Don't Cut and Paste Your Bible (Lent.3.C)

There’s probably not a single person in the congregation—and certainly not a single person listening online—who doesn’t know what it means to cut and paste. You highlight the text you want to move, perform a few keystrokes, and you’ve edited your text.

As with many common expressions, we rarely if ever think of where this comes from. One of the ways of editing in the days before computers or even typewriters was cutting a text in strips and pasting it on a sheet with glue.

That’s exactly what Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, did with the Bible. Using a razor and glue, Jefferson cut and pasted until he had a book without miracles, hard sayings, or the divinity of Christ.

The so-called Jefferson Bible ends as the stone is rolled over the entrance to the Lord’s tomb.

It’s not widely known that the full first name of our former assistant pastor, Father Jeff, is Jefferson. Certainly, he and Thomas Jefferson were kindred spirits in one respect since he did take the time to improve some of the grammar in the King James Version during his project!

The Jefferson Bible is more than a historical curiosity: it’s a monument to a way of thinking about Christianity that’s even more popular today than it was in 1804.

Almost all of us have a sort of Bible in our heads from which we’ve cut out some of the teachings of Christ. We discount some of the harder sayings because they don’t square with modern psychology or our own ideas.

The philosopher Peter Kreeft asks, “Do we judge God’s word, or do we let it judge us?” 

All too often we judge God’s Word. And that can take us dangerously close to what Kreeft calls “a new religion, a religion that comes from us, not from God.”(Food for the Soul, Reflections on the Mass Readings, Cycle C, Third Sunday of Lent.)

The second reading today would be a prime candidate for some cut-and-pasting. St. Paul reminds us of the harsh fate of the unfaithful in the Old Testament. Nowhere do we find the “bad news” of the Bible more than in the stories of the Old Testament; nowhere else do we encounter the wrath of God as much.

In fact, the contrast between God in the Old Testament and the New can lead some people to think they are two different Beings.

Yet not only does St. Paul remind us of these hard truths, but he also threatens us with the same fate as some ancient Israelites. “Do not complain,” he says, “as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”

The hard stories of the Old Testament were recorded for our instruction, firmly alongside the merciful teachings of Christ.

Perhaps we could just forget about Paul, who was known to be rather an irritable fellow. My own father would say of something he didn’t like in Paul, “he must have hit his head when he fell off the horse.”

But we can’t forget about Jesus, who adds his own warning to us in today’s Gospel.

How many of us have long ago edited out his words “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did”?

And Jesus illustrates his point with a story about the owner of a vineyard who has grown impatient with a fruitless tree. In the context, even the one-year reprieve from the axe is not entirely comforting.

Is there anyone who isn’t convinced that many Catholics today have become quite selective in their reading of the Scriptures and their acceptance of Church teaching?

I could convince you instantly if I had the courage. Were I to lay out in uncompromising detail two or three of the toughest teachings of Jesus there would be pickets around the church in hours—and some of them might even be members of the congregation.

I’m not talking only about controversial points of morality. My friend Ralph Martin, a leader in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal from its earliest days, has faced sharp criticism for teaching without compromise a clear-as-a-bell Scriptural doctrine.

He bases his teaching squarely on Jesus, who said that “the gate is wide, and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Mt 7:13-14

He says, “the words of Jesus could scarcely be clearer.”

And yet despite those words, and Church teaching and tradition, many of us think the opposite is true, even if we wouldn’t stand up and say so. Hell may exist, we’ll admit, but it’s probably empty. We’re all going to heaven, whatever we think, do, or say.

I’m a sinner myself, so I like that idea as much as anyone. It’s just that we can’t square it with what Jesus taught.

The idea that most if not all of us will be saved has specific consequences. For starters, if we don’t believe that the message of Jesus is a life-or-death matter, we have little reason to share it with those who don’t believe. And if we’re all going to heaven, there’s little reason to stand up or to grieve when our children or siblings embrace an immoral lifestyle.

And, of course, there’s much less reason to resist sin in our own lives.

This mid-point in Lent is meant as a wakeup call for us. One of the reasons for Lent and penance is to remind us that the road to life is not easy.

Ralph Martin writes that “All around us we see men and women shutting out the truth of the gospel and settling for a way that seems easier. You can have more of what you want now.  That’s what the world tells us. You can disobey the commands of God seemingly without consequence.

