Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18
Psalm 103:1-4, 8, 10, 12-13
1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
We have been working our way through the Sermon on the Mount these past few weeks. First there were the Beatitudes. Next Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth and light of the world. Then last week, Jesus began teaching the commandments in a new way. Just like today, he says “You have heard it said” and then he names one of the commandments, and then he says “But I say to you” and then he teaches a new way of understanding that commandment. However, there is a crucial difference between last week’s reading and today’s.
Last week Jesus’ teaching had a certain logic to it. Any reasonable person could understand his teaching. “Thou shall not kill” includes not hating our brothers and sisters, not calling them names. “Thou shall not commit adultery” includes not committing the sin mentally, includes pornography and romance novels. Jesus is telling us that the commandments are not about crossing some line. We should not even be walking in the general direction of sin. It is a hard teaching, but when we hear Jesus teach it, something within us knows that he is right, that this is the way that the commandments ought to be understood.
Suddenly, although the format of Jesus’ teaching stays the same, it stops making any sense. “You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Yes, an important teaching. The punishment should fit the crime, neither unfairly harsh or unfairly gentle. How is Jesus going to expand this teaching? “But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.” What? That is completely illogical. “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well.” Really? “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand over your cloak as well.” And should we walk around naked then? “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go for two miles.” When exactly does a person get their own work done then? “Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.” Even if we know they are not going to pay us back? Even if we need the money more than they do?
The other teachings are hard, but we wish we could live up to them. These teachings are just foolish. If we followed these teachings, someone could come up to our home and just ask for things until we were naked in the middle of the street. The new teaching is that there is no limit on how much we should let people take advantage of us. Any group of people who tried to follow these teachings would go out of existence pretty quickly. Anyone who followed these teachings would be a fool.
St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, in our second reading today, “If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool, so as to become wise, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God.” St. Paul recommends that we become fools. He wrote in this same letter, a little earlier, the reason: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Let us think then for awhile about this foolishness of God.
When you hear these words from Jesus, do they inspire you? I mean before you think about the practical implications of allowing the world to take complete advantage of you. Do these words have the power to speak to something deep in your heart? Do these words make you want to stand up and live the Gospel without compromise? I hope they do. I hope no one is so cynical that their only reaction is to laugh at the foolishness. Something is dead inside of such a person. Something about these words should make us sad that the world is the way it is, that we cannot live them out.
It is certain that we cannot live these commandments to the letter. Jesus did not let people take advantage of him in every situation. Several times the Gospel tells us that he just walked through the midst of a crowd of people trying to kill him or arrest him. Jesus had a mission to fulfill, and he could not let anyone stand in the way. He would ultimately fulfill these words perfectly, but only when the right time had come.
Here is an understanding: we ought to follow the teachings as far as possible. A father needs to provide for his family, and sometimes that will mean saying no to someone trying to take advantage of him. A mother needs to protect her children, and sometimes that means the opposite of turning the other cheek. But what if we took this commandment as a presumption, saying, “Times will come when my responsibilities in this world will prevent me from following this commandment, but, as far as I am able, I will live according to this teaching.”
This commandment and others like it are the reason why some vocations are higher than others. All of us have vocations, whether to marriage or priesthood or religious life. A vocation is said to be higher when it allows a person to better live out the teachings of Jesus. So religious life is higher than marriage, as St. Paul also affirms, because a Sister or Brother is better able to turn the other cheek, to serve for two miles, to give up any material thing, than a married person. This does not mean that the person is better (there are saints who were married), but a married person is always going to be conflicted between their responsibilities and the teachings of Jesus. A person in religious life is more free to follow Jesus; of course, they may or may not actually follow him.
I point this out not for those of us who know our vocation, who are committed to it; all that is left for us is to live it. I point this out for those young people here today who want to know their vocation, who want to know what God wants them to do with their life. If the words of today’s Gospel speak in a particular way to you, if something in these words makes you happy when you hear them, you should consider whether God is calling you to the kind of life, as a Sister or Brother or Priest, where you can more freely live them out.
Daily Homilies
Showing posts with label Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Law. Show all posts
February 16, 2014 - Sunday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Sirach 15:15-20
Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34
1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Matthew 5:17-37
Sirach places a choice before us today: life or death, good or evil, fire or water. The choice that Sirach is talking about is called the “fundamental option”. The idea of the fundamental option is that we ought to stop being lukewarm, wishy-washy, half-in/half-out and make a decision to follow God. Many people stand at this fork in the road and refuse to commit themselves to a path. Throughout the Old Testament, God is constantly telling his people to make a decision either for him or for the world, to continue to the Holy Land or to go back to Egypt, to worship him or to worship the pagan Gods. God insists that we make a decision.
Many people easily and proudly proclaim what football team or political party they support, but, in life, they are content to stand on the sidelines and watch. The world loves the open-minded, who see both sides, neither extremist nor fundamentalist. There is a war going on; pick a side. Will your fundamental option be for God or not? If we choose God, life will be hard. We will have to follow the commandments. People are afraid to choose because they think that they might choose wrongly. What if I choose for God and I am wrong? I will miss out on a lot of fun in life. What if I choose against God and I am wrong? I will miss out on something bigger. Every choice for something rejects other possibilities, but we will never get anywhere unless we pick a direction. So we stand on the threshold of life, paralyzed by fear.
Now, if this were a particular kind of protestant church, I would continue in this vein for an hour or so and then ask you to make a decision right now and to come up front and to pray a prayer of decision. I tell you, you would feel good if you did it, all warm inside, excited, probably crying. You would feel alive for the first time in a long time. And I am not going to stop anyone from doing that. Come on up after Mass, and look at Jesus, and make a decision. In fact, I am going to presume something right now. I am going to presume that since you got up this morning, got dressed, and came to worship God, you probably would make that commitment. In fact, let us all pause right now, and, without all the theatrics, turn to Jesus and say, “Lord Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God who died to save me from my sins. I choose to follow you wherever you lead me, forever. Amen.”
But now we have got a problem, because we have to actually do what we just said. No one runs a marathon by signing up for a gym membership. You have to actually exercise. No one loses a single pound because they made a New Year’s resolution. You have to actually eat better. No one ever got to heaven because they decided that they would follow God. You have to actually follow God. We made the decision. We took the fundamental option for Jesus Christ. The problem is, it is hard to be perfect.
If we thought that following Jesus just meant not killing anybody, he corrects that idea today: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” Has anyone here ever been angry with their brother or sister? Has anyone here ever called them a fool? Thus Jesus goes through each commandment and shows what it means to keep it perfectly.
There are some possibilities of course. We could just be hypocrites. We could follow the easy commandments in public and break the hard ones in private. We would be like actors on a stage: it does not matter what happens when the curtain goes down. This was the way of the scribes and Pharisees. But Jesus tells us, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
We could be antinomians, which is to say, we could not bother trying to be good since we will sin anyway. We could just say, “I have taken the fundamental option for Jesus, so it does not really matter what I do day to day. God will forgive me.” The antinomians are like the hypocrites except that they do not even try to hide their failings. This is not a surpassing righteousness.
We are going to have to use more difficult tactics if we will succeed on this path. We made the commitment today; we will have to make it again tomorrow. When we fail, we can repent. We will just have to keep trying to be perfect, no matter how many times we fall. We must never accept sin. We must refuse to put up with evil in our lives. We must never say about some sin we have struggled against, “Oh well, that is just the way I am.”
If this were all though, we would just be like Pharisees but humble. Not a bad place to start, but there is also good news. If we choose to follow God, he will guide us. His Spirit lives within each one of us by our Baptism and Confirmation. God wants us to be saved, but we have to decide that we want to be saved. We have to decide it at every hour; we have to decide it against every temptation; we have to decide it in every part of our lives. This is what it means to choose Christ, to take the fundamental option: following Jesus is the foundation of our lives. “If you choose, you can keep the commandments. They will save you. If you trust in God, you shall even live.”
Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34
1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Matthew 5:17-37
Sirach places a choice before us today: life or death, good or evil, fire or water. The choice that Sirach is talking about is called the “fundamental option”. The idea of the fundamental option is that we ought to stop being lukewarm, wishy-washy, half-in/half-out and make a decision to follow God. Many people stand at this fork in the road and refuse to commit themselves to a path. Throughout the Old Testament, God is constantly telling his people to make a decision either for him or for the world, to continue to the Holy Land or to go back to Egypt, to worship him or to worship the pagan Gods. God insists that we make a decision.
Many people easily and proudly proclaim what football team or political party they support, but, in life, they are content to stand on the sidelines and watch. The world loves the open-minded, who see both sides, neither extremist nor fundamentalist. There is a war going on; pick a side. Will your fundamental option be for God or not? If we choose God, life will be hard. We will have to follow the commandments. People are afraid to choose because they think that they might choose wrongly. What if I choose for God and I am wrong? I will miss out on a lot of fun in life. What if I choose against God and I am wrong? I will miss out on something bigger. Every choice for something rejects other possibilities, but we will never get anywhere unless we pick a direction. So we stand on the threshold of life, paralyzed by fear.
Now, if this were a particular kind of protestant church, I would continue in this vein for an hour or so and then ask you to make a decision right now and to come up front and to pray a prayer of decision. I tell you, you would feel good if you did it, all warm inside, excited, probably crying. You would feel alive for the first time in a long time. And I am not going to stop anyone from doing that. Come on up after Mass, and look at Jesus, and make a decision. In fact, I am going to presume something right now. I am going to presume that since you got up this morning, got dressed, and came to worship God, you probably would make that commitment. In fact, let us all pause right now, and, without all the theatrics, turn to Jesus and say, “Lord Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God who died to save me from my sins. I choose to follow you wherever you lead me, forever. Amen.”
But now we have got a problem, because we have to actually do what we just said. No one runs a marathon by signing up for a gym membership. You have to actually exercise. No one loses a single pound because they made a New Year’s resolution. You have to actually eat better. No one ever got to heaven because they decided that they would follow God. You have to actually follow God. We made the decision. We took the fundamental option for Jesus Christ. The problem is, it is hard to be perfect.
If we thought that following Jesus just meant not killing anybody, he corrects that idea today: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” Has anyone here ever been angry with their brother or sister? Has anyone here ever called them a fool? Thus Jesus goes through each commandment and shows what it means to keep it perfectly.
There are some possibilities of course. We could just be hypocrites. We could follow the easy commandments in public and break the hard ones in private. We would be like actors on a stage: it does not matter what happens when the curtain goes down. This was the way of the scribes and Pharisees. But Jesus tells us, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
We could be antinomians, which is to say, we could not bother trying to be good since we will sin anyway. We could just say, “I have taken the fundamental option for Jesus, so it does not really matter what I do day to day. God will forgive me.” The antinomians are like the hypocrites except that they do not even try to hide their failings. This is not a surpassing righteousness.
We are going to have to use more difficult tactics if we will succeed on this path. We made the commitment today; we will have to make it again tomorrow. When we fail, we can repent. We will just have to keep trying to be perfect, no matter how many times we fall. We must never accept sin. We must refuse to put up with evil in our lives. We must never say about some sin we have struggled against, “Oh well, that is just the way I am.”
If this were all though, we would just be like Pharisees but humble. Not a bad place to start, but there is also good news. If we choose to follow God, he will guide us. His Spirit lives within each one of us by our Baptism and Confirmation. God wants us to be saved, but we have to decide that we want to be saved. We have to decide it at every hour; we have to decide it against every temptation; we have to decide it in every part of our lives. This is what it means to choose Christ, to take the fundamental option: following Jesus is the foundation of our lives. “If you choose, you can keep the commandments. They will save you. If you trust in God, you shall even live.”
