An ecumenical note

When it comes to Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, Catholics understandably tend to focus intensely on his presence in the consecrated, transsubtantiated, elements of bread of wine. We often do so to the exclusion of the other ways Christ is present in the Eucharist. To be clear, by "Eucharist," I mean the Mass, the Eucharistic liturgy.

That Eucharist can refer exclusively to the consecrated elements, strikes me as another indication of what is perhaps too concentrated a focus. According to Sacrosanctum Concilium, while he is "especially [present] under the Eucharistic species," Christ is also present in the Eucharist(ic liturgy) in three other distinct and integral ways: in the gathering of the baptized, that is "when the Church prays and sings," in the person of the priest, in the proclamation of Sacred Scripture (sec. 7).

It is also important to note that the high point of the Eucharistic liturgy is not the priest speaking the words of consecration. As necessary and vitally important as this is, it is not the high point. The Eucharistic liturgy "builds" toward the Communion Rite. It is our reception of Christ's body and blood that makes us Christ's Body in and for the world. Eucharist leads to mission, which is why we call the Eucharistic liturgy "Mass." From the Latin root missa, it relates to missio, or mission.

In terms of liturgies and worship services celebrated by other duly baptized Christians, I frequently hear Catholic comments along the lines that Christ is not really present in these celebrations. But can he be truly absent? Is it possible that the Lord is not true to his word that where two or more are gathered in his name, he is present (see Matthew 18:20)? If we take our cue from a dogmatic constitution approved by an ecumenical council and promulgated by the Roman Pontiff, which gives said constitution a very "high" authority in terms of the Church's magisterium, Christ is present in these celebrations.

When and where the baptized gather to pray and sing, Christ is present. When and where the scriptures are proclaimed in a gathering of the baptized, Christ is present. Let's not forget, all the baptized in some way belong to the one Church of Christ. It is a matter of great importance that the Catholic Church does not rebaptize those who are truly and duly baptized when they seek to be in full communion. It's hard for many not have a monopoly on Jesus Christ.

Then, of course, there is the Orthodox Church, which, from a Catholic perspective, celebrate valid sacraments. When someone who is Orthodox seeks to come into full communion with the Catholic Church, s/he is not only not baptized, s/he is not reconfirmed.

Baptism is the basis of ecumenism. Ecumenism differs from other ways the Church dialogs, like interreligious dialogs or discussions with new religious movements (interactions with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc., fall into this category, not full-blown ecumenism).

Ecumenism is Christians working together to foster communion of all who believe in Christ, all who are baptized into his death and resurrection.

First among "the initiatives and activities planned and undertaken" with regard to ecumenism, the Second Vatican Council, in its decree Unitatis redintegratio, is that Catholics should make "every effort to avoid expressions, judgments and actions which do not represent the condition of our separated brethren with truth and fairness and so make mutual relations with them more difficult" (sec. 4). Insisting there is no way Christ is present when they gather to worship seems to me very much a violation of this principle.

Good shepherds to good deacons

Acts 6:1-7

Our first reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter is what the Church, at least since Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, has taken to be the scriptural account of the institution of the diaconate (See Against the Heretics, Book III, Chapter 10). Hence, as a deacon, it seems appropriate to reflect on this today. Following, as it does, Good Shepherd Sunday, which is usually employed, and rightly so, to talk about priestly ministry, it seem fortuitous to reflect on the diaconate.

If we take Acts 6:1-7 seriously as the inspired account of the institution of the diaconate (exegetically, there are a few issues with doing so unreservedly), we see that there are three fundamental criterion: men of good reputation, who are "filled with the Spirit and wisdom" (Acts 6:3). At least in part, being a man of good reputation means being a just man.

The diakonia in which Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, were set apart to engage in was ensuring that within the primitive Christian community, which held all things in common, that Greek-speaking widows received their fair share of the daily distribution of food. Since this diakonia was table service, we can stretch this to perhaps entail both the ministries of charity and of liturgy a little anachronistically.

What about the diakonia of the word? Well, there is a reason that Stephen, followed by Philip, is the first of the seven men named. As a reading of the rest of Acts 6 and then Acts 7 shows, it wasn't long before at least Stephen joined with the apostles in proclaiming the kerygma. It was for this that he was made the Church's first martyr.