“You can add those things of God that attract you to the things of this world. You can compromise on the truth and get away with it. You do not need to deny yourself, to take up your cross and to follow Christ.

“You can take the easy way.”

We should be grateful for God’s patience, God who always seems willing to give us extra time to produce fruit that shows our repentance. But we should not try God’s patience. As St. Paul says, “now is the acceptable time… now is the day of salvation.”

If we’ve walked the wide and easy path thus far in Lent, it’s time to change course and to head in the direction that leads to life.

We can do that in several ways. First, by starting or renewing your Lenten penance. If you got off to a bad start, as I did, now’s the time for a fresh start.

Second, by reflecting on what our second reading says about those thirsty Israelites who drank water from the rock during their journey through the desert. St. Paul tells us that the rock was Christ, who calls himself the living water.

If you’ve been complaining, or dry, or in some way displeasing God, come to church this Saturday at 7 for an evening of peace and prayer, asking God to reorient your heart. It’s no accident that our Lenten adoration event is called “Water in the Desert.”

Finally, by looking at our schedule of regular and extra confessions with its many options and marking your calendars as a firm commitment to meet the Lord in this healing sacrament.

Whatever you do, don’t play the busy-ness card. God called Moses in the middle of his workday, while he was tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Moses took his eyes off the sheep long enough to look towards the burning bush and was rewarded by an intimate revelation of God.

Cut and paste that moment into your own life, and God will reveal himself if you’ll stand beside him on holy ground during the remaining days of Lent.

Transfiguration not only for the Apostles (Lent 2.C)

 

I’ve never forgotten the excellent homily one of my professors gave when I was in the seminary. Unfortunately, when I heard it a second time, I hadn’t forgotten the first time he’d preached it, four years earlier.

Msgr. McConnon was, shall we say, recycling his material. He didn’t think we’d remember. But we did.

Maybe he did it on purpose. Certainly it taught me that if I wanted to reuse a homily, it better be at least five years old.

This morning I am going to recycle thoughts that are only one year old—from a homily I have on the second Sunday of Lent, 2021> Not because I am lazy because I think it’s very interesting to reflect on where we find ourselves one year later.

On this day last year I talked about reading a chapter of a book titled “My Soul is Tired.” I confessed that those words captured exactly how I felt that Sunday. 

And today I say it again: 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 so.

Not my heaviness or yours comes directly from the pandemic. Some are just coincidence. But there’s a lot happening to make our souls feel weary.

In his book Heartstorming: Creating a Place God Can Call Home, Robert Wicks writes about the “gray” times in our lives. 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.

But we can’t stop at exploring our own lows… today the Gospel invites us to explore one of the great highs in the lives of three apostles. And to learn from their experience.

First of all, the Transfiguration shows us how much Jesus cares about how we feel. Since the Transfiguration is only a preview of the Resurrection, what’s most important is not what happened but why it happened.

Jesus is strengthening three key disciples to face his suffering and death. He cares enough to want to prepare them in advance with a preview of the happy ending to the story of his Passion.

He wants us too to be strengthened by his Resurrection from the dead—to be strong enough to face any and every trial. As I said in a funeral homily yesterday,  once we believe that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, everything else is only relative.

The Transfiguration also says something to us as the restrictions on Mass attendance disappear. 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 mountain chalet.

Two thousand years later, Jesus wants to give us that experience—an experience of his glory, the Law and the Prophets, and each other. He wants to gather us around him, right here in this church.

The live stream Mass has been a godsend in the darkest days of the pandemic. But Christians are an experiential, incarnational, and existential community. We are meant to gather. It is good for use to be here, as Peter said to Jesus.

The beginning of the end of our isolation from one another has arrived. And unless we have medical reasons we should be eager o be back in church, every Sunday.

And let’s do some thinking about that book Heartstorming, with its lovely subtitle Creating a Place God Can Call Home.  As we move out of these “gray times,” let’s work and making our parish a place God can call home.

Obviously those of you who are at Mass today don’t need to be told how good it is to be here—to be back as a community of faith gathered around the altar, a Mount of Transfiguration for each of us.

But you all know someone who is hesitating—call them and tell them how good it is to be here; remind them of the joys of worshipping in person. And these gray times come slowly to an end, invite them to walk into the light that can transfigure us all.

