Monthly Archives: November 2012

The Humble God: Feast of Christ the King

24 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by in faith, gratitude, homily, humility, pride

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At one point in his commentary on this Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps. 93), St. Augustine shares this observation: Humble people are like rock.  Rock is something you look down on, but it is solid.  What about the proud?  They are like smoke; they may be rising high, but they vanish as they rise.  

In the gospel for today’s Feast of Christ the King (Jn. 18:33b-37) we are given the humble God.  Pilate (representative of all the power of the world) questions Christ – a seemingly defeated and isolated man, abandoned by his friends and followers and mocked by his own people.

Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and chief priests handed you over to me.  What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.  If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”  So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?”  Jesus answered, “You say I am a king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  

Today, we as Church, proclaim Christ is King yet, like Pilate, our understanding and idea is limited.  It is interesting to note on this Feast of Christ the King that our Lord, himself, never took on the title of “king”.  Even on this most final and bitter of stages; when the fallen pride of our human condition would eagerly grasp onto a title of assertion to throw back into the face of the powers of this world (how often we see this exalted on our movie screens in the myth of redemptive violence) our Lord chooses a different path.  “You say I am king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Our Lord rejects the title “king” and by so doing he forswears the fallen world and all it has to offer – self-indulgent pride, sad divisions and triumphalism and all forms of violence.  Our Lord chooses a different path – the path of humility.  “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  

Humility has more in common with truth than does pride and power.  In fact, humility is essential if there is to be any real understanding of truth.  If we would know the truth then any temptation to put ourselves at the center of creation (and these temptations come in all shapes and sizes: blue and red, enlightened secularist and righteous religious, male and female, rich and poor, all colors of skin and shades of culture) must be put aside.  Everyone (I repeat “Everyone”), needs to accept the purifying light of humility because the only constant, the only necessary is God – all else is contingent upon God’s will.  We are not necessary.  The more we realize this then the more we open ourselves to those moments when we catch a glimmer that God is indeed the “rock”, the only solid basis of all creation and then gratitude will grow in our hearts.

All is grace.

Do you want joy and gratitude?  Then look to the one we proclaim “king” yet who never sought that title for himself.  “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Cultivate humility.  It will lead you to truth and truth will bring gratitude.              

Of the End Times: Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

17 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by in end times, faith, homily, hope, love

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One of my professors in seminary once remarked that the events of the last days as portrayed in the Scriptures should be read like the labor pangs of birth rather than cataclysmic destruction.  In fact, the birth analogy is more in keeping with the fuller sense of Scripture than the “cataclysmic, world destroyed in a ravaging ball of fire, Hollywood 2012 movie” interpretation.

The texts of Scripture do not confirm, … a sort of “theory of catastrophes,” according to which there must first be a complete destruction of the world after which God can finally turn everything to good.  No, God does not arrive at the end, when all is lost.  He does not disown his own creation.  In the book of Revelation we read, “You created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (4:11).
The “upheaval” expressed throughout the New Testament is that when the Son of Man comes, he comes not in the weariness of our habits nor does he insert himself passively into the natural course of things.  When Christ comes, he brings a radical change to the lives of men and women and it is always a change that brings the fullness of life.
Notice that in this Sunday’s gospel passage (Mk. 13:24-32) after our Lord speaks of the coming of the Son of Man with “great power” he goes on to state: Learn a lesson from the fig tree.  When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.  In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates.  Our Lord does enter into our lives and the life of our world with “great power” but the upheaval he brings is an invitation to turn away from sin and the works of sin and to turn toward the fullness of life.
As Christians we are to live in this world not bound by the deadening works of sin and pride but rather in the upheaval and pangs of birth of the establishment of the Kingdom of God.  Because every day and in every situation Christ is near, at the gates.  The Book of Revelation gives us an image of this hope toward which we yearn and work.  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:1-2).  The great “Day of the Lord” is not yet to happen it has already happened!  God has entered into creation and history in the person of Christ, eternity has entered into time, and now this upheaval comes to every generation and even each day.  We are caught up in the great work of God where all peoples and nations will be gathered together into the new Jerusalem! 
The “end of the world” must come every day.  Every day, we must put an end to both the small or big pieces of the world’s evil and malevolence, but not by God but by people.  Moreover, the days that pass, end inexorably. Nothing remains of them, but the good fruit or, unfortunately, the hardships that we create for others.  Scripture invites us to keep the future, toward which we are led, in front of our eyes: the end of the world is not a catastrophe, but will in fact establish the holy city that comes down from heaven.  It is a city that is a concrete reality, not an abstract one, gathering all the people around their Lord.  This is the goal (and, in a sense also, the end) of history.  But his holy city must begin in our daily life now so that it may grow and transform the lives of men and women into God’s likeness.  It does not have to do with an easy and automatic grafting, but the common toil that every believer must fulfill, remembering what the Lord says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
(Quotes taken from The Word of God Every Day by Vincenzo Paglia.)

