Jesus did not pray for the world, but he prayed for a world of people.

Sunday, 6/1/14

The Gospel for this Sunday quotes Jesus as praying to the Father, saying, “I do not pray for the world, but for the ones you have given me.”

I have heard recently of so-called Christian churches that promise their members prosperity. Don’t you feel that those people represent the world for which Jesus said he did not pray.

That world has mottos like “All’s fair in love and war.” Or “Never give a sucker an even break,” or “Whoever gets there firstest gets the mostest.”

But Jesus did pray for the real people of the world. He admired the good Samaritan. He said the pagan Phoenician woman showed more faith than anyone in Israel.

He inspired the bishops at Vatican II to write their “Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World” which begins by saying the following.   

The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an eco in our hearts.    

Introducing My Take on Christianity

Through 52 weeks we will follow my take on the development of Catholic Christianity through twenty centuries.

This will not be a standard history of Christianity, but only my take on it. To explain where I get off presenting my take on our history, let me tell you about Lois McNally and Father Jim O’Brien, two friends of mine who have passed on.

Two weeks ago at the funeral Mass for Lois, as I was listening to the priest giving the eulogy, I began thinking about the contrast between Lois and Father O’Brien.

Lois and I often talked about what we had been reading. In fact, shortly before Lois died at age ninety-six, we had been exchanging insights on our faith. We could never plumb its depths.

Then, while sitting in the sanctuary listening to the priest saying fine things about Lois, I suddenly recalled a conversation I had with Father O’Brien fifty-five years ago. Jimmy and I were manning a Korean parish together when we got word that Father Michael O’Healy had left the priesthood to marry a Korean lady.

Father O’Brien said, “He should have talked to a priest.”

I asked, “Which priest?”

And, Father O’Brien said, “It doesn’t matter, we all learned the same things.”

Remembering that exchange, sitting there at Lois’s funeral, it struck me that we have two distinct kinds of Catholics. Father O’Brien’s kind are convinced they have the true faith tucked away in a back pocket, while Lois’s kind, with whom I identify, spend their lives searching out our faith’s endless meanings.

Jesus prayed for us at the Last Supper

Sunday, 6/1/14

The Gospel for this Sunday quotes Jesus as praying to the Father, saying, “I do not pray for the world, but for the ones you have given me.”

I have heard recently of so-called Christian churches that promise their members

prosperity. My view is that those people represent the world for which Jesus said he did not pray.

That world has mottos like “All’s fair in love and war.” Or “Never give a sucker an even break,” or “Whoever gets there firstest gets the mostest.”

But Jesus did pray for the people of the world. He admired the good Samaritan. He said the pagan Phoenician woman sowed more faith tan anyone in Israel.

He inspired the bishops at Vatican II to write their Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World which begins by saying the following.  

The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an eco in our hearts.    

How is it that the mother of my Lord should visit me?

Saturday, 5/31/14

Today we remember the visit Mary made to her cousin Elizabeth when Elizabeth was in her sixth month. Our text states, “Mary set out and traveled in haste to the hill country.”

Back when I was a seminarian, and everything was in Latin, “hill country” was “montana.” That thought cheered up a dark seminary morning. It had me picturing Mary riding a bronco across Montana.

Then, cancelling out that frivolous Idea, I looked up from my assigned pew in the seminary chapel, just as you can look up from the places you always take here. You can rejoice the way Elizabeth did at the thought of this tabernacle bringing Our Lord to us.

We like Elizabeth, can call out, “How is it that the mother of my Lord should visit me?” 

Since Jesus had many of his people in the typical sailors' city of Corinth, he must have many more good people here in Jacksonville.

Friday, 5/30/14

The city of Corinth, where St. Paul spent a year and a half, was a typical sailors’ town. Perched on a narrow isthmus between the main peninsula of Greece and the island-like mass of the Peloponnesus to the south, it was a port on the Aegean Sea to the east and on the Adriatic to the west. Shipments from Asia were unloaded at one port, than with a lively thievery, carted across town to be shipped off to northern Italy. To satisfy the dubious needs of the superstitious sailors, Corinth employed so many temple prostitutes that all over the Mediterranean prostitutes were known as  Corinthian girls.

Still, the Lord assured Paul, saying, “I have many people in this city.”

So, if the Lord had many people even in that notorious place, how many more must he have here in Jacksonville?

