We Share in Christ's Authority Over Evil (4.B)

When someone says to me “you’ve just got to watch” a certain religious documentary or a movie or a TV show, my heart sinks.

I know the recommendation is probably a good one. But I only watch TV one night a week, on my day off, and I want to relax with old sitcoms or new political thrillers or the latest episode of The Crown.

Last week, Father Richard Conlin became the umpteenth person to praise The Chosen, the new TV show about the life of Jesus. I brushed him off with the explanation I’ve just shared with you. It didn't slow him down: he just kept on praising the program to the skies.

So, I gave up. On my day off, I watched episode one. Halfway through I texted Father Richard to say that I was dazzled by The Chosen.  It wasn’t like anything I expected.

Jesus appears only toward the end of the first program, so it wasn’t that the King of Kings beat out The Crown. The supporting cast—Peter, and Andrew, and Mary Magdalene—were as real as any reality show.

But the star of episode one was Nicodemus, a chief Pharisee whom we meet three times in the Gospel of John, where he comes to visit Jesus at night, defends him before the Sanhedrin, and assists Joseph of Arimathea in embalming the Lord’s body after his crucifixion. By that time, we presume, he has become a disciple.

All that lies well in the future, though. As The Chosen begins, Nicodemus is teaching young rabbis and cracking jokes with the comic timing of Jim Gaffigan or Eddie Murphy. He’s obviously a very popular speaker.

He’s also a deeply spiritual man. But when he’s called to exorcise a woman possessed by demons—we later learn that she is Mary Magdalene, although scholars would have a problem with that—he finds he’s out of his depth. He’s quite shaken by the power of the demons and his inability to help.

His wife tells Nicodemus “You have authority.” But he isn’t so sure. This revered rabbi seems to be having a vocational crisis.

With these images fresh in my mind, I read this Sunday’s Gospel. What a different story! The unclean spirits are still at work, as horrible as those who oppressed the woman to whom Nicodemus went. But the story ends in a completely different way.

Let’s be clear: the encounter between the good Pharisee and the woman called Mary Magdalene on The Chosen is fictional. But it’s hard to imagine that today’s encounter between Jesus and the man with the unclean spirit—which is not fictional—didn’t reach the ears of Nicodemus and draw him to Jesus.

Because there’s nothing like knowing your limits to draw you to the Lord who has none.

This miracle isn’t high on the list for modern minds. Most of us are more impressed by Jesus changing water into wine at Cana, the first miracle he performs in the Gospel of John.

But think about it—this is the first miracle in the tightly-written Gospel of Mark. This evangelist thought an exorcism was an appropriate start for his account of the ministry of Jesus. You remember last Sunday—Jesus called the first disciples. Now, with them in tow, he works his first miracle by casting out an evil spirit.

Look at how Mark presents the drama in the synagogue. The worshippers immediately connect the healing of the man to something Jesus has—not just power, but authority.

This miracle is not about showing the new disciples and the Capernaum community the Lord’s power to heal and help. Jesus shows he has the authority to begin the mission announced in last week’s Gospel: to proclaim the good news of God.

Why does this matter? Why does it matter a lot? Because Jesus is using his authority for a purpose, described by the wonderful scholar Mary Healy as dismantling the powers of darkness and advancing his assault on the kingdom of Satan. (Mark, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, p. 45.)

Even at the time of Jesus, when the distinction between illness and demonic possession was blurry, there weren’t crowds of possessed people running around. This miracle healed a man, but its purpose was to show Jesus had come to heal the world.

There’s renewed interest in exorcisms these days; we priests have a study day on the subject this Wednesday. But on the list of important topics, it’s not high on the list.

Authority, on the other hand, matters now more than ever. It’s a subject we rarely discuss, mainly because we often focus on the authority of the Pope and bishops in the Church. But it’s not what we’re talking about today.

Nicodemus had plenty of that kind of authority. He was a powerful religious leader. Jesus had none. But Nicodemus lacked the authority that Jesus had, a unique power to command not only the demons, but to forgive sins; even the wind and waves obey him, as we learn a few chapters later in Mark’s Gospel.

This was the power and authority that caused the onlookers in the synagogue such amazement.

But if all we do today is join the crowd in admiring the Lord’s authority, we miss something that’s crucial for every disciple. That something is our call to share his authority, to exercise it in his name.

