The Holy Spirit Does the Work (Easter 6.C)

Not long after I came to the parish, a couple of young men started a social group with some help from me and our hardworking housekeeper.

Their plan was to play poker and eat my food.

But very soon, they abandoned the plan, at least the poker playing part, and founded M.E.A.T.—Men Eating and Talking.

Over the years, MEAT went from the five or six men at the rectory dining room table to as many as thirty. I shudder to think of how much pasta and pizza the members devoured.

Eventually, for a variety of reasons, we disbanded. But the fruits of this group continue to this day.

Three of the MEAT men, including one of the founders, joined Catholic Christian Outreach. Two are lay missionaries to this day. One of the occasional visitors is now a priest. Another went to the seminary. And I’ve celebrated marriages and baptisms for members of the group.

The devil may yet prove me wrong, but I don’t know any regular member of the group who doesn’t practice the faith. I don’t know of one who choose to live with a girlfriend; all their marriages were in the Church, many to Catholic women.

What was the secret? Simple: in their fellowship with one another, the men who were eating and talking learned from each other that Christian life was real, and possible.

We might say that their enthusiasm for the faith was caught, not taught.

Today, Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit. He says clearly that the faith gets taught by the Spirit, who will teach us everything. But the Lord could just as easily have said that we are caught by the Spirit—captured by his action within us.

We see the Spirit at work in today’s first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. False teachers are at work, but the Spirit guides the apostles in setting things right. Because what’s taught in the Church must, of course, be true.

In the second reading, St. John is carried away “in the spirit.” This could be read as meaning he was carried away “in spirit,” but I think it’s fair to say he was given this vision “in the Spirit”—by the Holy Spirit.

It’s not a teaching moment for John. He’s not being given a definition or even a literal description of heaven—he’s having an experience of it. He is caught up in this vision, caught up in the beauty of what God promises him and all believers.

This is how the Holy Spirit works best—by giving us an experience. This is how faith was caught when those young men met in the rectory—by an experience of Christian community in which God was at work.

Parents, teachers, and priests all worry about how to make the faith relevant to the younger generation and how to adapt it to a changing culture. But, in a certain sense, that’s not our job but the Holy Spirit’s.

In the first reading, we see a clash of cultures—between that of the emerging Church and existing Jewish beliefs.

The answer wasn’t obvious. The first Christians were Jews, faithful Jews, and it made some sense for Christianity to remain a Jewish movement. But when the apostles gathered and invoked the Holy Spirit—we don’t hear the whole story in this shortened passage—God showed his plan clearly, and they communicated it to the believers.

The Church has consistently asked the Spirit for help in meeting the demands of each generation, most recently at the Second Vatican Council. The Spirit will help each of us do the same in our homes, schools, and parishes—if we ask, if we pray for guidance.

The content of our Catholic faith is, of course, absolutely important. Without orthodox belief, we would be a ship without a sail. But the Spirit fills our sails with more than doctrine and teachings, however important they are.

A famous Anglican preacher wrote that “a Christian is someone caught by Christ’s spirit, the Holy Spirit, encountered in the life of some other man or woman, and in the worshipping community we call ‘the Church.’

 “And when we have been caught, then Jesus of Nazareth steps out of the pages ohistory, where he is not walled in, and becomes for us… the Christ whom we worship and in whose name we pray.” (D.W. Cleverley Ford, Preaching on Great Themes, p. 83)

How will this happen here at Christ the Redeemer?

More than one of our parishioners is blessed with what St. Paul (see Rm 12:6, 1 Cor 12:28, 29; 13:1-3, 8; 14:6, and Eph 4:11) calls the gift of prophecy, which doesn’t mean they stand on the church steps shouting out like John the Baptist.

We don’t talk much about prophecy, but St. Paul mentions it more than any of the other spiritual gifts. And although he doesn’t necessarily present them in order of importance, we usually find the gift of prophecy near the top of the list.

A while back, one of these parishioners gave the parish a simple prophetic message: “We need more Holy Spirit.”

“We need more Holy Spirit.” Those words are simple, but they have the power to change our lives.

Changed lives don’t happen automatically from good programs or good liturgies or even good teaching. The Spirit does the real work of evangelization, of conversion, and of growth.

As St. Paul tells the Christians in Corinth “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:6).

Parents and teachers planted seeds in those young men who gathered in the rectory, their fellowship watered the seeds, but God made them bear a rich harvest.

Only with the Spirit’s help will faith be both taught and caught by those who are following in the footsteps of the MEAT men and of the young women who formed their female counterpart, a smaller group called Imprint.

(If you are wondering why I have only talked about the men it’s because I didn’t belong to the women’s group so there’s less I can say!)

Only if we ask will we receive the Spirit’s help. Pentecost is around the corner—two Sundays from now. It’s time to pray for more of the Spirit in our parish as we rebuild after the pandemic.

Let’s pray for more of the Spirit in our families and schools.

Most of all, let’s pray for more of the Spirit—a real outpouring—in our own hearts.