There's an excellent way to invite the hesitant back to church: our "Water in the Desert" evening of quiet, music, and adoration every Saturday evening in Lent at 7 pm. Last night lifted me right out of my gray zone!

Having Scripture at the Ready in Times of Temptation or Trial (Lent 1.C)

I’m conducting a survey this morning. But don’t worry—I won’t be asking you to raise your hands or go online to answer questions.

But please answer this one right now: do you have a favourite verse from the Bible?

I’ll stop for a second so you can think about it. Are there words from Scripture that straight to your mind when I ask if you have a favourite saying?

Now that you’ve thought about it, I will announce the results of the survey. More than half of us answered no. There’s no verse from Scripture that is printed clearly on our minds or hearts.

Okay, that wasn’t a very scientific survey! The only answer I can report is mine—I do have a favourite verse, as many of you know. But I sure didn’t have one for more than half of my life.

If I am right, the complex readings for this first Sunday have Lent contain a very simple lesson that’s well worth learning.

First of all, there’s great encouragement for those who answered no and who wish they did have a scriptural saying at the center of their heart or mind. In the second reading today, St. Paul—quoting Moses—says “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.”

A treasured promise from the Bible is not found in research, but in your heart. It arises from your experience of God in your life. But it can’t stay deep in the heart if it’s to be effective. We need that Scripture verse on our lips, quoting it often, even if only to ourselves.

And that’s just the warmup. In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the perfect example of the power of God’s word when we face difficulties of every kind.

Life is full of challenges. Not everyone faces the same ones. Some deal with illness, others with emotional pain,  a few with failure.

But everyone faces temptations. Maybe that’s why we read the story of the devil’s temptation of Christ every year on the first Sunday in Lent. No-one can say they can’t relate. Being tempted in one way or another is a universal experience.

To be offered practical help in dealing with temptation at the very beginning of Lent is a blessing for all of us.

We might miss the lesson of today’s story if we’re distracted by the drama. Few passages in the Gospels are more striking and powerful.

The lesson is not in the drama, not in the devil’s words.

The lesson isn’t even in Jesus’ words. He speaks no words of his own in this earthshaking conversation between good and evil. All our Lord does is quote three short texts from the Old Testament.

What quotes they are! All three are from the Book of Deuteronomy. Each of them perfect for demolishing each of Satan’s three big lies.

Jesus says in the Gospel of John “the truth will set you free.” Today we see how the truth—the truth of God’s word—will also bind Satan.

Notice that Satan himself quotes Psalm 91. (The Church reads that psalm at Mass today, perhaps to insult him.)

As Shakespeare wrote in the Merchant of Venice, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” We’re not talking about dueling verses here. When the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active,” it’s not talking about words on a page, but the word wielded in faith as a sword of truth.

The Gospel writers tell almost every story in the briefest way possible; this is one of the amazing aspects of the Bible as literature. But I think the encounter between the devil and Jesus in the wilderness probably was brief. Jesus didn’t need to ask the devil for some time to think over his proposals.

Rather, the Scripture verses that neutralized these temptations likely came swiftly to the lips of Jesus. Not necessarily because he was God, having a perfect biblical database, but because he learned these words as a child.

Jesus drew on human memory of lessons learned as a Jewish boy. But not by recalling the memory work he was no doubt assigned—many times since he’d reflected on these key verses from the Torah, the core of Israel’s faith.

For Jesus, the word was near, on his lips and in his heart.

I started by asking if you had a favourite verse of Scripture. But one treasured line does not meet every situation. It’s just the start of learning to turn to the Bible when we’re confronted with temptations or tough decisions.

Look at the Gospel again. The first temptation is the one most of us can relate to easily. Who hasn’t been tempted to put the material ahead of the spiritual?

We don’t want any of our human hungers—for food, for rest, for comfort—to take second place to our religious duties. We find immediate relief from the stress of getting up for Mass by deciding we really need more sleep.

The second temptation rarely comes to us the way the devil presented it to Jesus. We’re rarely offered a stark choice of choosing the world and losing our soul. Yet many have temptations to compromise with the world by staying silent in the face of an injustice at work or school, or by refusing to stand up for our faith. We serve false Gods of influence, acceptance, even power or money.

