say that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But more than that, we entrust ourselves,
when the world seems empty of meaning,
to the God who made all things good,
who plays upon the surface of his earth
and finds delight in the human race.
We entrust ourselves, when we have sinned,
to the God who has made peace with us 
through Jesus Christ
and in whose grace we stand. 
We entrust ourselves, when the future is uncertain,
to the God who has promised to us the Spirit of truth,
who will guide us into all truth.

And in so entrusting ourselves,
our soul comes to dwell in the eternal mystery of love,
the love that existed before the world was made:
“when there were no depths…
when there were no fountains 
or springs of water;
before the mountains 
were settled into place,
before the hills.”
To believe, not simply that there is a God,
but to believe in God,
is to dwell in the mystery of timeless love 
that we call the Trinity,
not because of anything that we do,
but because God 
has taken delight in the human race,
because God has made peace with us
through Jesus Christ,
“because the love of God 
has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit 
that has been given to us.”

I believe in one God:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
the mystery of love
to whom our soul is wed in faith.
May this merciful God 
have mercy on us all.