To get a feel for the goodness of our city, it is necessary that we get out and mix with the people on the busses and with the crowds in the stores, and with the people grabbing quick lunches as they go about their jobs.

By seating himself next to the Father, Jesus was enthroning the whole human nature we share with him,

Thursday, 5/29/14

I don’t think we are supposed to believe that Jesus, was taken up bodily through the clouds, arriving at heaven. I imagine he merely staged that ascension to fit the thinking of the Apostles who imagined God’s heaven to be about fifty miles above the earth.

As Christians we believe in the resurrection of our bodies, but they will be glorified bodies with no need for lodgings, or nourishment. They will not be composed of billions of cells the way our earthy bodies are, or the way the earthly body of Jesus before his death.

After his resurrection he appeared to the Apostles to comfort them, but again I’d say he merely staged those appearances. After meeting with the Apostles his glorified body slipped unseen through closed doors.

Instead of just viewing the Ascension as glorious finale to Our Lord’s time on earth, we should look at what it means for us. In today’s second reading St. Paul assured the Christians at Ephesus that they had at work in them the same power which brought Jesus to the right hand of God.

More than that, in seeing the Ascension in relationship to us,  we are brought to recognize Jesus as the God-chosen representative of all humanity. By his taking humanity to the right hand of the Father he has ennobled the human nature we share with him.

By seating his human nature at the right hand of the Father, Jesus put the humanity we share with him up there.

Thursday, 5/29/14

I don’t think we are supposed to believe that Jesus, was taken up bodily through the clouds, arriving at heaven. I imagine he merely staged that ascension to fit the thinking of the Apostles who imagined God’s heaven to be about fifty miles above the earth.

As Christians, we believe in the resurrection of our bodies, but they will be glorified bodies with no need for lodgings, or nourishment. They will not be composed of billions of cells, the way our earthy bodies are or the way the earthly body of Jesus was before his death.

After his resurrection, he appeared to the Apostles to comfort them, but again, I’d say he merely staged those appearances. After meeting with the Apostles, his glorified body slipped unseen through closed doors.

Instead of just viewing the Ascension as the glorious finale to Our Lord’s time on earth, we should look at what it means for us. In today’s second reading St. Paul assured the Christians at Ephesus that they had at work in them the same power which brought Jesus to the right hand of God.

More than that, in seeing the Ascension in relationship to us, we are brought to recognize Jesus as the God-chosen representative of all humanity. By his taking humanity to the right hand of the Father, he has ennobled the human nature we share with him.

In praying for the disciples and the women who were with him at the last supper, he looked over their heads, seeing us in the far future; and he prayed for us then.

Thursday, 6/5/14

Today’s Gospel gives us the final part of Our Lord’s last prayer. After praying for the Apostles who were with him then, he said, “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.”

I enjoy thinking that after praying for the disciples and the women who were with him in that upper room, he looked over their heads: and looking far into the future, he saw us and prayed for us that night. His far-sightedness made us part of that circle.

Jesus also prayed that we might see the glory the Father gave him. That wish of his might give you pause. In speaking of seeing his glory Jesus might be speaking of our seeing him in heaven where he is now.  

When we speak of him in his lifetime on earth we call him Jesus. When we speak of him in heaven, in glory, we call him Christ. In that regard we should note that St. Paul never seemed to write about Jesus, it was always Christ, or at most Christ Jesus.

While we are most fond of following Jesus through the Gospel stories, we should not neglect him as he is now, as Christ, listening to our prayers. 

St. Paul told the Athenians about the God they did not know.

Wednesday, 5/28/14

Chapter Seventeen of the Acts of the Apostles tells of how, when a lynch mob from Thessalonica was pursuing Paul, his partners, Timothy and Silas, got him away on a boat headed for Athens.

It seems to have been Paul’s first visit to that great city, and he enjoyed himself taking in the sights. He was particularly taken with the altars on almost every street corner. The Athenians, as the world’s first democratic people, had permitted the people from every Mediterranean port to set up an altar honoring their own god. Paul was particularly taken with an altar inscribed with a tribute to The God We Do Not Know.  

The Athenians were also the world’s most philosophical people, and on every corner Paul fell in with men discussing ideas. When he spoke to a group about Jesus who had come back from the dead, he drew such a crowd that the people escorted him to the Areopagus, which was an open-air stadium for expounding philosophical theories.

