Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Assumption of the BVM
15 August 2024

Anytime we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, as we do today in her assumption, the honor is closely tied to the ark of the covenant.  Mary, in fact, is called the New Ark or the Ark of the New Covenant in theological writings and among spiritual authors.  This connection to the ark is no surprise since the Scriptures make this connection.  We saw it in the first reading from the Book of Revelation.  There we have St. John’s vision of the heavens opened up and he sees the ark in the temple.  And immediately, in the next verses it goes on to make the connection, saying a “great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun”.  We see that image of the woman as an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

  How do you think the Jews thought of the ark of the Old Covenant?  Let’s consider some things the Scriptures tell us about that ark.  Only the Old Covenant Levitical priests could carry it.  No one else could touch it, under pain of being struck dead (as happened in some passages).  The ark was carried in procession as God’s people journeyed through life in their wanderings toward the Promised Land.  It accompanied them in battle as they faced hostile forces from other peoples.  The ark was the privileged meeting place of God with them.  But, the ark was not God Himself.  It was a powerful sign that God was near and in the midst of His people.  The ark contained signs of God’s presence, but no one thought the receptacle, the box itself, was somehow God.  Now, I want to ask, doesn’t all that sound like utmost respect and honor for the ark?  Do you think anyone among the Jews would have discounted the importance of the ark?  Or do you think anyone would have claimed that honoring the ark might confuse people into thinking the ark itself was God?  No.  And it’s the same with Mary, the ark of the New Covenant.

In addition to my work as a priest, I have other interests and things I am involved in outside of parish work.  Not all of those things are necessarily religious in nature.  Recently I was speaking to the organizer of one group I work with.  It’s not a religious group, but is involved in things in the public square.  The organizer is a sincere bible-believing Protestant.  He said to me, “You do good work for us… with or without the Rosary”.  Now, he wasn’t trying to be disrespectful and I didn’t take it that way.  His comment wasn’t the strongest of criticisms, but it did demonstrate a misunderstanding.  I said to him in response, “Oh, I assure you, any good you think I do is most definitely with the Rosary and with devotion to Mary, the mother of our Savior”.  I share this with you to say, don’t let anyone confuse you into thinking that Marian devotion, or things like the Rosary or litanies or processions, or things we use as part of our devotion to Mary are somehow inappropriate.  Don’t let anyone get away with claiming that honoring her is contrary to Scripture.  No, like the ark of the Old Covenant, she accompanies us on procession in the journey of this life.  She accompanies us as we face difficulties and struggles and must battle against sin to grow in holiness.  She reminds us powerfully that God is near.  How could she do anything other?  It was in her that God came to dwell and from her that He took human flesh in order to unite Himself to us.  And like the ark of old, in all of this honor and devotion, we do not somehow think that she is God.

But we honor Mary for far more important reasons.  Mary is more than just a receptacle, a “container”, where God came to dwell.  We honor her and are devoted to her because she is the premier disciple.  We are devoted to her because her entire life was marked by the mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ.  And we are called to allow the paschal mystery of Jesus, his suffering, death, and resurrection, to mark our lives too.  We see something of this in the second reading from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.  St. Paul writes, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the firstfruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ”.  St. Paul teaches us that we bear the mark of Adam in the natural order, meaning that our nature is fallen and we experience disorder, dissolution, and death.  But by spiritual adoption from God, we bear the mark of life in Christ, in the spiritual order.  If we follow this life in Christ as his disciples, we follow that proper order so that we are brought to life.  After Christ, we celebrate that Mary’s entire life was marked by the mystery of salvation.  We celebrate that she followed her son into heavenly life.  And for this reason, she is the model and the sign to us of God’s nearness and our part in being raised to life in Christ.  We honor Mary and celebrate her because through her we have the powerful reminder that God is near and acting in our midst.  Therefore, our hope and encouragement is that our life too can be marked by the same reward of Heaven!

