LEPER HEALING

MATTHEW 8:1-4:  Healing of the leper

Friends, in our Gospel today, we see Jesus healing a leper. The man who knelt before Jesus and begged for a cure was not simply concerned about his medical condition; he was an Israelite in exile from the temple—and hence he was a very apt symbol of the general condition of scattered, exiled, wandering Israel. In curing him, Jesus was, symbolically speaking, gathering the tribes and bringing them back to the worship of the true God. That's why he tells the man, "Go show yourself to the priest." In other words, go back to the temple from which you've been away for so long. The leper here stands, not so much for the socially ostracized, but for the one who has wandered away from right worship, the one who is no longer able or willing to worship the true God. What's so important about worship? To worship is to order the whole of your life toward the living God, and in doing so, to become interiorly and exteriorly rightly ordered. To worship is to signal to yourself what your life is finally about. It's nothing that God needs, but it is very much something that we need.

TEMPORARY TO PERMANENT SACRIFICE

FROM TEMPORARY TO PERMANENT SACRIFICE Hebrews 9:25-26 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. (NIVUK) The principle of sacrifice in the Bible starts with Genesis 3:21: where God killed an animal and skins it to provide clothing for the man and his wife, to cover their shame, after their sin in the Garden of Eden. Sacrifice was a feature of worship prior to the law being given to Moses. Abraham sacrificed: most poignantly being willing to offer his own son Isaac (Genesis 22:1-14) but God commanded that a ram be killed instead of Isaac, setting the pattern for substitutionary atonement. Sacrifices were either commanded by God or occurred in spontaneous worship. All of God's people knew that if they did not sacrifice to Him in the way He prescribed, then they would be cut off from God's people (Leviticus 17:8-9). But as their sinning continued, their sacrifices had to be made over and over again (Hebrews 10:1-3), and even then these could never fully atone for their guilt. For the priests it was quite an industry, as some of the meat from the sacrifice was given to them. In one sense, the tabernacle/temple officials had no interest in stopping sacrifices because they put food onto their tables. Likewise the selling of animals and birds for sacrifice became a commercial enterprise – which angered Jesus greatly (Matthew 21:12-13). What God had intended to open the door to holiness was perverted into self-serving corruption. The death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ marked the fundamental change from temporary and recurrent sacrifices to one permanent and final sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice was one sacrifice for all sins for all time (Hebrews 10:12). It was effective for all those who had trusted in God's grace and mercy through the old covenant, and all who have/will trust(ed) Christ until He comes again. That sacrifice covers all the sins of all the people for all time (www.crosscheck.org.uk). Christ does not need to die again. As Hebrews 10:14 says, "For by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy." If that were not true, we would perish. The significance of this single act of obedient self-giving is massive. It means that Christians are fully forgiven people. There is no need to cower away from God's holiness; we need only confess our own unholiness and trust in the efficacy of His poured-out blood. No amount of good works will atone for our misdeeds; only the blood of Jesus. For some it seems impossible that one death 2000 years ago could possibly reconcile us to God today: but it is true. Even though some religious people seem to want to complicate the grace of Christ, its simple meaning remains true (John 3:16). The message of free forgiveness is truly life changing, and we must tell it out so that others can be saved, and freed from the impossible demands of religion by good works or the unrelenting shame of unforgiven sin. Gracious God. Thank You that no other sacrifice than Christ's will ever be needed to secure my eternal destiny. Forgive me when I have not treated this truth preciously, or when I have proudly considered I have not needed much saving; or that I can justify my place in Your presence by my own goodness. Please burn into my heart the preciousness of the blood of Jesus and Your great love in saving me, and help me to tell others. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

JOY OF CHRISTIAN LIFE

Joy of Christian Life
 Periods of sadness, depression and doubts can enter the life of even the most devout Christian. We see many examples of this in the Bible. Job wished he had never been born (Job 3:11). David prayed to be taken away to a place where he would not have to deal with reality (Psalm 55:6-8). Elijah, even after defeating 450 prophets of Baal with fire called down from heaven (1 Kings 18:16-46), fled into the desert and asked God to take his life (1 Kings 19:3-5).