Why I dislike the "Coexist" Bumper-Sticker

12 Monday Nov 2012

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Here are a few reasons why I dislike the “Coexist” bumper-sticker.
The narrative of the bumper sticker implies that all violence and injustice in our world today is the result of religious difference and that religion is just a source of violence.  This is patently untrue.  How much violence and injustice in our world today is actually linked to greed, power and pride?  These are not the sole provenance of the religious person but rather the weakness of all human conscience.  The dictates of religion when authentically lived actually seek to curb these baser human tendencies.  It should also be noted that the twentieth century was the bloodiest in human history and the majority of blood spilled was by ideologies that were anti-religion.
The bumper-sticker implies that all these religious traditions are fundamentally the same and that any person who seeks to honor his or her tradition uniquely and live by its teachings is some form of extremist.  Again, this is not true.  Lived faith does not equate to extremism.  Respect for one’s own religious faith does not automatically mean a demeaning of another’s faith tradition.  It has been my experience over and over again that one of the hallmarks of the truly religious man or woman is a deep respect for the dignity of the other person and his or her beliefs.  I would even go on to say that religion truly lived gives access to a deeper and more profound respect for the human person than that which is possible through a bland secularism because through religion one can recognize the presence of the infinite in the other person – a reality that is deliberately denied through secularism.
The bumper-sticker seeks to establish a background narrative that people of different faith traditions cannot talk with one another nor get along.  Not true.  A number of times I have been able to attend the annual Prayer for Peace gathering organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio.  This annual event carries on the vision of Bl. John Paul II who brought together the leaders of all the world’s great religions to dialogue together and pray for peace according to the dictates of their own religion.  The Prayer for Peace does not propose a bland synchronism nor a diminishing (in Bl. John Paul’s case) of Christianity but rather an authentic living of one’s own faith as the true path toward encountering the other and the true path toward peace.
The bumper-sticker implies that peace can only be imposed on religions from without.  This is not true.  Any honest study and knowledge of the world’s great religious traditions will show that the seeds of peace and reconciliation are found within religious tradition and it is there that these seeds must be cultivated and are being cultivated.
Like the book and subsequent movie, “Eat, Pray, Love”; the bumper-sticker implies that any true and acceptable practice of religion in today’s world (if one must practice religion) will consist in a sampling and “picking-and-choosing” approach to religions and religious tradition that is more about confirming what I like and my preferences and ideologies rather than being challenged by a truth greater than me that will enable me to overcome my sinfulness and grow beyond my weakness.  
What surrounds the arrangements of the symbols of religion that make up the bumper-sticker is the bland, empty vacuum of a shallow secularism.  This is what we are left with when religion is diminished and derided.  The bumper-sticker in fact proposes a diminishment of the human person by seeking to truncate the capacity for religion and the desire for the transcendent.  Humanity is reduced (not achieved) when religion is reduced.  For full disclosure I will share that I am not a secularist nor do I find secularism appealing.  
Has great harm been done in the name of God and religion?  Yes, it has.  I am not seeking to deny this.  What I am seeking to say is that these acts of violence in the name of God are not the essence of religion and are, in fact, themselves a sin against religion and God.  To summarily equate religion with violence is itself an act of violence and disrespect.  It is also a profound act of ingratitude toward all the good that religion has done and continues to do in the lives of individual people and in the history and contemporary culture of our world.
Finally, to quote a college student at the Catholic Center where I minister who probably better summarized in one sentence the fallacy of the “Coexist” bumper-sticker than all that I have tried to share above.  “The ‘Coexist’ bumper-sticker says that all religions are the same and that they are all equally unimportant.”
I agree.          

God truly present: Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

03 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by in homily, love of God, love of neighbor, presence of God

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Not long ago I had a conversation with a man who is a convert to Catholicism.  I asked him what was it that brought him into the faith.  He replied that when he was a young man the company he worked for got a job to do some restoration work in a Catholic Church.  When he and his boss met with the parish priest to go over the work needing to be done he was struck by the sight of the priest genuflecting before the tabernacle as they entered the church.  In that simple action he realized that God was present in that church.  This awareness remained with him and grew and it began the process and journey that eventually led him into the Catholic Church.  He told me, “Prior to that I had a notion that God was everywhere yet not really present.  In the Catholic Church I have found God truly present.”

God truly present!  This is the Catholic intuition.  It is what underlies our understanding of the sacraments, the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle, the Catholic approach to prayer, mysticism and (in fact) the entire life of discipleship.  The understanding of God truly present is also foundational in our belief in the communion of saints which we just celebrated on November 1st with the Feast of All Saints.  It is not just that saints were good men and women who did good deeds (worthy of being nominated for CNN’s annual “Heroes” celebration).  God became truly present to the world in the lives of the saints and these men and women became truly transformed and reflective of the presence of God.  (The Catholic understanding of relics is rooted in this reality.)  The saints are, in fact, quite subversive because their very lives witness against a materialistic-only view of reality as well as a vague sense of the Divine that is content in keeping God removed and far off.  These are both tendencies seeking to be persuasive in our world today, yet the saints witness to something both different and real – the incarnational and sacramental truth of the Christian faith.     

God truly present as opposed to a vague sense of God who is everywhere but really nowhere. 

This awareness is not some “add-on” nor corruption of true Christianity.  It is the essence of true Christianity and it is grounded in creation through the Word of God and the very incarnation of the Word of God.  Throughout the whole of Scripture we find this awareness being revealed and proclaimed.   

In today’s gospel (Mk. 12:28b-34) Jesus (who is the Word made flesh) specifically holds together the love of God and the love of neighbor in such a unity that the two cannot be separated.  Love, if it is to be true, must be present and real.  In the first Letter of John we have a developed reflection on this twofold commandment to love God and neighbor: Those who say, “I love God”, and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars: for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.  The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 Jn. 4:20-21)

Love of God and neighbor, if it is to be real, must be present.  And where true love is, present is God.  The saints reveal this truth to us – not just through what they did but through their very lives transformed and reflective of a God not content to remain removed but continually seeking to be present.