Create a Clean Heart in Me O' Lord

This Sunday we hear the beatitudes of Jesus. We see Jesus as the “new Moses.” He is up on the mount and teaching his disciples (everyone) a new law, one that is to be written on our hearts. A law that is based not on right or wrong necessarily, but a law based on the greatest of virtues, love. For this reflection I wish to focus on just one beatitude, one that struck me in my reading, that being when Jesus said, “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.”

What does it mean to be clean of heart? It means that my conscience is clear of all wrong doing, but most especially free from any harm or injury I cause to another, be it in the plotting, conspiring, and the actual carrying out of maliciousness, slander, or the defaming of one’s character due to my own sinful desire to gain control, the control of another person or position, to make another the scapegoat in order not to deal with my own dysfunction, or even in my own self-deceived righteousness seeing another as in the wrong, in the sin, or the one who is doing me harm.

Some heavy “stuff” going on there. But think for a moment. How often do we hear of and even experience family squabbles that turn into downright maliciousness, a situation in which people not only throw one another under the bus, but then they back the bus up after they have run the person\s over the first time? Think again for a moment of how some people will climb to the top as they say. Some will go to any means to achieve success, some will plot and conspire against their competition until the person is destroyed, all justified because, “I deserve that position,” or “that person is no good, unqualified, or unjust” etc.

Other times it is the group that plots against the individual. It may be that the individual stirs up an awareness of the group’s inadequacies, weaknesses, and even sinfulness. The group in order to protect itself will project its own dysfunction on the individual, i.e. like what happened to Jesus. Jesus became our scapegoat, we pinned our sins on him. Why? Because we were not clean of heart.

Blessed are the clean of heart, how true indeed. I will end with a prayer since “all of us” need our hearts to be made clean, I REPEAT, ALL OF US!

Dear Lord, Show me my faults, the ones deep down inside, the ones that bring harm to others. Help me to recognize my own self righteousness and to be rid of it and to fill my heart with your righteousness, a righteousness which only sees the good in my neighbors. Help me to find the good in all people and that I be an instrument that acknowledges the gifts of others. Help me to put aside all unclean thoughts of pride, self-righteousness, self deception, and most of all the sin of arrogance. “Create a clean heart in me O’ Lord and renew in me a steadfast spirit.” (Ps. 51:12)

Fr. John

Listen to Me My People

As you know for the next three weeks we are continuing the program “Our Call to Liturgy: The Work of the People.” Last week we focused on, “We Gather.” Week two takes us into, “We Listen.”

Listening, a very important aspect in our humanity, and I am not just talking about audible hearing, but the hearing that takes place within the deepest recesses of our hearts, conscience, and souls. We listen to others every day, be it at work, at school, at home, with friends, we are constantly listening. We do not always give people the same attention or level of attention. For instance, a husband should give his wife the most attention when it comes to listening. Wives, do your husbands listen well? Sometimes we do not listen well because of distractions, the busyness of life, or we may be tired. So, listening is a virtue, one that requires that I pay attention, process information, and finally either accept, reject, or hold off in terms of what I will do with what I have just listened to.

Every week that we come to mass we are asked to listen to God himself, for it is in the proclamation of the Word that God speaks to us through human authors, lectors, and the ordained. Each week God is asking for even more attention than I would give to anyone else.

Think of the Gospel today where Jesus simply offers a direct invitation to the Apostles to come and follow him. They listened, were moved deeply, and responded quickly with great conviction. It was something they heard deep down inside, this call from God, and they acted upon it. When we listen we hear in our hearts what God is asking, if we come with distractions, if we are too busy, or tired, then we will be left on the boat and not be like James and John or Peter and Andrew who left their boats immediately when they heard the Word, recognized him, and then followed him.

It was not only the 12 Apostles who were called, so too were we. We were called and are still being called to listen to God. God wants great things for us, both in this life and in the next. And when I say great things in this life I am referring to the happiness we feel in God when people live lives of faith. No happiness can come unless one has faith. Think of all the biblical characters who heard God and the immediacy of many of their responses, which we will look at next week, but there is one common thread, they all listened, i.e. Abraham, Noah, David, Jesus, Mary, and the apostles.

There is no difference between them and us, we too are given God’s Word, God comes to us, and He is right here – right now. Something we often take for granted because it seems I am listening to a lector, to a deacon or priest, we are just instruments, you listen to God!

In conclusion then, I ask, “Are we listening?” Again, “Are we listening?” AMEN!

