Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Nativity of St. John the Baptist

24 June 2018

This year the observance of the nativity of St. John the Baptist falls on a weekend, meaning it replaces the normal Sunday Mass.  Most of the saints in our liturgical calendar have a feast day that is placed more or less on the day we call their “birth” into eternal life, meaning the day of their death.  Only a very few saints have multiple celebrations in the calendar, and fewer still have observances of their literal birth in time, their birth on earth in addition to their birth into eternity.  St. John the Baptist is one such saint.  That we observe his nativity tells us that he and his mission are incredibly important to our faith as Catholics.

My reflections on this nativity of St. John the Baptist do not rest so much on the Scripture selections themselves but rather on the simple fact that we are asked to celebrate the birth of a “radical.”  It is rather curious and maybe even comical.  Look at us!  Here we are as thoroughly modern people.  For the most part we are dressed rather well.  We have our comforts and our controlled environment here.  We probably think we know what we need to hear from God.  We may even think we are doing God a favor by being here.  And we gather to celebrate the birth of a guy who went around in camel hair and ate locusts!  And more than that, he spoke a strongly critical message and stern warning about the day of God’s judgment!  Meanwhile we – and by “we,” I mean I – fret about the thermostats before each Mass and when we arrive we say, thanks be to God, no one parked in the spot I like to park in or is sitting in my spot I like to sit in.  This hardly seems like the breeding ground for radicals.  Maybe just the mere fact that the Church has us observe this man’s nativity has more than enough to speak to us before we would consider the Scripture passages associated with this Mass.

St. John the Baptist was a radical.  Are we ready to be radicals?  That’s in part why I think our observance of his birth is a bit curious, even comical.  Do we realize that a radical is being placed before our eyes to imitate?  But here’s the catch: we often misunderstand the term “radical.”  We stop at what is visible or superficial and we think that’s what it means to be a radical.  St. John lived out in the wilderness.  He ate weird stuff.  He wore strange clothes.  We would wrongly conclude that he is an “out there,” free-range spirit, a radical.  That’s not what being a radical means.  And it’s not what the Church is placing before us for imitation.  Being a radical goes much deeper.  That something “deeper” is the real thing we are being encouraged to follow in this observance of St. John’s birth.

I wonder if often we confuse a “revolutionary” for a “radical?”  A revolutionary turns things over, turns things on their head, and bucks the system.  A radical, on the other hand, might do some revolutionary things, but the far deeper reality of a radical is that he is rooted and has a strong foundation.  That’s the core meaning of the term from which we get “radical.”  Radical means being rooted.  As Catholics, beneficiaries of the radical preaching of St. John the Baptist, we are radicals if we are rooted in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.  These are our foundations.  It is out of these, or from these, that we must operate to fulfill our calling to be missionary disciples in the modern world.  If we are disconnected from, unaware of, or uninterested in Scripture and Tradition then whatever we are doing in the name of Jesus risks having little to do with our roots, and thereby ceases to be radical, and thereby ceases to be of God.

We are to be rooted in Sacred Scripture (which is God’s word in written form) and rooted in Sacred Tradition (which is God’s word passed on in the oral preaching and witness of the apostles).  By “rooted” I mean that we are to reach deeply into, and to draw spiritual life and wisdom out of, Scripture and Tradition.  Then nourished with such life we stretch forth and go out to be witnesses of Jesus in this world.  Like a living thing, we only have life if we remain with the roots.  Like a living thing, we grow and stretch out to reach new places beyond our familiar territory.  But we can’t be alive and we can’t grow unless we have roots.  Jesus himself used this image: “I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5).  To be radical, like St. John, is to be rooted in God’s word, which comes to us in the twofold font of Scripture and Tradition.

The society in which we live is marked by upheaval from its own roots.  This upheaval seems to be happening at an ever more rapid pace.  Societal change in norms and expectations has made us arrive at unbelievable scenarios, scenarios that were unimaginable even just a decade ago.  To be a person of radical faith in this environment will likely result in people looking at us as if we really are dressed in camel’s hair and eating locusts!  People might ask, what are those Catholics breathing and eating?  They think Jesus is actually God and that that actually means their personal lives and societal life truly ought to be conformed to God’s moral commands.  Are they crazy?  Those Catholics think Jesus is not a bygone influence, but that the Scriptures, the Tradition, and the Church continue to speak his teaching with authority.  How medieval!  They think persons being made in God’s image and likeness imparts a dignity that demands the right to life.  They think that sexual love has meaning, that its proper place is actually within the marriage of a man and a woman, that it should not be refused in acts of contraception, and that same-sex activity is not only out of order, but even immoral.  They actually think a person’s genetic code, expressed in the physical appearance of the body, is determinate of one’s gender, no matter how surgery might alter that appearance.  How unscientific!  Those Catholics think that Jesus’ life and power comes to them in sacraments.  They think the Mass actually makes Jesus’ sacrifice present such that bread and wine really become Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.  What fairy tale magic!  What are those Catholics breathing and eating?!