Whoa, I can almost hear you saying in your living rooms. Didn’t Jesus delegate his authority to the apostles and their successors, the bishops? So he did, and in a unique way. In Luke’s Gospel he tells the apostles “he who hears you, hears me” (Lk. 10:16).

However, Jesus also shared his authority with each one of us, the disciples called through baptism to share his mission.

In baptism we were all given a share in Christ’s threefold ministry as priest, prophet, and king. With that comes the authority needed to act in his name.

Have you ever thought about the authority you’ve been given? Certainly, parents should be aware of their authority over their children, but there’s much more.

In his prophetic new book, A Church in Crisis, Ralph Martin writes that “there is a sense in which every Christian, simply by virtue of being a Christian, has a responsibility to challenge false teaching and immorality, even when we are not directly responsible.”

It reminded me of something that happened in another diocese some forty years ago. A priest was leading a bible study in a parishioner’s apartment, but he was saying things that went right against Church teaching. The elderly lady hosting the meeting, stood up and said calmly “Father, the things you are saying are not true. I will have to ask you to leave now.”

That’s authority.

Ralph Martin’s book is itself an example of how authority is legitimately exercised by the lay faithful in the Church. He speaks with more authority than some bishops, not by virtue of an office, not by the grace of ordination, but because he is consciously and humbly sharing in the prophetic ministry of Jesus.

How can we tell? One way is that Dr. Martin roots everything he says not in opinion or human wisdom but in quotations from the Word of God, just as Jesus often underpinned the exercise of his authority with words from the Old Testament.

It’s understandable that we can think it’s the bishops, priests and deacons who carry on the prophetic mission of Jesus. After all, they're the ones officially charged with proclaiming his Word. 

But Ralph Martin points out that this proclamation isn’t only about sound teaching and good homilies. All of us, he says, have “a particular call to participate deeply in the prophetic mission of Jesus.”

I’ve heard it said that Catholic parents or educators share in the infallibility of the Pope when they teach authentic doctrine to their children or students. But we all share in the authority of Jesus when we exercise the priestly, prophetic, and kingly calling we received in baptism.

I can’t tell you the number of times people ask me if it was okay for them to correct a serious error by someone close to them; maybe they’re afraid I’ll think they’re stealing my job. But it’s more than okay sometimes—it’s a duty.

Turning back to evil spirits, we also share Christ’s authority over them. Although exorcism in the strict sense is restricted to priests, any Catholic can tell the Evil One to get lost using the authority received from God in baptism. We are called to exercise authority even over our own minds and bodies when they oppose the law of the spirit with the law of the flesh, as St. Paul writes.

I was appointed pastor here in 2007, and head of the diaconate program in 2010, and a vicar of the archbishop in 2020. Each time, the Archbishop gave me the authority needed to accomplish the ministry he entrusted to me.

Important enough. But much more important, when I was baptized in 1955, God gave me the authority I need to take part in the Lord’s mission to overthrow the powers of darkness and to help build his Kingdom on earth.

So were all of you.

Father Richard Conlin shares more of his enthusiasm for The Chosen here. And if you don't mind a bit of a spoiler, you can find interesting blog posts about Nicodemus here and here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday of the Word of God

 

Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, was a man of contradictions. He was the drafter of the Declaration of Independence, which boldly proclaims that all men are created equal, with the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

At the same time, he owned hundreds of slaves and fathered several children by one of them.

These are well-known facts. But lately there’s been a lot of interest in another contradictory part of Jefferson’s life: his Christianity.

Jefferson professed to be a Christian but if he was, he was a most remarkable one. He decided to edit the Bible to suit his own beliefs. He literally cut-and-pasted his own Gospel with a razor and glue.

Jefferson’s Bible cuts out all the miracles of Jesus, including his Resurrection, along with any texts that suggest he is God.

But Jefferson’s Jesus is a dead moral teacher. You can’t have a personal relationship with him.

Might some of us be a bit like Thomas Jefferson, cutting and pasting our Bibles to produce a result we can be comfortable with? Or at least not trying to meet the living Lord in its pages?

It’s a good question to ask ourselves today, since it’s the second Sunday of the Word of God, an annual event that Pope Francis instituted last year with Aperuit Illis, a powerful letter to the Church. 

As Catholics, we are truly blessed with sacraments that strengthen and nourish us, but we need to remind ourselves—and not just once a year—that the Word of God also feeds our souls and heals our wounds.