Not long after that, when the primitive Church fell under heavy persecution in Jerusalem, causing many to flee, including Philip along with his daughters, that the second of the seven named preached the Gospel and baptized in Samaria. His most famous convert being the Ethiopian eunuch. It was Philip who went and brought Peter and John from Jerusalem to Samaria to impart the Holy Spirit on those whom he had baptized (see Acts 8).

As the ones who proclaim the Gospel in the liturgy, is important for the deacon to always keep in mind the exhortation received from his bishop during ordination as the bishop placed the evangelary in his hands: "Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach." Selflessness is at the heart of all Christian ministry, especially ordained ministry.

Saint Peter consecrating the Seven Deacons (Saint Stephen is shown kneeling), by Fra Angelico, in Niccoline Chapel, 1447

Through ordination one receives the sacramental grace necessary to serve like Christ. Just as there are uncommitted, half-hearted, and even bad priests, there are those kinds of deacons as well. Jesus Christ is the model deacon. When He told the twelve, "I am among you as the one who serves," what He said, when translated more literally, is, "I am among you as the deacon" (see Luke 22:27).

I think the best way to end this is with what might be called the magna carta of the renewed diaconate, the restoration of which as a permanent office was called for by the Second Vatican Council and realized a few years later. It is the section twenty-nine of the Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. I am going to italicize and embolden parts that I feel need to be much better grasped by everyone, including deacons:

At a lower level of the hierarchy are deacons, upon whom hands are imposed "not unto the priesthood, but unto a ministry of service." For strengthened by sacramental grace, in communion with the bishop and his group of priests they serve in the diaconate of the liturgy, of the word, and of charity to the people of God. It is the duty of the deacon, according as it shall have been assigned to him by competent authority, to administer baptism solemnly, to be custodian and dispenser of the Eucharist [an ordinary minister of Holy Communion], to assist at and bless marriages in the name of the Church, to bring Viaticum to the dying, to read the Sacred Scripture to the faithful, to instruct and exhort the people, to preside over the worship and prayer of the faithful, to administer sacramentals, to officiate at funeral and burial services. Dedicated to duties of charity and of administration, let deacons be mindful of the admonition of Blessed Polycarp: "Be merciful, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all."

Since these duties, so very necessary to the life of the Church, can be fulfilled only with difficulty in many regions in accordance with the discipline of the Latin Church as it exists today, the diaconate can in the future be restored as a proper and permanent rank of the hierarchy. It pertains to the competent territorial bodies of bishops, of one kind or another, with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff, to decide whether and where it is opportune for such deacons to be established for the care of souls. With the consent of the Roman Pontiff, this diaconate can, in the future, be conferred upon men of more mature age, even upon those living in the married state. It may also be conferred upon suitable young men, for whom the law of celibacy must remain intact.

"Were not our hearts burning. . .?"

Luke 24:13-35

After quite a bit of planning and some fanagaling, I have a Sunday off. Yesterday evening, after a long day of teaching, I was able to quietly attend a Vigil Mass at another parish. Today is my first day off since the week before Holy Week.

I was sorely tempted to just let it go today. But I felt impelled (not compelled, had that been the case, I would've resisted), to share a concentrated take on today's Gospel reading: The Road to Emmaus. I never really fully grasped the centrality of the Emmaus pericope until I read Louis-Marie Chauvet's The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body.

Saint Luke's pericope in which the inspired author conveys the story of what happened to Cleopas and companion (perhaps his wife?) as they made their way back home to their village after Jesus' passion and death is simply amazing. Cleopas and companion ("companion" is literally someone with whom you share bread) had even heard news of some women, fellow disciples of Jesus, seeing angels who they said told them that Jesus rose from the dead.

But all these two disappointed disciples saw after hearing these reports was an empty tomb. What does an empty tomb prove? Did those women really encounter angels?

Saint Luke's telling of what happened on the way to and then in Emmaus contains an inspired and comprehensive Eucharistic theology as well as a fairly well sketched out liturgical theology, which even includes a dismissal. The dismissal occurs when, having recognized the Risen Lord in the breaking of bread, which happened after a very extended liturgy of word (like the one at the Paschal Vigil), they rush the seven miles back to Jerusalem, despite it now being nightime, to tell the others what they had seen and heard and how their hearts were burning.