As the Athenians filled the stands above him, Paul complimented them on being such a religious people. After commenting on their altars honoring every known god, he went on to speak of the one whom they called, “The God we do not Know”

After identifying that God as the creator of all things, even of life itself, Paul went on to say, “He is not far from any of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.”

Our psalm has us saying, "I will give thanks to you, O Lord." Webster's tells us our word "thank" is derived from out word "think." We thank God by thinking about our dependence on him.

Tuesday, 5/27/14

In the Responsorial Psalm we say, “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with al  my heart.”

That expresses a very nice religious notion, but practically speaking, how does one go about thanking the Lord with all one’s heart?

Well, one way of thanking God is by thinking about God. Webster’s tells us that our word thank is an Old English derivative of the word think.

As we go through the many activities of each day we can thank God by having  developed the habit of acknowledging our dependence on him by thinking about it.

While acknowledging our dependence on him, we can go further by acknowledging our need to be doing his work. In Romans, 14:7-8 Paul gave us a great reminder of this double duty of ours.

None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. 

Philip Neri was a very likable saint.

Monday, 5/27/14

Today is the feast day of a darling man, Philip Neri, a well-to-do young man from Florence the home of Dante, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Raphael and Michelangelo.

After he had received a good education in the Scriptures and the Arts, Philip at eighteen was sent to Naples to take over a family trading concern.  Then, after two years of delving into business matters, Philip obtained his family’s permission for him to settle in Rome for a few years. While supporting himself as a tutor of wealthy children from Florentine families, Philip dug deeply into the current Catholic Philosophy and theology studies. Those were the years when the Council of Trent was getting underway

With his studies complete, Philip took to the streets of Rome, making friendly inquiries everywhere as to how people treasured their relationship with the Father and with Jesus.

He used his wealthy contacts to obtain food, shelter and work for girls who had been left to selling themselves. While acting as a father to them, he was becoming a mentor to Rome’s student population. Young men, charmed with his willingness to discuss any topic that interested or bothered them, brought him to the halls that they found empty at night.

The priests of Rome, finding him a great ally in their youth work, persuaded Philip to accept ordination to the priesthood, and they deeded a house of prayer, an oratory, over to Philip and his young men.

Their gatherings came to be recognized as a distinct religious establishment known as the Oratorians. They are with the church still, small groups of men who work with peoples’ needs, while coming together to share what they are studying.

St. Peter said that we should always be ready to give an explanation of the hope that is in us.

Sunday, 5/25/14

In the second reading St. Peter told us, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for the reason for your hope.”

That means that your beliefs should be a personal matter, which you are ready to explain to anyone. It’s not enough for you to say that you are a Catholic, and as such, you belief whatever Catholics are supposed to believe.

Last week we had a funeral for Lois McNally, a lady who at ninety-six was always reading about her faith, searching for a richer grasp of its treasures. Attending her funeral, and listening to what was being said about her, I suddenly remembered a priest friend who was a different kind of Catholic. As a kid he had learned the catechism, and as a seminarian he had learned his theology. He had all of that packaged away inside him.

That was Father Jimmy O’Brien, a great priest, who fifty-five years ago was working with me in the same Korean parish. One day we got the sad news that Father Michael O’Healy, a friend of ours, had given up the priesthood to marry a Korean lady.

Father O’Brien’s comment was, “He should have talked to a priest.”

I asked, “Which priest?”

Father O’Brien said, “It doesn’t matter. We all learned the same things.”

Waiting my chance to say a word at Lois’s funeral, it occurred to me that there are two kinds of Catholics. Those like Father O’Brien who are happy, holding tightly to what they learned early in life, and those like Lois who spend a life burrowing  deeper into their faith. 

Sometimes the need to be kind forces us to bend our principles.

Saturday, 5/24/14

At the Council of Jerusalem, Paul had brought the Apostles around to agreeing that for a Christian, circumcision was no longer necessary. But in today’s reading we see  him going against his convictions. He had Timothy circumcised so the young man could be more acceptable to converts from Judaism.

There might be a lesson for us there. Perhaps we are being made to see that that are times when to be kind or to be agreeable to people we need to bend our principles. Like, Jesus believed in keeping the Sabbath holy by avoiding work, but when the Apostles were hungry on a Sabbath, and they hand-shucked some corn, he went along with it, saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

There are times when parents need to go along with new ideas of adult children, even when that  goes against their principles. When my sister and her husband had a daughter who made a show of leaving the church and getting married by a lady preacher, it hurt them immensely, but they attended the wedding.

