Easter Vigil

Easter Vigil
16 April 2022
Gospel: Luke 24:1-12

In the ritual system of our Catholic worship, whose absolute pinnacle you are climbing by your participation in this Easter Vigil with its evocative gestures and symbols, we regularly hear from the narrative of mankind’s salvation by listening to God’s Word recorded in that Catholic book called the Bible.  In entirely unique fashion, this Vigil has us listen to God’s love and saving action through a hefty number of readings, nine in all.  And that doesn’t even count the psalms that we sing and the numerous antiphons and other ritual words that come directly from the Sacred Scriptures.  In listening to the Scriptures we encounter God’s living word.  And we are intended to take that Word into our being and our way of living.  We are intended – the image might be – to breathe it in.  To let God’s inspiration be our respiration!  It is a living, not a dead Word.

We have to be careful that we do not succumb to the unhealthy and unholy busyness of modern life, falling prey to its materialist and secular mind, such that we begin to think of God’s Word as only words on a page, a static recounting of someone’s past history, a monument to the unsophisticated mind of some past cultures before the scientific age, dare I say… a dead word.  Salvation history recounted in Scripture is composed of past historical events and saving actions, yes, but God is acting to save us in our time too and to speak His Word to us, a Word that is always alive.  And so, we need to practice the art of seeing ourselves in salvation history.  We need to practice the art of seeing and receiving what God is doing now for us in the gestures and symbols of worship that communicate and make present His saving power.

An ancient homily on Holy Saturday is used in the Church’s prayer on Holy Saturday.  That ancient homily is a reflection on what faith tells us this day is about.  Quote: “The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.  The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began.  God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear,” end quote.  God has chosen to subject Himself to falling asleep because by Original Sin and by our personal sins we are deserving of falling asleep.  God comes in our flesh.  He comes to live our very life.  He comes, collapsing the distance between us and Him, to place Himself into our experience that He might plant the seed of divinity there.  That means we must see our lives as the soil to receive God’s planting.  The living God with His living Word comes even into our sleeping to plant the divine power of new life.   That ancient Holy Saturday homily goes on to describe how God has entered His creation to bear and to reform the marks that cause us to fall asleep.  “I order you, O sleeper, to awake.  I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.  Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.  Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image…. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed … in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.  See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you.  See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image.  On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back.  See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.”

All this is to say that, as we hear salvation history in God’s Word and renew our faith that it is a living Word, and as we meditate upon God’s action and the response of His people, and as we marvel at how God has chosen to enter into our life and to plant in our way of being the seed of divinity, what we marvel at is not only God’s action in entering our life, but that in the gestures of worship we recognize a call to seek, and to enter, and to live a godly life – we marvel that we are called to enter His life.  What God has done in coming to us and working within us is a relationship and not a one-way street.  As that ancient Holy Saturday homily reflected on what the Lord Jesus did in taking on our life and entering our sleep to overcome it, so relationship with God is an invitation to us to place ourselves into godly life.  God’s living Word experienced in the Scriptures but also in the gestures and symbols of our liturgical life is a principal way we enter into and we live the life of God.  It is a practice of sorts that we get here.  But entering into and living a godly life must happen outside these walls too, so that the light of divine life we have received might grow and dispel the darkness that still envelopes so many in our world.  As we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus the empty tomb is the witness to the truth of this saving event.  It is a witness on which we must firmly plant our faith.  Yet, in an almost curious-sounding way, it is NOT a witness on which we are called to plant our feet.  For just as the women in the Gospel went to perform the liturgical action of anointing Jesus, but then left, returning “from the tomb and announced all these things,” so our liturgical action here is meant to strengthen and restore our faith in God’s saving action and to drive us out to announce all this to others that they, too, might be amazed at what has happened.

 (slightly adapted for delivery Easter Sunday)

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday
14 April 2022

 As we have begun this evening Mass, the season of Lent has now officially ended and we have entered the most sacred days of the Church’s briefest liturgical “season”.  The Sacred Triduum, or the Sacred Three Days, carries us from Holy Thursday evening to Easter Sunday evening.  This short “season” has us observe our most high holy days, celebrating tonight that our Lord established two sacraments at the Last Supper, the institution of the Holy Eucharist and of the priesthood; observing tomorrow the saving sacrifice of the Cross; and, observing on Holy Saturday night and Easter Sunday our Lord’s resurrection to new life.

