Bulletin Article: 12 OT-C

   Every night when we turn on the TV or open a newspaper, a major part of news reporting nowadays is an update on the most recent polling data regarding the issues and opinions of the day. Do you approve or disapprove of how the president is handling the nation? Do you agree with our country’s involvement with the hostilities going on in the Middle East? If the election were held today, who would you vote for?

  This kind of reporting appeals to something very appealing and very deeply engrained in the American psyche—participation in the democratic processes in order to determine policy and to form consensus around “the truth”. Even more than that, I’d say that these polls lure us into an even deeper desire in the human heart—the desire to participate in something bigger than ourselves and to let one’s voice be heard. We might very well take for granted our right to vote and participate in the public debates of our day until we realize that such participation has never been possible before due to political and technological limitations. How odd Jesus’ question might have seemed to a Jewish person in the first century.

   “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

   “Who do you say that I am?

Why do you think he asked these questions? Was he confused about who he was or what his mission was about? Was he trying to decide what he would do or say next? I don’t think so. He was not using the “poll” to determine his popularity or discern the truth which he already knew so well. I think he was asking them to make a personal act of faith and to participate deeply in something which was so much bigger than they could even understand at that time. “You are the Christ… the Son of God.” This reply is full of meaning. This profession of faith is full of life-and-death consequences.

   Each time we attend Mass, we are asked to make this same profession of faith, and in doing so, participate in a reality that is bigger than we can fully realize. We are welcomed into the revelation of God in our midst. It is not an opportunity to determine truth, as is often the goal of a poll. Rather, we are invited to participate in God’s truth by responding to it and making our assent to it.

   Our expression of faith (or the lack thereof) does not make Jesus greater or smaller.  He is God. Truth is truth, regardless of what we say about it. But our positive assent does draw us into a personal participation with this ultimate truth of our existence: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. These words cannot be said without placing an obligation on the one who says them because there are consequences.

   If we truly believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then we owe him our enlightened obedience, our conversion from sin and darkness into his way of life, and our own participation in the cross he will carry for us. Some will become martyrs alongside the Lord because of this profession of faith. Some will be called from family and work to become prophets and preachers of this Word in foreign lands. Some will live in Central Illinois in the 21st century and live out the consequences of this profession of faith by living lives of faith and family and community.

   Every time we say “Amen”, we affirm the prayers and professions of faith taking place around us. “The Body of Christ… AMEN.” Do we realize the power of our simple response, “Amen”? In the Jewish world, “Amen” had the sense of, “I bet my life on it.” Our Lord’s question is much more than an inconsequential response to an opinion poll—it is an invitation to see how deep our faith really goes.

Bulletin Article: 11 OT-C

   A theme which frequently comes up in Christian spirituality and scriptures is that of debt, namely the debt we owe to God in justice for the grievous nature of our sins and offenses against One who is all good and all holy. Understood in a contemporary idiom, we are totally bankrupt, and have no other place to turn for relief.

   When dealing with finances, recovery from debt requires a complete change of life and lifestyle. Rather than spending on desires such as vacations and new cars, one concentrates on providing needs such as food and shelter. Rather than being wasteful, idle and proud, one must become resourceful, productive, and humble.

   In today’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a woman in his debt. She recognizes him as her creditor for the error of her former ways, but most importantly she calls out to him as "Lord".  Wishing to repent and make good on her debt, she offers him all she has: her tears, her faith, and the last precious item she owned in this world, a flask of perfumed oil. What is Jesus’ response? He recognizes that she is richer than any of the dignitaries he is dining with. Your faith has saved you, (your faith has made you whole!) go in peace. (Luke 7:50) This is a message of hope and encouragement for sinners everywhere. Our debts have been paid in Christ who accepts our faith and repentance as the most precious ‘currency’ around. We need only turn our lives toward him and figure out what is truly valuable in our lives.