I had an Irish priest friend who pushed his principles too far. He said that because of all the evil England had showered on Ireland, Irish boys should not have helped save England from the Nazis. He said, “No, they shouldn’t. Don’t you see, it’s a matter of principle.” Baloney. 

The apostles and presbyters at the Council of Jerusalem felt that they were guided by the Holy Spirit. The bishops at Vatican II had the same conviction.

Friday, 5/23/14

The first reading recounts the follow-up on the Council of Jerusalem in the year 50 a.d.. They prepared a single page report on the council, telling the world that they saw it as God’s will to let converts become Christians without following the rules of the Jewish religion. 

Addressing the Gentile world, the apostles and presbyters sent out a message saying, “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and us not to place on you any burden.”

It is interesting to compare that report with the decisions published by the twentieth Ecumenical Council held at the Vatican between 1962 and 1965.

It’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is thirty-seven pages long. It requires a simple form for our liturgies so that “the Christian people should be able to understand them with ease and take part in them fully.”

Its declaration on Religious Liberty is fourteen pages long. At the heart of it we read, “The Vatican Council decrees that every human person has a right to religious freedom.”

Its Constitution on the Church is seventy-seven pages long. Describing the Church, it states, “All in different ways to it belong or are related: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God to salvation.” The Church, like Christ himself, is part human, part divine. It is the people of God.

The Constitution on Divine Revelation is fifteen pages long. It states, “To compose the sacred books God chose certain men who, all the time he employed them in the task, made full use of their own powers.”

The final document of the Vatican Council is ninety-eight pages long. It has many beautiful passages. I most often refer to paragraph 19 that states, “The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to commune with God. The invitation to converse with God is addressed to him as soon as he comes into being.”

Those twenty-four hundred bishops who met at the Vatican for four years believed that the Holy Spirit was leading them to express God’s truth on all modern matters. Their decisions have not been enthusiastically received. I went to our Catholic Book Store in St. Augustine, asking for a copy of the decrees of Vatican Two, but the ladies had not heard of them.

Our first reading gives us an account of the Church's first council.

Thursday, 5/22/14

Our first reading is an account from the first council of the church.

In John, Chapter 16, we read where Jesus said, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now, but when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will lead you to all truth. “ Jesus was there saying that entirely new problems would arise for the Apostles, and there was no way he could give them directions in advance. He said that at the proper time, if they came together, the Holy Spirit would direct them to the right solutions to their problems.

The Church, in response to that advanced warning from Jesus, over the years and over the centuries, came together when major new problems arose. The apostles and their successors ask the Holy Spirit to guide them to the right solutions.

The gathering in today’s first reading was the first council of the church. (Jumping ahead to the end of it, the Apostles published the conclusions they reached by saying, “It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us to place no further burden on the Gentiles converts.)  

Today’s account of the first Council of Jerusalem begins by saying there was much debate. Then Peter swayed the whole number of those attending . He led them to  deciding that people could become Christians without first becoming converts to Judaism. Finally, the most revered man there, the Apostles James, a cousin of Jesus, swayed the whole number to saying that they should not put the burden of observing kosher on Gentile converts to Christianity.

The Council of Trent, held from 1545 to 1563 was the Eighteen full Church Council. Attending were only bishops from four European countries where Catholicism was the only legal religion. With little or no debate those bishops approved the decrees written by two Jesuit priests.

Vatican II was the Church’s twentieth full council. Meeting from 1962 to1965, bishops from a hundred countries took part. Over four years they had opportunity to voice the views the Holy Spirit had suggested to them.

Jesus said,"Without me you can do nothing."

Wednesday, 5/21/14

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” What makes this parable beautiful is that even while you are putting your mind to deciphering it message, you already have the lovely full vine planted in your imagination.

That image might spur the memory of a grape vine in a neighbor’s yard. It might spur a memory of you and the other kids, scaling the neighbor’s fence, then pulling off handfuls of grapes, while keeping an eye out so you didn’t get caught.  

But, as to Our Lord’s message. He is telling you that you never accomplish anything on your own. “”Without me you can do nothing.” Cut that branch off the vine, and it will never sprout another bunch of grapes. It won’t even sprout a leaf.

