Homily Thoughts E6-C

  On Easter and in the weeks immediately after, the focus is on the event of the Resurrection… the St. Peter and women going to the tomb, the encounter with doubting Thomas, the walk on the road to Emmaus.  But in the last two weeks, the Church has taken us back in the Gospel of John—a Gospel that reflects deeply on who Jesus is and what his mission is all about.  This week's reading of John 14 takes place after Jesus washed the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper, after Judas left to betray him, and before the mob showed up to carry him away to trial and execution.  It is this desolate moment of Jesus' first leave-taking that John reminds us that we will never be alone after we have encountered the love of God.  This was an important message for the disciples on that night of the Last Supper—but the importance of that message is even greater now as the Lord takes his leave of us to go back to heaven.

   As the Church continues to celebrate the 50 days of Easter, the readings presented on Sunday start to change as we reach the fifth, sixth, and seventh weeks.  Having encountered the love of God, now recognizing that love between Father and Son, who does Jesus promise?  Jesus says, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit... will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you”  (John 14:26).  The Advocate, who proceeds as the unbegotten love the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, enlightens us to keep that love present with us--as present as the Lord walking with is disciples in Gallilee--even to this day.

   The Solemnity of Pentecost will give us the opportunity to reflect even more on the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church.  What I would like to do today, however, is turn our attention to the key revelation which is given to us today in these readings.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are One.  This is not a new revelation to this community— we pray this each time we make the sign of the cross ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’  Our prayers at Mass often end with the formula, “we ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you (the Father) and the Holy Spirit, One God forever and ever.”  We experience the Trinitarian reality through the ministry of the priest when he prays, “Therefore, O Lord [Father], we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit graciously make holy these gifts we have brought to you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate these mysteries.”  To call upon one person of the Trinity is to invoke the presence all three.  To pray to the Father takes place through the ministry of the Son by the power of the Spirit.

   It is the Trinitarian reality which saturates all around us which reminds us that we, like our God, are designed to be radically relational.  Jesus is not strictly my God or your God; Jesus is our God.  Let’s bring this down to earth.  When we celebrate the Eucharist, each person who comes forward receives Jesus—in body, blood, soul, and divinity.  In receiving Jesus, each one of us here, and in every Catholic Church throughout the world, proclaim and live a profound unity which is made real here today.  Indeed, each person who receives the Eucharist across space and time are drawn together in our Lord Jesus Christ.  I take great solace when I consider that my participation in the Holy Sacrifice this day, takes place in union with the eternal, heavenly sacrifice which so many of my loved ones have left this life to enjoy.  I take great solace in the knowledge that my participation unites me even with all those people whom I have yet to meet who will form me as a priest and hopefully prepare me to participate well in the heavenly liturgy.  My communion with Jesus joins me with the little ones who gather for First Communion this weekend in so many places through the entire world.  It is our encounter with Jesus in this sacrifice which presents us as a human family to Our Father.  It is our encounter with Jesus which binds us to his promise of the Holy Spirit who goes before us, and in doing so, makes real the promise that he would be with us until the end of time.
   [An interesting observation: John 14 and the promise therein is offered only after the one who could not see the Love of God incarnate in the Son, Judas the Iscariot, broke ranks with the community and with the Lord (leaving Mass early?) to pursue the thirty pieces of silver by which he valued our Lord.  It would seem that Jesus promises his presence and his love, but only to those who remain in Communion not only with him but with his Church.]

   It is this radical rationality implicit in us which also reminds us that sin is never strictly personal, never strictly private.  Therefore, the remedy to sin through the sacraments of baptism and reconciliation (in particular) are never, strictly, personal events.  The worship of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, whether at Mass or through any of the countless devotional practices is never, strictly speaking, a private affair.  Our worship, whether in a quiet chapel or in a hospital bed or anywhere else, unites a person with God and God with his people.  The ministry of deacons, priests, and bishops never finds its end in the person of the cleric himself, rather it is ordered to the good of the entire Church.  The sacrament of marriage is not something to be shared and lived privately, but it has an external, public dimension which builds us all up as a community witnessing the love of God.