How do we do that? It’s sure not difficult: all we need to do is pray three words morning and evening for the next two weeks, and especially for the nine days before Pentecost.

“Come, Holy Spirit!” Words of power that ask God to grant us a faith that is not only taught but caught.

All Called to be Shepherds Like Christ! (Easter 4.C)

 

Turn on the evening news, read the paper, or watch TV, and you’ll think this is a very violent world. Crime seems to be everywhere, almost the greatest risk of everyday life.

Well, let me tell you the true crime story for four generations of my family. My grandmother had her purse snatched in the carport of her apartment building more than forty years ago. End of story.

A purse-snatching. Not so scary. But not nice either, because it’s unexpected and sudden. In a single moment you lose many things of value, from money to keys, and you wonder where your credit cards will end up.

Today we hear Jesus talking about sheep snatching. Earlier in this chapter of John’s Gospel he talks about the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy; this verse is more about kidnapping than murder. Both, of course, are violent crimes that represent here the theft or murder of a soul.

Are we more afraid of  a thug in a parking lot than of the one who can steal our souls?

We should be. Sometimes the sheep-snatcher tries to carry off a lamb who belongs to us—a child, a sibling, a student, a friend.

We’ve almost all had the pain of seeing a loved one “fall away,” as we like to say. Maybe we should say “snatched away.”

But how does that square with what Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand”? Is Jesus keeping his promise to protect his flock?

We know that God keeps his promises. If people are walking away from his flock, it can’t be that they’ve been snatched from the loving arms of the Good Shepherd. They must freely be leaving the sheepfold and wandering off. They can’t be taken violently, but they can leave freely.

There’s some consolation in this. Our fallen-away friends are not victims but free people. And we ourselves are not at the mercy of the Evil One and his schemes—the Good Shepherd is guarding us if we remain a part of his flock.

How does the Good Shepherd guard and protect us?

First, through the ministry of bishops. If Catholics couldn’t be sure of the truth, they would be easy pray for the snatcher of sheep. They wouldn’t recognize a wolf in sheep’s clothing, because his falsehoods would be camouflaged as new ideas, fresh ideologies, or just plain modern thinking.

Christ’s gracious plan protects those the Father has given him by allowing any member of the flock to recognize deception; whenever we hear doctrines or ideas in conflict with the authentic teaching office of the Church we know the sheep-snatcher is on the prowl.

Authentic apostolic teaching is the first protective fence around the flock of Christ. Brave bishops are good shepherds. This year, on the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I think we should be praying that the Lord calls good men to be his bishops. Not only that, we should also pray that those whom he calls have the courage to say yes.

Second, through the ministry of priests. I can’t recall a parishioner who was faithful to Confession leaving the Church, although I am sure it’s happened. Faithful attendance at Mass also makes us strong, less vulnerable to being carried away from the sheepfold. It’s hard to go from worshipping the Lord with gladness, singing in his presence—as the Psalm says today—to rejecting Christ or his Church.

The increasing shortage of priests will soon mean decreased opportunities for Sunday Mass, especially outside of cities, and fewer opportunities for the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When we pray for more vocations to the priesthood, we are praying for ourselves, that we will be shepherded by priests who are instruments of God’s grace and mercy.

Third, through the ministry of parents. Although we associate Good Shepherd Sunday with priests and religious, the vocation of the Christian mother and father has never been more crucial. Let’s face it: who tended Christ’s flock in my family with care and sacrifice? My mother and father, and especially my mother who as was normal in those days did the lion’s share of shepherding her lambs!

I once argued that the reason our prayer for vocations mentions only priests, deacons, and consecrated men and women was that there was no shortage of marriages, so we didn’t really need to pray for those. Of all the things I’ve got wrong over the years, this is near the top.

In the first place, there is a shortage of marriages! Outside the Church, cohabitation has taken its place. And even among good practicing young Catholics such factors as housing costs and social uncertainties have meant a plummeting number of marriages in almost every parish.

But more than that, we desperately need to understand marriage as a calling from God, a calling as indispensable as any ordained vocation. Every time I talk with Catholic teachers, in both secondary and elementary schools, I hear how the partnership between school and family falls apart when parents do not realize they are called to be shepherds—good shepherds, loving shepherds, countercultural shepherds.

Neither the best teacher nor the best pastor can protect the young without help at home.

Today is Mother’s Day. We honour our mothers. We give thanks for our mothers. But let’s also pray for the next generation of mothers, for they will need to be a sort of “tiger mother” to protect their children from the daily attacks they face in our confused society.

Finally, the Good Shepherd must have the help of every member of Christ’s Church. Every single one of us—priests, deacons, mothers, fathers, unmarried people—has a call to be a shepherd of the lambs and sheep around us.

As with so much else, our responsibility to shepherd one another comes from baptism and confirmation. This is particularly easy to see at the baptism of infants when the child is anointed with the oil of chrism. The celebrant says, “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so may you live always as a member of his body.”