So how can we overcome these periods of joylessness? We can see how these same people overcame their bouts of depression. Job said that, if we pray and remember our blessings, God will restore us to joy and righteousness (Job 33:26). David wrote that the study of God's Word can bring us joy (Psalm 19:8). David also realized that he needed to praise God even in the midst of despair (Psalm 42:5). In Elijah's case, God let him rest for a time and then sent a man, Elisha, to help him (1 Kings 19:19-21). We also need friends that we can share our hurts and pains with (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). It may be helpful to share our feelings with a fellow Christian. We may be surprised to find that he or she has struggled with some of the same things that we are going through.

Most importantly, it is certain that dwelling on ourselves, our problems, our hurts, and especially our pasts will never produce true spiritual joy. Joy is not found in materialism, it is not found in psychotherapy, and it most certainly is not found in obsession with ourselves. It is found in Christ. We who belong to the Lord “glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). To know Christ is to come to have a true sense of ourselves, and true spiritual insight, making it impossible to glory in ourselves, in our wisdom, strength, riches, or goodness, but in Christ—in His wisdom and strength, in His riches and goodness, and in His person only. If we remain in Him, immerse ourselves in His Word, and seek to know Him more intimately, our “joy will be full” (John 15:1-11).

Finally, remember that it is only through God's Holy Spirit that we can find true joy (Psalm 51:11-12; Galatians 5:22; 1 Thessalonians 1:6). We can do nothing apart from the power of God (2 Corinthians 12:10, 13:4). Indeed, the harder we try to be joyful through our own efforts, the more miserable we can become. Rest in the Lord's arms (Matthew 11:28-30) and seek His face through prayer and Scripture. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).

Blessed John Henry Newman always insisted that the Christian vocation was one of light and joy. “Gloom is no Christian temper; that repentance is not real which has no love in it; that self-chastisement is not acceptable which is not sweetened by faith and cheerfulness. We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God’s presence; we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins.” This last phrase recalls Newman’s other words: “We rise by self-abasement.” They indicate that his was no easy optimism, for Newman was alive to the bright and dark side of human nature. “Left to itself, human nature tends to death and utter apostasy from God, however plausible it may look externally.” These are sternly realistic words, and not those of a man who would glibly scatter words about light and joy as a child might fling tinsel for the excitement of the glitter.

FEAR OF THE LORD AND THOMAS MORE

MATTHEW 10:26-33

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus gives us the biblical antidote for fear. What are you afraid of? What do you have to lose? Does it terrify you to think that you might lose your wealth? Your social status? The affection of others? Your health? Your power and influence? Your reputation and good name? Your life? I’ve spoken often of my favorite movie, A Man For All Seasons. What frustrated Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII about Thomas More is that they couldn’t manipulate him. And why couldn’t they do that? He wasn’t afraid. There was nothing they could threaten him with. In time, Henry took away More’s job, status, money, reputation, friends, family, freedom—each time hoping that he would give in—until finally the King took away his life. Everyone else he could intimidate, but not More. And Thomas More’s last words are instructive here: “I die the King’s good servant; but God’s first.” Thomas More did fear someone. He had that holy fear that the Bible speaks of often: the fear of the Lord. There was something he feared losing—and that was intimacy and friendship with God. Compared to that, everything else was straw.

FEAR NO ONE

Fear No One

User's Guide to Sunday, June 25

Sunday, June 25, is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A). Mass Readings: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 69:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35; Romans 5:12-15; Matthew 10:26-33.

“Fear no one,” says Jesus in today’s Gospel.
He doesn’t want us to be secret Christians, hiding our faith from the world, embarrassed that we still believe. He says, “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father, and whoever denies me before others I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
He wants us to “proclaim on the housetops” what he has revealed. But we fail at this so often that it can be a little discouraging.
We can fail in the workplace. We are pro-life, we reject gender ideology, and we believe in what marriage has always and everywhere been defined to be — but what do we say when these issues come up at the office?
We can fail in our social life. We may fail to stand up against judgmental gossip, we may fail to say “No” when a bad activity is suggested, or we may even fail to stay chaste in our dating relationships — all because we don’t want to “make a scene.”
We may be afraid of taking a stand with our own children — afraid to say “No” to that toxic friend group, afraid to enforce the home computer rules, or afraid to ban that video game — afraid of insisting on what’s right. Or maybe it’s our spouse’s behavior we refuse to confront.
This is how sin proliferates. “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned,” explains St. Paul. We lost our friendship with God, and now our vanity gets the best of us. We care more about others’ opinions of us than we do about God’s.
But St. Paul also describes how the grace of Jesus Christ can break this cycle — for “the gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.”
The graces Jesus offers us can transform our lives.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit that we receive at baptism include fortitude, which “enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions,” says the Catechism (808). These gifts also include fear of God, which “is no servile fear, but rather a joyful awareness of God’s grandeur and a grateful realization that only in him do our hearts find true peace,” says Pope Francis.
These gifts can give us the strength of Jeremiah from today’s first reading — or the strength of Moriah Bridges, the 2016-17 senior class president at Beaver High School in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
At her recent graduation speech, she planned to mention who is most important to her: God. But the school’s administrators made her take those references out. She did, for the most part, but then at the very end of her speech, she added:
“I’ve always been a rule follower. When they said not to chew gum, I didn’t chew gum. When they said not to use your cellphone, I didn’t use my cellphone. But today, in the spirit of defying expectations, and for perhaps the last time at this podium, I say in the righteous name of Jesus Christ: Amen!”

