1 Peter 5:1-4
Psalm 23:1-6
Matthew 16:13-19
Today we celebrate a very interesting feast: the Chair of St. Peter. This feast is not exactly in honor of a person, as most are, nor of an event, as others are, but of a chair. Of course we are not commemorating a piece of furniture today; the chair in question is “chair” like “chairman”, a position, an office. We celebrate today the founding of the position of the leader of the Church. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church; this office in no way replaces his office of high priest and king. God did not need Noah to build the ark, and he did not need Simon Peter to lead the Church. He chose to allow us humans positions of dignity as cooperators of his grace.
When Simon made the profession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Jesus explains “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Because of this revelation, Jesus renames him Kephas, which in Greek is Petros. This was not a name; it means “The Rock”, like the movie star. Jesus then says “upon this rock I will build my Church.” Which rock? Not Simon Peter the man, who would deny Jesus three times. Jesus founds his Church upon an idea: the idea that God reveals the truth to a human being. Jesus is hereby instituting an office, the Chair, and choosing Simon for that office which will be the foundation rock of the Church. Along with the position comes certain powers: “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This language is the traditional language for a king to install a prime minister, a leader to serve under the king and do the day to day work of the kingdom.
Jesus makes a promise to Peter and therefore to the Church: “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” This promise is often misunderstood. It is often treated as if it meant that the Church would be able to withstand any attack by evil, but this is backwards. He says that the “gates”, the defenses of Hell, will not be able to stand against the Church. It is the Church who is attacking evil, and we will be victorious.
Daily Homilies
Showing posts with label Revelation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revelation. Show all posts
February 22, 2013 - Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, apostle
1 Peter 5:1-4
Psalm 23:1-6
Matthew 16:13-19
Today we celebrate a very interesting feast: the Chair of St. Peter. This feast is not exactly in honor of a person, as most are, nor of an event, as others are, but of a chair. Of course we are not commemorating a piece of furniture today; the chair in question is “chair” like “chairman”, a position, an office. We celebrate today the founding of the position of the leader of the Church. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church; this office in no way replaces his office of high priest and king. God did not need Noah to build the ark, and he did not need Simon Peter to lead the Church. He chose to allow us humans positions of dignity as cooperators of his grace.
When Simon made the profession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Jesus explains “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Because of this revelation, Jesus renames him Kephas, which in Greek is Petros. This was not a name; it means “The Rock”. Jesus then says “upon this rock I will build my Church.” Which rock? Not Simon Peter the man, who would deny Jesus three times. Jesus founds his Church upon an idea: the idea that God reveals the truth to a human being. Jesus is hereby instituting an office, the Chair, and choosing Simon for that office which will be the foundation rock of the Church. Along with the position comes certain powers: “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This language is the traditional language for a king to install a prime minister, a leader to serve under the king and do the day to day work of the kingdom.
Jesus makes a promise to Peter and therefore to the Church: “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” This promise is often misunderstood. It is often treated as if it meant that the Church would be able to withstand any attack by evil, but this is backwards. He says that the “gates”, the defenses of Hell, will not be able to stand against the Church. It is the Church who is attacking evil, and we will be victorious.
Psalm 23:1-6
Matthew 16:13-19
Today we celebrate a very interesting feast: the Chair of St. Peter. This feast is not exactly in honor of a person, as most are, nor of an event, as others are, but of a chair. Of course we are not commemorating a piece of furniture today; the chair in question is “chair” like “chairman”, a position, an office. We celebrate today the founding of the position of the leader of the Church. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church; this office in no way replaces his office of high priest and king. God did not need Noah to build the ark, and he did not need Simon Peter to lead the Church. He chose to allow us humans positions of dignity as cooperators of his grace.
When Simon made the profession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Jesus explains “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Because of this revelation, Jesus renames him Kephas, which in Greek is Petros. This was not a name; it means “The Rock”. Jesus then says “upon this rock I will build my Church.” Which rock? Not Simon Peter the man, who would deny Jesus three times. Jesus founds his Church upon an idea: the idea that God reveals the truth to a human being. Jesus is hereby instituting an office, the Chair, and choosing Simon for that office which will be the foundation rock of the Church. Along with the position comes certain powers: “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This language is the traditional language for a king to install a prime minister, a leader to serve under the king and do the day to day work of the kingdom.
Jesus makes a promise to Peter and therefore to the Church: “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” This promise is often misunderstood. It is often treated as if it meant that the Church would be able to withstand any attack by evil, but this is backwards. He says that the “gates”, the defenses of Hell, will not be able to stand against the Church. It is the Church who is attacking evil, and we will be victorious.
January 6, 2013 - Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13
Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12
Why do you own the things that you own? We all work hard to own things. We have banks and locks and fireproof safes so that we can hold on to the things that are ours, but why? What is the purpose of owning something? A two-year old has an answer: "Mine!" It is not so important why. A more mature person would say, "I own things so that I can use them." This is a good answer, but we Christians reject that answer. We Christians believe in stewardship.
The concept of stewardship is that everything we own has been given to us by God, not to use at our whims, but in order to do good - to care for a family, to live, to create beauty, to show love, etc. Stewardship tells us that nothing we have is ours; it is just ours to take care of. It is better to consider our possessions not as things we own, but as that part of creation with which we have been entrusted.
All humans have an equal share in creation. The earth equally belongs to you and Bill Gates. All of creation is the common inheritance of the human race. Some individuals have been entrusted with a large portion of this shared inheritance, some individuals have chosen to renounce the responsibility and live in poverty, and some individuals live in forced poverty without even the essentials.
Everything you own is a responsibility. If you own a house, you have to care for the house. If you own a dollar, you have to use the dollar well. Those who have been entrusted with much have a great responsibility to care for those who possess little. Whether we are rich in material goods, intelligence, talents, time, or any other gift from God, there is a force within us, impelling us to use our riches for good, to make the world a better place.
Our country, our civilization is falling apart around us. Why? Because of greed. Not just the greed of the 1%, of the Wall Street types. It is the greed of everyone who considers their life to be their own. Satan is always trying to get us to ask, "What's in it for me?" To understand stewardship, a person first has to view their life differently. Instead of wondering, "What do I have? Where have I ended up? Do I like my position in the world?", a steward wants to know "What have I accomplished?"
Stewardship appears in the second reading today, but it is not concerned with money. It is about ownership of a mystery. St. Paul says: Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit. St. Paul is saying that he is in charge of a mystery: that Jesus Christ is come to save the whole world. He knows this mystery, he possesses the knowledge, but the knowledge is not his to change as he wants or his to forget. It is his to take care of. He is a steward, a manager.
In the first reading and the psalm, there is a prophecy that, perhaps, we do not realize how astounding it is. The psalm declares: “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.” The first reading promises that the city of Jerusalem will be holy to the whole world. We are not astounded, we are not shocked by this prophecy because it has come true. Half the world calls the city of Jerusalem holy. People from this side of the earth do make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. And every nation on earth does adore the Lord. No matter which country, no matter which group of people, there are Christians there.
But when these prophecies were made, it surely seemed very unlikely. The Jews were just coming back from the exile. Jerusalem was a city destroyed. The temple had been torn down to the ground. It was a wasteland. Yet the prophecy was made, and it has come to pass.
