We can see our parents and teachers as branches who relayed the life of the Vine to us

Wednesday, 5/1/13

In saying that he is the vine and we are the branches; and in saying that we must remain him to bear good fruit, Jesus was saying that he is the source of all the good intentions that we put into effect. We usually try to draw on his guidance by going to Jesus in prayer. However, his inspirations can also come to us through other Christ-like people.

In our Lord’s metaphor of the “Vine and the Branches” the good parents, and good nuns and teachers who inspired us through our youth can be seen as major branches that relayed Our Lord’s attitudes to us.

Yesterday’s newspaper had a story about the slaughter of a Nigerian Christian village, and it got me thinking about a different way of understanding Our Lord’s parable. A band of young Islamic terrorists from the north torched the straw huts of a Christian village, gunning down two hundred villagers who were rushing out of the flames. Most gruesome of all, one young soldier picked up a child, and threw her back in to the flames.

I suppose that most people reacted to that article the same way I did. I was asking, “How can people be so inhuman?”

An answer of sorts came to me. As young boys those soldiers might have been torn away from the families where they had been nursed on kindness and mutual concern. In place of that, they passed their teen years being trained to seeing life and death as parts of their soldier game. In their game they got points for gunning down Christians, and they got extra points for doing away with kids.

We must thank God for the families he gave us. We must thank him for our parents, for our brothers and sisters who were branches bringing us the life of the true vine.  

A priest should be like a lead ox.

Tuesday, 4/30/13

On their first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas spent a few weeks each in four towns in what is now central Turkey. Afterwards they retraced their steps. Our account today tells us that in each town on their return swing they chose someone to act as presbyter.

It doesn’t sound like it, but out word priest is actually a contraction of the word presbyter, so we can say that Paul and Barnabas appointed a priests for every town.

The original meaning of the word presbyter is surprising. The old Indo-European word for an ox was byt. A presbyter then was a lead ox.

When a man yoked up two oxen he always would put the experienced old ox in front on the left. From under that side of the yoke he could teach  the young ox yoked with him.

Jesus was comparing himself to that experienced old ox when he said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. You will find my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

A priest should be like that lead ox. He should be with Jesus doing the tough work. He shouldn’t be like the gentleman up on the carriage cracking his whip. 

This is the feast day of Catherine of Siena and all the other fine Catherines.

Monday, 4/29/13

Today we honor St. Catherine of Siena who at thirty-three passed away on this day in1380. She was a philosopher and a Theologian, and the amazing thing is that she earned those titles without having learned to read and write. Born in the year that the plague took 80,000 of Siena’s inhabitants, Catherine was the twenty-second of the twenty-five children of Giacomo and Lapa.

From age seven Catherine began troubling Lapa with accounts of conversations she had with Jesus. Lapa had been delighted with her Italian daughter’s blond tresses. In 1954  Phyllis McGinley wrote a poem about it.   

Gossiping in Siena's square, the housewife, Lapa, used to say,

"My Catherine has yellow hair like the True Princess in the play.

Sure as it's June that follows May, Our Kate will be a belle.

The girl's a clever one, and gay, I plan for her to marry well."

At sixteen Catherine threw a monkey wrench into Lapa’s plans. She went off one afternoon, coming back a bald girl. Giacomo, proving to be a worthy father, stood up for his daughter’s right to seclude herself in prayer. Catherine came out of seclusion when she was twenty, and she gained a following of adults who valued the insights she was gaining through prayer. Even priests among her following were willing to take down letters Catherine was sending to rulers and to bishop’s. She succeeded in bringing Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome from Avignon to bring the Church’s schism to an end.

On Catherine’s feast day we also honor the fine Catherine’s we have been privileged to know. My mother, an only child, who was spoiled by aunts and uncles, raised six children in the church, while fixing meals as well for her mother-in-law and her husband’s sister. One Katherine who attends our daily Mass is beloved by her grandchildren on whom she spends her income. Another Catherine from our daily Mass has brought up her children to be fine parents. We have a Katherine who works with men and women in our jail, succeeding in getting them to finish high school.

Let's hear what all three readings could be saying to us.

Sunday, 4/28/13

Let us consider lines of thought suggested by each of the readings. The first reading describes Paul and Barnabus winding up their first missionary journey.