 The oddity of the last couple of years has impacted it seems almost every aspect of life, including adaptations to our typical practices at Church.  This has resulted in some good opportunities, I think, to give a renewed focus to some of the most essential aspects of our Catholic faith.  Though we are more back to normal than not, I found in a conversation with several brother priests a few months back that we rather appreciated that the omission of the optional foot washing last year provided an opportunity to focus more strictly on the institution of the Holy Eucharist.  Several of us wanted to maintain that focus and so I am again opting to omit the foot washing, which is always optional anyway.  I rather appreciate the foot washing, so I will certainly opt to do it in the future, but for this year at least I wanted to let the Holy Eucharist be the exclusive focus.

I decided I wanted to provide this focus so that we do not obscure that the Cross is really the focus of these days and that even the action of our Lord taking off his outer garments and washing feet is actually supposed to speak to us more than just foot washing, but the continuation of what the Son of God began at the Incarnation.  In other words, at the Incarnation the Son of God lowered Himself to strip off His proper glory as God in order to be veiled by His union with human flesh.  The action of removing his outer garments and washing feet, once again, renews this self-emptying, this lowering of God to us.  In other words, the foot washing is more than just a servant’s action, but is a prophetic act, drawing attention to the completion of the Lord’s self-emptying on the Cross.  Everything about the Last Supper and what we observe this evening speaks of the action and the gift of the Cross where our Lord submitted to sacrificing himself for our salvation.  That’s what I hope our focus can be this year.

 As your Pastor, I want to place our focus on the sacrifice of the Cross and the Holy Eucharist because I think one of the most disfiguring tendencies or ideas afloat with regard to the Holy Mass is the idea that it is a re-enactment of the Last Supper.  That idea in summary is that at the Last Supper Jesus had a meal with his followers, gave us two sacraments, and told us to do this again in memory of him.  And so, at Mass we gather as the present-day community of the Lord’s disciples and we share a meal.  But this degenerates rather quickly into notions of theatrics whereby the priest plays the part of Jesus and the people play the part of the apostles, and thereby obscures the actual theology of our faith about the Holy Mass, and the Holy Eucharist, and both the ordained priesthood and the baptismal priesthood.  Over the past many decades with the rise in the popularity of this idea, we have suffered a weakening, an impoverishing, of our theology of the Holy Eucharist and what it means to participate in it.  While one can hold an appropriate appreciation of the meal aspect of the Holy Eucharist, it must be said clearly that that is not the primary focus of the Holy Eucharist.  Rather, a Catholic understanding of the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Mass is first and foremost the making present in each time and place where the Mass happens of the very same sacrifice of the Cross, though in an unbloody manner, by which we are placed into relationship with the sacrifice of the Lord for our salvation.  And for this reason, and because of this authentically catholic understanding, St. Paul could write (as we heard in the second reading), “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”  At Holy Mass, just as was present at the Last Supper, the mystery of the Lord’s Cross is in the air.  St. Paul and we today acknowledge that our gathering in fulfilment of the Lord’s command proclaims not a meal or a re-enactment of the Last Supper, but rather, we proclaim his death.  And since the Lord’s Cross is intimately connected to his Resurrection, our gathering here moves from proclaiming his death to receiving not dead flesh, but the living resurrected flesh of the Lord, presented to us in a manner we can receive in Holy Communion.  Therefore, a Catholic’s ability to receive Holy Communion is not simply the idea that might be expressed in this way, “I come to a meal and so I eat”; but rather, should be expressed as, “I come to the sacrifice of the Lord and if I am seeking to drive out sin from my life, I am then worthy to receive Holy Communion, to receive the Lord’s sacrifice for sin.”  I, too, must move from death to life by repenting of sin in confession, and by changing my sinful ways to live a deeper communion with the Lord.