A growing awareness of the importance of Scripture in the life of the Church is one of the many blessings from what’s called the ecumenical movement, the efforts made by Catholics and other Christians to learn from one another in a climate of mutual respect in order to promote Church unity.

This movement began some ninety years ago and has born much fruit since. The restoration of unity among all Christians became “one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council,” (Decree on Ecumenism, n.1) which praised the “love and reverence of Sacred Scripture” shown by our brothers and sisters in other Church communities (n. 21).

Today marks the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Pope Francis points out that “the celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God has ecumenical value, since the Scriptures point out, for those who listen, the path to authentic and firm unity”(Aperuit Illis, n. 3).

As we pray for the unity of Christians, a prayer very close to the heart of Jesus himself, we might also pray in gratitude for the good example of those Protestants who take the Bible so seriously.

Taking the Bible seriously is not an option for any Christian, Protestant or Catholic. In his usual forceful way, Pope Francis says that without a closer relationship with Sacred Scripture “our hearts will remain cold and our eyes shut, struck as we are by so many forms of blindness” (Aperuit Illis, n. 8).

I don’t know about you, but I find those words scary. The Pope isn’t just encouraging us to read Scripture more often, as already Vatican II and his predecessors had done. He is telling us that we desperately need the Bible to see clearly in this darkened world, “struck as we are by so many forms of blindness.”

We are blind without the Bible.

Honestly, stop and listen to his words again: “we need to develop a closer relationship with sacred Scripture; otherwise, our hearts will remain cold and our eyes shut.”

Of course, this isn’t just a negative message, frightening though it is. It is good news, wonderful news: “Christ Jesus is knocking at our door in the words of sacred Scripture,” Pope Francis adds. “If we hear his voice and open the doors of our minds and hearts, then he will enter our lives and remain ever with us”(Aperuit Illis, n. 8).

Brothers and sisters, I was wrong about this pandemic. I lived through the panic of the SARS virus and other scares, so I was confident things would be back to normal in six months. If I’d had any idea how long the crisis would last, or how we would be stopped from gathering for Mass, I would have approached things very differently.

We have focused on making sure the sacraments are as available as we can make them—hearing confessions outside, livestreaming Mass, trying to make it possible for every parishioner to come to church every Sunday when that was allowed, and now distributing Holy Communion outside each week.

There’s sure nothing wrong with those efforts, and I am proud of them.

But if we knew we would be kept away from the Lord’s Table for so long, we might have shifted gears: because in his letter on the Sunday of the Word of God, Pope Francis reminds us of something crucial: Sacred Scripture and the sacraments are inseparable.

Maybe we should have challenged ourselves to make this the year of the Word of God and not just the Sunday of the Word of God. Maybe we should have looked more to the Bible for the nourishment of our souls when we were cut off from Holy Communion.

I don’t know about you, but if someone played one of those word games where you had to complete a phrase beginning with “Bible” I would have called out “Study.” Nothing wrong about studying the Bible, of course, but there’s so much more.

As the Pope says, we need a close relationship to God’s Word. Study is part of that, of course, but only a part. And speaking of relationship—people sometimes ask me, even with some frustration, how they can find the personal relationship with Jesus they hear so much about in our parish.

A big part of the answer, alongside prayer and sacraments, is Scripture. A closer relationship with Scripture means a closer relationship with Jesus.

St. Jerome said as much when he wrote that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

And the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active.” Read in faith, the Bible is an encounter, a place of meeting with God himself.

The Gospels are, of course, a privileged place to meet Jesus, to come to know him, to accept his invitation to “come and see.” But they are not the only place where our relationship deepens. We meet the Lord throughout the Bible, in his plan for creation revealed in Genesis, in the prophecies of Isaiah and the other great prophets, and especially in the Psalms.

Pope Francis reminds us that in the Book of Nehemiah the Old Testament gives us one of the great stories of an entire community encountering God through his word. When the people of Israel returned to their homeland after their exile, they gathered for the public reading of Scripture. And all the people wept as they discovered their own experience in the sacred text.(Aperuit Illis, n. 4).

When we gather again after the exile the pandemic has imposed on us, I hope our parish community will also hear God’s word in a new and powerful way.

I admit to you that I don’t spend as much time with my Bible as I should. I remember very clearly one young man who told me his motto was “no Bible, no breakfast, no Bible, no bed.” If I lived by that I would be hungry and sleepy. But I’ve never forgotten what he said.