They had spent a few Sabbaths each in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. Now, on their return they spend another Sabbath in each. Our reading tells us that they appointed elders in each town, and it is worth noting that Luke’s word which we translate as elders was presbuteros. It is further worth noting that our word priest is a contraction of the word presbuteros. So, it is correct for us say that Paul and Barnabas appointed priests in ever town.

For us today there are two key things we should note about being Catholic priests. The first is that all Catholic were made priests as part of their Baptisms; and they should share offering the Mass with the priest at the altar and with Christ. The second thing is that Catholic women are all priests already, and they shouldn’t be campaigning for the pomp of the priesthood that was added to it under Feudalism.

As for St. John’s vision of the Holy City in the second reading, I think we should stir ourselves up with the last verse of the Holy City song.

And once again the scene was chang’d,
 New earth there seem’d to be,
 I saw the Holy City
 Beside the tideless sea;
 The light of God was on its streets,
 The gates were open wide,
 And all who would might enter, and no one was denied.
 No need of moon or stars by night,
 Or sun to shine by day,
 It was the new Jerusalem,
 That would not pass away,

As for the Gospel where Jesus said, “This is how all will know that our are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

We can think of the force of love as similar to the force of gravity. With gravity if you let go of a book the gravity of the floor pulls the book down bang against it. Love is the undeniable attraction of anything we perceive as good. If we could just perceive the inner goodness of every person created in God’s image we would be drawn bang in love into their arms.

What success have we in getting our prayers answered?

Saturday, 4/27/13

In the Gospel Jesus told the Apostles, “If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

That statement confuses us, because our experiences of asking for things in prayer have not been very successful. 

I often think of a Jewish boy who spent five years in a Nazi concentration camp. His whole family were shipped together to that camp, and although my friend prayed most earnestly to save each of them from the furnaces, his prayers never seemed to work. He saw father, mother, sister, brother hauled off for gassing and disposal. It brought him to the conclusion that prayer doesn’t work. For all that; after he survived and married, he was secretly pleased to see his daughter saying her night prayers.

But, what about it, does prayer work? One answer we are given is that God answers  all prayers, but in answering them, he does not give us what we think we need; rather he gives us what he knows we need. 

St. Luke in 11:13 tells us that the prayers that are always answered are our prayers to being given the Holy Spirit. “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

As a retired priest with nothing to do, I spend more time than ever at my prayers. Rightly or wrongly, I don’t pray for things. What I pray for is to better understand and for God to turn me away from useless behavior. I ask him to nudge me toward doing what is right, and it seems to work sometimes.

In delivering his message to a crowded synagogue Paul was as animated as a coach at halftime.

Friday, 4/26/13

Our first reading records words spoken by Paul in a synagogue in south central Turkey around the year 48 A.D. With readings like this, our minds usually glide along, getting very little of the gist of them.

I have a friend who is visiting our main jail where she is coaching people who would like to pass their high school equivalency exams. With those who had only a few years of primary school, she works hard at turning them into people who enjoy reading. With their being unfamiliar with one word out of every five they have been gaining only a vague idea of what they are reading.

My friend is trying to turn their thinking into movie projectors that roll the printed words like films onto their imaginations. She does that by having them flesh out one phase after another.

That synagogue in Antioch was a burnt clay structure twenty-five by fifty with a low wall down the middle, with the men hunkered down on the right, the women on the left. The furnishings up front consisted of the cabinet-like ark in which the Old Testament scrolls were kept. Then, against the front wall there was a half-circle of seats for dignitaries.

Paul was short and feisty, the survivor of beatings, shipwrecks, and day-long trudging. Like a coach at half time, he addressed his fellow descendants of Abraham. They were people like him who had been brought up on dreams of the promised Messiah.

“You need wait no longer! He came, curing every manner of disease, speaking tenderly to throngs of thousands; but arousing the jealousy of our religious leaders. Insidiously they turned him over to the Romans to be crucified.

“But listen to this, three days after being turned into a piteous corpse and laid in a stone tomb, he rose from the dead. I have seen him as clearly as I see you now. And he has sent me to you to say we no longer need to fear death. You have but to accept this dear Savior to be rewarded with unending life with God and with your departed loved ones.”

St. Mark wrote is Gospel to demonstrate how Jesus showed himself to be the Savior by heroically accepting a death nailed naked to a cross.