POPE FRANCIS' HOMILY ON CORPUS CHRISTI

On Corpus Christi, Pope Francis preaches on memory, fragility and communion

VATICAN CITY — On Sunday evening, Pope Francis celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi with Holy Mass and a traditional candlelit Eucharistic procession in Rome.

The Eucharistic procession began after the celebration of Holy Mass at the Basilica of St. John Lateran — the See of the Bishop of Rome — and proceeded along the Via Merulana to the Basilica of St. Mary Major. Here below is the official English translation of the pope’s homily for Corpus Christi 2017.

Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis
Corpus Christi
June 18, 2017

On this Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the idea of memory comes up again and again. Moses says to the people: “You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you […]. Lest […] you forget the Lord your God, who fed you in the wilderness with manna” (Dt 8:2, 14, 16). Jesus will tell us: “Do this in memory of me” (1 Cor 11:24). The “living bread, come down from heaven” (Jn 6:51) is the sacrament of memory, reminding us, in a real and tangible way, of the story of God’s love for us.

Today, to each of us, the word of God says, Remember! Remembrance of the Lord’s deeds guided and strengthened his people’s journey through the desert; remembering all that the Lord has done for us is the foundation of our own personal history of salvation. Remembrance is essential for faith, as water is for a plant. A plant without water cannot stay alive and bear fruit. Nor can faith, unless it drinks deeply of the memory of all that the Lord has done for us.

Remember. Memory is important, because it allows us to dwell in love, to be mind-ful, never forgetting who it is who loves us and whom we are called to love in return. Yet nowadays, this singular ability that the Lord has given us is considerably weakened. Amid so much frantic activity, many people and events seem to pass in a whirl. We quickly turn the page, looking for novelty while unable to retain memories. Leaving our memories behind and living only for the moment, we risk remaining ever on the surface of things, constantly in flux, without going deeper, without the broader vision that reminds us who we are and where we are going. In this way, our life grows fragmented, and dulled within.

Yet today’s Solemnity reminds us that in our fragmented lives, the Lord comes to meet us with a loving “fragility”, which is the Eucharist. In the Bread of Life, the Lord comes to us, making himself a humble meal that lovingly heals our memory, wounded by life’s frantic pace of life. The Eucharist is the memorial of God’s love. There, “[Christ’s] sufferings are remembered” (II Vespers, antiphon for the Magnificat) and we recall God’s love for us, which gives us strength and support on our journey. This is why the Eucharistic commemoration does us so much good: it is not an abstract, cold and superficial memory, but a living remembrance that comforts us with God’s love. The Eucharist is flavoured with Jesus’ words and deeds, the taste of his Passion, the fragrance of his Spirit. When we receive it, our hearts are overcome with the certainty of Jesus’ love. In saying this, I think in particular of you boys and girls, who recently received First Holy Communion, and are here today in great numbers.

The Eucharist gives us a grateful memory, because it makes us see that we are the Father’s children, whom he loves and nourishes. It gives us a free memory, because Jesus’ love and forgiveness heal the wounds of the past, soothe our remembrance of wrongs experienced and inflicted. It gives us a patient memory, because amid all our troubles we know that the Spirit of Jesus remains in us. The Eucharist encourages us: even on the roughest road, we are not alone; the Lord does not forget us and whenever we turn to him, he restores us with his love.