Just as the foot washing is not just about a servant’s act, so the Last Supper and the Holy Mass are not primarily about a meal.  It is a meal, yes, but one whose focus is not just or simply about a meal, but rather moves us to consider the Cross, the sacrifice accomplished there, and the same sacrifice made present to us by our faithful gathering here.  And more than just “considering” these things as if they existed only in reflection of the mind or in memory, the Holy Mass puts us in contact with the very same reality of the Lord’s sacrifice for our salvation.  It makes the one and same sacrifice of the Cross present to us here and now through the agency of the ordained priesthood by which the Lord receives a man’s being and his life and so conforms the man to himself that the Lord chooses to act through him.  Through the gift of self in the ordained priesthood it is Christ the Great High Priest who acts.  In this way we might understand a deeper reality of the many vestments a priest wears for this most solemn act.  The ordained priest vests not to dress himself up, but rather, quite the opposite, he vests to cover himself in order that a priest beyond himself might be seen, namely the High Priest, Jesus Christ, whose one eternal Priesthood operates in our midst such that when we gather for Holy Mass we do not gather for a mere re-enactment.  No, we gather such that the sacrifice of the Lord on the Cross is actually made present to us and offered to us in Holy Communion.

 The Church knows in her deepest faith and her highest theology that everything about this evening is about the Cross, it is about sacrifice.  No surprise then that the first reading from Exodus is chosen, speaking to us about the memorial feast of the Passover that is not simply a meal but a perpetual institution that calls for the sacrificial slaughter of a lamb.  This is the foundation for the New Testament understanding of the Holy Mass.  As the Gospel passage this evening showed Peter with several misunderstandings about the Lord’s action of washing feet, may we purify our focus on the Cross in these days and carry that focus into a more proper understanding of the Holy Eucharist and the ordained priesthood.  May that opportunity this night result in a deeper faith in the Lord’s presence in the Holy Eucharist.  May it result in renewed participation at Holy Mass and regular confession of sin.  May it result in our commitment to spend time with the Lord in the prayer of adoration in our chapel.  May it result in greater awe in our families to generously promote a priestly vocation from within the family.  May it result in a new harvest of future priests from among the boys and young men here in our midst.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Dominica V in Quadragesima C
3 April 2022

 The Gospel passage of the woman caught in the very act of adultery is a curious passage.  Perhaps one of the most curious aspects that stands out to us is that odd response of Jesus to write with his finger in the dirt of the ground, something the passage tells us he does twice.  We don’t know with certainty what he was writing or doing.  We do know that something about that gesture eventually led the accusers to walk away one by one.

The scribes and Pharisees contrived a twofold trap for Jesus.  The Mosaic Law is clear: any serious offense against one of the Ten Commandments is punishable by death.  Adultery certainly fits that.  If Jesus says the adulterer should not be stoned then he can be charged with a crime against God’s Law.  And there is another trap.  If Jesus says the woman should be put to death, and all the more in such a public place like the Temple, he can be charged with violating Roman law.  The Roman empire had taken to itself the authority to judge crimes punishable by death.  In other words, the Jewish elders did not have a forum to adjudicate and to bring about death in the Roman empire.  Such cases had to go before the Roman authority.  We will see this reality later when the elders eventually do bring Jesus before Pilate (cf. John 18:31).  They need Pilate to condemn Jesus to death in order to bring about what they desire to do to Jesus on the false claims that he had violated the Mosaic Law and that he had tried to make himself king over Caesar.

 I wonder if we as believers accept with clarity and consistency that God hates sin.  I think that is a lesson we can take from this Gospel passage.  I say that because Jesus does not dismiss the seriousness of the woman’s sin nor condone it, just as he does not give a free pass to the sins of the scribes and Pharisees who surround the woman.  Now, I know our modern ears sort of recoil at the word “hate.”  But it is true: God hates sin.  It is abhorrent to Him and offensive.  We admit this all the time in the act of contrition at confession: “O God, I am sorry for my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend thee, my God…”  Sin does not have a place in God’s presence (cf. Rev. 21:27).  And serious sin – even just one serious sin – deserves condemnation and punishment.  There is no denying that is a clear truth throughout the Bible and therefore throughout Sacred Tradition in the Church’s teaching.  Do we as disciples of the Lord serve as a Christian leaven for our culture by giving voice to what is true and by confronting sin where it is celebrated in our society?  I fear we are far too quiet on that front.  The daily drumbeat of progressive agendas and perversions on display in our culture is what prompts me to consider that a valuable lesson for us in our time is that simple foundational truth that God hates sin.  And related to that, we also have to accept that punishment of sin pleases God.  Sin deserves punishment.  Thus, in the Gospel our Lord does not say that someone guilty of adultery should not be put to death.  No, quite the contrary, he indicates that stones could be thrown at the woman.  But our Lord’s response goes further to show that the punishment of sin should arise from a purity that matches his own.  A pure and just hatred for sin should be the force or the muscle that hurls the stones.  So, he says, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And while God hates sin and is pleased by its punishment, He also does not desire the condemnation of a soul, the condemnation of a sinner.  And that is Good News.  It is a common human trap to focus exclusively on the teaching of mercy that God does not desire the sinner to die, while obscuring that sin deserves God’s justice, a fierce justice.  Our Lord is both justice and mercy in this passage.  He clearly supports the punishment of sin and, also very important, he tells the sinner to go and sin no more.  There is no free pass for sin here.  But he also does not desire the woman to die or to be condemned and so he will not support those who are impure by their own sins lining up to throw stones at her in a spectacle of false righteousness.