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XIX per Annum B
11 August 2024

 We are currently in a tour through the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, known as the Bread of Life discourse.  This chapter is a prime location of Jesus’ teaching about the Holy Eucharist, that ordinary bread and wine become his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  So important is this element of our faith, that it can be said, we are not truly catholic if we do not accept that the bread and wine consecrated at Holy Mass in the Catholic Church are the Lord’s true Body and Blood.  Notice that I did not say: we are not truly catholic if we do not understand how bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus.  No, not understanding is one thing, and it can be improved and perfected.  But not accepting, refusing to accept, makes one not catholic.  Our affirmation of the clear scriptural teaching about bread and wine becoming the true and real Body and Blood of Jesus is something that requires from us an act of faith; faith that Jesus is God and he does what he says.

In this third Sunday installment from John chapter 6, we are getting to the threshold of Jesus’ teaching that his Body and Blood are food for disciples, and that he will give us this food in the Holy Eucharist.  But before we hear that next weekend, the Lord focuses attention on the manna, this bread from heaven, that the Jewish ancestors had received in the desert wanderings.  The Lord is using the manna to reveal two mysteries: the mystery of his divinity and, then, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist.  This weekend I want to focus our attention on only the first mystery, what precedes the teaching on the Holy Eucharist, namely the divinity of Jesus and the pre-requisite that we accept that Jesus is God.

In the Gospel selection today, the Lord uses the manna as a metaphor, as a sign which serves to communicate that he has come down from heaven.  In other words, the foundational lesson before we hear the Lord teach forcefully about the Holy Eucharist, is that just like the manna came down from heaven and was divine in origin, likewise Jesus is divine in origin.  He is the Bread of Life come down from heaven.  This is an important revelation that Jesus is claiming to be God.  And this revelation demands belief.  In fact, to first believe and express faith in the divinity of Jesus, makes it much easier to accept the next step – namely, that he gives himself as food and makes bread and wine become his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.  Thus, we can see how important it is that we consider the implications that Jesus is God.  This cannot be only something we say, as words on the lips.  It needs to be something that changes the way we live and the way we prioritize things in life.  Jesus is God.  He has come into our midst in the world.  He loves us.  He saves us.  And He does not abandon us.  He remains with us by the Holy Spirit dwelling within us in the Church.  And a particular gift of His presence is that the Holy Eucharist is his very self.  The manna came down from heaven.  Jesus teaches that he is the true manna.  He has come down from heaven, meaning he is God incarnate.  If we can accept that Jesus is God, how could we fail to accept that he makes bread and wine into his very self?

This teaching in John 6 sort of takes us all back to simpler days in second grade when a young catholic prepares to receive Holy Communion for the first time.  Ask a Catholic in second grade what the Holy Eucharist is and he will say, “It is Jesus”.  Ask the child how that can be, and he might say, “I don’t know.  But Jesus is God and He said so.  He makes it happen.”  And you know what?  That is true, and that is enough to have sufficient catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist!  Now, as we grow we want to have our understanding grow too.  I am not saying our childhood, or teenage, or young adult faith should not grow.  I am not saying we should stay with that second-grade proclamation.  No, we should seek to understand more as we age.  But the bottom line is that Jesus is God and if we believe that, then what he says about his flesh being true food in the Holy Eucharist is easier to accept in fidelity to what he clearly teaches in John 6 (which we will hear next weekend).