How did this happen? People like St. Paul were put in charge of a mystery and they did not bury it in the ground, but, rather, they invested it and had a harvest one-hundredfold. The Apostles were good stewards of the faith, spreading it throughout the whole world. They were followed by other stewards: missionaries and Christians of every sort of vocation.
Today is the celebration of the Epiphany of God, the revelation of the fullness of the Truth to all people. Today we celebrate how the Magi, representing the ends of the earth, see the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We celebrate every revelation, from the beginning of time, until now. Darkness was over the world' heavy darkness covered the nations, and then the dawn from on high broke in. As the sun has the power to turn night into day, so the Son of God has the power to turn the darkness of sin into the brightness of grace.
Every one of us is a steward. Every one of us has money and property that we are in charge of. We all have talents and intelligence that have been entrusted to us to use for good. But above all material possessions, greater than our personal gifts, is the revelation of Jesus Christ. There is no treasure on earth that compares to this revelation. There is nothing we possess more precious than the truth.
We are in charge of this mystery, our faith. We all possess the faith and are stewards of it. What is a steward to do? First of all, we must preserve it in ourselves. The faith is not something that lasts if it is put up on a high shelf and forgotten. It gets dusty and creaky, with stiff joints. Our faith is alive, and it must be fed. The food is the Word of God and the Body of Christ. We will be called to account for how we took care of the faith within us.
And then, we must spread the faith to others. If we know the truth, we must preach the truth. We are missionaries. Not necessarily to the far reaches of the world, although some may have that vocation. We are missionaries to our hometowns. You are all missionaries to Winona. There are people in our midst who do not possess the faith or do not possess its fullness. We are called to bring the faith to them. We are called to preach. Mostly by deeds, but also by words spoken at opportune moments. All of us, not only the clergy. We are missionaries to our coworkers and our friends. Parents are like missionaries to the future, as they hand on the faith to their children.
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13
Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12
Why do you own the things that you own? We all work hard to own things. We have banks and locks and fireproof safes so that we can hold on to the things that are ours, but why? What is the purpose of owning something? A two-year old has an answer: "Mine!" It is not so important why. A more mature person would say, "I own things so that I can use them." This is a good answer, but we Christians reject that answer. We Christians believe in stewardship.
The concept of stewardship is that everything we own has been given to us by God, not to use at our whims, but in order to do good - to care for a family, to live, to create beauty, to show love, etc. Stewardship tells us that nothing we have is ours; it is just ours to take care of. It is better to consider our possessions not as things we own, but as that part of creation with which we have been entrusted.
All humans have an equal share in creation. The earth equally belongs to you and Bill Gates. All of creation is the common inheritance of the human race. Some individuals have been entrusted with a large portion of this shared inheritance, some individuals have chosen to renounce the responsibility and live in poverty, and some individuals live in forced poverty without even the essentials.
Everything you own is a responsibility. If you own a house, you have to care for the house. If you own a dollar, you have to use the dollar well. Those who have been entrusted with much have a great responsibility to care for those who possess little. Whether we are rich in material goods, intelligence, talents, time, or any other gift from God, there is a force within us, impelling us to use our riches for good, to make the world a better place.
Our country, our civilization is falling apart around us. Why? Because of greed. Not just the greed of the 1%, of the Wall Street types. It is the greed of everyone who considers their life to be their own. Satan is always trying to get us to ask, "What's in it for me?" To understand stewardship, a person first has to view their life differently. Instead of wondering, "What do I have? Where have I ended up? Do I like my position in the world?", a steward wants to know "What have I accomplished?"
Stewardship appears in the second reading today, but it is not concerned with money. It is about ownership of a mystery. St. Paul says: Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit. St. Paul is saying that he is in charge of a mystery: that Jesus Christ is come to save the whole world. He knows this mystery, he possesses the knowledge, but the knowledge is not his to change as he wants or his to forget. It is his to take care of. He is a steward, a manager.
In the first reading and the psalm, there is a prophecy that, perhaps, we do not realize how astounding it is. The psalm declares: “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.” The first reading promises that the city of Jerusalem will be holy to the whole world. We are not astounded, we are not shocked by this prophecy because it has come true. Half the world calls the city of Jerusalem holy. People from this side of the earth do make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. And every nation on earth does adore the Lord. No matter which country, no matter which group of people, there are Christians there.
But when these prophecies were made, it surely seemed very unlikely. The Jews were just coming back from the exile. Jerusalem was a city destroyed. The temple had been torn down to the ground. It was a wasteland. Yet the prophecy was made, and it has come to pass.
How did this happen? People like St. Paul were put in charge of a mystery and they did not bury it in the ground, but, rather, they invested it and had a harvest one-hundredfold. The Apostles were good stewards of the faith, spreading it throughout the whole world. They were followed by other stewards: missionaries and Christians of every sort of vocation.
Today is the celebration of the Epiphany of God, the revelation of the fullness of the Truth to all people. Today we celebrate how the Magi, representing the ends of the earth, see the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We celebrate every revelation, from the beginning of time, until now. Darkness was over the world' heavy darkness covered the nations, and then the dawn from on high broke in. As the sun has the power to turn night into day, so the Son of God has the power to turn the darkness of sin into the brightness of grace.
Every one of us is a steward. Every one of us has money and property that we are in charge of. We all have talents and intelligence that have been entrusted to us to use for good. But above all material possessions, greater than our personal gifts, is the revelation of Jesus Christ. There is no treasure on earth that compares to this revelation. There is nothing we possess more precious than the truth.
We are in charge of this mystery, our faith. We all possess the faith and are stewards of it. What is a steward to do? First of all, we must preserve it in ourselves. The faith is not something that lasts if it is put up on a high shelf and forgotten. It gets dusty and creaky, with stiff joints. Our faith is alive, and it must be fed. The food is the Word of God and the Body of Christ. We will be called to account for how we took care of the faith within us.
And then, we must spread the faith to others. If we know the truth, we must preach the truth. We are missionaries. Not necessarily to the far reaches of the world, although some may have that vocation. We are missionaries to our hometowns. You are all missionaries to Winona. There are people in our midst who do not possess the faith or do not possess its fullness. We are called to bring the faith to them. We are called to preach. Mostly by deeds, but also by words spoken at opportune moments. All of us, not only the clergy. We are missionaries to our coworkers and our friends. Parents are like missionaries to the future, as they hand on the faith to their children.
October 19, 2012 - Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Ephesians 1:11-14
Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 12-13
Luke 12:1-7
There is a philosophical question that goes back to Socrates but is still asked today as if it were new: would you rather do something wicked and have no one ever find out or not do something wicked but have everyone believe you had? For instance, would you rather get away with sexually abusing a child or have everyone in the world think that you had even though you were completely innocent?
On the one hand, there would be prison and headlines and scandal and shame. Your own family would disown you, and every friend would abandon you. On the other hand, you would have actually done something despicable but everyone would continue thinking that you were a good person. Which would you choose, if you had to choose?
Do not dismiss this question lightly. For sure, it is unlikely that you would ever actually be forced to make this choice, but your decision reveals who you really are. Do you want to be good or to seem good? Everyone wants to seem good on some level; no one desires to be despised in the eyes of those they love, but only some people have a desire to actually be good.