March 7, 2013 - Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9
Psalm 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20
Matthew 5:17-19
What Moses praises today is a mere shadow of the glorious truth fulfilled in Jesus Christ. While he is right to say that no pagan people have a religion as wonderful as the Law that was handed down to him on Mt. Sinai, we Christians have truly received grace in place of grace.
He asks the Israelites, “What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?” Yet God is closer to us than he was to them. He spoke to Moses face to face, but he lives in our hearts. The Israelites were gathered into the People of God, but we are the Body of Christ. The Lord taught Moses to call him by his name, “I am who am”, but Jesus Christ taught us to call God “Our Father”. The Israelites could not even stand to look at the glory of God reflected in the face of Moses, but we look upon God with unveiled faces. The Spirit of the Lord descended on 70 elders, although Moses wished that all the Israelites would become prophets, but we have all received the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us from within. God chose one man and his sons to be priests and to offer the sacrifices to him each day, but we all participate in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ as we present our own bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Moses asked the Israelites, “What great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?”, but the new law is the Holy Spirit, who is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. For the law brings wrath, but grace brings salvation for all people.
So if the Israelites needed to take care and be earnestly on their guard not to forget a light that shone in the darkness like a candle, how much more must we take care and be earnestly on our guard not to forget the sunshine that illuminates the whole world. If the Israelites were duty-bound to teach their children and the grandchildren about God’s care for them in the desert, how much more are we bound by grace to proclaim to the whole world that God loves us and has built a kingdom where we can be with him forever.
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Psalm 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20
Matthew 5:17-19
What Moses praises today is a mere shadow of the glorious truth fulfilled in Jesus Christ. While he is right to say that no pagan people have a religion as wonderful as the Law that was handed down to him on Mt. Sinai, we Christians have truly received grace in place of grace.
He asks the Israelites, “What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?” Yet God is closer to us than he was to them. He spoke to Moses face to face, but he lives in our hearts. The Israelites were gathered into the People of God, but we are the Body of Christ. The Lord taught Moses to call him by his name, “I am who am”, but Jesus Christ taught us to call God “Our Father”. The Israelites could not even stand to look at the glory of God reflected in the face of Moses, but we look upon God with unveiled faces. The Spirit of the Lord descended on 70 elders, although Moses wished that all the Israelites would become prophets, but we have all received the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us from within. God chose one man and his sons to be priests and to offer the sacrifices to him each day, but we all participate in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ as we present our own bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Moses asked the Israelites, “What great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?”, but the new law is the Holy Spirit, who is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. For the law brings wrath, but grace brings salvation for all people.
So if the Israelites needed to take care and be earnestly on their guard not to forget a light that shone in the darkness like a candle, how much more must we take care and be earnestly on our guard not to forget the sunshine that illuminates the whole world. If the Israelites were duty-bound to teach their children and the grandchildren about God’s care for them in the desert, how much more are we bound by grace to proclaim to the whole world that God loves us and has built a kingdom where we can be with him forever.
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February 2, 2013 - Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40 or 2:22-32
Today is the Feast of the Presentation. The child Jesus is now 40 days old. This is the last celebration we have of the child Jesus, until we begin again with the Annunciation. In the Jewish law, the presentation signified the end of the pregnancy of Mary, since the official recovery after pregnancy was 40 days for a boy and 80 days for a girl. Today Mary is bringing her sacrifice to the temple: two birds. She was supposed to bring one bird and one lamb, but a poor woman is allowed to bring two birds instead. Here is another sign that our Lord was not ashamed to be poor.
The lamb or the first bird was a burnt offering to the Lord. It was not eaten as most sacrifices are. It was burned up entirely. The odor of the burning animal rose with the smoke and the sweet smell made atonement to the Lord for the mother. The second animal, always a bird, was killed with a thumbnail, its blood squeezed out, and then the meat was eaten by the priest’s family. It was an offering for unintentional or unavoidable sin, in this case, touching blood. These sacrifices are bizarre to us, even more so than sacrifices in general. The idea that a woman would need to atone for giving birth or had committed a sin while doing so is strange; we are uncomfortable that such a thing would be required in the Law given to Moses by God.
It seems that Luke was also uncomfortable with the idea since he makes no mention of the actual sacrifice. He instead tells us about two people whom Mary and Joseph met on their way in: an old man and an old woman. The old man, Simeon, just runs up and takes Jesus, blessing and praising God. The old woman, Anna, appears, thanks God, and begins telling people about the child. Here Jesus is welcomed by the people Israel in the way that he ought to have been welcomed. All Israel is represented in these two people who were longing for the Messiah. We celebrate today the fulfillment of the Old Testament. This story is very Old Testament: we have the ancient sacrifices and the prophets longing for a Savior, but something is different – the Savior has arrived. All prophecy is fulfilled. All sacrifice is ended. Most of the people do not know yet, but this child is the fulfillment of every prophecy; this child is the sacrifice that takes away all sins.
Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40 or 2:22-32
Today is the Feast of the Presentation. The child Jesus is now 40 days old. This is the last celebration we have of the child Jesus, until we begin again with the Annunciation. In the Jewish law, the presentation signified the end of the pregnancy of Mary, since the official recovery after pregnancy was 40 days for a boy and 80 days for a girl. Today Mary is bringing her sacrifice to the temple: two birds. She was supposed to bring one bird and one lamb, but a poor woman is allowed to bring two birds instead. Here is another sign that our Lord was not ashamed to be poor.
The lamb or the first bird was a burnt offering to the Lord. It was not eaten as most sacrifices are. It was burned up entirely. The odor of the burning animal rose with the smoke and the sweet smell made atonement to the Lord for the mother. The second animal, always a bird, was killed with a thumbnail, its blood squeezed out, and then the meat was eaten by the priest’s family. It was an offering for unintentional or unavoidable sin, in this case, touching blood. These sacrifices are bizarre to us, even more so than sacrifices in general. The idea that a woman would need to atone for giving birth or had committed a sin while doing so is strange; we are uncomfortable that such a thing would be required in the Law given to Moses by God.
It seems that Luke was also uncomfortable with the idea since he makes no mention of the actual sacrifice. He instead tells us about two people whom Mary and Joseph met on their way in: an old man and an old woman. The old man, Simeon, just runs up and takes Jesus, blessing and praising God. The old woman, Anna, appears, thanks God, and begins telling people about the child. Here Jesus is welcomed by the people Israel in the way that he ought to have been welcomed. All Israel is represented in these two people who were longing for the Messiah. We celebrate today the fulfillment of the Old Testament. This story is very Old Testament: we have the ancient sacrifices and the prophets longing for a Savior, but something is different – the Savior has arrived. All prophecy is fulfilled. All sacrifice is ended. Most of the people do not know yet, but this child is the fulfillment of every prophecy; this child is the sacrifice that takes away all sins.
January 22, 2013 - Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Hebrews 6:10-20
Psalm 111:1-2, 4-5, 9-10
Mark 2:23-28
Jesus tells us that the “Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” We are all sons and daughters of humans. In this case the example of David and the Apostles means that religious laws are important, but some can be broken for good reasons. If God had not told us “Thou shall not kill”, murder would still be wrong, but if he had not told us to rest on the Sabbath or which bread was special, there would be no reason not to work on the Sabbath or eat the bread. So, since these laws are not intrinsically necessary, it seems that each person, using their conscience needs to decide when to follow them and when to break them.
There is a problem with this interpretation. There is no reason to suggest that the disciples of Jesus were particularly hungry. Were they just so rural that they had no idea that picking heads of grain on the Sabbath would be frowned upon? This seems unlikely. Did Jesus tell them that it was okay? Did he command them to do it? He is the Son of Man. Has he come to change a law? But he says that he will not change any laws.
The real difference is Jesus. His presence changes how to understand the Law. David and his companions did not follow the letter of the Law because they were starving. The disciples do not follow the Law because the point of the Law was fulfilled in their midst. As Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” God did not create us so that someone would be resting once a week. God created the once-a-week rest for us.
Work is a punishment that came after Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden. The Sabbath is a little Eden at the end of the week, but Jesus is our Eden. The Pharisees could only remember paradise because the punishment of work was taken away for one day. We can experience paradise in Our Lord. Jesus was not just a teacher with some good ideas. He is God. We are not supposed to hear his teaching as more work for us to do. We are supposed to take up our Cross and follow him, and come rest in his arms. The taking up the Cross and the resting are one and the same.
Psalm 111:1-2, 4-5, 9-10
Mark 2:23-28
Jesus tells us that the “Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” We are all sons and daughters of humans. In this case the example of David and the Apostles means that religious laws are important, but some can be broken for good reasons. If God had not told us “Thou shall not kill”, murder would still be wrong, but if he had not told us to rest on the Sabbath or which bread was special, there would be no reason not to work on the Sabbath or eat the bread. So, since these laws are not intrinsically necessary, it seems that each person, using their conscience needs to decide when to follow them and when to break them.
There is a problem with this interpretation. There is no reason to suggest that the disciples of Jesus were particularly hungry. Were they just so rural that they had no idea that picking heads of grain on the Sabbath would be frowned upon? This seems unlikely. Did Jesus tell them that it was okay? Did he command them to do it? He is the Son of Man. Has he come to change a law? But he says that he will not change any laws.
The real difference is Jesus. His presence changes how to understand the Law. David and his companions did not follow the letter of the Law because they were starving. The disciples do not follow the Law because the point of the Law was fulfilled in their midst. As Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” God did not create us so that someone would be resting once a week. God created the once-a-week rest for us.
Work is a punishment that came after Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden. The Sabbath is a little Eden at the end of the week, but Jesus is our Eden. The Pharisees could only remember paradise because the punishment of work was taken away for one day. We can experience paradise in Our Lord. Jesus was not just a teacher with some good ideas. He is God. We are not supposed to hear his teaching as more work for us to do. We are supposed to take up our Cross and follow him, and come rest in his arms. The taking up the Cross and the resting are one and the same.
January 19, 2013 - Saturday of the First Week In Ordinary Time
Hebrews 4:12-16
Psalm 19:8-10, 15
Mark 2:13-17
Our readings today proclaim: we are not on our own. Our religion is not just Judaism with some updated rules. We have received grace in place of grace. We are told that "the word of God is living and effective." We worship the Word of God who is the Son of God. Some people believe that the Bible is full of difficult rules. So it is. Some people believe that the message of Christianity is that we must be perfect. Indeed we must. Yet these truths cannot be separated from the fact that the Word of God is not only the printed word, the words which we have just heard, but also a person, a Savior. And our Savior is not “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” Our Savior loves us. We cannot be good enough, but he is. “So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”
What does this all mean? It means that when we begin trying to live the good life, we make some progress. We find that we can stop sinning, sometimes. Then we hit a wall. We are confused why some sins will not go away. We are confused why some weaknesses remain despite our desire to be rid of them. We pray that God will take away this thorn in the flesh, whatever our weakness is. But he will not. He will not help us to become creatures who can get along without him. This would be very bad for us. We would end up as pure as angels but as proud as devils. God will, however, give us our daily bread. The help we need, today, when we ask for it, today. For his power is made perfect in weakness.