   Father, Son, and Spirit are a community of divine persons in relationship.  If this were not so, if the Father and Son and Spirit were not joined in mutual love, we would not have One God, but rather three separate gods.  We know this cannot be so.  The love of God is not self-love, love turned in on itself—God’s love reaches out to embrace the other.  The love of the Son is such that it reaches out and receives the love of the Father.  The love of Father and Son embraces and shares the Love of the Spirit.  As the Church on earth, we get a glimpse of God’s love in the person of Jesus by the power of the Spirit.  This mystery is the backdrop for understanding our Lord’s return to the Father and the sending of the Spirit which will complete our Easter celebration in the next few weeks:  We are never alone when we are loved by God.

Bulletin Article/Homily Thoughts: E5-C

   During the "C" cycle of readings, each weekend Mass during the Easter season features a second reading from the book of Revelation.  It's regrettable how misunderstood this book is, for all of its imagery and imagination, its message, its warning, and its assurances.  As we read Revelation, we are reminded that it is dangerous to limit the "interpretive horizon" of scripture, that is, to understand and interpret Revelations as a message intended purely for the past or the future.  Revelations does not simply tell the story of the early Church persecutions, nor does it pertain exclusively to the "end of the world".  It is a message for our own day and age, which calls to mind the persecutions of the past and the trials the Church yet faces, all the while speaking to us directly in our current age.  That's a tall order for any piece of literature, but key to how any Catholic approaches scripture without falling into the excesses of academic literary criticism on one hand and fideistic literalism on the other.

   And so, during this Easter Season, why the focused interest in this final book of the Bible?  Our liturgy is modeled after this Heavenly Liturgy, giving us a foretaste and promise of what we shall become in the Kingdom.  What do the Easter Revelation readings tell us?

Second Sunday of Easter:  (Rev 1: 9-11a, 12-13, 17-19) John was brought up into heaven and told to write what he saw, where he observed a man in robe and sash who called himself the Alpha and Omega, the one once dead who lives forever and has power over life and death.  He was surrounded by seven gold lampstands.

Third Sunday of Easter:  (Rev. 5:11-14)  The heavenly concert of angels and other creatures proclaiming praise to the Lamb, with the four living creatures affirming the praise with an "Amen",

Fourth Sunday of Easter:  (Rev. 7:9, 14-17)  People of every nation, race, people, and tongue standing before the lamb wear white robes and carry palm branches following their testing and persecution; they are assured the shelter and protection of the Lamb.

Fifth Sunday of Easter:  (Rev. 21: 1-5a)  John sees and hears the coming forth of a new Jerusalem, accepted by the Lord as his bride and assured of his consolation and redemption following the passing of the old order.

Sixth Sunday of Easter:  (Rev. 21: 10-14, 22-23)  The angel shows John the glory of the heavenly city and its reliance not on the temple or even the light of the sun, but instead the glory of the Lamb.  [This reading will be pre-empted in many places by the observance of Ascension Thursday-Sunday in many places.]

 

There is a lot that could be said about these five readings, individually and collectively, but let's keep our discussion focused to why the Chruch presents these readings... together... and during the Easter season.  Here it is:

 

 

 

 

... and for the more Traditional types (you know who you are!):

 

What do we see in these images?

• The alter-Christus in the person of the priest (that guy in the robe and sash, in imitation I suppose of the man in robe and sash in the image of St. John) who makes present again the sacrifice of Calvary that the entire universe (and the priest) himself may adore mystery of the Lamb, revealed under the appearances of bread and wine.  (2nd Sunday)  I can't help but notice that there are six candles and the seventh, the light of the Eucharistic Lord is present as well. 
• The Lamb is slain, but lives again, demonstrating his ultimate power over life and death.  The Eucharist is a representation (re-present-ing) of the sacrifice of cross through the power of the risen Lord.  He is not simply a corpse laying on a slab of stone.  The Lamb once slain (body and blood separated, two separate consecrations) lives again.  (2nd Sunday)
• At the end of the great anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer), the priest, concluding the prayer, offers the Lamb, that "through him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit" all glory and honor may be given to the Father for all ages.  All join that proclamation of praise, the whole world (those in heaven, those at church, and all creation) replies "Amen!"  Indeed the four creatures, representing the four Gospels that reveal the Lord to us attest to what has just happened on the altar... it isn't just a Catholic thing we do when we go to Mass and witness the Eucharist, but all of Christian history and faith and tradition and hope for the future attests to it as well.  (3rd Sunday)
• All peoples are gathered into this celebration, welcomed without discrimation of any kind.  Wearing the white robes of baptism, they share in the sufferings of the cross through the sacrament and through the tribulations of their own lives.  I tried to include 'the people' in both of those images above... it is kind of hard to find good pictures which include 'the people', because so often the focus is on the Eucharist (and priest).  (4th Sunday)
• In doing this, the Lamb keeps the promise to be with us until the end of time (Matthew 28:20).  This is a covenant he offers to his people... true, steadfast, irrevocable... for 'better or worse, richer or poorer'... it transcends the powers of death, leading the sheep out of the valley of darkness into green pastures and near restful for repose (Ps 34).  (5th Sunday)
• All focus and attention is placed on the Lamb.  The Eucharist of the Lamb is the "source and summit" of the entire Christian life, because it is a real encounter with the Lord himself.  Those enlightened by the lamb no longer "go" to the temple, for they are living temples of the Holy Spirit, where the Lord dwells intimately in the soul of each person.  They need no lamp nor sun, for the Lord God dwells in them, giving enlightenment of body, mind, and soul.  (6th Sunday)