Today Jesus tells us that “there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.” Nothing. Neither our good deeds nor our sins will be hidden at the end of time. If we have done good deeds in secret, we will finally have credit where credit is due. If we have done wicked things, we will finally be revealed as the frauds that we are.
Even now, nothing is really done in secret. God is watching us. He knows everything about us. Whether the whole world hates us or loves us is immaterial. God loves us, and he knows us thoroughly. He knows how many hairs are on top of my head. I do not know how many hairs are on top of my head. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Those things we did that we have tried to forget, tried to convince even ourselves that we never did them? God knows all about them. We will never fool God; we will never impress God. God knows us exactly as we are, but he loves us anyway.
Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 12-13
Luke 12:1-7
There is a philosophical question that goes back to Socrates but is still asked today as if it were new: would you rather do something wicked and have no one ever find out or not do something wicked but have everyone believe you had? For instance, would you rather get away with sexually abusing a child or have everyone in the world think that you had even though you were completely innocent?
On the one hand, there would be prison and headlines and scandal and shame. Your own family would disown you, and every friend would abandon you. On the other hand, you would have actually done something despicable but everyone would continue thinking that you were a good person. Which would you choose, if you had to choose?
Do not dismiss this question lightly. For sure, it is unlikely that you would ever actually be forced to make this choice, but your decision reveals who you really are. Do you want to be good or to seem good? Everyone wants to seem good on some level; no one desires to be despised in the eyes of those they love, but only some people have a desire to actually be good.
Today Jesus tells us that “there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.” Nothing. Neither our good deeds nor our sins will be hidden at the end of time. If we have done good deeds in secret, we will finally have credit where credit is due. If we have done wicked things, we will finally be revealed as the frauds that we are.
Even now, nothing is really done in secret. God is watching us. He knows everything about us. Whether the whole world hates us or loves us is immaterial. God loves us, and he knows us thoroughly. He knows how many hairs are on top of my head. I do not know how many hairs are on top of my head. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Those things we did that we have tried to forget, tried to convince even ourselves that we never did them? God knows all about them. We will never fool God; we will never impress God. God knows us exactly as we are, but he loves us anyway.
October 10, 2012 - Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14
Psalm 117:1-2
Luke 11:1-4
The Gospel today raises the question of what Jesus really said. You surely noticed that the Our Father in the Gospel today is rather different from the Our Father that we usually pray. The difference between the Our Father that we usually pray, from Matthew, and the prayer from Luke that we read today are more than just translation issues. This prayer is not even the “Our Father”, it just starts “Father”.
It is not uncommon for Matthew and Luke to relate different versions of events. This can often be explained by saying that both versions occurred. It should not surprise us that Jesus preached two similar but not identical sermons. The differences in the beatitudes, for instance, can be explained in this way. However, it hard to believe that the disciples asked Jesus how to pray more than once and he gave them two versions of the Our Father.
So what are we to think about the faithfulness of the Gospels? The shorter version of the Our Father makes sense if we just assume that Luke got it from someone with a rather poor memory, but if we begin assuming that bad memories are at play in the Gospels, what can we trust? Scholars are far more likely to assume that Luke’s version is original and that Matthew expanded his version, and it is true that there is nothing in Matthew’s version that is not implied in Luke’s, but the devotion of Christians to the Our Father, to the Lord’s Prayer, is precisely because it was written by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself. We want the original!
If we relied on ourselves to reinterpret Christianity with each passing generation, some of us would switch to this Our Father, some of us would stay with Matthew’s version, and some of us would throw up our hands and say, “Let’s forget the whole thing, if we can’t even get the Our Father right.”
It is good to read the Scriptures and seek wisdom from them, but while the Scriptures are the revelation of God to us, our individual interpretation cannot be the final authority, lest the 2 billion Christians have 2 billion Christianities. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us which Our Father to pray. We must rely on Tradition. The Church has prayed Matthew’s version for thousands of years. This Tradition is more convincing than any scholarly argument or personal feeling. Tradition is also divine revelation.
Psalm 117:1-2
Luke 11:1-4
The Gospel today raises the question of what Jesus really said. You surely noticed that the Our Father in the Gospel today is rather different from the Our Father that we usually pray. The difference between the Our Father that we usually pray, from Matthew, and the prayer from Luke that we read today are more than just translation issues. This prayer is not even the “Our Father”, it just starts “Father”.
It is not uncommon for Matthew and Luke to relate different versions of events. This can often be explained by saying that both versions occurred. It should not surprise us that Jesus preached two similar but not identical sermons. The differences in the beatitudes, for instance, can be explained in this way. However, it hard to believe that the disciples asked Jesus how to pray more than once and he gave them two versions of the Our Father.
So what are we to think about the faithfulness of the Gospels? The shorter version of the Our Father makes sense if we just assume that Luke got it from someone with a rather poor memory, but if we begin assuming that bad memories are at play in the Gospels, what can we trust? Scholars are far more likely to assume that Luke’s version is original and that Matthew expanded his version, and it is true that there is nothing in Matthew’s version that is not implied in Luke’s, but the devotion of Christians to the Our Father, to the Lord’s Prayer, is precisely because it was written by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself. We want the original!
If we relied on ourselves to reinterpret Christianity with each passing generation, some of us would switch to this Our Father, some of us would stay with Matthew’s version, and some of us would throw up our hands and say, “Let’s forget the whole thing, if we can’t even get the Our Father right.”
It is good to read the Scriptures and seek wisdom from them, but while the Scriptures are the revelation of God to us, our individual interpretation cannot be the final authority, lest the 2 billion Christians have 2 billion Christianities. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us which Our Father to pray. We must rely on Tradition. The Church has prayed Matthew’s version for thousands of years. This Tradition is more convincing than any scholarly argument or personal feeling. Tradition is also divine revelation.
May 3, 2012 - Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James, Apostles.
1 Corinthians 15:1-8
Psalm 19:2-5
John 14:6-14
Some people try to read the Gospels as if Jesus were merely an intelligent person who taught interesting things. Such people consider the Gospels as a source of wisdom, but reject the idea that Jesus is God. Our reading from the Gospel today shows that this is impossible. If the Gospels are not reliable, we will not be able to find more wisdom there than we already have, since it will then be up to us to pick and choose what is wise and what is foolish. If the Gospels are reliable, we cannot cast aside the reading today.
Everything we know suggests that the Gospels are reliable. They have been a source of wisdom for two-thousand years. The Gospels are responsible for every idea of freedom and justice which have developed in the western world. This is not to say that everything that Europeans and Americans have done is good, but that everything good we have done can be traced back to the Gospels. The Gospels have been responsible for more good in the world than any philosophy or theology every invented by human beings.
The words of Jesus today, however, go beyond the words of a wise man. As has often been noted, if Jesus is not God, he must be either a fool or a liar. He must not be a fool, since he is the source of so much wisdom. Is it possible that he is a liar? He himself said, "I am the truth." He said that Satan is the father of lies. He said that our "yes" should be "yes" and our "no" should be "no". He seems particularly opposed to lying. Of course, liars usually are opposed to being lied to. It does seem wrong to accuse him of lying though when there is no evidence that he ever did.