The story of the road to Emmaus tells the story of the Word becoming flesh and how the Word still becomes flesh. Through the Eucharist, the flesh the Word now takes is your flesh, my flesh. When we say the Church is the Body of Christ, we are not using an analogy. We are describing reality.

The mystery of life in Christ is that Christ can live in you (Colossians 1:27). Moreover, Christ desires not only to live in but through you and through me. You and I, along with everyone who else who partakes of Christ's Body and Blood, are united in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit by partaking of the one bread and the one cup (okay, chalice). Given to us by the Lord Himself, the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist, in turn, makes the Church the Body of Christ.

Let's be honest, the only convincing evidence that the bread and wine are transformed (transubstantiated) into Christ's Body and Blood are the lives of those of us who eat and drink. Conversely, the best argument against this reality are the lives of those of us who partake. In the Eucharist, something really profound is happening, ex opere operato (i.e., whether you experience it or not).

While it is imporant and even necessary, don't remain content with minimalism, with hanging your hat on the peg of ex opere operato. Your participation, my participation, should be intentional. In the most important sense, this is what it means to actively participate.

For some reason, this Easter season, I feel impelled to emphasize that Jesus didn't just rise from the tomb. He is risen, denoting the on-going nature of His resurrection. Resurrection isn't merely something to be believed but something/Someone to be experienced in the way Cleopas and his companion did. Resurrection is not just a way of life, a manner of living, but a mode of being.

What should happen during the Eucharist should also resound beyond Mass and outside the walls of the Church. Quite simply, worship that doesn't lead to self-giving service isn't Christian worship. And so, "Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord. Alleluia." "Go in peace, glorfying the Lord by your life. Alleluia" (we won't use the double "Alleluia" again until the dismissal at Pentecost).

"Te Deum laudamus..."

Today is the first Friday of the New Year. Or, as Roman Catholics observe it, the First Friday of January. This means it's time for the first traditio of 2026!

When given the opportunity, I kind of like blogging about blogging, probably a bit too much. Since Christmas, I've been enjoying some downtime, time at home, which I have loved. I've preached a lot. I preached on Christmas for the Mass at Night. I preached on the Feast of Saint Stephen and for the Feast of the Holy Family. I also preached for yesterday's solemnity.

Bas Relief of Saint Olaf, original work by Dale Schultz, a parishioner, commissioned by Father Andrzej Skrzypiec, 2025

Something that stuck in my craw was when someone, complimenting me on my homily, asked if I prepared my own homilies. My response was, "Of course." To which the inquirer replied, "There's no of course." Sorry, but what?

I work hard and preaching and pour a lot of my education, formation, and experience into my homilies. Posting them, as I do, I am conscious of my words extending beyond the walls of my parish. Stated simply, I hope I am able to serve others in this way. Such a thing shouldn't bother me much. Over the years, I've been subjected to much worse, as has anyone who's undertaken the vulnerability of engaging in ministry.

I often wonder if I put too much effort into preaching. Even good preaching doesn't seem to yield much fruit. But the alternative, in my view, is not winging it. Rather, it would be making homilies less substantial and more superficial. Good thing the Spirit won't let me get away with that.

I don't consider myself a great or even very gifted preacher but I am diligent. I take preaching with the seriousness I often see lacking. Most of the time, frankly, I preach the way I like to be preached to. In any case, good, bad, or middling, each homily is the original result of a substantial amount of work and time.

Since I mentioned The Imitation of Christ in my last post, the thought occurs to me that, like Saint Paul, I should be grateful for the thorns in my side. I'm working on it.

Anyway, this New Year, I already know, will be a year of great change for me, the likes of which I haven't experienced for a long time. Times of vulnerability are good as they put my need in bold relief. It isn't so much praying more. It's really praying. This carries over to my prayers for others.

It's only 2 January. 2026 is still very fresh. Therefore, our traditio for today is the Te Deum. Sung or recited quite often, it is traditionally sung at the end of First Vespers on 31 December. It is the Catholic hymn of praise.

"Defend us, O Lord, from all peril and dangers of this life"

Fall is beautiful. I love the transitional seasons. But you have to have winter and summer to have fall and spring. I believe this experientially communicates something about life.

I read somewhere recently that joy is the overcoming of sorrow. I think it's the best definition of joy I've ever read. For one thing it disentangles joy from that slippery and largely facile word happiness.