The Eucharist also reminds us that we are not isolated individuals, but one body. As the people in the desert gathered the manna that fell from heaven and shared it in their families (cf. Ex 16), so Jesus, the Bread come down from Heaven, calls us together to receive him and to share him with one another. The Eucharist is not a sacrament “for me”; it is the sacrament of the many, who form one body. Saint Paul reminded us of this: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17). The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. Whoever receives it cannot fail to be a builder of unity, because building unity has become part of his or her “spiritual DNA”. May this Bread of unity heal our ambition to lord it over others, to greedily hoard things for ourselves, to foment discord and criticism. May it awaken in us the joy of living in love, without rivalry, jealousy or mean-spirited gossip.

Now, in experiencing this Eucharist, let us adore and thank the Lord for this greatest of gifts: the living memorial of his love, that makes us one body and leads us to unity.

VULNERABILITY- DON'T HIDE IT

Pope at Santa Marta: There is no need to hide one's vulnerability

2017-06-16

In his morning homily at Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis centered his message on vulnerability. Using the example of St. Paul, he said that "we are all fragile and need to be healed,” thus there is no need to hide it. 

POPE FRANCIS

"One of the most difficult things in life is to recognize vulnerability. At times, we search to find ways to cover vulnerability so it isn't seen; to disguise it because then it is not seen; or to conceal it. The same St. Paul, at the start of this chapter says, 'When I fell in shameful disguises...' Disguises are shameful, always. They are hypocritical.”

He concluded by saying that when one recognizes this weakness, God will "give fullness, salvation, happiness and joy to be saved.”

SUMMARY OF POPE'S HOMILY IN ENGLISH

Source: Vatican Radio

"In order to be saved and healed by God we must recognize that we are weak, vulnerable and sinful- like earthen vessels. This will lead us to happiness.”

 

"All of us are vulnerable, fragile, weak, and we need to be healed. But recognizing our vulnerability is one of life's most difficult tasks.  At times, we try to cover this vulnerability with cosmetics in order to disguise it, pretending it does not exist.  And disguises are always shameful. They are hypocrisy.”

 

"Besides being hypocritical towards others, we are also hypocritical within ourselves believing to be something else, hence not needing healing and support.  This is the path to vanity, pride and self-reference of those who do not feel themselves made of clay and thus seek salvation and fulfillment in themselves.”

"Instead, as St. Paul says, it is the power of God that saves us because of our vulnerability. Hence we are troubled but not crushed; we are shaken but not desperate; we are persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not killed.”

"There is always this relationship between clay and power, clay and treasure. But the temptation, the pope said,  is always the same: to cover, conceal and not believing we are made of clay.  This is the hypocrisy towards ourselves.”

"When we accept our weakness, God comes with His salvation and happiness. We must accept our weakness and vulnerability, even if it is difficult to do so.  Hence the importance of shame.”

"It is shame that broadens the heart to allow the power of God in - the shame of being clay and not a silver or gold vase.”   

When Peter objected to Jesus washing his feet, he did not realize he was made of clay needing the Lord’s power to be saved.  It’s only when we accept we are made of clay that the extraordinary power of God will come and give us the fulfillment, salvation, happiness and joy of being saved, thus receiving the Lord's treasure.” 

SECULAR BASES OF THE EUCHARIST

THE SECULAR BASES OF THE EUCHARIST

BREAD AND WINE

                        Jesus lived in Palestine. Palestine enjoys a great variation in climate and rainfall. Therefore it was blessed with a great variety of vegetation and foliage. This was especially true in the time of Jesus, when the countryside was free of the scourge of pollution produced by technology; the river Jordan and the lake of Genazareth were limpid clear of industrial effluents. Jacob’s well knew no arsenic! Humidity was almost down to zero, and even though it was hot by day there was no sticky feeling. (The only sticky entities were the scribes and Pharisees!)  Trees and fruits were abundant, with juniper and oak the most common, and olive and fig trees the most valuable because of the fruit and oil they produced. And of course the people had the wonderful “fruit of the vine”, the grapes from which they produced their deep, full-bodied red wines, so thick and rich that they had to be diluted with water before being served. Jesus referred to himself as the true vine (John 15, 1-17), and the Gospels refer many times to the vineyards and those who tended them. When the grapes were ripe and ready for pressing, you could imagine the young Jesus in his shorts treading sing-song the thick carpet of grapes with the other guys and gals, and being paid the denarius at the end of the day.

                       

                        The common grain in Jesus’ time included wheat – the most valuable – along with oats and barley. Barley was basically the poor man’s grain, and Bible commentators opine that Jesus used barley bread at the Last Supper.