When Jesus called Levi, he might have followed out of curiosity that day. He might have followed for awhile on his own strength. But we know that he followed Jesus through the Cross and to his own martyrdom. This was not done on his own strength. We are weak. There is help out there: not mere suggestions or encouragement, not a one-time fix that will make us independent, but a fire that burns within us so long as it is constantly fed by the Word of God: in reading, in hearing, in Mass, in prayer, in Confession, in the Eucharist. In short, in every priceless possession given to the Church by Our Lord.
Psalm 19:8-10, 15
Mark 2:13-17
Our readings today proclaim: we are not on our own. Our religion is not just Judaism with some updated rules. We have received grace in place of grace. We are told that "the word of God is living and effective." We worship the Word of God who is the Son of God. Some people believe that the Bible is full of difficult rules. So it is. Some people believe that the message of Christianity is that we must be perfect. Indeed we must. Yet these truths cannot be separated from the fact that the Word of God is not only the printed word, the words which we have just heard, but also a person, a Savior. And our Savior is not “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” Our Savior loves us. We cannot be good enough, but he is. “So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”
What does this all mean? It means that when we begin trying to live the good life, we make some progress. We find that we can stop sinning, sometimes. Then we hit a wall. We are confused why some sins will not go away. We are confused why some weaknesses remain despite our desire to be rid of them. We pray that God will take away this thorn in the flesh, whatever our weakness is. But he will not. He will not help us to become creatures who can get along without him. This would be very bad for us. We would end up as pure as angels but as proud as devils. God will, however, give us our daily bread. The help we need, today, when we ask for it, today. For his power is made perfect in weakness.
When Jesus called Levi, he might have followed out of curiosity that day. He might have followed for awhile on his own strength. But we know that he followed Jesus through the Cross and to his own martyrdom. This was not done on his own strength. We are weak. There is help out there: not mere suggestions or encouragement, not a one-time fix that will make us independent, but a fire that burns within us so long as it is constantly fed by the Word of God: in reading, in hearing, in Mass, in prayer, in Confession, in the Eucharist. In short, in every priceless possession given to the Church by Our Lord.
November 14, 2012 - Wednesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Titus 3:1-7
Psalm 23:1-6
Luke 17:11-19
The words of Jesus in the Gospel today seem unfair. He tells the ten to go show themselves to the priests. Nine of them obey him, because as Jews they knew what that meant. They started walking to Jerusalem. One of them turns back, because he never would have been able to go into the temple anyway. As a Samaritan, he was certainly not welcome to show himself to a priest and go through the ritual cleansing. So he returns to Jesus.
Before, he stood at a distance. Now, he falls at his feet. Of course, Jesus is the true priest. The Samaritan has obeyed the command of Jesus because he has shown himself to the priest. But why does Jesus seem to complain about the other nine? He sent them on a mission, and they did not come back. For all we know they did exactly what he said. He is not criticizing them. He is criticizing the law. Nowhere in the law does it say that the lepers should thank God for their cleansing. It says that they should be sprinkled with bird blood, but it does not say that they should be grateful. It says to sleep outside for a week, but it does not say to be grateful.
Paul says in one place that he was blameless with respect to the Law, but here he says that “we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hating ourselves and hating one another.” So, it is possible to follow the law to the T, and still be all that. God gave the Law, and it is good. Jesus did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. The point of the commandments was lost by those who followed them. The point of all that sacrifice was to thank God. The Samaritan, not knowing what he worships, is more free to give the natural human reaction and thank God for the healing.
There is talk right now of returning to meatless Fridays every Friday of the year. When they got rid of it 40 years ago, it was mostly because people had forgotten why they were doing it. It had lost its meaning. There a dozen very good reasons for returning to the tradition. If we do restart the practice, and I hope we do, it should be for those reasons and not just some rule we follow.
Psalm 23:1-6
Luke 17:11-19
The words of Jesus in the Gospel today seem unfair. He tells the ten to go show themselves to the priests. Nine of them obey him, because as Jews they knew what that meant. They started walking to Jerusalem. One of them turns back, because he never would have been able to go into the temple anyway. As a Samaritan, he was certainly not welcome to show himself to a priest and go through the ritual cleansing. So he returns to Jesus.
Before, he stood at a distance. Now, he falls at his feet. Of course, Jesus is the true priest. The Samaritan has obeyed the command of Jesus because he has shown himself to the priest. But why does Jesus seem to complain about the other nine? He sent them on a mission, and they did not come back. For all we know they did exactly what he said. He is not criticizing them. He is criticizing the law. Nowhere in the law does it say that the lepers should thank God for their cleansing. It says that they should be sprinkled with bird blood, but it does not say that they should be grateful. It says to sleep outside for a week, but it does not say to be grateful.
Paul says in one place that he was blameless with respect to the Law, but here he says that “we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hating ourselves and hating one another.” So, it is possible to follow the law to the T, and still be all that. God gave the Law, and it is good. Jesus did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. The point of the commandments was lost by those who followed them. The point of all that sacrifice was to thank God. The Samaritan, not knowing what he worships, is more free to give the natural human reaction and thank God for the healing.
There is talk right now of returning to meatless Fridays every Friday of the year. When they got rid of it 40 years ago, it was mostly because people had forgotten why they were doing it. It had lost its meaning. There a dozen very good reasons for returning to the tradition. If we do restart the practice, and I hope we do, it should be for those reasons and not just some rule we follow.
October 12, 2012 - Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Galatians 3:7-14
Psalm 111:1-6
Luke 11:15-26
The problem with the law is how empty it is. There are hundreds of laws about food and eating, but none of them ever fed a starving person. The law about not mixing wool and linen in one cloth do not warm someone in need of clothes. Even the laws that tell people to care for the poor are still empty unless someone obeys. Above all, the law does not satisfy us spiritually. The only thing that the law does is reveal to us how lacking we are. Because of the law, I know what I do wrong, but the law does not lift a finger to help me do right. This is why St. Paul tells the Galatians that no one is justified before God by the law. The only thing that the law can provide is a curse for everyone who disobeys it, and who can go through life without ever breaking the law? We all break the law. So we all are cursed.
We are beaten down over and over again. And the law is true. It is no use to pretend that the law is false. The curse of the law is so frightening that we want it to be a nightmare we can wake up from, but we know that it is true. Journeying through the law is like walking through a desert. Does it help while walking through the desert to pretend that the human body does not need water? No. The law of thirst is absolute. If someone pretends that they do not need water, it just proves how badly in need they are: they are starting to lose their mind from thirst. But what if, instead of denying the law of thirst, we find an oasis?
What solution is there besides denying the truth? Faith. Just as food is to a hungry person and water to a thirsty person, so is the grace of faith to someone longing for God. Jesus tells us that if a demon is cast out, but the soul remains empty, the demon will return with 7 companions. If the law denies us our demons, but we remain empty, we will find worse demons. We will begin to think that we would be better off without the law. With faith though we are full, too full for any demons. Saying “NO” is a weak way to get rid of sin. Instead, say “Yes” to the Holy Spirit, to faith, to the grace of God, and there will be no room for evil.
Psalm 111:1-6
Luke 11:15-26
The problem with the law is how empty it is. There are hundreds of laws about food and eating, but none of them ever fed a starving person. The law about not mixing wool and linen in one cloth do not warm someone in need of clothes. Even the laws that tell people to care for the poor are still empty unless someone obeys. Above all, the law does not satisfy us spiritually. The only thing that the law does is reveal to us how lacking we are. Because of the law, I know what I do wrong, but the law does not lift a finger to help me do right. This is why St. Paul tells the Galatians that no one is justified before God by the law. The only thing that the law can provide is a curse for everyone who disobeys it, and who can go through life without ever breaking the law? We all break the law. So we all are cursed.
We are beaten down over and over again. And the law is true. It is no use to pretend that the law is false. The curse of the law is so frightening that we want it to be a nightmare we can wake up from, but we know that it is true. Journeying through the law is like walking through a desert. Does it help while walking through the desert to pretend that the human body does not need water? No. The law of thirst is absolute. If someone pretends that they do not need water, it just proves how badly in need they are: they are starting to lose their mind from thirst. But what if, instead of denying the law of thirst, we find an oasis?
What solution is there besides denying the truth? Faith. Just as food is to a hungry person and water to a thirsty person, so is the grace of faith to someone longing for God. Jesus tells us that if a demon is cast out, but the soul remains empty, the demon will return with 7 companions. If the law denies us our demons, but we remain empty, we will find worse demons. We will begin to think that we would be better off without the law. With faith though we are full, too full for any demons. Saying “NO” is a weak way to get rid of sin. Instead, say “Yes” to the Holy Spirit, to faith, to the grace of God, and there will be no room for evil.
September 30, 2012 - Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Numbers 11:25-29
Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-14
James 5:1-6
Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
The stories in our first reading and Gospel today are kind of the same. In the first reading, Joshua (Moses’ disciple) tells Moses about people prophesying outside the official circle of prophecy. In the Gospel, John (Jesus’ disciple) tells Jesus about someone exorcising demons outside the official circle of discipleship. In both cases the disciples want the teacher to stop such unofficial actions. In both cases the teacher replies that they are glad that someone is using the power, even unofficially. Would Joshua rather that the prophecy of the Lord go untold? Would the disciples rather that the demons remained in the people? They have lost sight of the fact that good is being accomplished.
The disciples have a desire for a purity of religion. They want their religion to be simple and logical and follow all the rules. The teachers know that religion is logical but it is not simple because people are not simple. All the rules are followed, but the disciples do not know all the rules. It is like when you tell a child about the rule against hitting other people. Then they see a boxing match, and they want to know why the two men are breaking the rules. You can try to explain that this does not break the rule, but they are unlikely to understand why. Some children will consider the boxers to be naughty. Other children will decide that rules are meant to be broken. They will hit a fellow student and declare that they were boxing.
So in religion we start with simple rules, such as “divorce is never permissible.” That rule is true as far as it goes. Then a person sees someone who is divorced and got an annulment, and pretty soon they will either think that the Church needs to stop making so many exceptions to the rules and enforce it strictly like they did in the good old days or that the rule on divorce does not apply anymore. On the one hand we have extreme traditionalists and on the other hand extreme liberals. In reality the rule on divorce and annulments is just extremely complex and always has been.
This desire to make religion simple, or, indeed, simplistic, is in all of us. We want a simple religion that does not need a lot of explanation. We prefer “poor” to “poor in spirit”. We liked the way religion felt when we were children. Good people go to heaven. Bad people go to hell. Jesus loves us. And honestly, those statements are all true. We do not lie to children; we just simplify. When you grow up you realize that there are very few good people in the world and very few real villains. So where do all the people in the middle go? And if Jesus loves us, why is there a hell? There are answers to these questions, but they are not simple. Even the answers we have are simplified versions of the truth that is greater than any human mind.
So when Jesus came, he gave very simple teachings which need to be thought about and explained. Sometimes the literal meaning of his teachings still makes sense, like when he says “Love one another.” Sometimes it does not, like when he says “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” This does not mean that we are picking and choosing which teachings we are going to follow. Jesus gave his teachings to intelligent human beings. He knew that we would figure out what he meant, more or less. We are constantly figuring out his teachings, so that over 2000 years there have been enormous developments in doctrine. Meanwhile, we are also constantly misunderstanding so that the Church has to face new problems all the time. The Church can never change a teaching, but we can always understand it better.