And so, you can't experience joy without having experienced sorrow. Many psalms bear this out. Take Psalm 22, the opening words of which are placed on the lips of Jesus as He hangs on the Cross by the inspired authors of Mark and Matthew: "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). Verses 1-22 of this psalm are a song of deepest lament.

In Psalm 22, things begin to turn around starting with verse 23, with the plea: "Save me from the lion’s mouth, my poor life from the horns of wild bulls."

Saint Olaf church after evening Mass Monday, 13 October 2025, by Deacon Scott Dodge

From verse 24 on, Psalm 22 goes from being a song of heartrending lament to a song of praise, even an ode of joy! Or, in words from Psalm 30:12- "You changed my mourning into dancing; you took off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness."

At present, there is a lot to lament. It can easily overwhelm. But hope, which, just as joy needs to be differentiated from happiness, needs to be distinguished from optimism, sustains. Hope sustains because it is a theological virtue, a supernatural grace.

Hope remains when optimism has long since left the building because hope, like true joy, comes from God. As in all things that matter, Jesus Christ shows us this through His life, passion, death, resurrection, and sending the Spirit.

It bears noting that today we observe the Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr. Hence, one can use the Common of Pastors or of One Martyr. I always prefer the latter when these are the choices. Antiphon 2 for this Common, riffing off Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans is fitting: "The sufferings of this life cannot be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us in the life to come."

Or this from the first reading for the Office of Readings from the same Common, from 2 Corinthians (see 2 Corinthians 4:7-5:8): "We are afflicted in every way possible, but we are not crushed; full of doubts, we never despair... Continually we carry about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, so that in our bodies the life of Jesus may also be revealed." This is hope!

Our traditio for today reveals my Anglo-Catholic heart. It is from Greg LaFollette's lovely album Songs of Common Prayer: "Lighten Our Darkness."

Friday funeral

In twenty-one, nearly twenty-two, years as a deacon, I have never celebrated a Funeral Liturgy outside Mass. This morning I will be doing this for the first time. Over my years of diaconal ministry, I have celebrated countless Vigils and graveside Committal services, especially during my eleven years at The Cathedral of Madeleine. But, prior to today, not one funeral. In addition to preaching at quite a few funeral Masses, I've done many weddings and convalidations.

The person whose funeral I will preside at died in late June. Her mortal remains were cremated. Over the ensuing months, her bereaved husband did his best to gather together her family. Today is the day they all agreed on to hold her funeral. After the funeral, her remains will be committed to her resting place. One reason for not celebrating a Funeral Mass is that virtuall on one present will be Catholic. Most, like the deceased prior to her conversion a number of years ago, practice no religion.

My first first funeral rite as a deacon was on Good Friday of 2004. This was just few months after I was ordained. One of the local funeral directors, himself a Catholic, was going to bury a woman who was born and raised in Salt Lake City but hadn't lived here for many, many years. She had married but never had children. Her closest relatives were a great niece and great nephew. She had lived for many, many years in Portland, Oregon. Her relatives lived in Boise, Idaho.

So, I went to the cemetery and conducted my first Rite of Committal, which was the deceased's only funeral service. The people gathered around her grave with me were the funeral director and the men who were there to bury her, the cemetery workers. But gather reverently we did. This is a memory etched deeply in my memory.

The woman whose funeral I am presiding at today is someone I knew quite well. She was a dear, sweet, gentle person. Her husband, who I assisted in becoming Catholic (he had been Lutheran), is a friend. It is a privilege to serve them both in this way.

Photo by Brett Sayles. Used under the provisions of Creative Common License

Here is an excerpt from my homily for Nanci's funeral. The Gospel Scott, her husband, chose is John 11:25-26:

In our short reading from the Gospel According to Saint John, Jesus is speaking to Martha, the sister of Lazarus. Martha and her sister Mary had summoned Jesus several days earlier, when their brother Lazarus was still alive but gravely ill. Mysteriously, Jesus delayed going to Bethany until after he passed.

Martha expressed her disappointment, noting that Jesus could’ve come sooner and perhaps healed Lazarus, sparing him from death. Jesus assured her, saying “Your brother will rise.” To which Martha responded, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” No doubt, standing before her brother’s grave, that “last day” seemed to her a long way off, perhaps more a desperate wish than a present reality.