Is it certain that Jesus is claiming to be God today? Well, he claims that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. He makes this an absolute claim. We might say that we see God in a holy person, but the holy person would tell us that God is so much greater. Jesus claims that it is not possible to reveal God more than he has done. He makes this an exclusive claim. He claims that no one comes to the Father except through him. A wise person would say that anyone can see God by following the same way that they have followed. Jesus claims to be the way itself.
Psalm 19:2-5
John 14:6-14
Some people try to read the Gospels as if Jesus were merely an intelligent person who taught interesting things. Such people consider the Gospels as a source of wisdom, but reject the idea that Jesus is God. Our reading from the Gospel today shows that this is impossible. If the Gospels are not reliable, we will not be able to find more wisdom there than we already have, since it will then be up to us to pick and choose what is wise and what is foolish. If the Gospels are reliable, we cannot cast aside the reading today.
Everything we know suggests that the Gospels are reliable. They have been a source of wisdom for two-thousand years. The Gospels are responsible for every idea of freedom and justice which have developed in the western world. This is not to say that everything that Europeans and Americans have done is good, but that everything good we have done can be traced back to the Gospels. The Gospels have been responsible for more good in the world than any philosophy or theology every invented by human beings.
The words of Jesus today, however, go beyond the words of a wise man. As has often been noted, if Jesus is not God, he must be either a fool or a liar. He must not be a fool, since he is the source of so much wisdom. Is it possible that he is a liar? He himself said, "I am the truth." He said that Satan is the father of lies. He said that our "yes" should be "yes" and our "no" should be "no". He seems particularly opposed to lying. Of course, liars usually are opposed to being lied to. It does seem wrong to accuse him of lying though when there is no evidence that he ever did.
Is it certain that Jesus is claiming to be God today? Well, he claims that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. He makes this an absolute claim. We might say that we see God in a holy person, but the holy person would tell us that God is so much greater. Jesus claims that it is not possible to reveal God more than he has done. He makes this an exclusive claim. He claims that no one comes to the Father except through him. A wise person would say that anyone can see God by following the same way that they have followed. Jesus claims to be the way itself.
March 25, 2012 - Fifth Sunday Of Lent
Today's Readings
There are two ways by which we draw near to God: religion and revelation. Religion is how we try to approach God. Revelation is how God approaches us. Religion is like building a tower up into the clouds. Revelation is like when the clouds come down to the ground as a fog. Religion is like beginning with hunger and looking for food. Revelation is like seeing some amazing food and discovering then that it was exactly what you wanted. Either way leads to the meal.
Religion exists because when a human considers themself, they realize that something is missing. Religion begins with a question. That is why there are so many religions in the world although they all have some basic similarities. We are hungry and looking for something. Each religion is an attempt to answer this question we find inside of ourselves. Each religion is the best human attempt to approach God. Some people climb on top of a mountain. Some people sacrifice animals or even humans. Some people fast and pray. They are all trying to have a relationship with the unseen God.
Revelation is different because it begins with an encounter. Moses was minding his own business when he saw the burning bush. Abraham was going about his day when the angels of the Lord stopped by for dinner. Mary was working at home when Gabriel appeared and told her what God had planned.
We see this same revelation in the Gospel today. The Greeks did not want more religion. They had lots of religion. They wanted to meet Jesus. They must have seen him as part of a crowd and were blown away by what they saw. They wanted to meet him.
In the first reading, God tells Jeremiah that the days are coming when he will make a new covenant with his people. The old covenant began with a revelation, but it was a revelation about religion. Ten commandments, hundreds of laws, animal sacrifices: the Jewish religion was in some ways like every other religion. The difference was that the laws and the sacrifices had been given by God, not invented by humans. The new covenant would not be just another religion. God was talking about the greatest revelation in the history of the universe: Jesus Christ.
Does this mean that religion is bad and revelation is good? No. A revelation is useless if people are not prepared for it. In the Gospel today, God spoke from heaven, glorifying his name. The crowd thought that it was just thunder. Only some could hear the voice. At various times a crowd followed Jesus. They realized that he was a revelation because they saw the healings and the multiplication of the bread and fish, but they were not ready for the revelation; they left as soon as they could not understand.
The history of religion was a preparation for one girl to have a revelation, an encounter with Jesus Christ. After her, a few others came to know him. When his hour came, and everything was ready, he accomplished the perfect religious act. We could not build a bridge between earth and heaven, no matter how much we tried. Instead God dwelt among us, and when his hour came, he built a bridge for us by means of his Cross.
Christ Jesus, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, was heard for his godly fear. Though he was the Son of God, by being obedient even in suffering, he became a perfect human. Now, he is the author of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him.
This is why the Christian religion is different from every other religion. We too have laws, but we are not trying to please God with our obedience of the laws. That was always impossible and now Jesus has done it for us. We are trying, by obeying the laws, to see Jesus. And when we disobey the laws, we confess our sins, and then Jesus forgives us. This is what is amazing: whether we are good or bad we encounter Jesus. We see him as we become more obedient, more like him, and we see him when, though disobedient, we seek forgiveness.
It is like a child and their parent. There are two ways for a child to be close to their parent: either by becoming more like them or by running into their arms. We advance in holiness when we avoid sin because we are becoming more like God, and we advance in holiness when we are forgiven because we are running into his arms.
Christians also still have ritual actions like other religions. It is part of the Christian religion to come to Mass on Sundays and other holy days and to pray. But all of our rituals, genuflecting and kneeling and holy water, icons and statues, incense and songs and Latin prayers, anointing with oil and laying on of hands, are about being prepared for an encounter with Jesus. Before, the mystery was essential because God was mysterious. Now the mystery is necessary so that we do not begin to think that he is not mysterious. We have to leave behind the ordinary things lest when he speaks to us we only hear thunder.
Now the law of God is in our hearts, and the love of God totally embraces us. Our goal is not to reach out by superior intelligence to make sense of gods who ignore us. Our religious goal is to be humble enough to hear God when he speaks. Our religious goal is to love other people enough that we finally begin to forget ourselves. Our religious goal is to become as nothing in the face of the revelation.
Revelation should make us become religious. If someone loves Jesus but hates religion they seem to be saying that they love Jesus but they do not want to be anything like him. That is an unacceptable response to the revelation. Seeing Jesus rightly must make us want to be more like him. And if someone loves Jesus and hates religion, by which they mean the religion of other people, they need to learn humility. I am trying to be like Jesus. You are trying to be like Jesus. Everyone who is trying to be like Jesus is part of my religion. If I point to them and say, “You are failing to be like Jesus” they could point to me and say, “you are failing too.” I love Jesus, therefore I am religious.
There are two ways by which we draw near to God: religion and revelation. Religion is how we try to approach God. Revelation is how God approaches us. Religion is like building a tower up into the clouds. Revelation is like when the clouds come down to the ground as a fog. Religion is like beginning with hunger and looking for food. Revelation is like seeing some amazing food and discovering then that it was exactly what you wanted. Either way leads to the meal.
