My Soul is Tired: But God Cares (Lent 2.B)

My great friend in Ireland, Father Barry Horan, is one of the happiest and most delightful priests you'll ever meet. I hope you will meet him when travelling is possible again.

But when Father Barry sends me a book, it’s usually a serious one—he's a very smart man who realizes that happiness is a serious problem.

For Christmas he sent me a book by the American writer Robert Wicks called Heartstorming: Creating a Place God Can Call Home. When I picked it up this week the book fell open to a chapter titled “My Soul is Tired.”

And that, dear friends, sums up how I feel this Second Sunday of Lent. My soul is tired.

I’m sure many of you feel the same way; in fact, I know many of you feel the same way, since you’ve told me what you’re dealing with. In the months since Christmas, there’s been more sorrow and struggle in the parish than there was in the first ten months of the pandemic.

This is not the place for details—but, trust me, there’s a lot of suffering out there.

Not all these rough things are a direct result of the pandemic. Some are just coincidence. But there’s much happening to make my own soul feel very weary.

Robert Wicks writes about the “gray” times in our lives. And he says that we can truly benefit from them if we don’t just ignore or play down our troubled feelings.

Our “low” points, he says, can bring spiritual blessings if we intentionally bring God into the times that are “difficult, disappointing, troubling, confusing… or sad.”

I don’t know about you, but my first thought is to ask God to get rid of these feelings, not to invite him in. But Wicks says by exploring them with God we can learn a great deal about ourselves and, more importantly, a great deal about God’s love.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul teaches that bad times are never the worst of times if we face them knowing God’s love. The apostle is writing about some of the terrible things he’s had to deal with—worse than what most of us face. Can misery separate us from the love of Christ? Is there anything so awful that it overwhelms God’s love in our hearts?

Paul all but shouts: No! No, whether life is all dark or just gray, God is with us, for us, and loving us.

He certainly knew Psalm 116, which we heard just before the second reading. He would have prayed it with conviction in all the many trials he faced: “I kept my faith, even when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’”

I want to be able to pray those words myself in every difficulty. I want to keep my own faith strong, even in the roughest of times. But how?

Paul offers a two-part answer: first, by trusting that God is for us, not against us. He wants our good and our happiness. Second, by understanding that God who gave his only Son for us—the greatest gift imaginable—will not now abandon us to our troubles.

In case we miss that message, the first reading underlines it in red with the story of Abraham and Isaac. It still sends a chill up our spines. We don’t know how God the Father felt about sending his Son for us, since that’s beyond human comprehension. But we can all imagine how Abraham felt. This ancient story helps us to appreciate how much love there is behind the incarnation and the suffering of Christ.

Knowing about such love, can we really think that God doesn’t care about our gray times, our low times, our hard times?

So where does the Gospel account of the Transfiguration fit in?

First, it reminds us that Jesus does care about how we feel. Since the Transfiguration is only a foretaste of the Resurrection, it’s important not for what happened but for why it happened. Jesus is strengthening these key disciples to face his suffering and death. He cares enough to want to strengthen them in advance with a preview of the happy ending to the story of his Passion.

He wants us also to be strengthened by his Resurrection from the dead—to be strong enough to face any and every trial. As today’s Psalm says, “I kept my faith, even when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’”

The Transfiguration also says something to us in our current circumstances. Jesus granted Peter and James and John more than knowledge; he gave them an experience—an experience not only of himself but of Elijah and Moses, who were so present on the mountain that Peter wanted to build them each a little chalet.

No less than on the mount of Transfiguration, Jesus wants us to experience his glory, the Law and the Prophets, and each other. He wants to gather us around him, right here in this church.

Only he can’t—at least not without getting a ticket from the Health Authority.

Yet Christians are an experiential, incarnational, and existential community. We are meant to gather. It is not good to be together only virtually.

Patiently we have waited; obediently we have waited. But the closing of churches—without sufficient evidence to justify it—has gone on too long. I am very pleased to tell you that Archbishop Miller has filed a formal request for reconsideration of the health order that has kept us away from Mass. And I encourage you to read the letter he’s written to Catholics explaining the reason for his decision.