For instance, there are historical figures who took Jesus literally and cut off parts of their body, but that was never very popular for obvious reasons. The principle behind the teaching is really the point: we are naïve if we leave the causes of sin lying around and hope to avoid sin nonetheless. Jesus is saying that even if the cause of sin is as beloved to us as our own right hand, we should cut it off; even if the removal would be as painful as plucking out an eye, we should not hesitate. If a person is causing you to sin, cut them off. Better to enter heaven alone than to go to hell with friends. If your television is causing you to sin, pluck it out of your home. Better to enter heaven having missed all the best episodes than to enter hell having watched them. If the internet or a kind of website is causing you to sin, sever the connection. Better to enter heaven crippled in this digital world than to enter hell well-informed. The removal of these or many other causes of sin would be hard, but not as painful as plucking out your eye. To live without television or internet in this modern age would be a serious disability, but not as bad as having a foot cut off. In other words, even if we are severe with ourselves, we will never exceed the examples that Jesus gave.
For our second reading today, St. James writes an indictment of the rich that seems literal, but he is using the word “rich” here in the way that Jesus used “poor in spirit”, to refer to an attitude, not an objective financial status. He is speaking of the rich in spirit who rob the poor for profit, who murder people who stand in their way, who live for the purpose of luxury and pleasure. The rich in spirit are totally consumed with themselves. When the end comes, they will have saved nothing of real value, they will have no treasure in heaven, everything they have will be destroyed. Someone could be rich in spirit no matter how much money they have.
We must not minimize the teaching of Jesus and look at every rule for its exceptions, but we are not being more religious if we try to take them all literally and be more Catholic than the Pope. The Church gives us the Catechism as a reference book if you want to understand some of the complexity. If you want to understand more, there is a lot to study, but, no matter how much theology we learn, what we need above all is the humility to realize that we do not understand completely. That is why we can never judge. We also need the humility to trust the teachings of Jesus and the 2000 years of understanding by the Church. With some rules of the Church, like contraception, gaymarriage, and social teaching, people will say, “I cannot understand the Church’s position.” That is fine, so long as they do not take this lack of understanding and think that it proves something. We need the humility to trust even when we do not understand, to not think that our own way of working out the issue trumps the Bible and 2000 years of tradition.
Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-14
James 5:1-6
Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
The stories in our first reading and Gospel today are kind of the same. In the first reading, Joshua (Moses’ disciple) tells Moses about people prophesying outside the official circle of prophecy. In the Gospel, John (Jesus’ disciple) tells Jesus about someone exorcising demons outside the official circle of discipleship. In both cases the disciples want the teacher to stop such unofficial actions. In both cases the teacher replies that they are glad that someone is using the power, even unofficially. Would Joshua rather that the prophecy of the Lord go untold? Would the disciples rather that the demons remained in the people? They have lost sight of the fact that good is being accomplished.
The disciples have a desire for a purity of religion. They want their religion to be simple and logical and follow all the rules. The teachers know that religion is logical but it is not simple because people are not simple. All the rules are followed, but the disciples do not know all the rules. It is like when you tell a child about the rule against hitting other people. Then they see a boxing match, and they want to know why the two men are breaking the rules. You can try to explain that this does not break the rule, but they are unlikely to understand why. Some children will consider the boxers to be naughty. Other children will decide that rules are meant to be broken. They will hit a fellow student and declare that they were boxing.
So in religion we start with simple rules, such as “divorce is never permissible.” That rule is true as far as it goes. Then a person sees someone who is divorced and got an annulment, and pretty soon they will either think that the Church needs to stop making so many exceptions to the rules and enforce it strictly like they did in the good old days or that the rule on divorce does not apply anymore. On the one hand we have extreme traditionalists and on the other hand extreme liberals. In reality the rule on divorce and annulments is just extremely complex and always has been.
This desire to make religion simple, or, indeed, simplistic, is in all of us. We want a simple religion that does not need a lot of explanation. We prefer “poor” to “poor in spirit”. We liked the way religion felt when we were children. Good people go to heaven. Bad people go to hell. Jesus loves us. And honestly, those statements are all true. We do not lie to children; we just simplify. When you grow up you realize that there are very few good people in the world and very few real villains. So where do all the people in the middle go? And if Jesus loves us, why is there a hell? There are answers to these questions, but they are not simple. Even the answers we have are simplified versions of the truth that is greater than any human mind.
So when Jesus came, he gave very simple teachings which need to be thought about and explained. Sometimes the literal meaning of his teachings still makes sense, like when he says “Love one another.” Sometimes it does not, like when he says “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” This does not mean that we are picking and choosing which teachings we are going to follow. Jesus gave his teachings to intelligent human beings. He knew that we would figure out what he meant, more or less. We are constantly figuring out his teachings, so that over 2000 years there have been enormous developments in doctrine. Meanwhile, we are also constantly misunderstanding so that the Church has to face new problems all the time. The Church can never change a teaching, but we can always understand it better.
For instance, there are historical figures who took Jesus literally and cut off parts of their body, but that was never very popular for obvious reasons. The principle behind the teaching is really the point: we are naïve if we leave the causes of sin lying around and hope to avoid sin nonetheless. Jesus is saying that even if the cause of sin is as beloved to us as our own right hand, we should cut it off; even if the removal would be as painful as plucking out an eye, we should not hesitate. If a person is causing you to sin, cut them off. Better to enter heaven alone than to go to hell with friends. If your television is causing you to sin, pluck it out of your home. Better to enter heaven having missed all the best episodes than to enter hell having watched them. If the internet or a kind of website is causing you to sin, sever the connection. Better to enter heaven crippled in this digital world than to enter hell well-informed. The removal of these or many other causes of sin would be hard, but not as painful as plucking out your eye. To live without television or internet in this modern age would be a serious disability, but not as bad as having a foot cut off. In other words, even if we are severe with ourselves, we will never exceed the examples that Jesus gave.
For our second reading today, St. James writes an indictment of the rich that seems literal, but he is using the word “rich” here in the way that Jesus used “poor in spirit”, to refer to an attitude, not an objective financial status. He is speaking of the rich in spirit who rob the poor for profit, who murder people who stand in their way, who live for the purpose of luxury and pleasure. The rich in spirit are totally consumed with themselves. When the end comes, they will have saved nothing of real value, they will have no treasure in heaven, everything they have will be destroyed. Someone could be rich in spirit no matter how much money they have.
We must not minimize the teaching of Jesus and look at every rule for its exceptions, but we are not being more religious if we try to take them all literally and be more Catholic than the Pope. The Church gives us the Catechism as a reference book if you want to understand some of the complexity. If you want to understand more, there is a lot to study, but, no matter how much theology we learn, what we need above all is the humility to realize that we do not understand completely. That is why we can never judge. We also need the humility to trust the teachings of Jesus and the 2000 years of understanding by the Church. With some rules of the Church, like contraception, gaymarriage, and social teaching, people will say, “I cannot understand the Church’s position.” That is fine, so long as they do not take this lack of understanding and think that it proves something. We need the humility to trust even when we do not understand, to not think that our own way of working out the issue trumps the Bible and 2000 years of tradition.
September 25, 2012 - Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Proverbs 21:1-6, 10-13
Psalm 119:1, 27, 30, 34-35, 44
Luke 8:19-21
What is the good life? Many people think that the good life is a life of sin. The very best life would be to do whatever sin seems best and then to repent in the end and go to heaven. This is what the proverb means, “All the ways of man may be right in his own eyes, but it is the Lord who weighs the heart.” We think that sin is happiness, and feel torn between following that happiness and being perpetually disappointed in hopes of eternal life. God is our enemy, keeping us from being happy in this life. All of us are susceptible to this mistaken belief because of original sin. Ever since we ate that fruit and gained the knowledge of good and evil, we have had our own personal morality that is at odds with God.
Consider it this way: What if God offered you a chance to sit down and rewrite the Ten Commandments? Not only that, but all of morality. What if you could put down, definitively, the rules of right and wrong? What would they say? Which rules would you change? What forbidden thing would you allow? What permitted thing would you forbid? Do you think that you improved anything? Do you know how much the human heart weighs and every measure of it? Do you know all the mysteries of the universe? Were you there when God created the galaxies? No. So how is it that we think we could improve on God’s law? If anyone thinks that they know more than God, then they do not know who God is. What arrogance that requires! But we all invent our own personal morality. We sin because we have decided that what we are doing is not wrong after all; we have decided that we know more than God.
We repeated in the psalm, “Guide me, Lord.” This prayer is asking the Lord for freedom from independence. If we choose our own way and do what seems best in our own eyes, we will go wrong. If we do the word of the Lord, we cannot go wrong. God does not want our obedience because he wants to set artificial limits on our happiness. God knows what is good for us and what will harm us. Father knows best. Even if we cannot understand a particular rule, it is clear that since God is never wrong, he must be right.
Psalm 119:1, 27, 30, 34-35, 44
Luke 8:19-21
What is the good life? Many people think that the good life is a life of sin. The very best life would be to do whatever sin seems best and then to repent in the end and go to heaven. This is what the proverb means, “All the ways of man may be right in his own eyes, but it is the Lord who weighs the heart.” We think that sin is happiness, and feel torn between following that happiness and being perpetually disappointed in hopes of eternal life. God is our enemy, keeping us from being happy in this life. All of us are susceptible to this mistaken belief because of original sin. Ever since we ate that fruit and gained the knowledge of good and evil, we have had our own personal morality that is at odds with God.
Consider it this way: What if God offered you a chance to sit down and rewrite the Ten Commandments? Not only that, but all of morality. What if you could put down, definitively, the rules of right and wrong? What would they say? Which rules would you change? What forbidden thing would you allow? What permitted thing would you forbid? Do you think that you improved anything? Do you know how much the human heart weighs and every measure of it? Do you know all the mysteries of the universe? Were you there when God created the galaxies? No. So how is it that we think we could improve on God’s law? If anyone thinks that they know more than God, then they do not know who God is. What arrogance that requires! But we all invent our own personal morality. We sin because we have decided that what we are doing is not wrong after all; we have decided that we know more than God.
We repeated in the psalm, “Guide me, Lord.” This prayer is asking the Lord for freedom from independence. If we choose our own way and do what seems best in our own eyes, we will go wrong. If we do the word of the Lord, we cannot go wrong. God does not want our obedience because he wants to set artificial limits on our happiness. God knows what is good for us and what will harm us. Father knows best. Even if we cannot understand a particular rule, it is clear that since God is never wrong, he must be right.
September 2, 2012 - Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
Psalm 15:2-5
James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Jesus told the crowd, “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person, but the things that come out from within are what defile.” We may want to question Jesus as his disciples did. We might begin questioning him about bacteria and parasites, or, if we take his words more spiritually, then we should ask about bad entertainment full of violence and sex. It is absolutely necessary for a Christian to keep custody of their eyes and ears. Those who try to follow Christ and then watch a lot of popular entertainment deceive themselves.
What are we to think then? Was our Lord so naïve? Not at all! Jesus is not concerning himself now with questions of basic hygiene, nor even whether anything that we put into our bodies or minds is good or bad for us. The word he uses here that is translated as “defile” is a very technical word for the Jews, referencing uncleanness. Certain illnesses made a person unclean. Shrimp and pork were unclean. We should not confuse “unclean” with either sinful or dirty. We should think more about our feeling if we were served spider for dinner. There is no logical reason why a spider is a worse animal to eat than a pig, but I do not want it. I could not eat it. It is unclean to me.