Thursday, 4/25/13

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Mark who wrote the first of the four Gospels. He  might have been the only writer of a Gospel who was actually an eyewitness of what his Gospel described. We take him to have been the boy who followed the soldiers who led Jesus from the Garden of Olives to the home of the high priest. We see him as the cousin of Barnabas, and as the companion of Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. To his shame, partway through that journey he became homesick, deserting the apostles. Then, after he matured, he became a valuable companion to St. Peter, going on to found the Church in Alexandria.

A careful reading of his Gospel leads us to suppose he wrote it to silence those who were saying that because he was executed as a criminal, Jesus could not be the Messiah.

Mark’s Gospel of seventeen chapters breaks evenly into two halves. His first eight and a half chapters gives all the miracles and fulfillments of prophecies that show that Jesus had to be the Savior. The second eight and a half chapters of his Gospel, leading up to his hanging naked on the cross, far from showing that Jesus was not the Savior, actually dramatize the inhumanly heroic way by which he saved us all.

As the light Jesus is pure goodness and pure truth which he communicates to those who are open to it..

Wednesday, 4/24/13

Jesus said, “I came in the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.”

Those words about Jesus being the light have somewhat illogically brought back a memory of mine from sixty years ago. When I was going to live in the Orient, I brought a camera with me, and along with the camera, I had purchased a light meter. To get the right exposure for a portrait, I’d hold the light meter up to someone, and if there was too much light coming from a face, I’d ratchet down the size of the lens opening. Now, modern cameras have built-in light meters.

What I am awkwardly getting around to is  saying that although Jesus called himself the light, his brightness would not have been detected with a light meter. No, he was using the word “light” as a metaphor for some great immaterial quality of his. What is that quality?

There are two phrases in Scripture that might help us understand how Jesus is light.

The first is Psalm 36, verse 10: “With you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see the light.”

The second is John’s Gospel, Chapter One, verse 3: “What comes to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.”

In both passages the light he provides for us comes from his life itself. I might be wrong in this, but I like seeing his life as pure goodness and pure truth. When we completely submit ourselves to him, the light he provides for us is an understanding of what is the good and right course for us to take. 

The founders of most ancient religions had life only in mythology, but our Apostles swatted flies the way we do.

Tuesday, 4/22/13

When we look at ancient religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shintoism we see that what made them quite different from Christianity was that they had no footing in our real world.

While their heroes lived in a world of myths, our apostles swatted flies, and sometimes ate tainted meat. They walked and they walked; and on our modern maps we can see how far they walked.

The death of Jesus came around the year 33 A.D: and, it was a dozen year later, near the year 45, that the officials in Jerusalem put Stephen to death. That began a general persecution of Christians; and while the Apostles stayed behind in Jerusalem, many of the Christians moved to Antioch, a city two hundred miles north of Jerusalem. To picture that migration, try imagining packing your most valuables things in pillowcases, then walking from Jacksonville to Charleston South Carolina.

 

Alexander the Great conquered all the Middle East, then died young in 322 B.C., leaving three of his generals to split up his empire. Ptolemy became pharaoh in  Egypt, Antigonis became king in Greece, and Seleucus ruled the rest of the Middle East.

Seeing eagles as sacred to Zeus, Seleucus, to find the place for his capitol, handed meat to an eagle, then he followed its flight on horseback. Where the eagle landed is where he established his capitol. He called it Antioch after three of his most revered ancestors.

The Christians migrating from Jerusalem were exclusively Jewish, just as members of the Knights of Columbus are exclusively Catholics; but in Antioch they had to mix with Jewish Christians from Cypress and Cyrene in Libya; and those people of the Diaspora had many Gentile friends with whom they shared their Christian Faith.

The Apostles who had stayed behind in Jerusalem, looked around for someone to represent them in Antioch, and they hit on a Christian named Joseph who was from the island of Cypress. In addition to his having grown up among the Gentiles on Cypress, he was such an open hearted man that the Apostle had renamed him Banabus, meaning the Son of Consolation.

Once appointed, Barnabus looked for a companion, and he settled on Saul, who had settled at his hometown of Tarsus in southeastern Turkey. After his conversion Saul had spent a dozen years there, assisting his father in tent making, and in meditating on the mysteries of the Faith.

The Gospel originally called Jesus the model shepherd, not the good shepherd. He is the model for all who lead others.

Monday, 4/22/13

Our Gospel today is from the first ten verses of Chapter Ten of John’s Gospel. In the next verse, verse eleven, we read how Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd”; but we must realize that those words begin a new parable about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.   