What kind of a King was Christ? Like King David, he was a shepherd-king. So too with us. We are all called in baptism to lead others, young and old, with authority and courage, even into battle with the thief and kidnapper of their souls.

I watched a so-called “ordinary” parishioner take hold of the shepherd’s crook at our on Friday morning men’s group when he gave a presentation as part of our series on the Ten Commandments.

He had been assigned the two commandments modern society most rejects: the fifth, which deals with life issues such as abortion and assisted suicide, and the sixth, which covers human sexuality. Without hesitation or compromise, he shared solid Catholic teaching with the other men.

He led us directly from present confusion to the green pastures of solid truth.

Not everyone gets a chance to give a talk about the fifth and sixth commandments. I don’t recommend it at the dinner table with your teenagers.

What I do recommend is a lot easier. Lead your friends and family members to still waters. That’s what they’ll find next week at our “Water in the Desert” event on Saturday evening.

In a time of quiet and prayer, they can meet the Good Shepherd himself.

Abundant Catch, Abundant Grace (Easter 3)

 

We all have different tastes, so I expect some of you like my homilies and some of you don’t. But one thing’s for sure—you can all be glad that I am not a saint! Because if one of the ancient Church fathers or the great doctors of the Church came to preach at Christ the Redeemer most of us would be left scratching our heads.

The homilies of these saints are full of meaning and insight, but they sure weren’t easy listening.

Still, the heavy hitters of early centuries had some fun with today’s Gospel—because, like us, they were struck by that curious number 153 in the story of the miraculous catch of fish.

We are used to symbolic numbers in the Bible. Twelve apostles, twelve tribes of Israel, ten commandments, and so on. But 153? That’s an odd number, and not just mathematically.

Many centuries ago, three of the greatest Christian thinkers tried to figure out the meaning of the 153 fish.

St. Augustine had the most fun with the number. He wrote that the catch of fish represents salvation, which requires keeping the ten commandments. But, on account of original sin, we cannot keep the commandments without the help of grace and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the number seven signifies holiness, since God blessed the seventh day and made it holy (Gen 2:3).

But 10 plus 7 equals 17, and if all the numbers from 1 to 17 are added together (1+2+3…+17), they equal 153. Hence, the 153 fish signify that all the God’s chosen people are to be saved by the gift of grace (7) and the following of the commandments (10).

How’s that for holy arithmetic?

My patron saint, Pope Gregory the Great says: There are ten Commandments representing the Old Testament plus seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which also represents the New Testament, which added together make seventeen. This, times three times three, for our faith in the Trinity makes 153.

Much simpler is the theory of St. Jerome: In his time, they thought that there were only 153 species of fish in all the world. So, the disciples caught 153 fish, signifying the salvation of all the world.

Did all these great saints get the meaning of the miracle wrong?

Or did they all get it right? Not in mathematical terms, but spiritually. Because their convoluted answers teach us to pay attention to details.

The famous modern architect Mies van der Rohe said “God is in the details.” He was talking about buildings, of course, but his words apply to our spiritual journey also: God speaks in the details of our daily life and invites us to find him there.

The French spiritual writer Jean Pierre de Caussade wrote of “the sacrament of the present moment”—the place where we find God at work in all things and respond to him there.

De Caussade taught that there is not a single moment in life when we can say: this is an instant God has forgotten, an empty moment.

We just need to look to find God in everyday life.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that God has more than one way of speaking with us. Certainly, he meets us in church. But he also meets us at breakfast.

At the afternoon Mass on Easter Sunday, we heard the beautiful story of Jesus meeting the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He spoke with them by explaining Scripture and showed himself in the breaking of bread. That direct communication is important.

But it’s not the only way. In today’s Gospel Jesus communicates with the disciples while they are at work. The amazing catch of fish is not exactly an everyday occurrence, but it’s something the apostles could easily understand.

And then he meets them not at a eucharistic table but at breakfast on the beach. The Lord makes his presence known to us in all kinds of ways if we will look for him in the events of our lives.

For all we know, Jesus didn’t have any number in mind when he granted the apostles a miraculous catch. You can ask Father Lucio or any fisherman — if you want to describe a whale of a catch, 153 is as good number as any!

Perhaps it was St. John who recognized that 153 represented abundance, that in counting the fish the apostles were counting their blessings, which were beyond number.

Maybe we can do something of the sort. Having three slices of pizza on my plate has nothing to do with the Trinity, that’s for sure. But it’s a reminder of an abundance of food at a time when many are hungry.

I made seven trips to Toronto to see my brother as he began recovering from his stroke. The seven sacraments were not part of my planning—yet I found God present and at work during every visit, often through the Eucharist and the anointing of the sick, but also in small details like the consistent welcome at the hotel where I stayed.

Perhaps this week you can keep an eye out for God’s presence in your life, for the ways he calls you to be aware of his love. Let’s cast the net and find him in daily details.

At the same time, we can’t forget that 153 fish reminds us of the rich and abundant life offered us by the Risen Lord. Graces overflow in this joyful Easter season and God calls us to land that catch in our daily lives.