Fr John

Introduction to Sacred Scripture

Below is an outline presentation I will be giving to our Year of Favor Candidates. It is in outline form. Instead of the usually homily reflection I think some of you may find this interesting, please remember it is a presentation so in some of the notes I am talking to myself, being repetitive, and referring to passages I know by heart and not writing out the full text. Anyway I hope I don't bore you too much. Happy reading :)

I. What is Sacred Scripture?

a) Sacred Scripture is the inspired Word of God as contained in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) and the New Testament (Christian Scriptures)

i. Inspired means that the authors, either through direct revelation, visions, interior locutions, dreams, meditative\reflective prayer, the lived experience of the community, put to paper the theological truth God wished to convey to the current community as well as to the future community. “Hence, God is the principal or primary author of all of Scripture while human beings are instrumental authors.” (c.f. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 2^nd Catholic Edition, pp. IX-X, Ignatius Press, 2010)

ii. Inspired does not mean that the authors fell into a trance and God took over, rather, the authors gifts, talents, and personality comes through in their writings. The bible is both a natural product of people’s reflection and a supernatural product of God’s desire to be known and loved. Because there is a “naturalness” to the bible it does not mean it lacks authority, inerrancy, or inspiration, rather, Scripture affirms that it is authoritative and inspired, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” C.f. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NAB)

iii. Theological Truth does not mean that the bible is totally free of historical discrepancies, seeming contradictions, and ambiguities. The bible was not written as a police report or how we would write a history paper. Theological Truth simply refers to the Truths concerning God, grace, salvation, faith, Jesus, etc. For example, the book of Genesis, especially the creation story is theologically true and accurate, man and woman sinned at some point, God dealt out punishment, but God also promised a way to redeem us, that’s Genesis in a nut shell. To start debating whether the earth is 6,000 years old or millions of years old is futile, because Genesis is not concerned with that, it’s concern is the fall of humanity and how it can be redeemed. Nevertheless, there is a historicity to Scripture, it speaks of real people, real times and places, i.e. there was a king David, there was a Jesus, and many others who truly existed and helped shape salvation history. The reasons for there being discrepancies, seeming contradictions, and ambiguities is that the authors did not write every event to the last detail, for example, can two to three books sum up forty years of King David’s life? Three books could not sum up even one year of his kingship of Israel. Can four Gospels sum up the Lord’s ministry? Most certainly not. Even the Apostle tells us that Jesus did many more things, but they are not recorded here and neither can all the books in the world contain that which He did while amongst us. C.f. John 21:25

b) Sacred Scripture, the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament has been compiled by people over a few millennia.

i. The Jewish people remembered many of their Traditions orally and shared them that way, but as time went on they began to write their stories down. Those stories which were central to their history and relationship with God began to be compiled into larger volumes, i.e. The Torah, first five books of the Law, also the Minor Prophets, Major Prophets, etc.

ii. Christians like their Jewish brothers and sisters began to write their own lived experience with Christ, as a community which gathered to break bread and have fellowship, on written record. These writings included letters from certain apostles, Gospels, and books. The writings spanned about 50-60 years from the first letter written to the last book written, Revelation. It would take the Church about 250 more years or so to determine which books belonged in the NT and which did not.

c) Major Covenant Theme\s of the Old Testament

i. A covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties ratified orally and by ritual in order that the agreement is sealed and sacred. Speak on the notion of becoming intimately united, i.e. marriage covenant, blood brothers, i.e. King David and Jonathan, words – oaths very important, think of the police officer, soldier, president, religious, priests, etc.

ii. There are two types of covenants, conditional and unconditional

iii. Conditional – We have to live up to our part of the covenant agreement otherwise God removes his favor or his part of the agreement, i.e. God made a covenant with Moses on Mt. Sinai in the giving of the ten commandments called the Sinai or Mosaic Covenant, c.f. Ex. 19:1-9a, yet the Israelites broke the covenant even before it was ratified and afterwards as well. “Now the question is what becomes of the covenant? They had broken it before it was even completed. If this covenant were based on works or on strict justice alone Israel would be done for. But to show that the covenant is based on grace God renews the covenant and uses words which make this gracious foundation clear. In Ex. 34:1 God tells Moses to make a new set of stone tables and to come up again. In 34:6-7 God reveals himself and the basis of the renewed covenant: "The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper83/121183m.htm

The oral agreement here was that Israel agreed to following the law, the ritual was Moses going up and down the mountain, i.e. meet God, receive the law and bring it to the people. Even though God is gracious, he meets out justice, in this case he punished the Israelites for not holding up their end of the bargain, he is willing to renew it as he does later on in Exodus.