What our Gospel gives us today with verses one to ten, is a different parable in which Jesus compared himself, not to the shepherd, but to the gate of the sheepfold. To grasp the valuable lesson Jesus was teaching us with these first ten verses, we must have a clear mental image of the sheepfold.

In a town like Nazareth where Jesus grew up, there might have been twenty families that kept ten or twelve sheep each. Each family too, would have its own shepherd boy who grew up with the family’s sheep. Each day he would lead his sheep out into the hills to graze on grass.

At sundown he would lead his sheep back to town where he would leave them in the town sheepfold for the night. The sheepfold was a stonewall enclosure with briars along its rim, and with just one gate. Each of the town’s little flocks would settle for sleep in the sheepfold. It was the gatekeeper’s job to see that no strangers got through the gate or over the wall. He would open the gate only to one of the town’s

little shepherd boys.

Jesus, in today’s Gospel, by likening himself to the gate was saying that any would-be shepherd who does not enter the sheepfold through him is a thief. So, who are the true shepherds? Let me explain.

This is one of those cases where the English translation of Our Lord’s words is not accurate. Writing in Greek, St. John quoted Jesus as saying he was the kalos  shepherd. What we translate as good shepherd was actually meant to be the Model Shepherd. He is the model for every parent, teacher, and everyone exercising authority over others. We all must model our leadership on that of Jesus.

In saying he is the gate of the sheepfold through which leaders must pass, Jesus meant that what we teach must be in accord with what he taught. 

In Our Lord's time a shepherd boy's little flock would know his voice, following no other.

Sunday, 4/21/13

In the Gospel Jesus said he knows his sheep, and they follow him. In Our Lord’s time every family had a few sheep, so the relationship between sheep and their shepherds was a familiar matter for Jesus to use for giving examples about healthy religious life. With us. however, keeping sheep isn’t that common, it might even be against the law. So let me recreate what I take to have been the sheep keeping business back then.

For their wool and their meat, every family kept up to a dozen sheep, and they were usually entrusted to a boy in the family who grew up with the family’s little flock. Every day the little shepherd, with no schools back then, took his (or her) sheep off to the hills to fatten up on grass.

For safe keeping at night, each little flock was brought to a common enclosure called a sheepfold. It would be a stonewall enclosure with briars along its rim, and with just one gate.

A cute thing came in the morning when the shepherds would come individually to call their sheep to wake and follow them.  I say it was cute, because surprisingly, with a dozen or more little flocks sleeping in the sheepfold, when a shepherd made the sound familiar to his sheep, and only to his sheep; they would hop up and follow him, leaving the other little flocks sleeping.

Monsignor Logan in our diocese kept sheep in Ireland where he moved them by flipping a switch behind them, urging them on. He hadn’t believed the Gospel stories about the sheep meekly following their shepherd’s voice. But, on going to the Holy Land he checked on it, and found it to be true. The sheep followed their shepherd’ voice, and no other.

If we were truly Our Lord’s sheep we would follow only his voice, not being led away by promises of greener grass elsewhere.

Jesus could not confer the Holy Spirit until after he had been glorified.

Saturday, 4/20/13

The Gospel tells the story of the throngs giving up on Jesus after he said they would have to eat his flesh. Jesus stood sadly by, watching them leave. He also seemed helpless as regards holding the loyalty of the Apostles. He sadly asked, “Do you also wanted to leave?  They did stay with him, only because they had no better place to go. The level of their enthusiasm was immensely lower than what it would be on Pentecost when they went out into the crowd, shouting the good news.

Today’s Gospel comes from the end of Chapter Six of John’s Gospel. In the following chapter, Seven, verse thirty-nine, we see the reason for their low level of enthusiasm. Verse thirty-nine there says that as yet there was no Holy Spirit, “because Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles reminds me of a slightly similar incident in my life. I hope you don’t mind my recalling it. The story in the Acts of the Apostles tells of Peter finding the room crowded with women friends who were there when he went to the bedside of a beloved woman who had just died.

My story begins at the end of Mass one Saturday morning in the Korean parish where I was pastor fifty years ago. Coming away from the morning Mass, I was planning a big breakfast,; but I was stopped by people saying I had to hurry to a village up the valley where an old man was dying.