The laws on uncleanness are developed very early in the Old Testament, and they built on cultural ideas of what is disgusting or not that existed long before the law. God used disgust, which is natural to us humans, to teach his people about good and bad. The laws of the Old Testament seem to be handed on to Moses directly from the Lord, but they are not perfect expressions of God’s will. Jesus admits as much when he explains why the law about divorce no longer applies. In the Mosaic law, a man must give his wife a bill of divorce. This was because men did in reality divorce their wives, and it was better that there be some structure for the sake of the woman rather than just leaving her abandoned without the freedom to seek a new husband. If there is going to be divorce, then the men ought to give their wives bills of divorce, but as Jesus teaches, there really should not be divorce at all.
So there is truth, but then there are also deeper truths. The law is true, but Jesus revealed deeper truths that make some parts of the law inapplicable today. Throughout the early books of the Bible, there is constant reference to what is clean and what is unclean. Some of it makes sense to us, why a sick person or a moldy shirt would be unclean, and some of it does not, why a woman after giving birth is unclean for one week if it is a boy and two weeks if it is a girl. But then, as the Old Testament progresses, over the next thousand years, we begin to see references to a “clean heart”, which begins to spiritualize the concept. People are invited to look within themselves and see whether they find anything disgusting in their hearts. So the law is indeed “wise and intelligent” as Moses says in the first reading. It is indeed just and worthy of being observed carefully. It takes account of where the people are and leads them to a new level of understanding over many generations. How could anyone find fault with a law when they are judging it by the standards that developed over time because of that very law?
Jesus completes this development in the Gospel today. True cleanliness does not come from handwashing before every meal. True cleanliness is a soul completely dedicated to God. If Jesus were here now, giving us his teaching in our 21st century context, he might say it this way, “What do you find disgusting? That man over there, who hasn’t showered this month, who’s picking his nose as he digs through the dumpster behind McDonald’s looking for half-eaten food? Do you want to know what’s really disgusting? Evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.”
So St. James says in the second reading today. He says that religion which is pure and undefiled means caring for the weak and keeping yourself unstained by the world. This is a great distance from a purity that was concerned with keeping different fabrics separated and a consideration of cleanliness that involved ritual washing of hands and not eating pork. According to St. James, the uncleanest thing, the most repulsive act, is to hear the words of the Gospel and fail to put them into practice. What is more disgusting than a dead and rotting thing? And the more precious it was, the more repulsive it is to see it dead and rotting. What is more precious than the Christian faith? Without constant exercise, it becomes dead and decayed and disgusting.
We want to keep our faith alive. Have you ever seen someone in whom the faith is so alive and active that they amaze you? How much more should the words of Moses apply to us Christians today. He says that the Lord God was close to the Hebrews, but he is closer to us: he dwells within our hearts. Moses says that the other nations should look at Israel and say “This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.” How much more should other people look at us and say, “Those Christians are so loving and so alive! I want what they have!”
Since unclean means repulsive, clean means the opposite: attractive. If our religion were undefiled, it would be so attractive that the whole world would join. People leave the Church because they see uncleanness in it, and people join the Church because they see something attractive. We are very limited in our ability to eliminate all the uncleanness in the Church, all the hypocrisy and evil doing, but we are unlimited in our ability to become something clean of all that, something attractive. How many people joined the Church just because they saw Blessed Theresa of Calcutta? How many people joined the Church just because they saw St. Francis of Assisi? Or even just heard stories about him 800 years later? A person like that is far more convincing than any argument or slogan. What would happen if we, you and I, decided today to live undefiled lives, to become Saints? We would change the world.
Psalm 15:2-5
James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Jesus told the crowd, “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person, but the things that come out from within are what defile.” We may want to question Jesus as his disciples did. We might begin questioning him about bacteria and parasites, or, if we take his words more spiritually, then we should ask about bad entertainment full of violence and sex. It is absolutely necessary for a Christian to keep custody of their eyes and ears. Those who try to follow Christ and then watch a lot of popular entertainment deceive themselves.
What are we to think then? Was our Lord so naïve? Not at all! Jesus is not concerning himself now with questions of basic hygiene, nor even whether anything that we put into our bodies or minds is good or bad for us. The word he uses here that is translated as “defile” is a very technical word for the Jews, referencing uncleanness. Certain illnesses made a person unclean. Shrimp and pork were unclean. We should not confuse “unclean” with either sinful or dirty. We should think more about our feeling if we were served spider for dinner. There is no logical reason why a spider is a worse animal to eat than a pig, but I do not want it. I could not eat it. It is unclean to me.
The laws on uncleanness are developed very early in the Old Testament, and they built on cultural ideas of what is disgusting or not that existed long before the law. God used disgust, which is natural to us humans, to teach his people about good and bad. The laws of the Old Testament seem to be handed on to Moses directly from the Lord, but they are not perfect expressions of God’s will. Jesus admits as much when he explains why the law about divorce no longer applies. In the Mosaic law, a man must give his wife a bill of divorce. This was because men did in reality divorce their wives, and it was better that there be some structure for the sake of the woman rather than just leaving her abandoned without the freedom to seek a new husband. If there is going to be divorce, then the men ought to give their wives bills of divorce, but as Jesus teaches, there really should not be divorce at all.
So there is truth, but then there are also deeper truths. The law is true, but Jesus revealed deeper truths that make some parts of the law inapplicable today. Throughout the early books of the Bible, there is constant reference to what is clean and what is unclean. Some of it makes sense to us, why a sick person or a moldy shirt would be unclean, and some of it does not, why a woman after giving birth is unclean for one week if it is a boy and two weeks if it is a girl. But then, as the Old Testament progresses, over the next thousand years, we begin to see references to a “clean heart”, which begins to spiritualize the concept. People are invited to look within themselves and see whether they find anything disgusting in their hearts. So the law is indeed “wise and intelligent” as Moses says in the first reading. It is indeed just and worthy of being observed carefully. It takes account of where the people are and leads them to a new level of understanding over many generations. How could anyone find fault with a law when they are judging it by the standards that developed over time because of that very law?
Jesus completes this development in the Gospel today. True cleanliness does not come from handwashing before every meal. True cleanliness is a soul completely dedicated to God. If Jesus were here now, giving us his teaching in our 21st century context, he might say it this way, “What do you find disgusting? That man over there, who hasn’t showered this month, who’s picking his nose as he digs through the dumpster behind McDonald’s looking for half-eaten food? Do you want to know what’s really disgusting? Evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.”
So St. James says in the second reading today. He says that religion which is pure and undefiled means caring for the weak and keeping yourself unstained by the world. This is a great distance from a purity that was concerned with keeping different fabrics separated and a consideration of cleanliness that involved ritual washing of hands and not eating pork. According to St. James, the uncleanest thing, the most repulsive act, is to hear the words of the Gospel and fail to put them into practice. What is more disgusting than a dead and rotting thing? And the more precious it was, the more repulsive it is to see it dead and rotting. What is more precious than the Christian faith? Without constant exercise, it becomes dead and decayed and disgusting.
We want to keep our faith alive. Have you ever seen someone in whom the faith is so alive and active that they amaze you? How much more should the words of Moses apply to us Christians today. He says that the Lord God was close to the Hebrews, but he is closer to us: he dwells within our hearts. Moses says that the other nations should look at Israel and say “This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.” How much more should other people look at us and say, “Those Christians are so loving and so alive! I want what they have!”
Since unclean means repulsive, clean means the opposite: attractive. If our religion were undefiled, it would be so attractive that the whole world would join. People leave the Church because they see uncleanness in it, and people join the Church because they see something attractive. We are very limited in our ability to eliminate all the uncleanness in the Church, all the hypocrisy and evil doing, but we are unlimited in our ability to become something clean of all that, something attractive. How many people joined the Church just because they saw Blessed Theresa of Calcutta? How many people joined the Church just because they saw St. Francis of Assisi? Or even just heard stories about him 800 years later? A person like that is far more convincing than any argument or slogan. What would happen if we, you and I, decided today to live undefiled lives, to become Saints? We would change the world.
August 17, 2012 - Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63 or Ezekiel 16:59-63
Isaiah 12:2-6
Matthew 19:3-12
The question that the Pharisees and Jesus are discussing in the Gospel today is very interesting. Nowhere in the Law does God say that a man can divorce his wife, but several times the Law mentions divorce and sets down certain rules that were not to be broken. The Pharisees read the Law and decided that God would not set down rules about divorce unless it was okay to get divorced.
Yet something was still bothering them: getting married means making a promise to be with a person and take care of them. Normally, it is unacceptable to break promises, especially a promise as solemn and public as the marriage vows. So the Pharisees wondered what reasons justified breaking the promise. Indeed, the Scripture says that they were testing Jesus. Perhaps they had their own list of reasons and wanted to see if Jesus could come up with as good a list.
Instead, Jesus explains that their initial logic was faulty. Divorce is mentioned in the Old Law, but it was one of the imperfections of the Old Law. The Old Law was true as far as it goes, but it was coping with the how resistant the human heart is to the Truth. God does not allow divorce, but a commandment forbidding divorce would have been too much for the Israelites to put up with. So God set down certain rules, saying, if you are going to get divorced, here are some absolute minimum standards of conduct: a man who divorces his wife should not keep her as a slave, and, if a man is free to remarry, so is his wife.
What changed in the 1500 years since Moses? Human nature did not change. True, 1500 years of living the Old Law had prepared the world to receive the New Law, but the New Law is not just the Old Law with more difficult rules. The New Law is the Holy Spirit. By the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, we do not have to settle for the best we can handle, our standard now is perfection. The Holy Spirit, God himself, lives in our hearts; he is a law written on our hearts. If we let him, he can make us perfect. A life-long marriage between two sinful human beings (and we are all sinful) is impossible without the Holy Spirit, but with God all things are possible.
Isaiah 12:2-6
Matthew 19:3-12
The question that the Pharisees and Jesus are discussing in the Gospel today is very interesting. Nowhere in the Law does God say that a man can divorce his wife, but several times the Law mentions divorce and sets down certain rules that were not to be broken. The Pharisees read the Law and decided that God would not set down rules about divorce unless it was okay to get divorced.
Yet something was still bothering them: getting married means making a promise to be with a person and take care of them. Normally, it is unacceptable to break promises, especially a promise as solemn and public as the marriage vows. So the Pharisees wondered what reasons justified breaking the promise. Indeed, the Scripture says that they were testing Jesus. Perhaps they had their own list of reasons and wanted to see if Jesus could come up with as good a list.
Instead, Jesus explains that their initial logic was faulty. Divorce is mentioned in the Old Law, but it was one of the imperfections of the Old Law. The Old Law was true as far as it goes, but it was coping with the how resistant the human heart is to the Truth. God does not allow divorce, but a commandment forbidding divorce would have been too much for the Israelites to put up with. So God set down certain rules, saying, if you are going to get divorced, here are some absolute minimum standards of conduct: a man who divorces his wife should not keep her as a slave, and, if a man is free to remarry, so is his wife.
What changed in the 1500 years since Moses? Human nature did not change. True, 1500 years of living the Old Law had prepared the world to receive the New Law, but the New Law is not just the Old Law with more difficult rules. The New Law is the Holy Spirit. By the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, we do not have to settle for the best we can handle, our standard now is perfection. The Holy Spirit, God himself, lives in our hearts; he is a law written on our hearts. If we let him, he can make us perfect. A life-long marriage between two sinful human beings (and we are all sinful) is impossible without the Holy Spirit, but with God all things are possible.