We think we come up with fine plans that we carry through, but St. Paul insists that the facts are otherwise. In Chapter Two of his Letter the Philippians Paul said, it is God working in you, causing you to have the idea, then to bring it to completion.

We all love it when Macbeth came to realize that he had been deluding himself. His greatness was an illusion. Expressing that, he said,  “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then. is heard of no more.”

Jesus said that the Father was the vinedresser who prunes the vine to make it bear more fruit. Permit me to express another thought, about a natural form of pruning that comes about as we age.

I have heard that as the green of leaves disappears, and the leaves are no longer needed to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen for our air, or glucose for nourishing the tree, that the vine, seeing the leaves as harmful to itself, puts cork at their stem bases, causing the leaves to fall. As you age, might you not have something like that happening with you?  

The Apostles appointed a presbyter to lead every new Christian community.

Tuesday, 5/20/14

Over the spring and summer of one year, Paul and Barnabas traveled from Antioch to Iconium, on to Lystra, and then to Derbe; spending a month or more in each place, preaching, and baptizing those who were ready.

At the end of summer, they retraced their steps, visiting all their converts along the way. In each place they found one man of strong faith and ability, and after praying over him, they appointed him presbyter to lead the new church.

If you look up the word priest in any good dictionary, you will see that it is a slimming down of the word presbyter. So we can say that Paul and Barnabas appointed a priest to lead each new church.

 The word presbyter itself has a long history. It comes from an Asian name for a lead ox. As separate words, the pres, means the one who leads, while byt was their word for an ox. Together, a pres-byt was the lead ox in a team of oxen.

That is what a priest should be, the one out front, showing the others how to pull the load. He shouldn’t be the big shot sitting in the cart and swinging a whip. 

When you pray for light, the Holy Spirit will cause you to remember word of Jesus that contain the solution to your problem.

Monday, 5/19/14

Let’s look at a sentence from the first reading, and then at one from the Gospel. 

In the first reading, in speaking of God’s dealings with the pagan world, Paul said, “He did not leave you without witness, for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filled you with nourishment and gladness for your hearts.” Men must have seen that a wise and loving planner was behind the good things nourishing them. Paul repeated this idea in verse 20 of Chapter One in his Letter to the Romans. There he wrote, “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of power and divinity have been able to be perceived in what he has made.” 

(The pagan Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, from observing the wonders of this world, arrived at the conviction that they had been formed by one who is all wise and all good.)

From the Gospel the sentence that should be especially dear to you is the last verse. “The Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have told you.”

That last part tells you that when you are trying to find the way out of a  difficulty, and you pray for light, the Spirit will suddenly cause you to remember words of Jesus that will be the answer you are looking for. It might be just right for you to recall Jesus saying, “Render to Caesar the things that are Cesar’s.” or “Let the little children come to me,” or “Let not your heart be troubled.”

The Church is the People of God.

Sunday, 5/18/14

 Today’s readings suggest that we look into the position in the Church held by those who are not priests. 

The first reading told how the Apostles, not having time for business matter, chose seven capable men to handle the shopping and the paperwork. The second reading follows that up by calling all Christians, “A holy priesthood.”

Back in the Fifth Century, the position of ordinary Christians suffered a demotion. That happened after a new nation, the Franks, overtook Europe, converting to Christianity. Now, the Franks were not a very democratic race. They had a simple two-tiered society. The way that worked was, that nobles with inheritances had lands and slaves, while people without inheritances slept with the pigs. 

After the whole nation of the Franks received baptism in 496, the priest and the bishops were not keen on sleeping with the pigs, so they set up a unique ceremony. Each bishop and priest came before the assembly of the nobles, with each declaring, “I have an inheritance, my inheritance is the Lord.” (In my ordination ceremony back in 1952 the only thing I was given to say out loud was, “My inheritance is the Lord.”)

Now, the Frank's word for an inheritance was klerk. With that, the priests and bishops became a separate exalted level of society known as “the clerics.” The clerical society in turn, was organized hierarchically with authority descending from the pope, down through the bishops and pastors. 

When Vatican II came along, the Catholic Church’s chief policeman was Cardinal Ottaviani, prefect of the Holy Office. He prepared the original schema for the Constitution on the Church. That provisional document called the church a perfect society ruled by its hierarchy. However, eighteen hundred of the twenty-four hundred bishops in St. Peters rejected that schema.