Grumbling to myself, I found the village, the house, and the death scene. It was crowded with old women who had prepared the dying man for Baptism and Holy Communion. I took care of that, then I sat back on the floor to listen to the Catholic women chanting prayers for the dying man.

Suddenly the old fellow half sat up. Looking at him in surprise, we heard him ask, “Has the Father had his breakfast?” That turned all eyes on me, and I muttered that it didn’t matter. However, the old man insisted, “Father, you have done everything needed for me. I won’t be happy unless you go and have your breakfast.”

Everyone joined him on that, so I hurried home; and later, I heard that the man had died just after I left his village. I have always treasured my memory of him, seeing him as an example of the marvelous thoughtfulness of the Korean people.  

We are kicking against the goad when we are going our own way, resisting what God wants us to do.

Friday, 4/19/13

This story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is the key story in the Acts of the Apostles. All twenty-seven chapters of this book, and all of Paul’s twelve Letters, revolve around Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.  Because of its importance, St. Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, tells this complete story three times: here in Chapter Nine, again in Chapter Twenty-Two, then again in Chapter Twenty-Six of the Acts of the Apostles.

In each telling of the story St. Luke quoted Our Lord’s words, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” But only in the third telling of the story in Chapter Twenty-Six did St. Luke include ten extra words Jesus said to Saul. They were, “It is hard for you to kick against the goad.”

A goad is a sharp stick, and a donkey would be kicking against the goad when it insisted on going its own way when its master was strongly urging it to go another way. Apparently, Jesus had been urging Saul to open his eyes to see that the Christians he was imprisoning were people dear to God.

In our religious life the goad would be actual graces by which God is urging us to abandon wrong courses in life. As I remember it, there was a catechism question that asked, Can we resist the grace of God? And the answer was, Yes we can, and unfortunately we often do, resist the grace of God.

In our time of quiet prayer we must honestly seek out what courses God wants us to take, asking for the Grace to change our  ways to go his way.

Jesus said that the bread he gives us is his Flesh

Thursday, 4/18/13

Jesus said, “The bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” And since he followed that up at the Last Supper by telling his disciples to do the same in memory of him, we believe that the Holy Communion we receive is really his Flesh. But, can we say in what way it becomes his Flesh?

The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 told us that what we receive is really the Flesh of Christ, because by the words of consecration the substance of bread disappears, to be replaced by the substance of Christ’s Flesh. The Council said this replacement should be known as Transubstantiation.

Since we know that the only working definition of a substance is its molecular make-up, and since we know that there is no change in the molecular make-up of what was bread; the word Transubstantiation cannot logically be applied to the change we believe takes place.

For ourselves it is enough to believe that Jesus comes to us in Holy Communion, because he said he would come to us.

It may not be wrong for us to go along with what the Anglican priest George Herbert wrote:

 I am sure, whether bread stay, or whether bread fly away, concerneth bread not me.

We believe our Lord's word that he would come to us under the form of bread.

Wednesday, 4/17/13

Jesus told the crowd that he could not reject anyone who came to him, saying, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

There he seemed to be saying that if he had his “druthers,” he would reject some of us, but he has to put up with us because the Father loves us all.

Of course, there isn’t much difference between Jesus and the Father. Jesus sad, “How can you ask me to show you the Father? Don’t you know that whoever has seen me has seen the Father. The Father and I are one.”

God, whose immensity goes beyond the limitless universe, is too much for our puny minds to comprehend. In sending us Jesus he was adapting himself to our limited grasp.

For all our limitations we are still bold enough to want to get a feeling for God. St. John helped us with his simple definition, writing, “God is love.”

Sometimes on these beautiful spring days we love our world so much that we don’t want to leave it. To correct our thinking on that, we could remember the first chapter of John’s Gospel where it says that God himself was the model for everything he made. The sky and the birds and sweet friendships:  all are modeled after God. All that we see and love here are just meant to whet our appetites for

 our being with the Father who far surpasses all earthly joys.

Jesus cannot reject any of us because he came to do the Father's will.

Wednesday, 4/17/13

Jesus told the crowd that he could not reject anyone who came to him, saying, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

There he seemed to be saying that if he had his “druthers,” he would reject some of us, but he has to put up with us because the Father loves us all.

Of course, there isn’t much difference between Jesus and the Father. Jesus said, “How can you ask me to show you the Father? Don’t you know that whoever has seen me has seen the Father. The Father and I are one.”