iii. An example of a unconditional covenant in the Old Testament is that between God and Abraham, c.f. Genesis 12, 15, 18, and 21

d) Major Covenant theme in the New Testament

i. Jesus establishes the new Covenant and it is unconditional and eternal, c.f. John chapter 6, Synoptic Gospels on the Last Supper, and 1 Cor. 11. Speak about the new covenant made by Jesus, i.e. he is faithful even though we may sometimes not be.

e) Interpretation of Scripture

i. Scripture can be interpreted in different ways, the two foundational ways are spiritual and literal. (c.f. Ignatius study Bible, pp. xii-xiii.) We are to avoid two extremes, interpreting everything literally or interpreting everything spiritually. To interpret everything literally would be spiritual suicide as the Pontifical Biblical Comission so strongly warns us, but the opposite is true as well, to reduce the bible down to complete allegory, symbolism, and spirituality does harm to a true reality and of real events, once again, Jesus truly died, as recorded by other historians, Josephus and Philo. How then are we to interpret correctly? The Holy Spirit helps us to understand the teachings of God, as well as the Church, 1 Tim 3:15, 2 Peter 1:20, examine a symbolic passage and a literal one, i.e. Genesis chapters 1-3 story with theological truth, but very unlikely to be historical truth, look again at john 6, very literal passage as Jesus repeats himself a half a dozen times so that his listeners understand him to be speaking literally

ii. Fundamentalists-Evangelicals will interpret mostly literally, go beyond just the theological truth and try make it historically infallible, very hard to do if not impossible since much of the writing did not have a historical proof reading in mind when written. Also the bible becomes privately interpreted, something done in isolation from the community, missing the sensus fidelium, also disregards the process, the human process of reflection on Scripture and deciding which books, letters, etc, would become the norm for the Church.

iii. Canon of Scripture is the rule, measurement used by the Church to determine which parts belong in this NT and which do not. In this process one can see that the bible did not fall out of the sky, rather like us who are on journey in both our listening to God and then living out that call, so too with people’s reflection of the Sacred Writings.

The Church looked at its liturgical celebrations as the most important source for determining which Gospels they would keep; those liturgical celebrations included the mass and the celebration of the Hours. The second component was consistency about Jesus’ life, i.e. did books sound wholesome, good, and accurate or did they border on fantasy, magic, or superstition, i.e. Some writings which did not make into the NT contained stories of Jesus sliding down a rainbow to enter into Mary, also has him zapping another young boy to death while walking along the beach, not consistent with the other stories. A third criteria was earlier writings from the other church Fathers, which books did they quote from the most, and finally and not least important they asked for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to finally declare once and for all the NT, which was done by Pope Damasus I in 382 and ratified by previous and subsequent councils, most notably the Councils of Hippo and Carthage which St. Augustine presided over in circa 393 AD. You can see that this very process is ignored by Fundamentalists since one would have to admit, that the Church working through its people, its magisterium, and the Holy Spirit produced the NT. No one book in the bible ever affirms itself as Scripture nor does it affirm other books. Implicitly on two occasions Paul and Peter affirm their own or the other’s writings, but never explicitly nor do they provide us with a list of canonical books.

Fr John

Baptism of the Lord: Renewal and Vocations

This Sunday we commemorate the Baptism of the Lord, a beautiful feast because it is when the Lord enters the water of baptism to fulfill the law, “but more importantly to make the water holy for us for our baptism” (St. Augustine). The feast is also one in which all of us remember our baptismal vows, but also an excellent time for those of us who have made vows to religious and \ or ordained life to renew our vows and remember our call (vocation) to serve the Lord either in consecrated life (religious) or as ordained (bishops, priests, and deacons). I know that religious renew their vows on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, but we can also do them here as well.

In our parish this week we are also kicking off Vocations Awareness week. We are doing this in order to promote vocations which are necessary and integral to the very life of the Church. As Christians we all need to be planting the seed and encouraging people to consider priesthood, religious life, and the diaconate. The call stirs in many but either through the obstacles of life or even our own lack of enthusiasm makes people draw back. We are here to keep that call alive, and the “we” is all of us!

The priesthood and religious life is integral to the Church, it is not just functionary, but a very limb or organ of the body that is needed in order for the body to work well.