                        Bread was the essential food of Jesus’ day, so much so that bread alone could sometimes be a full meal, especially that it was heavy and substantial, pure unrefined whole wheat. Downed with a few cups of full-bodied wine, there were no complaints. As the staff of life bread was treated with great respect, and many Jewish laws governed its preparation, use and preservation. So when Jesus identified himself with bread and wine at the Last Supper, those around him knew what he was talking about: he was revealing himself as the one who gives them complete sustenance and fulfilment. This “bread of life” could satisfy completely the deepest hungers of people (see John 6, 22-5).

                        For Catholics the celebration of the Eucharist is the “breaking and eating together” of the bread that is Christ, Son of God and son of Mary. Breaking stands for sacrifice, and eating stands for sustenance. (Incidentally, bread on our tables today should not be sliced with a knife but broken with the hands and shared). So the Eucharist has its secular origins in the central place that bread and wine occupied in the lives of the people of Jesus’ day.

EATING TOGETHER

            The Parable of the Wedding feast (Mt 22, 1 – 14) makes use of a secular image to convey the riches of the eternal banquet. Here the secular is assumed into the divine, the temporal to the eternal. The picture of the earthly banquet evokes our appreciation of common meals in relation to the Eucharist. Apart from how Christ is present to the Church, the Eucharist tells us what God offers to people who eat together and make conversation.

Bad Meals

            Eating together can be a redemptive happening, if people want it to be so, since, like any human activity, it can be ambiguous, and needs redeeming. It is never totally free from self-seeking and self-destructiveness. A man may devour his food to feed his isolation and as an escape from more important duties. Over-eating is often interpreted as a symptom of inner insecurity and infantilism. Eating together can sadly be an enforced convergence of people who have been trying to avoid the others the whole day, or it can be an excuse for exclusive groupism. Eating together can be accompanied by a carefully screened conversation by which each tries to keep the other out of his life, a nervous juggling of words, occasionally interrupted by jokes that jolt and by remarks by which one triumphs over another, until the moment of relief, when everybody rises from table, each to their own pain and isolation.

            Such meals are devastating: they feed the sickness in us, with its scepticism and mistrust, fear and anger, and the vague alienation from human life. Whoever hurts his brother/sister while breaking bread with them, betrays the Lord anew and will sleep in death. He must know that night has descended upon his heart, the light has gone out of the land, and God has left his people. Woe to the community where the whole game is all about hurting someone and gaining advantage for oneself, about getting power and showing it. The Bread of Life must be broken again to restore once more the Body of Christ.

Good Meals

            The secular print in the Eucharist is that God offers men and women redemption through common meals. Just as “great things happen when God mixes with man,” so the marvellous may happen when people eat together. In the act of eating, for instance, a man acknowledges his need of enjoyable sustenance, and, hence, of other people. Eating implies opening oneself to others. Meals link several countries, industries and cultures on the same spread. This includes the furniture, linen, crockery and cutlery (if used). How many people are involved in producing the food, harvesting it, packing, selling and buying it, in the whole organisation through which these transactions become possible. Thus, a meal may celebrate the unity offered to the human race, though it may also indict us for acquiescing in the sad fact that millions still go hungry.

            Apart from the savouries and spices, eating together is normally laced with conversation: the trusting exchange of words and ideas that further the fellowship among the eaters, offering reconciliation and inner rebuilding. The Divine Word is present at the table, offering them the Eucharist in an implicit and generic form, since the Spirit is present in any benevolent assembly.

            Let every common meal we share be a prolongation of the Eucharist and our preparation for it.

                                          THE BODY

            Paul of Tarsus was once a persecutor of the followers of Jesus. But on the road to Damascus the risen Christ confronted him. Paul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” And the answer shocked Paul: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts of the Apostles 9, 5). Over time, Paul came to realise the stupendous application of that revelation, namely, that Jesus is present and alive not only in his very body but also in the community of believers, the church, also known as the body of Christ. Thus, Jesus’ body is the bread of the Eucharist; and the communion of Christians, the church, makes up the body of Christ. The definition of the Eucharist can never leave out the presence of Christ as head of the assembly of the faithful. There is, consequently, a mysterious link between the body of Christ as Eucharist and the body of Christ as church. This has prompted the felicitous expression: “The Eucharist makes the church, and the church makes the Eucharist.” They condition one another, like the love of God and the love of neighbour.