Religion exists because when a human considers themself, they realize that something is missing. Religion begins with a question. That is why there are so many religions in the world although they all have some basic similarities. We are hungry and looking for something. Each religion is an attempt to answer this question we find inside of ourselves. Each religion is the best human attempt to approach God. Some people climb on top of a mountain. Some people sacrifice animals or even humans. Some people fast and pray. They are all trying to have a relationship with the unseen God.
Revelation is different because it begins with an encounter. Moses was minding his own business when he saw the burning bush. Abraham was going about his day when the angels of the Lord stopped by for dinner. Mary was working at home when Gabriel appeared and told her what God had planned.
We see this same revelation in the Gospel today. The Greeks did not want more religion. They had lots of religion. They wanted to meet Jesus. They must have seen him as part of a crowd and were blown away by what they saw. They wanted to meet him.
In the first reading, God tells Jeremiah that the days are coming when he will make a new covenant with his people. The old covenant began with a revelation, but it was a revelation about religion. Ten commandments, hundreds of laws, animal sacrifices: the Jewish religion was in some ways like every other religion. The difference was that the laws and the sacrifices had been given by God, not invented by humans. The new covenant would not be just another religion. God was talking about the greatest revelation in the history of the universe: Jesus Christ.
Does this mean that religion is bad and revelation is good? No. A revelation is useless if people are not prepared for it. In the Gospel today, God spoke from heaven, glorifying his name. The crowd thought that it was just thunder. Only some could hear the voice. At various times a crowd followed Jesus. They realized that he was a revelation because they saw the healings and the multiplication of the bread and fish, but they were not ready for the revelation; they left as soon as they could not understand.
The history of religion was a preparation for one girl to have a revelation, an encounter with Jesus Christ. After her, a few others came to know him. When his hour came, and everything was ready, he accomplished the perfect religious act. We could not build a bridge between earth and heaven, no matter how much we tried. Instead God dwelt among us, and when his hour came, he built a bridge for us by means of his Cross.
Christ Jesus, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, was heard for his godly fear. Though he was the Son of God, by being obedient even in suffering, he became a perfect human. Now, he is the author of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him.
This is why the Christian religion is different from every other religion. We too have laws, but we are not trying to please God with our obedience of the laws. That was always impossible and now Jesus has done it for us. We are trying, by obeying the laws, to see Jesus. And when we disobey the laws, we confess our sins, and then Jesus forgives us. This is what is amazing: whether we are good or bad we encounter Jesus. We see him as we become more obedient, more like him, and we see him when, though disobedient, we seek forgiveness.
It is like a child and their parent. There are two ways for a child to be close to their parent: either by becoming more like them or by running into their arms. We advance in holiness when we avoid sin because we are becoming more like God, and we advance in holiness when we are forgiven because we are running into his arms.
Christians also still have ritual actions like other religions. It is part of the Christian religion to come to Mass on Sundays and other holy days and to pray. But all of our rituals, genuflecting and kneeling and holy water, icons and statues, incense and songs and Latin prayers, anointing with oil and laying on of hands, are about being prepared for an encounter with Jesus. Before, the mystery was essential because God was mysterious. Now the mystery is necessary so that we do not begin to think that he is not mysterious. We have to leave behind the ordinary things lest when he speaks to us we only hear thunder.
Now the law of God is in our hearts, and the love of God totally embraces us. Our goal is not to reach out by superior intelligence to make sense of gods who ignore us. Our religious goal is to be humble enough to hear God when he speaks. Our religious goal is to love other people enough that we finally begin to forget ourselves. Our religious goal is to become as nothing in the face of the revelation.
Revelation should make us become religious. If someone loves Jesus but hates religion they seem to be saying that they love Jesus but they do not want to be anything like him. That is an unacceptable response to the revelation. Seeing Jesus rightly must make us want to be more like him. And if someone loves Jesus and hates religion, by which they mean the religion of other people, they need to learn humility. I am trying to be like Jesus. You are trying to be like Jesus. Everyone who is trying to be like Jesus is part of my religion. If I point to them and say, “You are failing to be like Jesus” they could point to me and say, “you are failing too.” I love Jesus, therefore I am religious.
March 21, 2012 - Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Today's Readings
Jesus explains to the Pharisees why they should believe in him. He begins by saying “If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true.” This cannot of course be taken in the sense that Jesus would lie about himself. Jesus does not ever say, “I am the Christ”, because he does not need to. Peter says it, and then Jesus confirms it. When he is asked whether he is the Christ at his trial, he says, “You say that I am.” In other words, only the Christ would be accused of being the Christ without ever having said it. Where did the idea come from? Jesus was not raising an army. He never fought a battle. He never called himself the Christ.
Jesus says that John the Baptist witnessed to him. The Pharisees thought that John the Baptist was an impressive prophet, since he fit the idea in their minds better. He fasted and lived in the desert and was killed by the king. It must have seemed very strange to the Pharisees that this great and holy man testified that Jesus was the Christ. Jesus is reminding them of this contradiction: they all thought that John was a prophet, but they did not believe his greatest prophecy.
Also, the Pharisees could see that Jesus never sinned; they could see the healing and other miracles; they could see the sinners repenting and following Jesus. If I told you that I was the Messiah, you would all laugh, since I am not that impressive, and if I did not tell you, it would never enter your mind that I was. When Jesus says that his works are one of the witnesses, he does not just mean his miracles, but everything he ever did. People could see that he was not like them. Today we see the works of Jesus in his saints; we see sinners live extraordinary lives. We know that someone greater must be at work.
The third witness is the Father. St. Peter did not know Jesus was the Christ because he figured it out, but because the Father revealed it to him. Faith is strongest when there are no reasons behind it, when we simply believe. There are times when we are so filled with the love of God that, without being able to explain why, we just laugh at the idea that there is no God.
Jesus explains to the Pharisees why they should believe in him. He begins by saying “If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true.” This cannot of course be taken in the sense that Jesus would lie about himself. Jesus does not ever say, “I am the Christ”, because he does not need to. Peter says it, and then Jesus confirms it. When he is asked whether he is the Christ at his trial, he says, “You say that I am.” In other words, only the Christ would be accused of being the Christ without ever having said it. Where did the idea come from? Jesus was not raising an army. He never fought a battle. He never called himself the Christ.
Jesus says that John the Baptist witnessed to him. The Pharisees thought that John the Baptist was an impressive prophet, since he fit the idea in their minds better. He fasted and lived in the desert and was killed by the king. It must have seemed very strange to the Pharisees that this great and holy man testified that Jesus was the Christ. Jesus is reminding them of this contradiction: they all thought that John was a prophet, but they did not believe his greatest prophecy.
Also, the Pharisees could see that Jesus never sinned; they could see the healing and other miracles; they could see the sinners repenting and following Jesus. If I told you that I was the Messiah, you would all laugh, since I am not that impressive, and if I did not tell you, it would never enter your mind that I was. When Jesus says that his works are one of the witnesses, he does not just mean his miracles, but everything he ever did. People could see that he was not like them. Today we see the works of Jesus in his saints; we see sinners live extraordinary lives. We know that someone greater must be at work.