In kind of similar way, given the manner and circumstances of Nanci’s passing from this life to eternity, some of you have likely thought, “If I only I had…” fill in blank. Because physical death is an inevitability in a fallen world, in the end, there are no “avoidable” deaths.

Woody Allen once averred that he did not want to achieve immortality through his artistic work. Rather, he quipped, “I want to achieve immortality by not dying.” Funny as this is, what Allen gives comic expression to is something we all, or at least most of us, want. Sadly, in His infinite wisdom, God didn’t set it up to work that way.

Sorry, Woody.

A bit later, I included this:

A major difference between a Christian funeral and a non-religious “celebration of life” is the focus on the hope generated by Christ’s rising from the dead. “If there is no resurrection of the dead,” Saint Paul insisted, then Christians “are the most pitiable people of all.” But for those who have died, been buried, and risen with Christ is baptism, resurrection is a present, not a distant reality!

Our traditio for this solemn Friday is Paradisum from the traditional Requiem Mass:

Be "a faithful and prudent servant," like Saint Lawrence

Readings: Wis 18:6-9; Ps 33:1.12.18-22; Heb 11:1-2.8-19; Luke 12:32-48

In the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's resignation in 2013, Italian philospher, Giorgio Agamben, whose work very much informs my political perspective, wrote what basically amounts to a pamphlet: The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI and the End of Days. In this short treatise, Agamben notes something that Heidegger noted early on in his own philosophical career that resulted from his deep dive into Saint Paul's first letter to the Christians in ancient Thessaloniki, namely that over the course of two millenia, Christians have lost our sense of eschatological urgency.

Yet, each Sunday we profess in the Creed, be it the Nicene or Apostles Creed, that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. Rooted as it is in divine revelation, this is a dogma of Christian faith. As a result, as Jesus teaches into today's Gospel, how we live in the meantime matters. "Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again." We are not meant to just mark time.

It is easy to fall into a worldly perspective and live for this life only. Inevitably and without exception, this life ends, which is what makes living exclusively for time and disregrading eternity so dangerous.

Money, possessions, power, and status aren't the measure of a person. You really can't take it with you, as Jesus' parable from last Sunday powerfully and simply demonstrated. Status and power matter, at least how one who has them wields them does. It can mean the difference between being rewarded for using them prudently and wisely, that is, charitably and only being beaten lightly or being beaten severely.

It is not God's desire to punishment anyone. Rather, as Jesus intimates in our Gospel, it is the Father's pleasure "to give you the kingdom." But, at the end of the day, your heart is where your treasure is. It isn't so much that God denies you the kingdom as you saying to God, "No thanks." As C.S. Lewis wrote:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (1946; rprt. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 75)

The Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside-the-Walls (i.e., San Lorenzo fuori le mura), 18th century engraving by Giuseppe Vasi

As a deacon, I can't help but mention that in years when 10 August does not fall on a Sunday (i.e., most every year), the Feast of Saint Lawrence is observed universally. Along with Saint Stephen and Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Lawrence is one of the Church's greatest deacons. Lawrence lived his entire life in the third century (AD 225-258).

Saint Lawrence gives us a lively example of what the Lord teaches in today's Gospel. Ordained a deacon at 32 by Pope Sixtus II, Lawrence was quickly named Archdeacon of Rome. The archdeacon was first among the seven deacons who served in the cathedral church. Archdeacon was a position of that came with status, power, and control of the Church's treasury. As such, Lawrence was charged with distributing alms to the poor. By all accounts he was honest, diligent, and caring in the exercise of his office.

In August 258, the Roman emperor Valerian issued and edict that all bishops, priests, and deacons should be put to death. on 6 August, Pope Sixtus II was arrested while celebrating the liturgy and executed. After the execution of Sixtus, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence turn over all the Church's wealth to the emperor. Lawrence asked the perfect for three days to gather up the riches to be handed over.

On the third day, Lawrence led a delegation and presented himself to the Roman prefect. Immediately, the prefect demanded that Lawerence hand over the Church's treasure. Lawerence then proceeded to 'hand over" the Church's treasures: the city's indigent, crippled, blind, and suffering. He did so with these words: "Here are the treasures of the church. You see, the church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor!"