Body as Eucharist-Church

            Yet there is a distinction between the body as church and the body as Eucharist. Consider St. Paul’s admonition to the Christians of Corinth: “Therefore, anyone who eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord (1 Corinthians 18, 27). Here St. Paul is distinctly referring to the presence of Christ as Eucharist. Earlier, in chapter 12, he states, “…all the parts of the body, though many, still making up one single body - so it is with Christ. We were baptised into one body in a single Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12, 12).

            Paul uses the classical analogy of society as a single body with many parts, but his concept of the body of Christ goes back to his own conversion, to the faith in Jesus whose body, raised from the dead and given life by the Spirit (Romans 1,4) became the “first-fruits” of a new creation. Christians are united with Christ’s risen body by baptism and the Eucharist, united in such a way that Christ and they form one body of Christ. Finally, in the widest sense, Paul includes in his concept of the body the entire cosmos as unified under the Lord Jesus Christ. (Cfr. Ephesians 1,23ff)

Body Perfect

            Two leading interpretations of Paul's notion of the church as the body of Christ have caught the popular imagination, namely, the “perfect” and “broken” body of Jesus. Quite commonly, the church was understood as “the perfect body”: an idyllic society whose members understand and carry out their respective roles according to God’s will, resulting in peace and harmony. In this construct the church is no more no less the reflected body of Christ, cleansed of all human imperfections, and projected on the world’s canvas. Hence, if the church suffers at any time, it is because the world beyond it has been corrupted by sin and evil. But the church within is immaculate.

            This image of the church as the “body perfect” was in part the product of the classical Greek culture. The Greeks idealised and extolled the human body. Consider the Olympics, Greek art and sculpture. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Greek Christians applied the ideal of the Olympian body to the church as the body of Christ. This image of the perfect body has a strong appeal today as it did in the early community. We still tend to idealise that which is strong and healthy and reject the weak, sickly and misshapen. An extreme evolute of this was the “genotypes”, promoted by Hitler’s Third Reich.

Body Broken

            Contemporary scholars are more realistic, and suggest that the image of the “body perfect” is misleading, preferring to liken the church to the broken body of Jesus, an experience at once personal and universal. The members of the community are subject to human weakness, indicating that the church itself is made up of sinners on pilgrimage to the Father’s house (Blessed Pope John XXIII), reflecting a humanity struggling for survival and writhing in the horrifying pains of war, disease, racism, poverty, exploitation, and starvation. Today, Jesus would be recognised in the brokenness of his sisters and brothers. How true the “fraction of the bread” at holy Mass!

            Thus the church is more properly understood as the broken body of Christ than as the perfect one, its power lying in acknowledging its weakness in order that God might act in and through it; a power beyond worldly comprehension which understands only arrogance and invincibility. St. Paul put it thus: “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12, 8 – 10).

            In fine, a mature perspective of the body of Christ as Eucharist and as church would visualise the Eucharist as providing the immaculate purity of doctrine and grace poured into frangible vessels of clay symbolising the human composition of the church’s pilgrimage.

BIBLE HITS NEW HIGH

BIBLE HITS NEW HIGH

                                                 
Yi, Lipo and Wa – spoken by more than a million people in China – are just three of the 61 languages that gained their first partial Bible translations during 2016, along with Tatar and Udmurt for use in Russia, and Cree and Inupiaq for Canada, according to the latest Global Scripture Access Report from the Swindon-based United Bible Societies (UBS).

Last year’s 61 new translations brought all or parts of the Bible to an estimated 428 million people for the first time, including tribes in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda and Zambia, as well as six separate ethnic groups in India and seven in Myanmar.

The UBS report said that complete Bibles are now available in 648 languages. However, with an estimated 6,880 “living languages” worldwide, much work remains before “everyone can access the full Bible in the language of their choice”.

Although 285 million people globally are visually impaired, including 40 million who are blind, only 44 languages have a full Bible in Braille to date, usually running to 40 bulky volumes.

Founded in 1946, UBS has 146 member societies, working in more than 200 countries and territories.