The third witness is the Father. St. Peter did not know Jesus was the Christ because he figured it out, but because the Father revealed it to him. Faith is strongest when there are no reasons behind it, when we simply believe. There are times when we are so filled with the love of God that, without being able to explain why, we just laugh at the idea that there is no God.
January 8th, 2012 - Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
Today's Readings
Why do you own the things that you own? We all work hard to own things. We have banks and locks and fireproof safes so that we can hold on to the things that are ours, but why? What is the purpose of owning something. A two-year old has an answer: "Mine!" It is not so important why. A more mature person would say, "I own things so that I can use them." This is a good answer, but we Christians reject that answer. We Christians believe in stewardship.
The concept of stewardship is that everything we own has been given to us by God, not to use at our whims, but in order to do good - to care for a family, to live, to create beauty, to show love, etc. Stewardship tells us that nothing we have is ours; it is just ours to take care of. It is better to consider our possessions not as things we own, but as that part of creation with which we have been entrusted.
All humans have an equal share in creation. The earth equally belongs to me and Bill Gates. All of creation is the common inheritance of the human race. Some individuals have been entrusted with a large portion of this shared inheritance, some individuals have chosen to renounce the responsibility and live in poverty, and some individuals live in forced poverty without even the essentials.
Everything you own is a responsibility. If you own a house, you have to care for the house. If you own a dollar, you have to use the dollar well. Those who have been entrusted with much have a great responsibility to care for those who possess little. Whether we are rich in material goods, intelligence, talents, time, or any other gift from God, there is a force within us, impelling us to use our riches for good, to make the world a better place.
Our country, our civilization is falling apart around us. Why? Because of greed. Not just the greed of the 1%, of the Wall Street types. It is the greed of everyone who considers their life to be their own. Satan is always trying to get us to ask, "What's in it for me?" To understand stewardship, a person first has to view their life differently. Instead of wondering, "What do I have? Where have I ended up? Do I like my position in the world?", a steward wants to know "What have I accomplished?"
Stewardship appears in the second reading today, but it is not concerned with money. It is about ownership of a mystery. St. Paul says: Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit. St. Paul is saying that he is in charge of a mystery: that Jesus Christ is come to save the whole world. He knows this mystery, he possesses the knowledge, but the knowledge is not his to change as he wants or his to forget. It is his to take care of. He is a steward, a manager.
In the first reading and the psalm, there is a prophecy that, perhaps, we do not realize how astounding it is. The psalm declares: “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.” The first reading promises that the city of Jerusalem will be holy to the whole world. We are not astounded, we are not shocked by this prophecy because it has come true. Half the world calls the city of Jerusalem holy. People from this side of the earth do make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. And every nation on earth does adore the Lord. No matter which country, no matter which group of people, there are Christians there.
But when these prophecies were made, it surely seemed very unlikely. The Jews were just coming back from the exile. Jerusalem was a city destroyed. The temple had been torn down to the ground. It was a wasteland. Yet the prophecy was made, and it has come to pass.
How did this happen? People like St. Paul were put in charge of a mystery and they did not bury it in the ground, but, rather, they invested it and had a harvest one-hundredfold. The Apostles were good stewards of the faith, spreading it throughout the whole world. They were followed by other stewards: missionaries and Christians of every sort of vocation.
Today is the celebration of the Epiphany of God, the revelation of the fullness of the Truth to all people. Today we celebrate how the Magi, representing the ends of the earth, see the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We celebrate every revelation, from the beginning of time, until now. Darkness was over the world' heavy darkness covered the nations, and then the dawn from on high broke in. As the sun has the power to turn night into day, so the Son of God has the power to turn the darkness of sin into the brightness of grace.
Every one of us is a steward. Every one of us has money and property that we are in charge of. We all have talents and intelligence that have been entrusted to us to use for good. But above all material possessions, greater than our personal gifts, is the revelation of Jesus Christ. There is no treasure on earth that compares to this revelation. There is nothing we possess more precious than the truth.
We are in charge of this mystery, our faith. We all possess the faith and are stewards of it. What is a steward to do? First of all, we must preserve it in ourselves. The faith is not something that lasts if it is put up on a high shelf and forgotten. It gets dusty and creaky, with stiff joints. Our faith is alive, and it must be fed. The food is the Word of God and the Body of Christ. We will be called to account for how we took care of the faith within us.
And then, we must spread the faith to others. If we know the truth, we must preach the truth. We are missionaries. Not necessarily to the far reaches of the world, although some may have that vocation. We are missionaries to our hometowns. You are all missionaries to Winona. There are people in our midst who do not possess the faith or do not possess its fullness. We are called to bring the faith to them. We are called to preach. Mostly by deeds, but also by words spoken at opportune moments. All of us, not only the clergy. We are missionaries to our coworkers and our friends. Parents are like missionaries to the future, as they hand on the faith to their children.
Why do you own the things that you own? We all work hard to own things. We have banks and locks and fireproof safes so that we can hold on to the things that are ours, but why? What is the purpose of owning something. A two-year old has an answer: "Mine!" It is not so important why. A more mature person would say, "I own things so that I can use them." This is a good answer, but we Christians reject that answer. We Christians believe in stewardship.
The concept of stewardship is that everything we own has been given to us by God, not to use at our whims, but in order to do good - to care for a family, to live, to create beauty, to show love, etc. Stewardship tells us that nothing we have is ours; it is just ours to take care of. It is better to consider our possessions not as things we own, but as that part of creation with which we have been entrusted.
All humans have an equal share in creation. The earth equally belongs to me and Bill Gates. All of creation is the common inheritance of the human race. Some individuals have been entrusted with a large portion of this shared inheritance, some individuals have chosen to renounce the responsibility and live in poverty, and some individuals live in forced poverty without even the essentials.
Everything you own is a responsibility. If you own a house, you have to care for the house. If you own a dollar, you have to use the dollar well. Those who have been entrusted with much have a great responsibility to care for those who possess little. Whether we are rich in material goods, intelligence, talents, time, or any other gift from God, there is a force within us, impelling us to use our riches for good, to make the world a better place.
Our country, our civilization is falling apart around us. Why? Because of greed. Not just the greed of the 1%, of the Wall Street types. It is the greed of everyone who considers their life to be their own. Satan is always trying to get us to ask, "What's in it for me?" To understand stewardship, a person first has to view their life differently. Instead of wondering, "What do I have? Where have I ended up? Do I like my position in the world?", a steward wants to know "What have I accomplished?"
Stewardship appears in the second reading today, but it is not concerned with money. It is about ownership of a mystery. St. Paul says: Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit. St. Paul is saying that he is in charge of a mystery: that Jesus Christ is come to save the whole world. He knows this mystery, he possesses the knowledge, but the knowledge is not his to change as he wants or his to forget. It is his to take care of. He is a steward, a manager.
In the first reading and the psalm, there is a prophecy that, perhaps, we do not realize how astounding it is. The psalm declares: “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.” The first reading promises that the city of Jerusalem will be holy to the whole world. We are not astounded, we are not shocked by this prophecy because it has come true. Half the world calls the city of Jerusalem holy. People from this side of the earth do make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. And every nation on earth does adore the Lord. No matter which country, no matter which group of people, there are Christians there.