As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now the body is not a single part, but many. . . But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. 1 (Cor. 12:12-14, 18)

Each and every person is part of the royal priesthood as is given to us in our baptism, c.f. 1 Peter 2:9. Out of the assembly of believers (royal priesthood) God calls some to a particular vocation, either religious life or to be ordained, and in some cases both as there are religious priests, i.e. Jesuits, Franciscans, etc. “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers . . . (Eph. 4:11)

Again, everyone is called to spread the Gospel, but not everyone is called to carry that out in the same manner as can be clearly understood in Scripture, for instance not everyone is Peter, not everyone makes the decisions, i.e. St. Paul instructing Timothy to oversee his local Church and ordain bishops, etc. Some God calls to be priests so that they will teach in an official form in the Church through preaching, by example and word and to offer sacraments. From this group others are called to lead and serve in an even more profound manner, i.e. bishops. Others are called to preach and serve and assist bishops and priests, i.e. deacons. And still others make a consecration and vows to a group (community) to live out a certain charism and spread the Gospel through prayer, corporal works of mercy and other pastoral works.

The life of a religious, deacon, or priest is not easy, one gives up much, but one does so in order that his or her hands may be left wide open to assist his or her brothers and sisters 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The gifts we receive are the people themselves whom we minister to.

In my five plus years serving as a priest I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is what God made me for, to be a priest. When I bring the Good News to someone, i.e., sacraments, fellowship, prayer, etc., I know of no better thing in life that I could be doing. Vacation is fun, parties are great, going to the movies I like quite a bit, but serving and praying with God’s people makes all that other stuff pale in comparison, actually they don’t compare at all.

Many people have answers to why there is a shortage in priesthood and religious life, there are many reasons I am sure, but nevertheless, I still believe that God calls even through the grayness of our current problems. There are some out there right now who may have thought about religious life or priesthood, some reading this right now may have done so, if you feel a call I encourage you to take that first step and inquire about it. Religious life, diaconate, and priesthood is a call from God, sometimes that call is loud and clear, other times it comes in whispers, but either way if it is God calling wouldn’t you want to know that more clearly and take the first step towards Him. The rewards in being a priest, deacon or religious are great, better than anything else in this world, not because we may become a superior, a bishop or pastor, but the rewards are God’s people, to be united to them in building up the Body of Christ is awesome, so much so you can see the Spirit of God descending like a dove upon you and a voice affirming in your heart, “You are my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”

Fr. John

Epiphany: Gifts to a King, Gifts to Us

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:3)

Our connection with Christ is intimate, one in which we share the death of Christ. Can it get more intimate than that? St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians equates to the relationship of husband and wife. We begin to share this death experience with him through baptism and Eucharist. St. Paul often brings this theme up of dying and rising with Christ. Again in his letter to the Romans he reminds us:

We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)

We also share in the resurrection, it is not just death, if it was only a death experience we would despair, therefore a promise is made, one of eternal life in and that we rose with Christ as well when the stone rolled back on that faithful Easter morning. And all have access to this promise,

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all. (Col 3:11)

Salvation is open to everyone; one’s origin does not matter, nor station, but simply God’s free gift of grace. Upon receiving this gift we are empowered with a tri-fold gift that of becoming priests, prophets, and kings.

But you are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises" of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

He has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever (and ever). Amen. (Rev. 1:6)

The Epiphany was not just for Jesus, it started there in terms of Jesus’ person and mission being made manifest or revealed, because the gifts presented, gold – king, frankincense – priest, myrrh – sacrifice/death are also shared with us, since we are intimately united with him, then we too share in his person, but also in his mission.

People sometime believe that this type of vocation one in which the Gospel is spread through evangelization is solely for priests and religious. It is true that as priests we have a certain responsibility and office that we must carry out; that is to preach in the liturgical assembly under the permission of the bishop, and to minister the sacraments. However, we cannot live in a church building forever, we must go forth and preach to the world, and that responsibility is given to everyone, not just the priest. When you go to work, to school, family gatherings, parties, etc. you are encouraged to share our faith, first through deed, then by Word.

The royal priesthood participates on the front lines so-to-speak, what you learn from your own prayer, what is given you by God in the sacraments, what you receive here at mass you are commissioned to take with you everywhere you go. Ministerial priests need the royal priesthood to take that Word everywhere, hence exercising your role as prophet, also as priest in your daily sacrifices, and to show the world the moral assurance we have in God’s grace, that we are a people filled with joy because we are royalty.

The gifts given by the Magi were given to Christ first, in and that he was to be recognized not just by the Israelites, but that the Gentiles would also recognize him. Those gifts are now given to us since we share with Christ in such an intimate manner. Christ is not somewhere out there or some untouchable person, no sir, rather he is right here, inside of us. We are given gifts, what will we do with them? The answer remains with us.

Fr. John

All Scripture taken from USCCB http://www.nccbuscc.org/