But let me conclude with a personal experience of the Word as living and active, working in my heart and strengthening my relationship to Scripture.

After Communion at Mass last Sunday, the choir sang Psalm 139, one of my favourites.  Of course, it was beautiful, like everything we hear from our blessed choir loft.

But it wasn’t the exquisite music that left me holding back tears. It was the encounter with the inspired words, the encounter with the living Word that opened my eyes and warmed my heart.

Is there a passage from the Bible that’s special to you like that? Not one that gives you moral guidance as much as it connects you to God?

If not, today might be a good day to go looking. The choir will sing Psalm 139 again at Communion time today. It might touch you as it touched me. Or maybe you can look up a passage in your Bible that was once important to you.

You might start to read one of the Gospels—Mark’s, the simplest, or John’s, the richest.

If you’d like me to suggest a few scriptures which might help you find the heart-warming relationship the Pope talks about on his letter, feel free to send me an email and I will reply with a few references.

And the weekly update on the website gives some ideas for both Bible study and lectio divina, prayer with Scripture.

We should all do something on this Sunday of the Word of God. But let’s be guided by these last words from Pope Francis:

“A day devoted to the Bible should not be seen as a yearly event but rather a year-long event, for we urgently need to grow in our knowledge and love of the Scriptures and of the risen Lord, who continues to speak his word and to break bread in the community of believers.”(Aperuit Illis, n. 8).

Oil and Water Do Mix! (Baptism of the Lord B)

 

Wine, milk, and bread all appear in today’s first reading. Sounds a bit like a shopping list.  Of course, water is there too, and in the responsorial psalm. That’s what you’d expect on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

But one thing is missing from this list of very basic ingredients. Oil. And that’s what I’d like to talk about today.

You might ask why. The answer comes in the Preface of today’s Mass, where we ask God that through the Holy Spirit “we might know that Christ your Servant has been anointed with the oil of gladness.”

We know all about the powerful symbolism of the water with which Jesus was baptized. But where does oil come into the story?

The “oil of gladness” comes from one of Isaiah’s great prophecies, the famous passage in chapter 61 that begins “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.” This is the text that Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth early in his ministry.

And in the tenth chapter of Acts, St. Peter speaks of “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.”

Jesus was baptized with water—the Gospel makes that very clear. But he was anointed too, although there’s not a drop of actual oil in the story.

The symbol of oil deserves more attention than we usually give it. For one thing, oil is central to three sacraments—Confirmation, Holy Orders, and the anointing of the sick—and oils are used in a fourth, Baptism, where babies are anointed with the oil of catechumens before and with the oil of chrism after.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us a lot about the richness and symbolism of oil.  In the Bible and in ancient times generally, oil is a sign of abundance and joy; it was used in bathing, much as bath oil is today, and to help loosen up the muscles of athletes and wrestlers.

Oil was a healing ointment, soothing to bruises and injuries—remember how the Good Samaritan pours oil and wine of the wounds of the injured man. And it was used in cosmetics, to make people shine with beauty and health, and strength. (See n. 1293)

Even today, the Catechism teaches, anointing with oil has all these meanings in the sacramental life.

“The pre-baptismal anointing with the oil of catechumens signifies cleansing and strengthening; the anointing of the sick expresses healing and comfort. The post-baptismal anointing with sacred chrism in Confirmation and ordination is the sign of consecration.

“By Confirmation Christians, that is, those who are anointed, share more completely in the mission of Jesus Christ and the fullness of the Holy Spirit with which he is filled” (n. 1294).

I thought it might be good, therefore, to take a break from talking about water on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord this year, and to think about oil instead.

What does it mean for us that Jesus was anointed with the oil of gladness at his Baptism, and that we have been anointed with oil at our baptism, and especially at Confirmation?

We find some good answers in the rites of baptism and confirmation.

When an adult convert is anointed with the oil of catechumens, the priest or deacon begins by recalling that Jesus was anointed by the Spirit and asks him to strengthen the person with his power.

In the baptism of children, the celebrant prays that God protect the child through life before using the same anointing prayer used with catechumens.

After baptism, oil takes on an even more special meaning.

In the Old Testament prophets were anointed. Priests were anointed. Kings were anointed. And so, the post baptismal prayer for infants says, “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so may you live always a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.”

In the confirmation of adults at the Easter Vigil, we pray that God will pour out the Holy Spirit to strengthen the newly baptized with his gifts and anoint them to be more like Christ.