It's safe to say the third temptation comes to us only indirectly. We think that God will protect us from the consequences of our wrong choices or imprudent living.

The three verses that Jesus uses to confront the three temptations might not be the three we would choose to memorize ourselves, but at least one of them should be in every Christian’s spiritual toolkit: “Man does not live on bread alone.”

As an example of another Scripture we can all use in various times of difficulty, Father Robert Spitzer tells us that “Thy will be done” is one of his favourite prayers.

I offer you a Lenten challenge. When you get home write three familiar lines of Scripture on a piece of paper and ask which one you should memorize for emergencies.

If nothing comes to mind, Google “favourite Bible verses” and see what stands out.

And if you find this too difficult, there’s a shortcut in today’s readings. St. Paul says, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Even more simply, he writes “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And in his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us that “no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”

“Jesus is Lord” is the shortest Christian creed. Those three words alone have the power to send the devil packing.

Living the Beatitudes Leads to Freedom (6.C)

 

This was my favorite Christmas present this year. I guess that's to be expected since I bought it myself!

It's the four Gospels, the first volume of the beautiful Bible being produced by Word on Fire, the ministry founded by Bishop Robert Barron.

The book features exquisite art, with essays about each illustration, introductions by fine Catholic authors and—no surprise—commentaries by Bishop Barron.

Bishop Barron has been called the Fulton Sheen of the 21^st century. For those too young to remember Bishop Sheen, he was a pioneer in using radio and television—the social media of his day—to share the Gospel message.

There’s something else both men had in common: although they were able to communicate with all kinds of people, Catholics and non-Catholics, young and old,  they didn’t dumb down the message. Both were serious scholars with doctorates from prestigious Catholic universities in Europe.

You might say they were popular, but not popularizers.

And when I started to read the Beatitudes in my Word on Fire Bible, I also got more than I expected. I found  Bishop Barron's comments striking and new.

He starts. however, with the obvious, pointing out how strange these sayings sound. They contradict our experience.

I’ve only felt poor twice in my life, and I distinctly recall that there was nothing blessed about it. And being hated and reviled is surely worse still.

Bishop Barron tells a personal story that sets the stage for his thoughts about the Beatitudes. One Sunday afternoon there was a knock on the rectory door, and he opened it to find a man dressed in an expensive suit, projecting prosperity and confidence.

When the man said “Father, I’ve realized all my dreams,” Bishop Barron responded, “That’s wonderful.”

But it wasn’t. The man said “There’s only one problem. I’m perfectly miserable.”

His insatiable desire for money was an addiction that had robbed his life of meaning and joy. The “blessings” of success were a curse.

This leads Bishop Barron to interpret the Beatitudes in a very fresh way. He translates the Greek word used in the Gospel as “lucky” instead of the familiar “blessed” or even happy. And then he proposes this reading of what Jesus said: “How lucky are you if you are not addicted to material things.”

He carries on in the same way when he looks at “Blessed are you who weep now.” This, he says, we can understand as “How lucky you are if you are not addicted to good feelings.”

I always understood this beatitude as meaning only that we were blessed to weep because God would dry our tears in heaven. That’s true enough, of course, but the bishop draws out another meaning: feeling happy can be as much a false God as wealth if we can’t live without happy feelings, and want more and more of them.

Finally, he gets to the toughest of all these teachings: “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”

When I read that, I figured even Bishop Barron would have trouble finding any good luck in those situations.

But he didn’t. He translates the Lord’s words as “How lucky you are if you are not addicted to the approval of others.”

Bishop Barron says “Status, attention, and fame are among the most powerful… of the false gods who lure us.”  He backs it up with his own experience, describing how his need for approval—first from his father, then his teachers, then his professors—became an addictive pattern in his life.

Needing approval is a dangerous thing. It's certainly a bigger spiritual risk for me than wanting riches or good feelings. 

And being too concerned for the opinion of others is not only a risk for the spiritual life but for any life of integrity and courage. As Winston Churchill said, “Never trust a man who has no enemies.”

When Jesus says, “Woe to you when all speak well of you,” he is warning us that those who are spiritually free will inevitably find themselves in conflict with those who are still in chains.

Bishop Barron showed me a new way of looking at the Beatitudes, but his conclusion was very familiar. The blessing, the “good luck”, of being poor, sorrowful, or hated is the blessing of freedom, an inner freedom that nothing and no-one can take from us.