-          From THE TABLET

London 6^th. May 2017

BEATITUDES - 2

THE BEATITUDES

MATTHEW 5:1-12

Friends, today in the Beatitudes we hear are a series of paradoxes, surprises, reversals. A topsy-turvy universe is being set aright. Let me propose a key for translating these beatitudes. The word found in all of them is makarios, rendered “blessed” or “happy” or perhaps even “lucky.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit...” How lucky you are if you are not addicted to material things. Here Jesus is telling us here how to realize our deepest desire, which is the desire for God. “Blessed are they who mourn...” We might interpret it this way: “How lucky are you if you are not addicted to good feelings.” Doing the will of God sometimes involves the acceptance of enormous pain. “Blessed are the meek...” One of the greatest seductions the world holds out to us is power. But what I ought to do is eschew worldly power, so that the power of the will of God might reign in me. Why would the Father have done such a terrible thing? Out of love. He wanted to bring the divine life even into the darkest places. He wanted to hunt us down. But notice, please, that what kept the Son tethered to the Father, even on his downward journey, was nothing other than the Holy Spirit, the love between the Father and the Son. And this is precisely why we are saved in the Holy

HOLY TRINITY, FAITH AND BELIEF IN

Faith, Belief, and the Trinity

Fr. Robert P. Imbelli

SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 2017

Oblate Father Ronald Rolheiser is among the most respected and prolific writers on Christian spirituality. Though I have never met him, I have profited from his keen insights and captivating stories. In particular, I am indebted to two of his books: The Holy Longing (which I used with undergraduates) and Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity.

However, a recent article of his, “When Does Faith Disappear?,” left me uneasy. It appears to reflect a trend in theology and spirituality (the two, of course, are inseparable) that is well meaning, but ultimately misleading.

It begins with alarming statistics. Not only has there been a precipitous decline in recent decades in the number of people who go to church regularly. There has been “an equally unprecedented spike in the number of people who claim to have lost their faith completely.” The latter add to the swelling ranks of so-called “Nones,” people without any religious affiliation. In the United States and Canada, “Nones” now comprise over 30 percent of the population!

But have many of them really lost their faith? Rolheiser offers a distinction that has become widespread in contemporary Catholic theology: he distinguishes “faith” and “beliefs.” He asks provocatively: “is ceasing to believe in something the same thing as losing one’s faith?” And responds, equally provocatively, “not necessarily.”

To unpack this assertion, Rolheiser turns to what is traditionally called the “apophatic” dimension of Christian theology and spirituality. He rightly declares: “God is beyond all conceptualization, beyond all imaginings, beyond being pictured and beyond being captured in any adequate way by language.”

In many ways, this recovery of the “apophatic” recalls what the Fathers of the Church and Thomas Aquinas affirmed. Recall Saint Augustine’s si comprehendis, non est Deus – “if you [presume to] grasp, it is not God.” A salutary rebuke to a too rationalistic appeal to propositions, as though they adequately circumscribed the content of faith. Karl Rahner’s insistence on the “mystagogic” nature of dogmatic statements was, therefore, a welcome counter to neo-scholastic overreaching (whatever else may be said of his work).

Santa Trinità by Masaccio, 1425 [Santa Maria Novella, Florence]

But I suggest the pendulum has now swung far in the opposite direction. We risk an equally unsatisfactory spurning of propositions. The danger is what I term “an empty apophaticism.” “Faith” with no distinctive and discernible content. This, unfortunately, abets the “I’m spiritual, but not religious” posture. Propositions can never fully articulate the Mystery, but they can point us in the direction where true Mystery lies and provide insight into its character.

Saint Paul insists that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor 2:9). That’s “apophatic.” But he immediately adds “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” (1Cor 2:10)

Revelation is the rub! Christian faith is the loving response to God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. Revelation perforce comes to expression in propositions, articles of belief: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” (1 Cor 15:3-5)

Statements of belief articulate the “cataphatic” dimension of revelation, its positive content. Without this dimension, Christian faith is empty and void. As Louis Dupré writes: “If we can assert nothing about God, then we can say nothing to God – and that marks the end of religion.”

I agree with Father Rolheiser that “many articles within our Christian creed. . .are images and words that point us towards something we cannot imagine because it is beyond imagination.” They are “mystagogic.” But pastors are called to be “mystagogues:” to probe wisely and reverently the Mystery of the faith. They are commissioned, according to their ability, to rekindle the religious imagination, to embrace the via pulchritudinis – the way of beauty – extolled by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium. They ponder, with their people, the great truths of the faith, calling upon poets and artists for assistance.

An example: Rolheiser asks, “How can God, who is one, be three? This isn’t mathematics, it’s mystery, something that cannot be imaginatively circumscribed.” Yes, certainly. But ought it not be imaginatively evoked? As John Donne put it:

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I might rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break blow, burn, and make me new.