God, whose immensity goes beyond the limitless universe is too much for our puny minds to comprehend. In sending us Jesus he was putting himself within or frame of reference.

For all our limitations we are still bold enough to want to get a feeling for God. St. John helped us with his simple definition, writing, “God is love.”

Sometimes on these beautiful spring days we love our world so much that we don’t want to leave it. To correct our thinking on that, we could remember the first chapter of John’s Gospel where it says that God himself was the model for everything he made. The sky and the birds and sweet friendships:  all are modeled after God. All that we see and love here are just meant to whet our appetites for our being with the Father who far surpasses all earthly joys.

The people wanted to know if Jesus could bring down bread from heaven the way Moses had.

Tuesday, 4/16/13

Today’s Gospel tells a story from the next day after Jesus had fed the five thousand with the five loaves. In St. John’s account of that previous day he wrote that the crowd, in  becoming aware of the great miracle happening before them, had begun saying, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”

They were referring to Deuteronomy, 18:15 where Moses had promised that at some future date God would raise up a Prophet like himself to whom they would need listen. When the people made a move to make Jesus their king, he slipped away from them. On the following day when they caught up with him across the lake in Capernaum, they wanted to know if he really were the Prophet whom Moses had promised centuries before.

Now, it had become a belief among the people that when the promised Prophet came, he too would bring down manna from heaven. To check if Jesus were that Prophet, they asked him what sign he could give that would be like Moses bringing down bread from heaven; and Jesus told them that what Moses gave them was not true bread from heaven.

It is possible that Jesus based that answer on the historical fact that what their ancestors took to be bread from heaven was actually a bread-like substance that can still be found in the Sinai Desert. There are aphids feeding on desert shrubs, exuding a white, honey-like, substance that the Bedouins still call “manna.” Like the Bible’s manna, it must be gathered in the morning, because at 80 degrees it melts into the sand.

Later in this discourse from Chapter Six of John’s Gospel, Jesus would turn most of his followers away by insisting that the Bread he would give them to eat was his flesh. But here at the beginning of the long discourse, he seemed to be saying that his teaching was bread for their souls that they would need to believe to have life in them.

To see f Jesus were the Prophet like himself whom Moses had promised, the people wanted to know if Jesus cold down manna from heaven.

Tuesday, 4/16/13

Today’s Gospel tells a story from the next day after Jesus had fed the five thousand with the five loaves. In St. John’s account of that day he wrote that the crowd, in  becoming aware of the great miracle happening before them, began saying, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”

They were referring to Deuteronomy, 18:15 where Moses had promised that at some future date God would raise up a Pophet like himself to whom they would need listen. When the people then made a move to make Jesus their king, he slipped away from them. On the following day when they caught up with Jesus across the lake in Capernaum, they wanted to know if he really were the Prophet whom Moses had promised centuries before.

Now, it had become a belief among the people that when the promised Prophet came, he too would bring down manna from heaven. To check if Jesus were that Prophet, they asked him what sign he could give that would be like Moses bringing down bread from heaven, and Jesus told them that what Moses gave them was not true bread from heaven.

It is possible that Jesus based that answer on the historical fact that what their ancestors took to be bread from heaven was actually a bread-like substance that can still be found in the Sinai Desert. There are aphids feeding on shrubs there that exude a white, honey-like, substance that the Bedouins still call “manna.” Like the Bible manna, it must be gathered in the morning, because at 80 degrees it melts into the sand.

At the beginning of his long discourse on the Bread of Life Jesus then said that he was the true bread from heaven. Later in the discourse he would describe himself as the bread we eat in Holy Communion, but at the beginning he was saying that through his teaching he was the true bread which we must believe in for the nourishment of our souls.

Knowing that his persecutors meant well, a dying Stephen prayed, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do."

Monday, 4/15/13

The story of St. Stephen presents us with a lesson in exercising the Gift of Understanding.

Stephen’s opponents were men from what was called the Synagogue of the Roman Freedmen. Let’s look into that. Jewish traders and moneylenders had established themselves in every outpost of the Roman Empire. And, to control that Diaspora, Rome had developed the practices of taking a few young Jews from each place, confining them in Rome for five years each. Rome treated those young hostages well enough, while letting their parents know that the boys lives would be taken if there was any trouble in the outposts the boys came from.