The path to such freedom is clear throughout the New Testament, where Jesus tells the rich young man to sell all he has and invites us all to pick up our cross and follow him. St. Paul tells us to take off our old self and leave it behind.

This path is the way of the saints. St. John of the Cross called it detachment, St. Teresa of Avila spoke of surrender, while St. Ignatius uses the term indifference. And the spiritual classic The Imitation of Christ has a chapter titled “How Surrender of Self Brings Freedom of Heart.”

And in our time, the Serenity Prayer used by 12-step groups calls it acceptance: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…” By not living at the mercy of people and circumstances and events we find the true interior freedom to which Jesus calls us in the powerful words of today’s Gospel.

How blessed—how lucky we are—if we trust that God is at work in everything that happens to us, both the things we welcome and those we don’t.

Sharing the Good News in Full Colour (5.C)

In my day there wasn’t a lot of training in preaching at the seminary. 

But we did get some, and I remember one lesson well. A visiting expert told us it was good to start a homily with something from the news.

It wouldn’t be hard to follow his advice today. This week saw the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth on her throne and the Conservative leader Erin O'Toole toppled from his . The Olympics have begun, and the pandemic has, well, continued.

But I don't think we need current events to connect us with the scriptures we've heard this morning. They are timeless treasures of divine wisdom which should get our attention without a catchy introduction.

God’s word is inviting every person in church today, and everyone watching the livestream, to make a connection with our own lives. In other words, whether today’s homily succeeds depends on the hearers, not the preacher.

At first, we might not find it easy to make a personal connection—after all, the first reading is about a prophet who lived 2800 years ago, and the Gospel setting is a lake more than 10,000 kilometers from here.

But the fact is: Isaiah’s words are meant for our hearts, and the call of the apostles is a call for each of us.

It’s so easy to put the Bible in a box marked “ancient history,” when God wants us to place it front and centre of everyday life. Let’s look at how we can move the message of today’s first reading and Gospel from history to now, from ‘there’ to ‘here.’

We can start by stepping into Isaiah’s shoes. Forget about King Uzziah, whoever he was, and even about the six-winged seraphim. Look at what the prophet says: “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Shall we translate this? “Oh no! I am a sinner, like everyone else, yet I know who God is; I have seen his goodness and glory.”

That’s something any of us might say. We are sinners, ordinary sinners, so please don’t ask us to be prophets. If you want a parishioner to help with Bible studies, faith studies, prayer ministry or Alpha, I can give you some names. Just not mine!

But let’s keep reading. Isaiah’s fear and resistance melts away when the angel tells him his sin is forgiven. In an instant his lips are touched by divine fire and made ready for mission.

Here’s where stepping into Isaiah’s shoes becomes a challenge. We haven’t encountered an angel lately, so the prophet’s ‘yes’ to God seems impossible for us: “Here am I: send me!”

So, let’s leave Isaiah for a moment, and turn to the Gospel. Let’s stand beside Peter and the others washing their nets.

There’s no heavenly smoke and thunder there. Not even a single seraph. It’s just an ordinary workday for some fishermen, an unsuccessful one at that. But the same thing happens: God calls, and they answer.

Once again, the future disciple responds the way we might: “Keep your distance, Lord. I am not cut out for this.”

But God does the same thing for them he did for Isaiah: he takes away their fear. He gives them a mission that leaves no room for hesitation. Later, we see how Jesus equips those fishermen for great things.

There are so many problems in the Church today, so much sorrow for past sinfulness, so many who have turned away. And yet there’s one thing that lets me face those problems with hope and without discouragement: the rediscovery of the ordinary Catholic’s call to be a missionary.

My friend Father James Mallon lives in Halifax, a city that played a big role in the rescue of survivors from the sinking of the Titanic. In his book Divine Renovation, he recalls the well-known story of half-filled lifeboats, and of lifeboats that stayed at a distance while people drowned.

He's not just lamenting history: Father Mallon is warning us not to repeat it. We can’t be Christians who put our own safety—our own salvation—ahead of others’.

He reminds us that the Church exists for mission. “Like Jesus, we have been sent to ‘seek and save’ those who are perishing, and there are plenty of seats in the lifeboats.”