On the orders of Pope John XXIII, the council prepared a new schema that was accepted. It declares first, that the Church, like Christ himself, is part human and part divine.  But secondly, the Church is the People of God. That’s what we are. 

Thirty years ago I took over a parish with a half dozen people who had read Cardinal Avery Dulles's book, "Models of the Church." You might remember how Dulles pointed out that Jesus identifies himself with five distinct roles. He was our teacher, friend, shepherd, way-to-the Father, and servant. 

The desire to imitate Jesus got the people in our parish involved in five commissions that carried out those five roles of Christ. With them taking over, I was freed to teach Religion to school kids. Such people-parishes that were inspired by Vatican II have been a boon to the Church. 

We cannot love God whom, we cannot see, if we do not love our neighbors whom we can see.

Saturday, 5/17/14

The first reading shows the Jewish believers, who at first were delighted with Paul’s stories about Jesus, being filled with jealousy when Paul’s message was accepted by Gentiles.  That jealousy led them to use violence against Paul and Barnabas, driving them from the city.

We know that to be sincere in or worship of the Father in heaven, we must show love toward all of his human, but how often we fail in this?

There is a logical basis for religious and racial prejudice. It is rooted in ages when men hunted other men the way some men hunt animals. In Genesis 4:14 when his crime became known, God punished Cain by making him a wanderer.  Cain objected, “If I must become a wanderer on the face of the earth, anyone may kill me at sight.”   

In Europe’s Black Plague between 1446 and 1449 Paris lost half its number,  England’s population dropped from five to two million. The Jews lost a hundred  villages, but the plague was responsible for only half of the losses. The others were destroyed by Christians blaming the Jews for the plague.

Mankind has progressed a little since then. We can travel abroad with the proper visas, but every day we run up against inhuman prejudices. Today’s paper has a case of a girl in northern Sudan sentenced to death for apostasy by refusing to return to Islam from Christianity. A right wing anti-Jewish party is gaining strength in Germany. The Israel-Palestinian peace talks have come to an end with Jewish construction on land they had previously agreed to be Palestinian.

We have our own struggles at overcoming prejudice. I remember times when I offered friends a ride in my car rather than have them ride a bus with black people. Now I have no car, and many black people on buses are good friends. Even so, I still find remnants of prejudice with deep roots inside of me.

We never see prejudice for what it is. As a teenager I had thought it right that blacks should not be allowed in our theaters. I believed in segregated schools. St. John wrote that anyone who hates a brother man whom he can see cannot really love God, whom he cannot see. So?

Paul had been appointed to spread the good news that Jesus can bring us through death to a happier life beyond.

Friday, 5/15/15

Paul and Barnabas, arrived at the town of Antioch in the center of what is now Turkey. There they were invited to speak in the synagogue. Speaking for both, Paul said that he and Barnabas were witnesses to Jesus, who returned to life after three days in the tomb.

More pointedly, he said that he and Barnabas had come to give the good news. (Our word Gospel is old English for Good News.)

There were two parts to the good news Paul and Barnabas had come to reveal. The first part of it was that Jesus had overcome death. The second part of the good news is that Jesus will pull us through death to life beyond. We just need to get strong holds on him.

We use the word Gospel to describe the long accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We use the word Gospel to describe songs with an inspirational twang to them. Really, though, Paul rightly restricted the word to the good news that Jesus can bring us through death to a happier life beyond this life.

There is no other way there. As Jesus said in the Gospel, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

God gave himself the name Yahweh, which was Hebrew for I AM.

Thursday, 5/15/14

Jesus, before his future death and resurrection, told his Apostles what was going to happen. He said that by doing that he proved that , “I Am.”

In calling himself “I Am” Jesus was referring back to Chapter Three of the Book of Exodus. There, God had appeared to Moses, telling him to go tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. “Tell old Pharaoh, let my people go!” 

Moses said, when I tell him this to the Israelites, who can I say sent me. We read:

“God replied, ‘I am who am.’ Then he added, ‘This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.”

The Hebrew for I AM is Yahweh, which God gives as his personal name. He AM in the sense that he was no different in the past, and he would be the same I Am forever.

He is also like a blank check which everything can be written in. He am all strength, all beauty, all knowing. He is in all places.

Yahweh, I know you are near,

standing always at my side.

You guard me from the foe,

and you lead me in ways everlasting.

Lord, you have searched my heart,

and you know when I sit and when I stand.