Let us pray hard for a just and favourable response to the Archbishop’s request. Let us pray that before much longer we’ll look around this church and pray, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”

And between now and then, let’s do some heartstorming, asking God into our gray times so he can show us his love and peace.

Ambassadors for Christ - Ash Wednesday

 

What are you doing a week from tomorrow?

If you’re like most of us, you’re doing the same thing tomorrow and next week and the week after that. No-one is heading to Hawaii, there are no birthday parties on our calendars, and nobody’s asked you over for dinner.

We all agree that an empty calendar is a disappointment. But it’s also an opportunity—an opportunity to have the best Lent ever.

“Best Lent Ever” is a powerful phrase coined by Matthew Kelly, the popular Catholic speaker and writer. Every year he offers a video series to help people grow in Lent through prayer.

This year, he says “it’s not what you give up this Lent, it’s who you become.”

Can I ask you to look at this in a slightly different way? The invitation sounds a little bit me-centered.  Now that’s okay—Christians need to grow in personal responsibility through prayer, penance, and almsgiving. But what if we zoomed out and said it’s not what we give up this Lent, it’s who we help?

It’s not a huge stretch to change our focus from me to we, if I can use a phrase from the unfortunate Kielburger brothers.  The second reading puts it right in front of us: we are ambassadors. We are people on a mission. And our own holiness can’t be separated from the needs of others.

 It’s hard to think of a time when people needed people more than they do right now. A Lent centered on self-improvement alone just doesn’t quite cut it.

This year we'd better not follow the readings too closely. If the prophet Joel’s words inspire us to assemble a congregation of the young and old, brides and grooms, we will get shut down by the health authority. If we urge and entreat our friends and neighbours in imitation of St. Paul, they will shut us down.

Instead, I suggest we offer people what they need—a path to return to the Lord, a path to return to his Church, and a path out of the isolation imposed by the pandemic.

Fr. Jeff and I were delighted to see many familiar faces as we distributed ashes today, and Holy Communion on Sundays. But there are many faces we don’t see, even on Zoom. Some are uncomfortable with the computer, some don’t drive, while others may be nervous just going out.

Would you be Christ’s ambassadors to these parishioners this Lent?

Instead of giving up, would you reach out?

There’s only so much the parish can do without the help of dozens or hundreds of you. You have a network of people you know from church and haven’t been in touch with since the lockdown. Could you phone or email them? Could you send a card?

Of course, you don’t know who’s been away from parish activities, so in order to connect with the people who need a connection most, you’ll need to work at this. But if Lent isn’t a time for dedicated service, what is?

On Sunday, Fr. Jeff will suggest some of the practical ways we can invite people to be part of parish life as it is at present.

Everyone knows the three-legged stool on which Lent rests: prayer, penance, and charity. Becoming a parish ambassador checks all three boxes. Obviously, what I’m proposing is an act of charity—one that not only offers emotional support but spiritual help too.

Of course, we must pray for God to guide us when deciding to whom we should reach out, and pray for those people when we do connect, and afterwards. We can even tell them we’re doing that.

But I think this Lenten project also ticks the box marked penance, at least for many of us. We can feel nervous reaching out—we might be uncomfortable contacting people we don’t know very well.

What’s wrong with that? What is fasting, what is giving up coffee or alcohol, but making ourselves feel uncomfortable for a purpose?

Maybe it’s not what we give up, but who we become: ambassadors for Christ, helping our brothers and sisters in the parish rediscover fellowship and joy this difficult Lent.

Called to Community (6.B)

 

Mrs. McMurtry from Christ the Redeemer and Mrs. Antonucci from St. Anthony’s Parish were bragging to each other about their pastors.

“My pastor can speak Italian,” Mrs. McMurtry boasted to Mrs. Antonucci, “but yours only speaks English.”

“Maybe so,” Mrs. Antonucci replied, “but my pastor speaks good English while your Monsignor speaks bad Italian.”