But when these prophecies were made, it surely seemed very unlikely. The Jews were just coming back from the exile. Jerusalem was a city destroyed. The temple had been torn down to the ground. It was a wasteland. Yet the prophecy was made, and it has come to pass.
How did this happen? People like St. Paul were put in charge of a mystery and they did not bury it in the ground, but, rather, they invested it and had a harvest one-hundredfold. The Apostles were good stewards of the faith, spreading it throughout the whole world. They were followed by other stewards: missionaries and Christians of every sort of vocation.
Today is the celebration of the Epiphany of God, the revelation of the fullness of the Truth to all people. Today we celebrate how the Magi, representing the ends of the earth, see the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We celebrate every revelation, from the beginning of time, until now. Darkness was over the world' heavy darkness covered the nations, and then the dawn from on high broke in. As the sun has the power to turn night into day, so the Son of God has the power to turn the darkness of sin into the brightness of grace.
Every one of us is a steward. Every one of us has money and property that we are in charge of. We all have talents and intelligence that have been entrusted to us to use for good. But above all material possessions, greater than our personal gifts, is the revelation of Jesus Christ. There is no treasure on earth that compares to this revelation. There is nothing we possess more precious than the truth.
We are in charge of this mystery, our faith. We all possess the faith and are stewards of it. What is a steward to do? First of all, we must preserve it in ourselves. The faith is not something that lasts if it is put up on a high shelf and forgotten. It gets dusty and creaky, with stiff joints. Our faith is alive, and it must be fed. The food is the Word of God and the Body of Christ. We will be called to account for how we took care of the faith within us.
And then, we must spread the faith to others. If we know the truth, we must preach the truth. We are missionaries. Not necessarily to the far reaches of the world, although some may have that vocation. We are missionaries to our hometowns. You are all missionaries to Winona. There are people in our midst who do not possess the faith or do not possess its fullness. We are called to bring the faith to them. We are called to preach. Mostly by deeds, but also by words spoken at opportune moments. All of us, not only the clergy. We are missionaries to our coworkers and our friends. Parents are like missionaries to the future, as they hand on the faith to their children.
October 14, 2011 - Friday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's Readings
There is a philosophical question that goes back to Socrates but is still asked today as if it were new: would you rather do something wicked and have no one ever find out or not do something wicked but have everyone believe you had? For instance, would you rather get away with sexually abusing a child or have everyone in the world think that you had even though you were completely innocent?
On the one hand, there would be prison and headlines and scandal and shame. Your own family would disown you, and every friend would abandon you. On the other hand, you would have actually done something despicable but everyone would continue thinking that you were a good person. Which would you choose, if you had to choose?
Do not dismiss this question lightly. For sure, it is unlikely that you would ever actually be forced to make this choice, but your decision reveals who you really are. Do you want to be good or to seem good? Everyone wants to seem good on some level; no one desires to be despised in the eyes of those they love, but only some people have a desire to actually be good.
Today Jesus tells us that “there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.” Nothing. Neither our good deeds nor our sins will be hidden at the end of time. If we have done good deeds in secret, we will finally have credit where credit is due. If we have done wicked things, we will finally be revealed as the frauds that we are.
Even now, nothing is really done in secret. God is watching us. He knows everything about us. Whether the whole world hates us or loves us is immaterial. God loves us, and he knows us thoroughly. He knows how many hairs are on top of my head. I do not know how many hairs are on top of my head. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Those things we did that we have tried to forget, tried to convince even ourselves that we never did them? God knows all about them. We will never fool God; we will never impress God. God knows us exactly as we are, but he loves us anyway.
There is a philosophical question that goes back to Socrates but is still asked today as if it were new: would you rather do something wicked and have no one ever find out or not do something wicked but have everyone believe you had? For instance, would you rather get away with sexually abusing a child or have everyone in the world think that you had even though you were completely innocent?
On the one hand, there would be prison and headlines and scandal and shame. Your own family would disown you, and every friend would abandon you. On the other hand, you would have actually done something despicable but everyone would continue thinking that you were a good person. Which would you choose, if you had to choose?
Do not dismiss this question lightly. For sure, it is unlikely that you would ever actually be forced to make this choice, but your decision reveals who you really are. Do you want to be good or to seem good? Everyone wants to seem good on some level; no one desires to be despised in the eyes of those they love, but only some people have a desire to actually be good.
Today Jesus tells us that “there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.” Nothing. Neither our good deeds nor our sins will be hidden at the end of time. If we have done good deeds in secret, we will finally have credit where credit is due. If we have done wicked things, we will finally be revealed as the frauds that we are.
Even now, nothing is really done in secret. God is watching us. He knows everything about us. Whether the whole world hates us or loves us is immaterial. God loves us, and he knows us thoroughly. He knows how many hairs are on top of my head. I do not know how many hairs are on top of my head. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Those things we did that we have tried to forget, tried to convince even ourselves that we never did them? God knows all about them. We will never fool God; we will never impress God. God knows us exactly as we are, but he loves us anyway.
October 5, 2011 - Wednesday of the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today's Readings
The Gospel today raises the question of what Jesus really said. You surely noticed that the Our Father in the Gospel today is rather different from the Our Father that we usually pray. The difference between the Our Father that we usually pray, from Matthew, and the prayer from Luke that we read today are more than just translation issues. This prayer is not even the “Our Father”, it just starts “Father”.
It is not uncommon for Matthew and Luke to relate different versions of events. This can often be explained by saying that both versions occurred. It should not surprise us that Jesus preached two similar but not identical sermons. The differences in the beatitudes, for instance, can be explained in this way. However, it hard to believe that the disciples asked Jesus how to pray more than once and he gave them two versions of the Our Father.
So what are we to think about the faithfulness of the Gospels? The shorter version of the Our Father makes sense if we just assume that Luke got it from someone with a rather poor memory, but if we begin assuming that bad memories are at play in the Gospels, what can we trust? Scholars are far more likely to assume that Luke’s version is original and that Matthew expanded his version, and it is true that there is nothing in Matthew’s version that is not implied in Luke’s, but the devotion of Christians to the Our Father, to the Lord’s Prayer, is precisely because it was written by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself. We want the original!
If we relied on ourselves to reinterpret Christianity with each passing generation, some of us would switch to this Our Father, some of us would stay with Matthew’s version, and some of us would throw up our hands and say, “Let’s forget the whole thing, if we can’t even get the Our Father right.”
It is good to read the Scriptures and seek wisdom from them, but while the Scriptures are the revelation of God to us, our individual interpretation cannot be the final authority, lest the 2 billion Christians have 2 billion Christianities. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us which Our Father to pray. We must rely on Tradition. The Church has prayed Matthew’s version for thousands of years. This Tradition is more convincing than any scholarly argument or personal feeling. Tradition is also divine revelation.
The Gospel today raises the question of what Jesus really said. You surely noticed that the Our Father in the Gospel today is rather different from the Our Father that we usually pray. The difference between the Our Father that we usually pray, from Matthew, and the prayer from Luke that we read today are more than just translation issues. This prayer is not even the “Our Father”, it just starts “Father”.