The hostages usually were not especially religious youths, but since their religion was the cause of their detention, they became more devout during their five years in Rome. As a result, on completing their five years, some of them chose to settle in Jerusalem to take active part in the temple rituals.  They became strict observers of all the laws, dietary and otherwise. They objected heartily to the way the Jews who had become Christians were flaunting some of the rules. Like, they were actually  sitting down and eating with those unclean Gentile Christians. 

Stephen went right into their ultra conservative synagogue, trying to get them to see how Jesus was following the Father by being brotherly even with unclean Gentiles. Still, Stephen knew those young men well: he knew that they were incapable of turning aside, from their conservative ways. On seeing that their misplaced zeal was  unshakeable Stephen bowed to the unavoidable. In death he prayed, “Father forgive them. They know not what they do.”

We are caught up with the brightness of that morning.

Sunday, 4/14/13

We welcome this Easter story each year, cherishing its familiar turns: seeing how it was John who first recognized Jesus on the shore, but it was Peter who forcibly waded himself ashore to be with Jesus. We wonder about how Jesus came by the  bread, fish, and charcoal for the breakfast he prepared for his boys. We ask, was there any significance to there being one hundred and fifty-three fish in that net that was near to ripping? We muse over Our Lord’s main requirement of his popes: that they love him.

But sometimes when we come to this story what arouses our imagination is the bright morning itself. It is like that song:  “Morning has broken, like the first morning. Blackbird has spoken; like the first bird.”  We feel like guarding our eyes from the glare on the stretch of water between the boat and Jesus on the shore.

We are on the first page of Christianity’s history when the eventual bishops are still  young fishermen with bronze arms. On this first morning we see our church without all the doubtful decisions it was later to make. We feel a new love for her. 

Jesus played the five roles of servant, friend, teacher, shepherd and way to the Father. Our parishes can bring Jesus to life for people by letting him play those roles through us.

Saturday, 4/13/13

The Apostles decided they should let others take care of the business side of the church, leaving them free to tend to spiritual matters. Cardinal Avery Dulles, who died five years ago at ninety, wrote a book on that subject, calling it Models of the Church. His book pointed out that to carry on the work of Jesus, the Church had to take on the five roles that Jesus chose for himself.

First, he was our spiritual leader, saying, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Second, he was our teacher, saying, “You call me teacher and Lord; and you do well, for so I am.”

Third, he was our servant, saying, “I did not come to be served, but to serve; and give my life for the many.”

Fourth, he was our friend, saying, “I will no longer call you servants, I will call you friends

Fifth, he was our shepherd, enriching us with sweet grass and clear water, doing what's needed to keep people healthy.

Dulles pointed to the unbalanced results that come from churches modeling themselves too much after one or another of Our Lord’s roles. Such churches err by giving themselves completely to fellowshipping, to memorizing the catechism, or to liberating people from poverty.  Dulles’s beautiful thesis has us giving ourselves to following Jesus evenly in all five of his roles, because by so doing, we let Jesus come to life through our ministry.

The feeding of those five thousand was not a Mass, but it prepared the way for the Mass.

Friday, 4/12/13

The multiplication of the loaves is the only miracle found in all four Gospels. They all agree on what actions Our Lord took. Matthew, Mark and Luke record the same sequence of his actions:  Jesus took, blessed, broke and gave. In all likelihood they recorded him doing it that way, because  that was the way it went in the Sunday Eucharist they had been celebrating for half a century.

As lovers of the Eucharist, we are fortunate in the past hundred years to be reading  documents on the Mass that were lost for fifteen hundred years.

From the First Century scholars have recovered a handbook called the “Teaching of the Apostles,” but commonly referred to by the Greek word for “the teaching,” which  is the Didache. It makes the strong point that the Eucharist is the people’s sacrifice, for which they should prepare by cleansing their consciences.

From the Second Century we have St. Justin’s account of our Sunday service that began with readings from the Prophets and the Apostles, followed by a homily, and then by Eucharist prayers over bread and wine. (There was even a collection.)

From the Third Century we have an account from Rome that gives the wording of the Mass that is quite similar to our Eucharistic Prayer Two.

In the Sixteenth Century these documents had not been recovered, so Martin Luther abandoned the Mass, preferring a reputation of the Gospel readings from the Last Supper; but modern Lutherans, benefiting from newly recovered documents from the first centuries, have brought back a Sunday liturgy almost identical with ours.