August 9, 2012 - Thursday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:12-15, 18-19
Matthew 16:13-23
The meaning of life is to have a relationship with God, but the problem is how we limited, insignificant creatures can have a relationship with the allpowerful, infinite God without losing our free will. With the Israelites, God solves this problem by giving the law. The Jews used to follow the law in order to have a relationship with God. They could not see their God or touch him, but they could follow the law that he gave. The law was the connection between the spiritual world and the physical world because it is given in the spiritual world but lived out in the physical world. The words came from God to Moses, and the Israelites lived out the words in their lives. God’s will was lived out in the world, not as if he were controlling the people, but because the people longed for the will of God and loved the law. Humans were free to obey it.
The law says, “Do not kill.” It is important that we not kill because that would be to hurt another, but that is not the only reason. Some people think that morality is all about not hurting other people, as if the meaning of life is to get through without hurting anybody. The meaning of life is to have a relationship with God. The best reason to not kill is because by following the commandment of God, we are in relationship with him. So also for every law. They rested one day a week because when they did, they were in a particular relationship with the command of God to rest.
So the law preserved their freedom while allowing them to be in relationship with God, but there is still a problem because following the law is difficult, even impossible. Even if we want to follow the law, we end up breaking it. So God says in the reading today that he will create a new covenant, a foundation of a new relationship. This new covenant will not be a law which we have to follow; it will not depend on our own strength. The law of the new covenant is the Holy Spirit.
When we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we find that we believe without knowing why, that we love with a love that is not our own, we hope for what we have never seen. This is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Still, free will must be retained. The Holy Spirit will only work within us if we invite him in. We invite him in the sacraments. We invite him by spending time in prayer. You all have invited him today by taking the time to come to Mass. When we have invited him in, and have not rejected him with sin, we will discover that he is working great miracles in our hearts.
Psalm 51:12-15, 18-19
Matthew 16:13-23
The meaning of life is to have a relationship with God, but the problem is how we limited, insignificant creatures can have a relationship with the allpowerful, infinite God without losing our free will. With the Israelites, God solves this problem by giving the law. The Jews used to follow the law in order to have a relationship with God. They could not see their God or touch him, but they could follow the law that he gave. The law was the connection between the spiritual world and the physical world because it is given in the spiritual world but lived out in the physical world. The words came from God to Moses, and the Israelites lived out the words in their lives. God’s will was lived out in the world, not as if he were controlling the people, but because the people longed for the will of God and loved the law. Humans were free to obey it.
The law says, “Do not kill.” It is important that we not kill because that would be to hurt another, but that is not the only reason. Some people think that morality is all about not hurting other people, as if the meaning of life is to get through without hurting anybody. The meaning of life is to have a relationship with God. The best reason to not kill is because by following the commandment of God, we are in relationship with him. So also for every law. They rested one day a week because when they did, they were in a particular relationship with the command of God to rest.
So the law preserved their freedom while allowing them to be in relationship with God, but there is still a problem because following the law is difficult, even impossible. Even if we want to follow the law, we end up breaking it. So God says in the reading today that he will create a new covenant, a foundation of a new relationship. This new covenant will not be a law which we have to follow; it will not depend on our own strength. The law of the new covenant is the Holy Spirit.
When we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we find that we believe without knowing why, that we love with a love that is not our own, we hope for what we have never seen. This is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Still, free will must be retained. The Holy Spirit will only work within us if we invite him in. We invite him in the sacraments. We invite him by spending time in prayer. You all have invited him today by taking the time to come to Mass. When we have invited him in, and have not rejected him with sin, we will discover that he is working great miracles in our hearts.
June 14, 2012 - Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
1 Kings 18:41-46
Psalm 65:10-13
Matthew 5:20-26
At this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has made clear that the call of the Christian life is no easy road. He sets a standard that we must not minimize: unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. These were men who dedicated their entire lives to learning the law and following its every nuance and even going beyond the law with stricter requirements. We are not going to beat them at their own game, so Jesus must mean that we need to play a different game.
The righteousness that Jesus is speaking of clearly does not come from merely obeying the law. How could our righteousness exceed the scribes and Pharisees in that regard? No the righteousness that Jesus is speaking of is about a commitment. The scribes and Pharisees followed every law so that they would be free to do what they wanted if there was not a law exactly about it. Sometimes they used philosophical arguments to create little loopholes in the law which they then exploited to be free from the law.
Jesus is making clear by his interpretation of the law that there are no loopholes. Do not kill does not only apply to killing but to every sort of violence, physical or verbal or even mental, against another human being. What Jesus is saying is that if I am looking for a way to kill someone or do harm to them without going to Hell, then my mind is not in the right place. If I am looking for a way to commit sin without technically committing sin, my task is hopeless.
We are not at war with God! He is not an evil tyrant who prevents us from having any fun. God is not our enemy. We know this, but we doubt it. “Why can’t I do that? Why is this against the rules? How far can I go?” Such questions are foolish and anyone who asks them is outside the Kingdom of God. “What should I do? What is God’s plan for me? How much could I accomplish if I tried?” These are the questions that Christians ask. We are followers of the way. Our goal is to become who God wants us to be. A Christian never has to choose between what they want and what God wants. The will of God is our only guide.
Psalm 65:10-13
Matthew 5:20-26
At this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has made clear that the call of the Christian life is no easy road. He sets a standard that we must not minimize: unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. These were men who dedicated their entire lives to learning the law and following its every nuance and even going beyond the law with stricter requirements. We are not going to beat them at their own game, so Jesus must mean that we need to play a different game.
The righteousness that Jesus is speaking of clearly does not come from merely obeying the law. How could our righteousness exceed the scribes and Pharisees in that regard? No the righteousness that Jesus is speaking of is about a commitment. The scribes and Pharisees followed every law so that they would be free to do what they wanted if there was not a law exactly about it. Sometimes they used philosophical arguments to create little loopholes in the law which they then exploited to be free from the law.
Jesus is making clear by his interpretation of the law that there are no loopholes. Do not kill does not only apply to killing but to every sort of violence, physical or verbal or even mental, against another human being. What Jesus is saying is that if I am looking for a way to kill someone or do harm to them without going to Hell, then my mind is not in the right place. If I am looking for a way to commit sin without technically committing sin, my task is hopeless.
We are not at war with God! He is not an evil tyrant who prevents us from having any fun. God is not our enemy. We know this, but we doubt it. “Why can’t I do that? Why is this against the rules? How far can I go?” Such questions are foolish and anyone who asks them is outside the Kingdom of God. “What should I do? What is God’s plan for me? How much could I accomplish if I tried?” These are the questions that Christians ask. We are followers of the way. Our goal is to become who God wants us to be. A Christian never has to choose between what they want and what God wants. The will of God is our only guide.
June 13, 2012 - Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, priest and doctor of the Church
1 Kings 18.20-39
Psalm 16.1b-2ab, 4, 5ab+8, 11
Matthew 5.17-19
This saying of Jesus today is a difficult saying. He tells us that until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass away from the law. Yet we believe that many letters of the law do not apply anymore. We do not keep the ritual cleanness demanded by the law. We do not rest on the Sabbath. We eat many forbidden things. How is this possible?
Jesus says that he came to fulfill the law. He fulfilled the requirements of ritual cleanness by the grace of baptism which cleans a person once and for all. We do not rest on the Sabbath because we have entered into the rest that is found in Jesus. We eat pork and lobster and other things because God declared such things were clean, so they no longer are unclean. The laws did not change, but the world that they apply to is changed in Christ Jesus.
Which makes us wonder, why not all of the law? If I can eat shrimp and wear 50%-50% wool/cotton mix pants, why is it still wrong to worship other gods or for a man to treat another man as a woman? Because in Christ Jesus, the truth was made more visible, not less. In truth, shrimp is good food. That it was ever forbidden must have been because of particular circumstances. In truth, there is nothing wrong with mixing fabrics or eating cheeseburgers.
But in truth, God is the only god. To worship someone else is a lie. In truth, marriage is a relationship based in gender-difference. To pretend otherwise is a lie. Every law that revealed the truth must remain and indeed the obligation is stronger than before inasmuch as the truth is now more fully revealed. Every law which was arbitrary no longer applies, for Jesus has fulfilled the meaning behind those laws perfectly.
The arbitrary laws, which could have gone either way logically speaking, carried the principles of obedience, purity, and community. Because everyone lived under such laws, the Israelites were bound together into a community that obeyed God and was pure of defilement. It took over a thousand years, but these laws worked their effect. But when Jesus came, our obedience is in following him, our purity is in choosing him and no one else, our community is sacramental, bound together by love. The point of these laws has been fulfilled and the truth more fully revealed.
Psalm 16.1b-2ab, 4, 5ab+8, 11
Matthew 5.17-19
This saying of Jesus today is a difficult saying. He tells us that until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass away from the law. Yet we believe that many letters of the law do not apply anymore. We do not keep the ritual cleanness demanded by the law. We do not rest on the Sabbath. We eat many forbidden things. How is this possible?
Jesus says that he came to fulfill the law. He fulfilled the requirements of ritual cleanness by the grace of baptism which cleans a person once and for all. We do not rest on the Sabbath because we have entered into the rest that is found in Jesus. We eat pork and lobster and other things because God declared such things were clean, so they no longer are unclean. The laws did not change, but the world that they apply to is changed in Christ Jesus.
Which makes us wonder, why not all of the law? If I can eat shrimp and wear 50%-50% wool/cotton mix pants, why is it still wrong to worship other gods or for a man to treat another man as a woman? Because in Christ Jesus, the truth was made more visible, not less. In truth, shrimp is good food. That it was ever forbidden must have been because of particular circumstances. In truth, there is nothing wrong with mixing fabrics or eating cheeseburgers.
But in truth, God is the only god. To worship someone else is a lie. In truth, marriage is a relationship based in gender-difference. To pretend otherwise is a lie. Every law that revealed the truth must remain and indeed the obligation is stronger than before inasmuch as the truth is now more fully revealed. Every law which was arbitrary no longer applies, for Jesus has fulfilled the meaning behind those laws perfectly.
The arbitrary laws, which could have gone either way logically speaking, carried the principles of obedience, purity, and community. Because everyone lived under such laws, the Israelites were bound together into a community that obeyed God and was pure of defilement. It took over a thousand years, but these laws worked their effect. But when Jesus came, our obedience is in following him, our purity is in choosing him and no one else, our community is sacramental, bound together by love. The point of these laws has been fulfilled and the truth more fully revealed.
May 27, 2012 - Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2.1-11
Psalm 104:1+24, 31+34, 29-30 Resp. 30
1 Corinthians 12.3b-7, 12-13 or Galatians 5.16-25
John 20.19-23 or John 15.26-27; 16.12-15
In the first article of question one hundred and six of the first part of the second part of the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas takes up the question of what exactly the new law is, and concludes that it is the grace of the Holy Spirit. When I first learned this I found it very confusing because I did not understand how the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is to say the action of God in our lives, could be called the law.
In the old covenant there were 613 commandments which formed the law. There were 365 “thou shalt not”s, one for every day of the year, and 248 “thou shalt”s, one for every part of the human body, as they used to say. Today we celebrate the feast of the sending and reception of the Holy Spirit. This is the day that all that changed. If Jesus only came to give us some more commandments nothing would really be different. Christianity would just be a harder version of Judaism. But Jesus Christ did not come with more commandments for us. He came to give us the Holy Spirit.