Even with its rich Old Testament background, the anointing at Confirmation can only be fully understood in relation to the primary anointing of Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

The descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus at his baptism was the sign that he was the Messiah, which means the anointed one. But “this fullness of the Spirit was not to remain uniquely the Messiah’s but was to be communicated to the whole messianic people” (CCC 1286).

We are that messianic people, sharing in Christ’s own anointing by the Holy Spirit.

With all this in mind, we might wonder why the holy oils don’t get more attention, even physically, in our parish. After all, we bless ourselves with holy water every time we come into church—or at least we used to!

Thanks to the encouragement of one of our dedicated sacristans, and the talents of a generous parishioner, I am delighted to tell you that the holy oils will now have a place of honour at Christ the Redeemer—to serve as a constant reminder of the sacramental graces that they symbolize.

When Rina Teo suggested the baptismal font in the Holy Family chapel should have an ambry—ambry is the fancy name for a repository for the holy oils—she started a ball rolling in the direction of Donal O’Callaghan.

Donal, an architect and a talented carpenter, took on the project from design to completion. Last week during a special ritual blessing we placed the three holy oils—the oil of the sick, the oil of catechumens, and the sacred chrism—in the three hand-crafted cabinets.

Let’s give thanks for the anointings we have received in baptism and confirmation, and may receive in future through the healing sacrament of the sick, as we watch the short blessing now.

May we all be more like Jesus, anointed with the oil of gladness by the Holy Spirit!

Holy Mother of God, Pray for Us

 

It is New Year’s Day, as you all know, and the World Day of Peace. Liturgically, it is the eighth day from the birth of Jesus and thus the day we mark his naming and the Jewish ritual of circumcision.

And just in case that isn’t enough for one tired congregation, today we celebrate Mary with her most ancient title, Mother of God.

That title tells us as much or more about the Son than it does about the mother. It affirms that “Mary is truly ‘Mother of God’ since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself” (CCC 509).

So where shall we begin? Let’s start with the New Year. All that really needs to be said about this New Year is that we sure hope it will be better than the old year!

Of course, we can do more than hope – we can pray. The First Reading contains an ancient blessing. We will echo it at the end of Mass, but all of us should be praying now that the Lord blesses us and our loved ones as 2021 begins its uncertain start.

As for the World Day of Peace, we can remember what Pope St. Paul VI said when he established this day in 1968. He asked that a world day of peace be observed “as a hope and a promise” at the beginning of every new year.

The octave day of Christmas is another focus today, reminding us of the Holy Name of Jesus. The name he was given by the angel is given by his parents during the Jewish ritual; it is the name that sums up all our hope as we celebrate his birth.

The angel told Joseph “you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” God gave him the name, St. Paul says, “that is above every name.” St. Peter, preaching in Jerusalem proclaimed that “there is no other name under heaven… by which we must be saved.”

 Today we recall what we heard the angels announce to the shepherds and to us at Christmas: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

So, there we have four important and beautiful things to keep in our hearts at Mass today: peace, the Incarnation, salvation, and the new year.

However, we can’t stop there. I’ve mentioned the importance of calling Mary the Mother of God, with the emphasis on “God”. But how can we fail to spend a moment or two placing the emphasis on “mother”?

Like many of you, I have been watching The Crown on Netflix. It has many inaccuracies, but one thing it gets right is the Queen’s family protocol. Although her daughter curtseys to her and her sons bow, they kiss her first.

I think that’s exactly the right order of things. The Queen is acknowledged first as a mother and then as a sovereign. Today, we must not forget the beautiful fact of Mary’s motherhood even as we remember that her Son was God.

The Catechism tells us that although Jesus is Mary's only son her spiritual motherhood extends to all those he came to save (CCC 501). As St. Paul says in his Letter to the Romans, God planned that his Son “might be the first-born within a large family” (Rm 8:29).

With a mother’s love, Mary continues to help us to be born again as Christians and to be formed as disciples of her Son.

This must be the first time I’ve managed to talk about all the main elements of the liturgy for January 1st. But I am assuming that those of you watching today, having been so limited in your New Year’s Eve festivities, are more patient and less tired than usual!

 I also hope that this year we are more aware than ever of our need for salvation, for God’s blessings, and for peace in our hearts and in the world.

May Mary, our mother, intercede for us as we ask her Son for all that we need for a holy and healthy life in 2021.