We might then suggest, conceptually now, but still imaginatively, that the “three-personed God” bespeaks the fullness of personhood, the fullness of life-giving relations. That we, made in the image of this God, are not yet fully what God intends us to be. That we are called to grow, through grace, more and more into God’s likeness, to become sharers in the very life of the three-personed God.

The completed created likeness of the Trinity is the communion of saints: relationships redeemed and transfigured.

Dante is the supreme poet of the Catholic Tradition, the paladin of the Catholic imagination. The terza rima of the Divine Comedy attunes our every movement to the rhythm of Trinitarian life. And the deifying vision to which he and we are destined is the vision of the Triune God.

But such vision is never individualistic; it is fully personal and transpires only in communion. As Dante, draws close to his journey’s culmination, he sees more and more clearly that relationships, founded and transformed in Love, truly mirror the blessed Trinity. Not celestial mathematics; but wondrous mystery.

Because Christian faith is, of its essence, Trinitarian, there can be no dichotomy between faith and belief. Christian faith is not formless; its “logic” is Trinitarian. Indeed, the primacy of the cataphatic dimension in Christian theology and spirituality is on full display each time we begin our prayer by signing ourselves: “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

© 2017 

PENTECOST AND HOPE: POPE FRANCIS

Pentecost and Hope: Pope Francis

On Wednesday 31^st. May 2017, Pope Francis said the Holy Spirit has the power to fill us with the hope of Christ, in turn making us Christians vessels that bring hope to others, rather than bitterness or desperation. 

“The Holy Spirit makes us not only able to hope, but also to be sowers of hope, that we too are, like him and thanks to him – the “paraclete” – consolers and defenders of our brothers, sowers of hope,” Pope Francis said May 31.

“A Christian can sow bitterness, can sow perplexity, and this is not Christian,” he said, adding: “whoever does this is not a good Christian. Sow hope: sow the oil of hope, sow the fragrance of hope, and not the vinegar of bitterness and hopelessness.”

Francis continued his reflections on the virtue of hope during the weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, this time centering on the role of the Holy Spirit in anticipation of the Feast of Pentecost.

Hope is simultaneously, as St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Hebrews, like an anchor and a sail, the Pope said. “If the anchor is what gives the boat safety and keeps it ‘anchored’ between the waves of the sea, the sail, instead, is what makes it proceed and advance on the waters.”

“Hope is really like a sail; it collects the wind of the Holy Spirit and transforms it into a driving force pushing the boat, depending on the case, offshore or to shore,” he explained.

“The Spirit is the wind that drives us forward, that keeps us on the road, makes us hear pilgrims and strangers, and does not allow us to sit and become a ‘sedentary’ people.”

This is why hope does not disappoint: “because there is the Holy Spirit within us that pushes us forward, always!” he said.

It’s also because of the Holy Spirit that we have the ability to rest in hope, and have hope even “against all hope,” as St. Paul says in Romans, the Pope continued.  

To illustrate his point, Francis pointed to Abraham’s obedience when God asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and to the Virgin Mary as she stood at the foot of the cross of her son, Jesus, as examples of this supernatural hope.

It is possible to have this kind of “invincible” hope, he said, because the Holy Spirit helps us to recognize that we are children and heirs of God. 

Again pointing to St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Francis noted that “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

“The expression ‘God of hope’ does not just mean that God is the object of our hope, that is, the one we hope to reach one day in eternal life; it also means that God is the one who already makes us hope, indeed, makes us ‘happy in hope,’” he said.

According to a popular saying, “as long as there is life, there is hope.” While this is true, the Pope said that the converse is also true: “As long as there is hope, there is life. Men need hope to live.”  

Quoting from a speech of Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Francis said: “Educated by our own suffering, by our own sorrow, indeed by our own sins, we will have a mind and heart practiced in every work of love towards those that have need.”

“We will be, in measure of our capacity, consolers in the image of the Paraclete,” the Pope said. “That is, the Holy Spirit, and in all the senses that this word implies: advocates, helpers, comforters. Our words and our counsel, our way of acting, our voice, our gaze, will be gentle and peaceful.”

“Brothers and sisters, the coming feast of Pentecost – which is the birthday of the Church, eh? –  we find ourselves together in prayer, with Mary, the Mother of Jesus and of us,” he said in conclusion.

“And the gift of the Holy Spirit makes us abound in hope,” he said, but explained that there is more: the Holy Spirit “makes us ‘waste’ hope with all those who are most needy, the most discarded and with all those who need it.”