If we are radical, if we have roots, I’ll tell you what we are breathing and eating: we are breathing in the inspiration of God’s word and having been made more worthy by frequent confession we are eating the gift that roots us in deep communion with Jesus himself!  By observing the birth of St. John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus, we are not being called to be revolutionaries.  Rather we are called to be radicals.  We are called to be so rooted in our life with Jesus that we have something worth sharing with our world.  In fact, we have what Jesus wants to be shared with the world so that men and women are called away from error and sin and brought to true and lasting life in advance of the day of judgment.  The devil wants us to sink our roots into the things of this world over which he has some measure of influence because by that he knows he has uprooted us from Christ and neutralized a branch of the vine.  A different St. John, St. John the Evangelist, describes it this way: “Do not love the world or the things of the world.  If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.  And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever” (1 Jn. 2:15-17).  Observing the birth of St. John the Baptist is our call to be rooted in the things of God and to join St. John in a radical proclamation to the world that God is in our midst: “Behold the Lamb of God!”

Eleventh Sunday In Ordinary Time

Dominica XI per Annum B

17 June 2018

Jesus’ words in the selection from St. Mark’s Gospel teach us about the Kingdom of God.  It is a seed that is scattered on the land that undergoes change and growth while the sower waits for it to come to harvest time.  It is like a seed so small that one would not expect it to become the largest of plants.  These parables remind me too of Jesus’ words in St. John’s Gospel when he says that unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain.  But if it dies it produces much fruit.

What does the image of seed and the process of germination teach us about the kingdom of God?  I don’t want to wade too deeply into plant biology here because to do so would be to wade into a topic I am not qualified to say much about.  However, for the purposes of this parable image of seed we might consider that seed that is scattered, sown, and planted is not a dead thing, but a living thing.  We can say that seed is in a living but dormant state.  The image of seed falling to the ground and dying, rather than having a literal meaning, is an image or analogy: seed that is planted gives up its previous dormant form.  In this sense, it “dies”, gives up itself, and transforms into something different.  Once a seed is planted, water in the soil begins a process by which the seed coat ruptures, and the heretofore dormant embryonic root is exposed and grows into the ground where it begins to extract nutrients and minerals that promote its growth and the production of shoots and leaves.

And Jesus says this tells us “how it is with the kingdom of God.”  God’s kingdom in seed form begins its process of germination in us by faith and baptism.  God’s kingdom is here in our midst the Scriptures say; and we await its fulfillment in the heavenly life to come.  The seed is scattered in us and slowly, imperceptibly, as if on its own, it gives up itself and transforms into something new, growing toward the harvest the sower expects and for which he waits.  The seed of the kingdom has its own inner strength or force that demands and impels toward full development.

The seed of God’s kingdom is scattered here below.  God expects it to sprout, to grow, to stretch, and to reach up to fulfillment in eternity.  Like the sower, He provides everything that is necessary for proper growth.  He prepares the soil – He prepares us – by the words of the prophets to receive the kingdom He plants.  He even sends His own Son, Jesus Christ, to till the ground with the instrument, the plow of the Cross, and to water us with the gift of the Blood and water flowing from his open side.  And He waits patiently to gather the harvest.

As analogies go, parables are not literally applicable in all aspects of the image.  For instance, taking the parable of the scattered seed, God the Sower, unlike the man in the parable, certainly knows how the seed of the kingdom sprouts and grows.  He is, we might say, more actively involved than the sower in the parable in that God continues to give forth all the necessary nourishment in order for the kingdom to grow in us.  In other words, God is not merely waiting for the harvest unaware of how to promote kingdom growth in us.  Likewise, as the parable applies to us, we are not passive in kingdom growth in ourselves.  We have been given the gift of free will and so we are called to be part of, and indeed to be responsible for, kingdom growth in our own lives and in the lives of others.  Disciples are supposed to be witnesses of the kingdom in this world and disciples are supposed to make other disciples.

The second reading comes into play here.  The kingdom being planted in us here below means we are called to undergo ongoing transformation so that the kingdom grows to its full harvest.  The seed planted in us and germinated with faith and baptism means we give up ourselves and the former ways of life so that kingdom life grows in us.  By this we can understand St. Paul: “while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.”  With the kingdom planted in us, our “seed coat” of sin must rupture so that kingdom life can grow and flourish in us, taking in all the nourishment God generously provides.  Like Jesus’ words in St. John’s Gospel, the seed planted here below must die, it must give up itself, in order to transform into newness of life.  And so, our use of free will, what we do in the body, matters for kingdom growth in us.  What we do in the body speaks to whether the kingdom harvest is lacking or ripe in us.  St. Paul’s image can be understood then: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.”  Yes, what do in this “seed coat” of the body matters.

The kingdom planted generously and lovingly by God requires that we give up our former way of life and be transformed here below.  Will we give up whatever sin is ours and submit it to God’s kingdom?  That is the question for each of us.  Have you ever heard it said, “Well, I’m okay, I mean I haven’t committed adultery or murdered anyone.”  Such comments excuse and minimize what are the kingdom-limiting factors in one’s life.  When I hear that I want to say, “That’s great, then let’s not waste breath on things that aren’t real for you and let’s get to what are the sins that limit the kingdom in you.”  The growth of conversion requires our cooperation.  Where we struggle to give up old ways and to live more fully on the nourishment God provides, we can take courage in the patient, tender care of God who expects a harvest in us and who does not abandon us in that growth.  Like the tender shoot from the cedar tree in the first reading that is torn off and planted high above Israel, providing proper dwelling, so God the Son, Jesus Christ, has given up his own life to provide us everything we need so that the kingdom grows in us.  At every Holy Mass we pray the Lord’s Prayer.  We might hear those familiar words about earth as having a particular call to us to submit ourselves to the kingdom in this body: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.”