Sacred Heart interlude: Twelfth Station - Jesus dies on the Cross (Balthasar)

[As an echo of Good Friday during Ordinary Time, the Church celebrates a Solemnity in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Friday after Corpus Christi Sunday.  Here the mystery of God's love revealed in the Cross of Christ is drawn out of the penance and sadness of Lent, and placed before us in our every day lives which is constantly illuminated by the completion of the historical and liturgical observances of the  Resurrection, Ascension, and Descent of the Holy Spirit... taking us into our own age so in need of an awareness of the depths of God's love.  So on this day, in union with the spirit of the series I did during Lent, I offer one more tableau of the Twelfth Station, that given by Hans Urs von Balthasar and used for the pope's stations at the Colosseum in 1988, shortly before Balthasar died.  I looked all over the internet for this text to include it in the Lent series I did, but I couldn't find it in English... it must be out of print.  In recent weeks, I finally got hold of the text, which I share below for your prayer and meditation.]

 

Twelfth Station:  Jesus dies on the cross.

V/.  We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

R/.  Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

"And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani?' which means, "My God, my God, why hadst thou forsaken me?'  ... And one ran, filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink... And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last.  ...And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was the Son of God'."  (Mark 15: 33-39 RSV)

   Jesus is suspended between heaven and earth, repudiated by men and forsaken by his Father, thus restoring the unity between them.  Extending his arms he reaches out to both the sinner who goes back to him and to the one who turns away from him and yet could not hinder Christ to reach out to him.  The vertical beam of the cross bridges the gap between God and man, while the horizontal one embraces the ends of the earth.  The Fathers of the Church therefore could aptly say that the Cross had the dimensions of the whole creation; it has the dimensions of the whole history of the human race because in those three long hours of Christ's agony, the sins of all -- from the first person to the very last -- have been gathered and remitted.  From now on the way to heaven is open to all: this is the teaching of the Church.

   The last words of the dying Jesus express his entire testament to the Church: that the Father will surely, indeed he must, forgive us, wretched and ignorant as we are; that Easter will be the great absolution, setting the seal on our final reconciliation with God; and that the sinless Mother is placed at the center of the Church which, despite the sinfulness of its members, preserves it core intact.

   Jesus' forsaken death on the cross opened for us the way to the Father.  The thirst of Christ's body, drained of every drop of blood, makes of it a spring from whence flow waters of eternal life.  Both the water of baptism and the blood of the Eucharist quench our thirst.  In the dying cry of Jesus, God reveals to us his infinite love which transcends the power of words.

   Bending his head, Jesus gives up the Spirit, the same Spirit whom he will breathe on the Church on the day of his Resurrection, and in this way all is truly accomplished.

 

Holy Mary, Virgin of the cross:

by the tree of life, you are humanity itself:

obedient and faithful, receptive to the word,

resolute and dutiful, open to the Spirit.

 

Reveal to us the mystery of the "Hour" of your Son:

of his glory in disgrace,

of his majesty in service,

of our life in his death.

 

But it is also you "Hour", O Virgin Mary:

the hour of birth -- in faith, in pain, in the Spirit;

for that new birth, Jesus, dying on the cross,

said: "Woman, behold your son."

Benedict XVI on the Eucharist (Corpus Christi Homily 2011)

There is nothing magic in Christianity.  There are no short cuts, but everything passes through the humble, patient logic of the grain of wheat which dies to give life, the logic of the faith which moves mountains with the meek strength of God.  For this reason God wishes to renew humanity, its history and the universe by means of this chain of transformations of which the Eucharist is the sacrament.  By means of the consecrated bread and wine, in which his Body and Blood are truly present, Christ transforms us, assimilating us to himself; he involves us in his work of redemption, making us capable by means of the grace of the Holy Spirit of living according to the same logic which is his, that of gift, like grains of wheat united to Him and in Him.  Thus, sown and maturing in the furrows of history are the unity and peace which are the end to which we are directed, according to the plan of God.  Without any illusions, without ideological utopias, we pass along the roads of the world, bearing within ourselves the Body of the Lord, as did the Virgin Mary in the mystery of the Visitation.  With the humility of recognizing ourselves as simple grains of wheat, we preserve the firm certitude that the love of God, incarnate in Christ, is more powerful than evil, than violence and than death.  We know that God has prepared for all people a new heavens and a new earth, in which peace and justice will reign - and in faith we glimpse the new world, which is our real fatherland.  This evening too, we are set off on a journey with us there is Jesus in the Eucharist, the Risen One who has said: "I am with you always, even to the end of the world" (Mt 28: 20).