“Perhaps,” he writes, “if a few people swam over to us we would help them” but going to them “is totally outside our frame of reference.”

Slowly but surely, I see this changing in the Church, in our parish, in individual lives. We are moving from maintenance to mission; we are beginning to know that God didn’t call prophets and apostles only in the Bible; he calls them now.

And we—every one of us who has been baptized—are the ones he’s calling. We are the ones whose lips have been purified to preach. God wants to hear each of us say “Here I am—send me!”

As we restore parish life after the pandemic, forming joyful missionary disciples is job number one at Christ the Redeemer.

I haven’t mentioned today’s second reading yet, but it’s crucial. This passage from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is the rock on which everything else stands: the core message of salvation.

Do you remember what we said at Mass after the consecration before the Missal changed? “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” That’s today’s second reading in a nutshell.

But more important, it’s Christian faith in a nutshell! Greek even has a word for it: kerygma. Kerygma literally means “preaching,” as distinct from teaching. Paul speaks here of the message he proclaimed—the good news that is the foundation of everything else.

Everyone knows that St. Paul taught many things about how to live the Christian life, but he only proclaimed one central message: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

If we ‘get’ that, we get everything else.

And if we don’t want to share that, we don’t get it.

Father Mallon writes that many Catholics live in a black-and-white world without any conception of colour. I get that, because for years I watched only black-and-white TV, without feeling I was missing anything.

And of course, watching in black and white was fine—we still got the jokes in the comedies, and were scared by the dramas. But once you’ve watched in colour it’s hard to imagine anything else.

God invites us today, as individual Christians and as members of this parish, to experience the Good News of salvation in full colour.

When and if we do, it won’t be hard for us to answer, “Here am I—send me.”

Catholics and Residential Schools: A Time to Listen (4.C)

We were looking forward to the visit of Deacon Rennie Nahanee to the parish today. Deacon Rennie, a permanent deacon of our Archdiocese, is a member of the Squamish Nation and was to preach at Mass and bless the land acknowledgment plaque the parish has recently installed at the entrance to the church. Unfortunately, he fell ill last week and is now recovering at home.

The coordinator of Christ the Redeemer's reconciliation effort had the inspired idea to invite another permanent deacon to preach today so that we continue our focus on the residential schools and reconciliation . I had circulated to our committee an earlier homily given by Deacon Bruce Fraser and she thought he could readily revise it for our benefit.

Which is how Deacon Bruce came to preach at the parish this morning while we await Deacon Rennie's visit and the blessing of the plaque. His inspiring homily follows...

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is having a tough time in his hometown of Nazareth.

His family and friends can’t get over their preconceived notions of who He is.

As a result, they’re blocking His announcement of the Kingdom of God.

They can only see “Jesus, the guy we watched grow up”. They cannot see a prophet. In effect, they think that He is pretending to be something that He isn’t.

Jesus tells them as much to their faces, and they are so offended that they try to throw him off a cliff.

Jesus does not perform any public miracles at Nazareth. He recognizes that anything extraordinary He would do there would not help bring the Kingdom of God any closer to reality there.

If He were to perform a great sign, his friends and family would see it only as a show, a spectacle, not a symbol pointing to a deeper reality.

And so, unable to draw them closer to the Kingdom, Jesus chooses to do nothing.

However, Mark tells us in his version of this story that Jesus does, “lay his hands on a few sick people and cure them.” Where Jesus does find people who are receptive to the Kingdom, He does perform miracles for them, but these are quiet acts done for individual people, not public acts to inspire large crowds.

Jesus keeps his ministry in Nazareth low key because He sees that public spectacles and public speeches are not going to help.

                                                         ***

This is a tough time to be a Catholic Christian in Canada.

Last year, the discovery of unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School and the later discovery of unmarked graves near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan left a lot of people angry at the Catholic Church. And this week we heard about 93 possible burial sites around the residential school near Williams Lake.

There are some people for whom these discoveries have opened old wounds and caused old pain to resurface.

There are others who were already angry at the Catholic Church for other reasons, and these discoveries have given them new energy and new ammunition.

There are also many Catholics who are angry that their Church could have been involved in something so wrong as the Residential School system.

So how should we cope with this situation, as Canadians and as Catholics?

How do we cope personally? Looking inward, how do we stop the onslaught of distressing news from crushing our spirits?