The first mystery that is revealed by referencing the manna from the Old Testament is that Jesus is asking his listeners to believe that he is God.  He is asking for faith from them and from us who hear his words today.  The response of the listeners in the Gospel passage reveals that they understand what Jesus is demanding of them.  Several times we hear that his listeners are murmuring about this and casting doubt amongst themselves.  The whole context here is instructive.  What was the chief struggle for God’s people as they wandered the desert for 40 years?  The struggle was to believe in the one true God and that God was with them as they suffered in the harsh atmosphere of the desert.  The struggle was to believe that God had not abandoned them, but that He cared for them, and was providing for them.  In the desert they murmured.  They complained.  And they doubted.  This is similar to what is going on in the gospel.  In today’s passage, we have still more evidence of the refusal to believe in the way the Jews react to Jesus’ claim that he has come down from heaven.  They say, “Is this not… the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his father and mother?  Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

 I want to challenge us to confront our own murmurings, by which I mean, the ways we do not accept that Jesus is God, or doubt that he is near and working among us.  I want to focus on two ways we might struggle with murmurings.  The first is easy to name, it is the murmuring that rejects wholesale that Jesus is God.  It is a murmuring of apostasy or atheism, the refusal to believe that Jesus is God.  I doubt such murmuring marks many of us here.  But if that type of murmuring does mark you, then you want to confess it and act against it by seeking to build your faith, praying that God give you the gift of faith, and seeking friendship among believers, which can serve to encourage your faith.  The second form of murmuring, can be harder to define, and it may well be something we believers need to confront.  To identify this type of murmuring, this limiting of Jesus, we might ask ourselves, does our stated faith that Jesus is God matter to us?  Do we let that faith make demands on our life?  Is that stated faith visible in how we live, in how we prioritize our life, and the things we do each day?  This way of confronting murmuring is the call to move from faith on the lips only, to a faith that rests our security, our present life, and future life on the truth that Jesus is God and He is with us.  This second type of murmuring can mark even us.  Is God a priority in my life?  I might never dream of skipping Sunday Mass, but Monday through Friday… is there much evidence that God is a priority?  Do I seek to grow in awareness of the presence of God by daily prayer, frequent confession, and worthy reception of Holy Communion as often as possible?  Or do I let the day get away from me, with barely a moment given to pray?  Do I come to God only when I think I need something, or when I want something?  Do I treat God as a type of vending machine?  I come on my terms and expect Him to pump out what I want when I give Him the slightest attention.  Is my vision about life in this world, a godly vision?  Do I see my life and the world around me as created to be good and profoundly loved by God?  Is there anything I owe God with the gift of my life?   And will I give it?  Unknowingly, have the struggles in my life, my “desert wanderings”, caused me to live as a Christian in such a way that I am really murmuring against the Lord, doubting his ability as God?  When we confront our murmuring, and seek to reject it, it makes living the faith a more vibrant thing.  It makes coming to the sacraments something more rich.  It makes it easier to give time to God in prayer.  It makes sacrificial giving of my resources easier too.  It makes it possible to respond to my vocation, believing that God will give me what I need to accomplish it.  Rejecting our murmuring so that we grow in faith, makes us more receptive to all the blessings God wants to give us, but which our lack of faith can stifle.  Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.”  In other words, for us to believe in God it is necessary that we let Him pour out His grace upon us.  So, will we do the things that can help faith and strengthen it?  Or will we do the bare minimum in our murmuring?  Before we get to belief in the Holy Eucharist, we need to first work on the lesson of today’s Gospel passage: the call to believe that Jesus is God.  As we have these privileged weeks to reflect on our Catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist, I want to encourage you to acknowledge wherever you are in your faith and to consider what murmurings can tend to creep in.  Especially as regards growing in proper Eucharistic faith, I want to encourage you to come before the Lord in our chapel for adoration.  Even if you don’t think you have enough Catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist, the place to start is to acknowledge Jesus as God.  Come to be in the godly place of our chapel and ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you so that you know him to be God, and so that your faith in the Holy Eucharist can grow.  Prepare yourself in advance for Holy Mass, reading the Sunday readings and naming what specific intentions or prayers you have for each Mass, things and needs you want to lift up at Mass when the priest lifts up the offerings at the altar.  These practices can help to prepare each of us for stronger faith and for what the Lord said in the midst of the murmuring in the Gospel, “It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God.”