Is this not the entirety of the Easter mystery?  God the Father, who sent his Son to dwell with us, calls us out of darkeness into his own wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9), in a covenant stronger than death, which unites us as his flock, justifies us, and delivers us from the challenges of the age.

The best part?  We re-live that and anticipate its fulfillment in heaven every time we celebrate Mass.

Homily Thoughts - E4-C

Last year at this time, the "Good Shepherd" reading for the season of Easter was a few days after the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic.  The Catholic News Agency, the journalism arm of the USCCB published an article and produced a YouTube video recounting the ministry of three priests abort the ship, who themselves died ministering to those doomed that horrible night:

 

 

 

All three were from Europe, journeying to the States for different ministerial reasons:

• Fr. Jouzas Montvila, a Byzantine Catholic priest, was an outlaw priest ministering in Lithuania (the Russian Empire) during their period of persecution and revolution.  He was, essentially, a political exile.
• Fr. Josef Perchitz, OSB, was travelling to the States to become the principal of a Benedictine high school in Collegeville, MN.
• Fr. Thomas Byles was travelling to the United States for his brother's wedding.  He was noted by Pope Pius X as a 'martyr', sacrificing himself to a 'heroic death in the disaster... earnestly devoting his last moments to the religious consolation of his fellow passengers."

These men, these priests, would forgo positions on the lifeboats, and according to surviving eyewitnesses, lead passengers in the recitation of the rosary, and "aroused those condemned to die to say acts of contrition and prepare themselves to meet the face of God."  They were "engaged continuously giving general absolution to those who were about to die."

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons them and runs away. The wolf then attacks and scatters the flock. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep....
 

My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

On this "Good Shepherd Sunday" and this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, we pray for priests who lay down their lives for their flocks... literally, figuratively, and spiritually.  We also pray that the Lord may provide many worthy servants to minister in the footsteps of the "Good Shepherd".

A note on the "Triduum Music Retreat"...

   For a while I have wanted to put together a two-day (overnight) retreat or some other program on the unique music of the Catholic tradition belonging to the Sacred Triduum.  Blaming my being "busy" has prevented me from bringing all the stuff together to do it in recent years.
   I figured I had time to do it here for this Triduum as well, but alas, not yet.  Two mini-articles are already published for Holy Thursday.  I have two articles in draft form, and a couple more that would be due by tomorrow.  It's not going to happen.  Sorry.  I'll work on back-filling these entries onto the right day on the blog over the next couple of days.

   The format of the Sacred Music Retreat was to look at the following six musical encounters in the Triduum Liturgy with an approximately-30 minute talk on the history and theology behind each of the pieces.  Then, if it were a musically inclined group, there would be about another 30 minutes to give direction and/or some kind of experience singing each of these tunes:

1. Ubi Caritas on Holy Thursday
2. Pange Lingua/Tantum Ergo on Holy Thursday
3. The Reproaches on Good Friday
4. Sacred Silence on Holy Saturday
5. The Exsultet at the Easter Vigil, and
6. Victimae Paschale laudes on Easter Sunday

There's a couple of other things that could be added in, such as Tenebrae and the Lamentations (or an overview of the Office altogether during the Triduum), the Easter Entrance Antiphon Resurrexi, or the Vidi Aquam, but not yet...