Looking outward, how do we cope with a newly hostile world?

 For my part, I have started to educate myself.

For breaking news, I stay away from the mainstream media.

I turn instead to interviews and opinions by the people closest to these events, 

to see what they have to say.

The words of the people directly affected by these events are both moving and inspiring. They speak of anger, but also of reconciliation and moving forward together. They speak of pain and suffering, but also of listening, learning, and solidarity.

For example, when the Catholic Church in Penticton burned down last year, I ignored the CBC and Global News, and went straight to the Penticton Western News, which printed a brief interview with Greg Gabriel, chief of the Penticton Indian Band. Chief Gabriel said that there was a lot of anger and a lot of pain in the community over the Residential Schools, but he condemned the burning of the church. He said, “Many in our community were members and involved in services.” He added that those people are hurting because the church was where they went to grieve and pray over what had been found in Kamloops. In reading his words, I realized that what was meant to hurt the Catholic Church in general had instead hurt the very people who were already suffering. It was not just a church that some angry people burned down, but their church.

The press releases sent out by the First Nations who commissioned the ground radar surveys speak of their pain, but also of their desire to be given time: time to process what has happened, time to find answers to their questions, time to grieve.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which ended in 2015, has a website containing all of its documents. Some of them are enormous, and I’m a slow reader. Nonetheless, I am working my way through them as I am able. I’m doing this to educate myself, but also because this is one of the few things that Indigenous leaders have asked non-Indigenous people to do in solidarity with them. They have called for all Canadians to educate themselves by reading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports. That is something that we can all do.

So far, what I have read speaks of the trauma and suffering experienced by Indigenous students at the schools, but it also calls for solidarity and reconciliation so that we can move forward together—Indigenous and non-Indigenous people—in gradual, small steps, as those who carry the trauma of the Residential School system in their hearts feel ready to do so.

 So, that’s educating ourselves, but how do we as Catholics deal with a newly hostile world?

This is where we can take an example from today’s Gospel. Jesus recognized that preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God in Nazareth wasn’t going to go anywhere. He also recognized that defending His reputation by performing some flashy miracles wasn’t going to help. So, He didn’t do either.

This wasn’t an act of condemnation. It was, rather, a prudential assessment of the situation. “Wrong time, wrong place. Not now. Not yet. Maybe some other time.”

Right now, non-Christian Canadians are probably not going to be receptive to hearing about our Faith. They’re not going to be able to get past who they think we are in order to pay attention to what we are saying.

Nor is this the time to publicly correct any errors we’ve heard in the media. 

If someone is truly interested in the Catholic point of view, we should be happy to share it. But if someone is angry at the Church, then correcting mistaken ideas is just going to sound defensive. It’s going to sound like all we care about is protecting the Church’s reputation and that we don’t care about what the Residential School system did to the First Nations people.

Now is not the time to talk. Now is the time to listen.

Especially and always we must listen to the people directly affected by the Residential Schools: the survivors, the children of survivors, the groups of people coping with generational trauma as a result of the Residential School system.

However, it’s also time to listen to people who are angry at the Church for other reasons.

If I have educated myself about what happened at the Schools, using the stories and materials produced by the very people who lived that experience, then I can put what people are saying to me in some sort of context. I can acknowledge their pain and their anger without letting it crush me. I can focus on what I can do to help them, if they want my help, rather than becoming defensive and reacting out of my own pain and frustration.

 “Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words,” is the most famous thing that St. Francis of Assisi never said.

What this expression means is that there are times when telling people the Good News about God and His Kingdom… when telling people about the beauty and the majesty of our Catholic Faith… just comes across as noise. There are times when the people you meet, like the people of Nazareth, can’t see past their preconceived notions about who you are and what you are about in order to hear the message you have for them.

In cases like that, the best thing to do is to act like a Christian rather than making lofty speeches. In today’s climate, that means listening rather than talking.

In the second reading, St. Paul reminds us that “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.”

St. Paul is telling us that if we speak truth, but we do it defensively or rudely, then it doesn’t matter if we have our facts straight: we still lose. Love must come first. “What is the loving thing for me to do here?” is the first and most important question, and often that loving thing is just listening.

 In Mark’s version of today’s Gospel, though, Jesus does evangelize a little bit.