Okay, it’s not a true story. But my rusty Italian is good enough to spot the Italian origin of one of the pandemic’s top ten words: isolation. The first part of isolation, i-s-o-l-a is isola, the Italian word for island.

When someone with Covid symptoms is told to isolate, he or she is asked to stay on an island—a desert island, like a castaway.

But in the immortal words of the English poet John Donne, “No man is an island.” We're not built for isolation.

People who have had Covid tell us how difficult quarantine can be; they’ve felt disoriented and cut off. And it’s no surprise—humans are social, created in the image of God who is himself three persons in unity.

The same is true for countless elderly persons locked down in care facilities or hospitals.

In the Book of Genesis, God said, “it is not good for man to be alone,” and so he created Eve to join Adam—there is something fundamentally wrong with alone-ness.

When our first reading was written 2700 years ago, and when today’s Gospel unfolded 2000 years ago, the leper’s torment was as much the isolation and exclusion from society as the disease itself.

This reading from the book of Leviticus offers a grim picture of the leper’s fate.  Already afflicted by illness—which may or may not have been leprosy—he is ordered to turn himself into something out of a horror movie, ensuring no one would even think of approaching.

Before the invention of antibiotics, which today cure most cases of Hansen’s Disease, the modern name for leprosy, you could call it a fate worse than death.

The curse of leprosy in the ancient world was far grimmer than this pandemic, although it’s hard not to make a connection between the leper’s face covering and our masks, or with his isolation and current quarantine restrictions.

Can you blame the leper in the Gospel story for telling anyone who would listen that Jesus had healed him? What a burden the Lord lifted from him, body and soul! How do you keep joyful news like that to yourself?

So, what’s the key message for us in this morning’s Gospel? Is it that Jesus can work healing miracles, or is there something more?

I think the Word of God today might be telling us that Jesus wants to end our isolation. Even in a pandemic, he calls us into community.

In the first place, he invites us to community with God—to enter into relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Europe's oldest person, a French nun, survived Covid and a lengthy period of isolation, recovering in time to celebrate her 117^th birthday last week.  I wasn’t surprised to read that prayer helped her face her illness and even the prospect of death itself with great peace.

Even cooped up in her room, she was never truly alone.

In the second place, Jesus wants us to experience Christian community—fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. No man, or woman, is an island in the Church. Almost everyone I have spoken to during the pandemic mentions losing what we might call “family ties” in the parish second only to the restriction of the sacraments themselves.

For some, it’s the after-Mass coffee they miss the most; for others, just the cheery greeting exchanged as the leave church. But for all, the pandemic has underlined the importance of being together on our journey as disciples of the Lord.

Strengthening our spirit of community must be a top priority in the parish as the pandemic drags on.

Solidarity is closely related to community. Christians are called to stand together, united even in our sinfulness. Each year, on Ash Wednesday, we line up together as fellow penitents to receive the mark of ashes on our foreheads.

This year, Ash Wednesday will look different. Instead of approaching the altar and hearing those famous words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” parishioners will stay in their cars and have the ashes sprinkled silently on their heads.

It will look different, but receiving the ashes is still an act of solidarity with our brothers and sisters, uniting us in opposition to the isolation of sin.

I did a bit of research this week and discovered that there were more parishioners than I thought who don’t take part in the livestream Mass. Obviously, there is no commandment or Church law requiring people to watch. It’s certainly not the same as attending Mass.

However, the livestream—even without a coffee hour or folks to smile at—keeps alive our community connection. Receiving Holy Communion after the Mass gives us a brief but beautiful moment of physical connection with the parish. Most importantly, receiving the Eucharist deepens our community—our communion—with God.

Our Lenten plan for the parish aims to deepen our connection to one another as we deepen our love for the Lord. We’ll be telling you more in the days ahead.

But for now, just think about two things: First, is there someone you know has become somewhat isolated from the parish?

Second, are you feeling disconnected from the parish, even though you used to be involved?

Father Jeff and I will explore the answers to those questions with you in our homilies for Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday of Lent. Because it’s not good—and not part of God’s plan—for any Christian to be alone.  

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.