It is not uncommon for Matthew and Luke to relate different versions of events. This can often be explained by saying that both versions occurred. It should not surprise us that Jesus preached two similar but not identical sermons. The differences in the beatitudes, for instance, can be explained in this way. However, it hard to believe that the disciples asked Jesus how to pray more than once and he gave them two versions of the Our Father.
So what are we to think about the faithfulness of the Gospels? The shorter version of the Our Father makes sense if we just assume that Luke got it from someone with a rather poor memory, but if we begin assuming that bad memories are at play in the Gospels, what can we trust? Scholars are far more likely to assume that Luke’s version is original and that Matthew expanded his version, and it is true that there is nothing in Matthew’s version that is not implied in Luke’s, but the devotion of Christians to the Our Father, to the Lord’s Prayer, is precisely because it was written by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself. We want the original!
If we relied on ourselves to reinterpret Christianity with each passing generation, some of us would switch to this Our Father, some of us would stay with Matthew’s version, and some of us would throw up our hands and say, “Let’s forget the whole thing, if we can’t even get the Our Father right.”
It is good to read the Scriptures and seek wisdom from them, but while the Scriptures are the revelation of God to us, our individual interpretation cannot be the final authority, lest the 2 billion Christians have 2 billion Christianities. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us which Our Father to pray. We must rely on Tradition. The Church has prayed Matthew’s version for thousands of years. This Tradition is more convincing than any scholarly argument or personal feeling. Tradition is also divine revelation.
July 13, 2011 - Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's Readings
The burning bush is such a beautiful image of our Lord. When he chose to reveal himself to Moses, he did not appear as any animal or like a human being. There had to be no mistaking him for any of the gods of Egypt. He had not appeared to Abraham, who only heard a voice. He did send three angels to Abraham in the form of three men, but this was only after decades of preparation. Here he begins with Moses as an image.
Of course the image is a good one, since God chose it, but why is it such a perfect image? First of all, God is fire. He is energy. Nothing on earth is as powerful as fire, so God shows us his power by speaking out of fire. Yet fire is not a thing, properly speaking, it is the visual result of the process of rapid oxidation. To see fire is not to see something but rather to see something happening. So too, we cannot see God, but we can see him working in the world.
Furthermore, he burns us but he does not consume us. The Holy Spirit fills our soul but does not destroy it. Slowly, if we let him, he will burn away all that is insufficient in our soul, but what was good at the beginning will remain at the end, purified by fire. God is here a paradox: a gentle fire. Gentle, not because he will hold back from fiercely destroying sin where he finds it, but because he is always in complete control; our skin is not even burned.
Jesus told us that he came to set the world on fire. “How I wish it were already burning!” he exclaims. We have no reason to fear this fire. It is the same fire that burned the bush without consuming it. On the contrary, we must welcome this fire. The fire was kindled in us at our Baptism. Oil was poured on it at our Confirmation. Every Mass we receive the Eucharist as if it were flaming coals.
So much fire! If we were not damp, we would already be in flames. As it is, we are only smoking slightly at best. This fire cannot be stopped by water or wind. It can only be stopped by our own unwillingness to go up in flames. We could be all flame, if we wanted. And what is this fire? Love.
July 9, 2011 - Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's Readings
“So do not be afraid,” Jesus tells us, “there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nothing secret that will not be made known.” “Nothing?” we wonder. Perhaps we have often thought that, if only they knew how much we have done for them, how much we have suffered, they would be astonished. If the world could only see all the good we do! But Jesus is going a bit far here. There is nothing secret that will not be made known. All the thoughts of our hearts and every action we thought would lie hidden forever, someday, is going to come out into the full light for everyone to see.
“So do not be afraid,” Jesus tells us, “there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nothing secret that will not be made known.” “Nothing?” we wonder. Perhaps we have often thought that, if only they knew how much we have done for them, how much we have suffered, they would be astonished. If the world could only see all the good we do! But Jesus is going a bit far here. There is nothing secret that will not be made known. All the thoughts of our hearts and every action we thought would lie hidden forever, someday, is going to come out into the full light for everyone to see.
Jesus tells us not to be afraid, but this coming revelation should make us a little anxious perhaps. When we thought that the world should be made aware of who we really are, we were contemplating something more like a public relations campaign: certain events which come to our mind would be publicized around the world. Like “It’s a Wonderful Life” except the whole town gets to walk around and realize how miserable their lives would be without us around. But if everything is going to be revealed, probably we can think of some less complimentary moments in our personal history, which reveal that we are, in actuality, a liar and cheat, selfish beyond belief, and, above all, a great big fat hypocrite.
So if we are thinking that someday the whole world will be impressed by our actions, we probably do not know ourselves as well as we should. No, when we are in heaven someday and someone suggests that tonight we watch the video of my life or of your life, the video that is being recorded every second of our lives right now, we will not be the star of the show; we might often be the villain.
The star of the show is going to be the one who knows when a sparrow falls from the sky and how many hairs there are on top of our heads. The plot is going to be how the Holy and Perfect One managed to convince us to seek our own happiness, while we are sabotaging his every effort. When everything is revealed, when every secret is known, everyone will be astonished not by what we did but by what God did: his humility, his skillful care, his love that never gave up.
So if we are thinking that someday the whole world will be impressed by our actions, we probably do not know ourselves as well as we should. No, when we are in heaven someday and someone suggests that tonight we watch the video of my life or of your life, the video that is being recorded every second of our lives right now, we will not be the star of the show; we might often be the villain.
The star of the show is going to be the one who knows when a sparrow falls from the sky and how many hairs there are on top of our heads. The plot is going to be how the Holy and Perfect One managed to convince us to seek our own happiness, while we are sabotaging his every effort. When everything is revealed, when every secret is known, everyone will be astonished not by what we did but by what God did: his humility, his skillful care, his love that never gave up.
February 22, 2011 - Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, apostle
Today's Readings
Today we celebrate a very interesting feast: the Chair of St. Peter. This feast is not exactly in honor of a person, as most are, nor of an event, as others are, but of a chair. Of course we are not commemorating a piece of furniture today; the chair in question is “chair” like “chairman”, a position, an office. We celebrate today the founding of the position of the leader of the Church. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church; this office in no way replaces his office of high priest and king. God did not need Noah to build the ark, and he did not need Simon Peter to lead the Church. He chose to allow us humans positions of dignity as cooperators of his grace.
When Simon made the profession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Jesus explains “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Because of this revelation, Jesus renames him Kephas, which in Greek is Petros. This was not a name; it means “The Rock”, like the movie star. Jesus then says “upon this rock I will build my Church.” Which rock? Not Simon Peter the man, who would deny Jesus three times. Jesus founds his Church upon an idea: the idea that God reveals the truth to a human being. Jesus is hereby instituting an office, the Chair, and choosing Simon for that office which will be the foundation rock of the Church. Along with the position comes certain powers: “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This language is the traditional language for a king to install a prime minister, a leader to serve under the king and do the day to day work of the kingdom.
Jesus makes a promise to Peter and therefore to the Church: “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” This promise is often misunderstood. It is often treated as if it meant that the Church would be able to withstand any attack by evil, but this is backwards. He says that the “gates”, the defenses of Hell, will not be able to stand against the Church. It is the Church who is attacking evil, and we will be victorious.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)