In the gospel today Jesus uses two different names for the Holy Spirit. The first name he uses is translated here as “Advocate”, which is in the Greek “Paraclete”, which means attorney for the defense. In the ancient languages, “Satan” means prosecutor, accuser. So the image here is of a courtroom, and God is the judge, and Satan is for the prosecution, and the Holy Spirit is defending us. Before, the prosecutor had his way, because he could point to the law and he could point to us and say “you did that and you did not do that and you did this and you did not do that.” But now when Satan comes out with all his accusations, we have a lawyer, a good lawyer, a really good lawyer, like even better than Matlock. He will not deny that we are guilty of breaking the law, because we are, and he is the Spirit of Truth, but he will make the case that Jesus Christ died for us for the forgiveness of sins and that we have sought out that forgiveness.
This does not mean that we can do whatever we want and expect the Holy Spirit to get us off on a technicality. In our reading from Galatians today, St. Paul explains what it means that the Holy Spirit is the new law. Instead of just being commandments about what we should and should not do, the Holy Spirit is our guide, leading us on a mission. In the old framework of the law, each of those 613 commandments were like walls being put up. People were free to walk around within the walls as long as they did not try to cross over one of them.
This is the framework of the old law, but it is not how we should understand the new law, because the new law is not a lot of commandments, the new law is the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is the action of God in our lives. The new law is not about what we have to do or what we cannot do but rather what God is going to do and how we can cooperate with that. The old law set limits, but the new law give life a purpose.
St. Paul writes, “if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” If we are not under the law then we must be above the law. That usual meaning of that phrase “above the law”, someone ignoring the law and disobeying it, is not right. They are not above anything at all. They wallow in sin. They are enslaved to sin. Sin tells them what to do each morning, and sin lets them know when they can go to bed at night.
We, however, are above the law. Our law is the Holy Spirit, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we love our neighbor. If I love someone, I do not need a law that tells me not to kill them or steal from them. If I love God above all things, with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my strength, I do not need a law to tell me not to worship other gods. This ought to be our attitude toward every sin. If we looked at our lives as an opportunity to serve the Holy Spirit, an a long string of opportunities to know, love, and serve God, then what meaning does the law have? None.
To be above the law means to be too good to obey the law. To be above the law means that we do not have the slightest inclination to disobey it. To be above the law means that our lives are not framed by decisions like whether to commit perjury. We Christians are above the law; we live guided by the Holy Spirit rather than sinful desire. We love God and our neighbor. We are free to be good. We Christians are above the law, or, at least, we should be.
Because we know that this is in some way simply the ideal situation, the way it should be. Even with the gift of the Holy Spirit we are still inclined to break the old law; we wish to follow the Holy Spirit, but we end up doing what we did not want to do. As St. Paul says, the flesh and the Spirit are in opposition and we often do not do what we want. We do what we desire in the moment but not what we want for ourselves.
The Christian life is not really a question of what we have done or failed to do. What is important is what we are trying to do. If, every time we sin, we condemn our actions and go to Confession, then the one who loves us will find a way to get us to himself. If we commit ourselves right now to the new law who is the Holy Spirit, making the purposes of God the purpose of our life, following the Holy Spirit as a sure guide to all truth, then when we stand someday in that courtroom, before the judge who loves us, accused of all our sins, the Holy Spirit will come to our defense and get us into heaven.
Psalm 104:1+24, 31+34, 29-30 Resp. 30
1 Corinthians 12.3b-7, 12-13 or Galatians 5.16-25
John 20.19-23 or John 15.26-27; 16.12-15
In the first article of question one hundred and six of the first part of the second part of the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas takes up the question of what exactly the new law is, and concludes that it is the grace of the Holy Spirit. When I first learned this I found it very confusing because I did not understand how the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is to say the action of God in our lives, could be called the law.
In the old covenant there were 613 commandments which formed the law. There were 365 “thou shalt not”s, one for every day of the year, and 248 “thou shalt”s, one for every part of the human body, as they used to say. Today we celebrate the feast of the sending and reception of the Holy Spirit. This is the day that all that changed. If Jesus only came to give us some more commandments nothing would really be different. Christianity would just be a harder version of Judaism. But Jesus Christ did not come with more commandments for us. He came to give us the Holy Spirit.
In the gospel today Jesus uses two different names for the Holy Spirit. The first name he uses is translated here as “Advocate”, which is in the Greek “Paraclete”, which means attorney for the defense. In the ancient languages, “Satan” means prosecutor, accuser. So the image here is of a courtroom, and God is the judge, and Satan is for the prosecution, and the Holy Spirit is defending us. Before, the prosecutor had his way, because he could point to the law and he could point to us and say “you did that and you did not do that and you did this and you did not do that.” But now when Satan comes out with all his accusations, we have a lawyer, a good lawyer, a really good lawyer, like even better than Matlock. He will not deny that we are guilty of breaking the law, because we are, and he is the Spirit of Truth, but he will make the case that Jesus Christ died for us for the forgiveness of sins and that we have sought out that forgiveness.
This does not mean that we can do whatever we want and expect the Holy Spirit to get us off on a technicality. In our reading from Galatians today, St. Paul explains what it means that the Holy Spirit is the new law. Instead of just being commandments about what we should and should not do, the Holy Spirit is our guide, leading us on a mission. In the old framework of the law, each of those 613 commandments were like walls being put up. People were free to walk around within the walls as long as they did not try to cross over one of them.
This is the framework of the old law, but it is not how we should understand the new law, because the new law is not a lot of commandments, the new law is the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is the action of God in our lives. The new law is not about what we have to do or what we cannot do but rather what God is going to do and how we can cooperate with that. The old law set limits, but the new law give life a purpose.
St. Paul writes, “if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” If we are not under the law then we must be above the law. That usual meaning of that phrase “above the law”, someone ignoring the law and disobeying it, is not right. They are not above anything at all. They wallow in sin. They are enslaved to sin. Sin tells them what to do each morning, and sin lets them know when they can go to bed at night.
We, however, are above the law. Our law is the Holy Spirit, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we love our neighbor. If I love someone, I do not need a law that tells me not to kill them or steal from them. If I love God above all things, with all my heart, with all my mind, and with all my strength, I do not need a law to tell me not to worship other gods. This ought to be our attitude toward every sin. If we looked at our lives as an opportunity to serve the Holy Spirit, an a long string of opportunities to know, love, and serve God, then what meaning does the law have? None.
To be above the law means to be too good to obey the law. To be above the law means that we do not have the slightest inclination to disobey it. To be above the law means that our lives are not framed by decisions like whether to commit perjury. We Christians are above the law; we live guided by the Holy Spirit rather than sinful desire. We love God and our neighbor. We are free to be good. We Christians are above the law, or, at least, we should be.
Because we know that this is in some way simply the ideal situation, the way it should be. Even with the gift of the Holy Spirit we are still inclined to break the old law; we wish to follow the Holy Spirit, but we end up doing what we did not want to do. As St. Paul says, the flesh and the Spirit are in opposition and we often do not do what we want. We do what we desire in the moment but not what we want for ourselves.
The Christian life is not really a question of what we have done or failed to do. What is important is what we are trying to do. If, every time we sin, we condemn our actions and go to Confession, then the one who loves us will find a way to get us to himself. If we commit ourselves right now to the new law who is the Holy Spirit, making the purposes of God the purpose of our life, following the Holy Spirit as a sure guide to all truth, then when we stand someday in that courtroom, before the judge who loves us, accused of all our sins, the Holy Spirit will come to our defense and get us into heaven.
May 13, 2012 - Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Psalm 98:1-4
1 John 4:7-10
John 15:9-17
We must not pass over the amazing phrase that Jesus said, “As the Father loved me, I also loved you.” The love between God the Father and God the Son is the power that holds together the universe. The love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. God is love. So when Jesus says that he loves us, as the Father loves him, he is saying that he loves us unconditionally, completely, perfectly. This fact becomes the most important fact in our lives.
What should our reaction be? Jesus tells us. It should be to remain in his love. How do we do that? Jesus tells us. If we keep his commandments, we will remain in his love. What commandments? The 613 commandments of the Torah are distilled into the 10 commandments. Jesus simplifies this into the 2 commandments: love God and love your neighbor, which can be combined into the 1 commandment: Love. “This is my commandment,” Jesus says, “love one another as I love you.” So there is this progression of love. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves us as the Father loves him. We love others as the Son loves us.
It was Love that created humanity. And when we had fallen and needed a savior, it was Love that sent us Jesus. It was love that allowed Jesus to offer himself on the Cross. It was love that raised Jesus from the dead. Love is an active power in our world. Love is the measure of every action. We no longer need the other commandments to guide us away from danger and sin; we only need the commandment to love. Love is our guide through life. We will not go wrong if we deny all selfishness and follow love to the end. Love will never lead us astray.
Jesus commands us to love, and thereby implicitly denies the idea of love as an emotion, a feeling, an experience. He would not command us to feel love, to be in love. That would be impossible. He would not command us to have a particular emotion. Emotions and feelings cannot be commanded. Only actions can be commanded. Love then is an action verb.
What is love then? How does a person do the action of loving another? The action of love is threefold: to see the good in the other, to do good for the other, and to let the other love you. This describes all love, whether of a parent for a child, a husband for a wife, a person for their enemy, or a human for God. Step one: look and see the good. It is always there. God is good, and everyone whom God made is good. Step two: do good for the other. Jesus taught us how to do this by becoming a servant of the other. Step three: let the other love you, thereby acknowledging the inherent dignity of the other. God lets us love him, and that is our greatest joy. If we go out into the world and see someone in need and see the good in them and help them but do not do this last part of love, we are acting like aliens to them, placing ourselves above them, treating them like an animal.
We look to our perfect example of love, Jesus Christ. We must love one another as Jesus loved us. God is love. It was because of love that God sent his only Son. Everything that Jesus Christ did was an act of love. His life was pure love. The supreme moment of that life, and therefore the greatest example of love we possess, was the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins. “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”
We will be the friend of Jesus if we do what he has commanded us. We will be a friend of Jesus (and talk about friends in high places) if we love him as he loves us. We must love him in every member of his Body, the Church. Jesus has proven his friendship with us. He has told us what the Father told him. He says that we are friends if we do what he has commanded of us. This is reasonable. If we have heard the Word of God Incarnate speak the Word of God, as spoken between the Father and the Son, what response could we possibly have to this generous gift but obedience?
St. John tells us in the second reading that what really matters about love is not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us. Love first comes from God. Love is the source of our existence. God loved us into being.
Psalm 98:1-4
1 John 4:7-10
John 15:9-17
We must not pass over the amazing phrase that Jesus said, “As the Father loved me, I also loved you.” The love between God the Father and God the Son is the power that holds together the universe. The love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. God is love. So when Jesus says that he loves us, as the Father loves him, he is saying that he loves us unconditionally, completely, perfectly. This fact becomes the most important fact in our lives.
What should our reaction be? Jesus tells us. It should be to remain in his love. How do we do that? Jesus tells us. If we keep his commandments, we will remain in his love. What commandments? The 613 commandments of the Torah are distilled into the 10 commandments. Jesus simplifies this into the 2 commandments: love God and love your neighbor, which can be combined into the 1 commandment: Love. “This is my commandment,” Jesus says, “love one another as I love you.” So there is this progression of love. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves us as the Father loves him. We love others as the Son loves us.
It was Love that created humanity. And when we had fallen and needed a savior, it was Love that sent us Jesus. It was love that allowed Jesus to offer himself on the Cross. It was love that raised Jesus from the dead. Love is an active power in our world. Love is the measure of every action. We no longer need the other commandments to guide us away from danger and sin; we only need the commandment to love. Love is our guide through life. We will not go wrong if we deny all selfishness and follow love to the end. Love will never lead us astray.