Your hand is upon me protecting me from death,

keeping me from harm.

Where can I run from Your love?

If I climb to the heavens You are there;

If I fly to the sunrise or sail beyond the sea,

still I'd find You there.

Matthias, a priest friend of mine, was an example of how uncontrollable emotions ruin fine lives.

Wednesday, 5,/14/14

Today is the feast of St. Matthias who was chosen to take the place of Judas as one of the Twelve Apostles. Let me use this day to speak about a friend of mine named Matthias.

I was a Theology student in the fall of 1949, when Mattie, two years younger, came to us from Ireland for his Philosophy studies. He was one of six Irish boys sent over to study with us, and we had added soccer to our American football games, just to give the Irish boys something that they were very good at.

One day Mattie, with his charming looks, was coming down the soccer field, dribbling the ball with his feet. Coming from the side, I took the ball away from him, and I was kicking it along toward the other goal, when I heard Mattie pounding and grunting after me.

I passed the ball off, and got down to the end of the field, but I heard Mattie still  chasing me hard. We were fifty yards clear off the field, up toward the dorm, but Mattie kept after me; so, I stopped and faced him. With that, Mattie came to himself, apologizing for losing his temper.

Fifteen years further on, we were in Korea together, and we had a new young bishop who brought us both in to work in his residence. With his temper flare-ups, Mattie had not done well with his parishioners, so the bishop had him there doing the purchasing and keeping the books. He had  me there as his chancellor, but all I did was write his letters.

After Christmas of 1965. the bishop took off for a four-month fund raising trip to Ireland and the States. Mattie who was never angry with me again, kept to his room, smoking, listening to the radio, and trying to deal with his temper.

Now, the nuns had a hospital nearby and they had a Sister Louise who was doing the same work as Mattie, buying, and keeping their books. That would have been fine, except that just having here near him set off Mattie’s temper.

Just before the bishop left, Sister Louise got his permission to use our kitchen to run a Western style Cooking course for Korean girls. They came up with fine dishes, and the girls took turns watching us though a little window.

 Sister and the girls spent one afternoon making two shish-kabobs. The girls put them on our plates, then, retired to the kitchen to take turns spying on us through the little window.

Each ten-inch skewer was threaded through an array of roast beef and pork and  colorful vegetables. For Mattie it was the weirdest, most unwanted thing anyone had ever put before an Irishman. After sitting, fuming, he went into action. Wedging his fork under the food at one end of the shish kabob. Mattie shouted  “Holy Jamie Mack!”

With that, he ran the fork up the skewer, sending the squares of meat and vegetables flying all over.

The poor fellow died in his early fifties. His sad story dramatizes the way uncontrollable emotions can bring unending grief to very fine people.

St. Paul earned his beautiful expressions of truth by silently meditating on them for fourteen years.

Tuesday,5/13/14

The first reading tells how persecutions in Jerusalem led the disciples to settle a hundred miles north of there in Antioch, the former capitol of the Syrian Empire. It was there that the first followers of Christ came to be called “Christians.” When many Gentiles joined those Jewish Christians, the Apostles appointed a very kind man, Barnabas, to go lead them.

After Barnabas got to Antioch, and he had sized up the situation, it occurred to him that the perfect man to help him with the Gentile converts was St. Paul.

Now, Paul, or Saul, after his conversion on the road to Damascus, and after his going up to Jerusalem to check out his beliefs with the Apostles, had retired to Tarsus. It  was a town in what today would be southeast Turkey. There his father was a maker of tents.

If you check out Chapter One of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, you will read his account of his conversion, followed by his visit to Jerusalem, and next his retiring to Tarsus. Then, if you read on to verse one of Chapter Two of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, you might be as surprised as I was when you read,  “Then after fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas.”

For fourteen years Paul had helped his father, while he silently went over and over his beliefs as a Christian.

With many people their favorite passage from Paul’s Letters is Chapter Thirteen of his First Letter to the Corinthians where he says, “If I speak with the tongues of angels and men, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong and a tinkling cymbal.” But there are dozens of other passages that we prize as highly.

If we marvel over Paul’s ability to come up with such perfect phrasing, it might help us to realize that his deep perceptions and his gorgeous wording were the result of his pondering over these holy matters for fourteen years.

The lesson there is that we must hold our tongues while we spend years and years asking for help in knowing the truth.