 Think of how modern ears hear and use this passage and many others that refer to God’s mercy.  A person is caught in a very grave sin and it should be severely punished.  But Jesus doesn’t seem to support that.  So modern secular ears go marching off dismissing the seriousness of sin.  Then comes the next step, to support sin as its own expression and identity that should be “tolerated.”  And then comes the next step that not even tacit tolerance is enough, but the rest of us must actively promote the sin or else we are guilty of hate and should be canceled.  This process plays out before us daily it seems, and in the most perverse and outrageous ways.  Everything these days it seems is “trans” this and “trans” that.  Just days ago, the misguided moral leadership of our President celebrated “Transgender Visibility Day” by having the nerve to equate that ideology with being made in God’s image and likeness.  We should be clear, a person is made in God’s image and likeness; an ideology with convenient political clout and elitist money is not.  I am also thinking ahead to what comes each June with so-called “Pride” month.  One glance at what goes on as standard practice for celebrating Pride month demonstrates that it is overt sexualization of a most perverse kind on public display.  These ideologies and so many others are being injected into every sector of life at increasing speed, into laws, into entertainment, even children’s entertainment, into our schools – and why these children’s places?  Because these ideologies are a belief system that needs to indoctrinate the next generation.  We could even call them their own type of religion with their own catechesis.  And, we aren’t immune here, for even our local leaders go along with the pressure and promote these ideologies, as Edmond’s Mayor did last year with his June Pride declaration.  Why are our Christian voices so silent in the face of these errors?  These destructive forces are right under our noses, in our school systems, in our public libraries, in our city councils.  Now I am highlighting only a couple of examples of sinful movements that are prominent, but there are many more that we could list.  We believers make a mistake by being silent in the face of such false morality.

 But if we follow the Lord as we say we do, then we must first confront and name sin in our own life, because we must hate sin as God does, confessing it immediately in the case of serious sin, and working hard to change and root out sin from our lives.  Because God hates sin.  If we follow the Lord as we say we do, then we, too, love souls and we seek to listen to, to befriend, and to instruct those in our sphere of influence who struggle and who are going astray.  And speaking the truth to them is an act of love.  Don’t let anyone tell you any differently.  But we do not condone sin.  If we follow the Lord as we say we do, then we are clear about calling sin “sin”.  We are clear that God hates sin.  And if we follow the Lord as we say we do, then like him, we do not dismiss sin or downplay it, or support it.  No, like the Lord, we clearly love the sinner while also having his or her long term, eternal good in mind by saying, “Go and from now on do not sin any more.”

 We are on a special journey this Lent to be renewed.  For those who are preparing for baptism, they are preparing to be healed and saved in the waters of rebirth so that they might rise from the waters and go to live new life in the Lord.  For the already baptized we, like the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel, are confronting our own sinfulness and walking away, even running, to the confessional to be healed by the mercy of God who does not want us to die.  And we step forth from that sacrament healed in our baptismal dignity to enact with greater zeal a holiness of life.  No matter what our own burdens and sins may be and no matter how serious they may be, we take comfort in the compassion and mercy on display in the Gospel passage today.  We accept that sin offends God and that its punishment pleases Him.  But we also accept that He does not desire our death or condemnation.  Rather, He heals us and at the same time, with our eternal good in view, He commands us to go and to sin no more.  In the face of the burdens and sins that mark our past we should be moved by the image in today’s first reading that the Lord opens passages and ways in the sea and in the desert wasteland, in the most unlikely of places.  In our places too!  “I am doing something new!” says the Lord.  Do something new in my life, Lord!  Convinced that God hates sin and expect us to speak the truth, may we say with St. Paul, from the second reading, “I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”