Jesus commands us to love, and thereby implicitly denies the idea of love as an emotion, a feeling, an experience. He would not command us to feel love, to be in love. That would be impossible. He would not command us to have a particular emotion. Emotions and feelings cannot be commanded. Only actions can be commanded. Love then is an action verb.
What is love then? How does a person do the action of loving another? The action of love is threefold: to see the good in the other, to do good for the other, and to let the other love you. This describes all love, whether of a parent for a child, a husband for a wife, a person for their enemy, or a human for God. Step one: look and see the good. It is always there. God is good, and everyone whom God made is good. Step two: do good for the other. Jesus taught us how to do this by becoming a servant of the other. Step three: let the other love you, thereby acknowledging the inherent dignity of the other. God lets us love him, and that is our greatest joy. If we go out into the world and see someone in need and see the good in them and help them but do not do this last part of love, we are acting like aliens to them, placing ourselves above them, treating them like an animal.
We look to our perfect example of love, Jesus Christ. We must love one another as Jesus loved us. God is love. It was because of love that God sent his only Son. Everything that Jesus Christ did was an act of love. His life was pure love. The supreme moment of that life, and therefore the greatest example of love we possess, was the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins. “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”
We will be the friend of Jesus if we do what he has commanded us. We will be a friend of Jesus (and talk about friends in high places) if we love him as he loves us. We must love him in every member of his Body, the Church. Jesus has proven his friendship with us. He has told us what the Father told him. He says that we are friends if we do what he has commanded of us. This is reasonable. If we have heard the Word of God Incarnate speak the Word of God, as spoken between the Father and the Son, what response could we possibly have to this generous gift but obedience?
St. John tells us in the second reading that what really matters about love is not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us. Love first comes from God. Love is the source of our existence. God loved us into being.
May 11, 2012 - Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Acts 15:22-31
Psalm 57:8-12
John 15:12-17
Today the Lord Jesus commands us to love. With this command, he implicitly denies the idea of love as an emotion, a feeling, an experience. He would not command us to feel love, to be in love. That would be impossible. He would not command us to have a particular emotion. Emotions and feelings cannot be commanded. Only actions can be commanded. Love then is an action verb.
The action of love is threefold: to see the good in the other, to do good for the other, and to let the other love you. We look to our perfect example of love, Jesus Christ. We must love one another as Jesus loved us. God is love. It was because of love that God sent his only Son. Everything that Jesus Christ did was an act of love. His life was pure love. The supreme moment of that life, and therefore the greatest example of love we possess, was the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins. “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”
We will be the friend of Jesus if we do what he has commanded us. And what has he commanded? Love one another as I love you. We will be a friend of Jesus (and talk about friends in high places) if we love him as he loves us. We must love him in every member of his Body, the Church. Jesus has proven his friendship with us. He has told us what the Father told him. He says that we are friends if we do what he has commanded of us. This is reasonable. If we have heard the Word of God Incarnate speak the Word of God, as spoken between the Father and the Son, what response could we possibly have to this generous gift but obedience?
It was Love that created humanity. And when we had fallen and needed a savior, it was Love that sent us Jesus. It was love that allowed Jesus to offer himself on the Cross. It was love that raised Jesus from the dead. Love is an active power in our world. Love is the measure of every action. We no longer need the other commandments to guide us away from danger and sin; we only need the commandment to love. Love is our guide through life. We will not go wrong if we deny all selfishness and follow love to the end. Love will never lead us astray.
Psalm 57:8-12
John 15:12-17
Today the Lord Jesus commands us to love. With this command, he implicitly denies the idea of love as an emotion, a feeling, an experience. He would not command us to feel love, to be in love. That would be impossible. He would not command us to have a particular emotion. Emotions and feelings cannot be commanded. Only actions can be commanded. Love then is an action verb.
The action of love is threefold: to see the good in the other, to do good for the other, and to let the other love you. We look to our perfect example of love, Jesus Christ. We must love one another as Jesus loved us. God is love. It was because of love that God sent his only Son. Everything that Jesus Christ did was an act of love. His life was pure love. The supreme moment of that life, and therefore the greatest example of love we possess, was the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins. “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”
We will be the friend of Jesus if we do what he has commanded us. And what has he commanded? Love one another as I love you. We will be a friend of Jesus (and talk about friends in high places) if we love him as he loves us. We must love him in every member of his Body, the Church. Jesus has proven his friendship with us. He has told us what the Father told him. He says that we are friends if we do what he has commanded of us. This is reasonable. If we have heard the Word of God Incarnate speak the Word of God, as spoken between the Father and the Son, what response could we possibly have to this generous gift but obedience?
It was Love that created humanity. And when we had fallen and needed a savior, it was Love that sent us Jesus. It was love that allowed Jesus to offer himself on the Cross. It was love that raised Jesus from the dead. Love is an active power in our world. Love is the measure of every action. We no longer need the other commandments to guide us away from danger and sin; we only need the commandment to love. Love is our guide through life. We will not go wrong if we deny all selfishness and follow love to the end. Love will never lead us astray.
May 10, 2012 - Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Acts 15:7-21
Psalm 96:1-3, 10
John 15:9-11
Acts of Apostles has been relating the story of the most difficult controversy in the early Church: whether a Christian is a Jew who follows Jesus or just a follower of Jesus. We saw last week how the message spread beyond the Jews to the Gentiles, but the question remained whether the Gentiles, in order to be good Christians had to follow the Jewish law.
There are many arguments in favor of this idea. Jesus is a Jew. He followed the Jewish law. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God. Christians still read the Old Testament, which is filled with laws about being clean and unclean. So it should not surprise us that a number of Christians believed that all Christians should follow the Jewish laws.
Peter, in his role as the head of the Apostles, stands up and reminds those Christians why they are wrong. He does not try to find a compromise or settle the disagreement. He stands up and explains the Gospel all over again. Jesus has saved all of humanity. His salvation is the only salvation for all peoples. Peter reminds his fellow Jewish Christians that they are not saved because they follow the traditions of their ancestors.
All who are saved, are saved because of faith in Jesus Christ. There is only one way, one truth, one life: The Old Testament, which contains all the regulations of the Law, is the word of God, expressed through human beings. For a time it was the only light by which anyone could see God. Jesus Christ, however, is the Word of God incarnate. The light of the Gospel outshines the light of the old Law as the sun outshines a candle. The Law was good, but it has been replaced by something greater.
The Old Law was a series of commandments, some forbidding evil actions, some regulating rituals. This Law was a burden, as St. Peter says, “a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear.” The New Law is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a burden; he lifts us up to God. By the power of the Holy Spirit we become people who do what is good without any law. The Law was not enough, but the Holy Spirit is enough. He is everything we need. When the sun is out, we do not need candles. When we have the real thing, we need no imitations. When we have the Holy Spirit, we do not need the old Law.
Psalm 96:1-3, 10
John 15:9-11
Acts of Apostles has been relating the story of the most difficult controversy in the early Church: whether a Christian is a Jew who follows Jesus or just a follower of Jesus. We saw last week how the message spread beyond the Jews to the Gentiles, but the question remained whether the Gentiles, in order to be good Christians had to follow the Jewish law.
There are many arguments in favor of this idea. Jesus is a Jew. He followed the Jewish law. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God. Christians still read the Old Testament, which is filled with laws about being clean and unclean. So it should not surprise us that a number of Christians believed that all Christians should follow the Jewish laws.
Peter, in his role as the head of the Apostles, stands up and reminds those Christians why they are wrong. He does not try to find a compromise or settle the disagreement. He stands up and explains the Gospel all over again. Jesus has saved all of humanity. His salvation is the only salvation for all peoples. Peter reminds his fellow Jewish Christians that they are not saved because they follow the traditions of their ancestors.
All who are saved, are saved because of faith in Jesus Christ. There is only one way, one truth, one life: The Old Testament, which contains all the regulations of the Law, is the word of God, expressed through human beings. For a time it was the only light by which anyone could see God. Jesus Christ, however, is the Word of God incarnate. The light of the Gospel outshines the light of the old Law as the sun outshines a candle. The Law was good, but it has been replaced by something greater.
The Old Law was a series of commandments, some forbidding evil actions, some regulating rituals. This Law was a burden, as St. Peter says, “a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear.” The New Law is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a burden; he lifts us up to God. By the power of the Holy Spirit we become people who do what is good without any law. The Law was not enough, but the Holy Spirit is enough. He is everything we need. When the sun is out, we do not need candles. When we have the real thing, we need no imitations. When we have the Holy Spirit, we do not need the old Law.
March 14, 2012 - Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
Today's Readings
What Moses praises today is a mere shadow of the glorious truth fulfilled in Jesus Christ. While he is right to say that no pagan people have a religion as wonderful as the Law that was handed down to him on Mt. Sinai, we Christians have truly received grace in place of grace.
He asks the Israelites, “What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?” Yet God is closer to us than he was to them. He spoke to Moses face to face, but he lives in our hearts. The Israelites were gathered into the People of God, but we are the Body of Christ. The Lord taught Moses to call him by his name, “I am who am”, but Jesus Christ taught us to call God “Our Father”. The Israelites could not even stand to look at the glory of God reflected in the face of Moses, but we look upon God with unveiled faces. The Spirit of the Lord descended on 70 elders, although Moses wished that all the Israelites would become prophets, but we have all received the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us from within. God chose one man and his sons to be priests and to offer the sacrifices to him each day, but we all participate in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ as we present our own bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Moses asked the Israelites, “What great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?”, but the new law is the Holy Spirit, who is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. For the law brings wrath, but grace brings salvation for all people.
So if the Israelites needed to take care and be earnestly on their guard not to forget a light that shone in the darkness like a candle, how much more must we take care and be earnestly on our guard not to forget the sunshine that illuminates the whole world. If the Israelites were duty-bound to teach their children and the grandchildren about God’s care for them in the desert, how much more are we bound by grace to proclaim to the whole world that God loves us and has built a kingdom where we can be with him forever.
What Moses praises today is a mere shadow of the glorious truth fulfilled in Jesus Christ. While he is right to say that no pagan people have a religion as wonderful as the Law that was handed down to him on Mt. Sinai, we Christians have truly received grace in place of grace.
He asks the Israelites, “What great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?” Yet God is closer to us than he was to them. He spoke to Moses face to face, but he lives in our hearts. The Israelites were gathered into the People of God, but we are the Body of Christ. The Lord taught Moses to call him by his name, “I am who am”, but Jesus Christ taught us to call God “Our Father”. The Israelites could not even stand to look at the glory of God reflected in the face of Moses, but we look upon God with unveiled faces. The Spirit of the Lord descended on 70 elders, although Moses wished that all the Israelites would become prophets, but we have all received the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us from within. God chose one man and his sons to be priests and to offer the sacrifices to him each day, but we all participate in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ as we present our own bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Moses asked the Israelites, “What great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?”, but the new law is the Holy Spirit, who is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. For the law brings wrath, but grace brings salvation for all people.
So if the Israelites needed to take care and be earnestly on their guard not to forget a light that shone in the darkness like a candle, how much more must we take care and be earnestly on our guard not to forget the sunshine that illuminates the whole world. If the Israelites were duty-bound to teach their children and the grandchildren about God’s care for them in the desert, how much more are we bound by grace to proclaim to the whole world that God loves us and has built a kingdom where we can be with him forever.
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