You may meet a few people who want to tell you about their pain and their anger, but also want to hear about your experience as a Catholic, people who are genuinely interested in your point of view.

If you meet someone like this, the first thing to do is apologize.

As Canadians, we recognize that the Residential School system was a bad idea. 

As Catholics, we’re sorry that the Church ever got involved in that system. 

If we could turn back the clock, knowing what we know now, we as a Church would not have cooperated in it. We’re also sorry that within the Church’s involvement in what we now know was a terrible system, some individual Catholics went beyond even that and abused the children in those schools, or turned a blind eye to their abuse at the hands of others, making their horrible experience even worse. We need to make it clear that the whole thing was a disaster and that we would never want to see it repeated.

Then, perhaps, having apologized, we can talk about how this has affected us as Catholics.

If that seems unfair, apologizing for something that you had no personal hand in doing, listening while other people rail at you for being Catholic, then remember that our discomfort is nothing compared to what many Indigenous children suffered at the Residential Schools.

In recognition of that level of pain and ongoing suffering, the Christian thing to do… the prophetic thing to do… the loving thing to do… is to listen.

Sunday of the Word of God 2022

Pope Francis missed out on last year’s Sunday of the Word of God because his sciatica was acting up. It must have been doubly painful for the Pope, since he had only established this special Sunday in 2019.

The Holy Father is making up for it this year: he’s celebrating Word of God Sunday by conferring the ministry of lector on lay men and women for the first time. Until now, only men were formally instituted as lectors, almost always on their way to ordination.

By admitting women to the ministry of lector or reader, the Pope is reminding us that all the baptized, not only the ordained, have a special relationship with Sacred Scripture. This formal recognition is, of course, just icing on the cake, since women have been reading at Mass for many years now.

And there’s even more happening at today’s historic celebration at St. Peter’s Basilica. The Pope will also confer the brand-new ministry of Catechist, which he established last year on several laywomen and men.

It will take a while before developments like these make their way from Rome to Vancouver. But the values behind them, the service and calling officially recognized by these lay ministries, is here already and here to stay.

So today’s a great day to ask: what am I called to do on this Sunday of the Word of God—not by the call of the Pope or Archbishop but by our baptism.

Because all the baptized are called and commissioned to proclaim the Word of God in one way or another.

At first glance today’s readings aren’t obviously about the Scriptures themselves—for instance, I would have preferred to hear what the Letter to the Hebrews says about the Word of God being living and active, a two-edged sword.

Yet the late Cardinal Vanhoye, my favourite Biblical scholar, says that this Sunday’s readings do an excellent job of showing us the importance of the Word of God. [See Albert Vanhoye, SJ, Le Letture Bibliche delle Domeniche: Anno C, p 178]

In the first reading, Ezra and his fellow priests moved the people to tears by reading from the Law, which is to say from the first five books of the Old Testament, traditionally written by Moses. The reaction of the crowd proves the point made by Hebrews. God’s word was living and active in the hearts of all who heard, piercing them right through.

In today’s Gospel, the circumstances in which the Scripture is read are ordinary—just a Sabbath service, a congregation much like ours this morning.

But the reader is anything but ordinary: as Jesus reads the prophetic words of Isaiah, they are fulfilled for all time. There’s a good reason the people in the synagogue could not take their eyes off him.

The reaction of the emotional crowd at the Water Gate and the attentiveness of the congregation in the synagogue at Nazareth are models of how to listen to the Scripture even for us today, because the liturgical reading of the Word requires both proclamation and reception—a partnership, as it were, between reader and hearer.

Personal contact with the Word of God through the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, can be life-changing. Cardinal Vanhoye tells us how important it is for us to be aware of this Word, because it can guide, comfort, and help us in every circumstance of life.

There are two ways this can happen. One, of course, is by turning to the Bible for guidance and consolation in times of trial. But this is hard to do if we are not familiar with the general outline of God’s Word—which is why the second way is listening attentively at Mass and privately studying the Bible in good times, so that we know where to turn in times of trouble.

On this Word of God Sunday let’s ask the Lord for the grace to be truly open to hearing his Word—for the grace of active listening to both Testaments, Old and New, in church and at home.

And during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, let’s give thanks that we share the Scriptures with our fellow Christians, some of whom provide us with a fine example we would do well to imitate.