This brazen act led to Lawrence's arrest and execution. While it almost certain that in accordance with Valerian's order, Lawrence, along with Sixtus and all other members of the Roman clergy who arrested and executed, was decapitated, the legend of him being roasted on a gridiron persists. Part of this legend is Lawrence taunting his Roman executioners by telling them they could turn him over because he was done on one side.

The Basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls is one of five papal basilicas in Rome. The basilica stands on the site of Saint Lawrence's grave, where the Emperor Constantine built a small oratory early in the fourth century. Later, during that same century, Pope Damasus I, who had served as a deacon at the original oratory, restored and/or rebuilt this edifice. Pope Pelagius II built a church on the site in the 580s.

Most recently, the basilica was bombed in 1943 during World War II and rebuilt by 1948. Five popes are buried in San Lorenzo fuori le mura, the most of recent of whom is Pope Pius IX (a.k.a., Pio Nono), who called and presided over the First Vatican Ecumenical Council in 1870. He died in 1878.

Repenting, changing, believing

Readings: Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63:2-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-23

From some reports I read, an interesting discussion took place at the recently concluded Synod and synodality, at least in some English-speaking and Spanish-speaking groups. What was this discussion about? It was about Christ's call and how any genuine response to his call is an acknowledgment of one's need to repent. It should go without saying that Christ calls everyone and accepts everyone who responds to his call. We must not forget that a significant part of responding to Christ's call is the desire and determination to repent.

No doubt this discussion arose in the context of other discussions about the Church being for everyone. Again, Christ calls everyone, bar none. But, as the Lord himself expressed, not everyone responds to the call and even some who say "Lord, Lord" are not committed to repenting. And so, from the beginning, the Church has had hypocrites. Even hypocrites can and do repent.

To repent is to change, to be converted, to commit yourself to being more and more transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This is nothing less than committing to dying in the hope of being reborn.

Contrition, being sorry for one's sins, is necessary but insufficient for repentance. To repent is to change. The fruit of the third Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary is Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom, which occurs after his 40 days in the desert fasting, praying, and being tempted by the devil. If we translate Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom literally, at least according to the Gospel of Mark, his message is in the continuous tense: "be repenting and be believing" (see Mark 1:15). I don't believe it is mere happenstance that repenting comes before believing. On this view, seeing isn't believing, doing is.

Life ends with death and not necessarily with Christ's return. This is what Saint Paul reminds the Christians of ancient Thessaloniki in our New Testament reading. They are dismayed because believers are dying and Jesus has not yet returned. He reminds them that while life ends with death, death ends with resurrection. In the meantime, this requires us to wait in joyful hope. What interests the Apostle ought to interest us. He is not interested in "the last day," in the end of time. Rather, he is interested in the time of the end. What's the difference?

In his short booklet The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI and the End of Days, philosopher Giorgio Agamben, referring to the above difference, writes what interests Paul is "the internal transformation of time that the messianic event [Christ's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension- the Paschal mystery] has produced once and for all, and the consequent transformation of the life of the faithful" (pg 14).

The Fourth Wise Virgin, from the series The Wise and Foolish Virgins, by Martin Schongauer, 1470-1491

Whether we're talking about the mystery of iniquity or the Paschal mystery, which are inextricably related and together comprise one mystery, in Greek a mysterion is a dramatic action, not something unknown and unknowable. This why the Greek word for sacrament is mystery. The liturgy is certainly dramatic action. The dramatic action of the mysterion is an apocalypse, an unveiling, a revelation that unfolds mystagogically we might say. It is a cosmic unfolding on an existential scale.

Today's readings are all about the transformation of our lives resulting from "the messianic event." According to the parable, as believers, we are all virgins waiting for the Bridegroom, who is Christ. Therefore, the question becomes whether you are a wise one or a foolish one. As regards the oil, I think perhaps this is an opportunity to consider grace.

Grace isn't magic. Even practicing the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving does not magically make you holy or even necessarily holier, at least not in some idealistic or hagiographic way. But even when your practice serves the end to which these disciplines are the means, it isn't usually noticeable to you.

For most people what happens when you fast is that you get hungry. The question is what are you really hungry for? Perhaps more to this point is what happens when you abstain: you want that from which you are abstaining. I remember a number of years ago, two friends of mine who live near New York City met up to walk in the huge Way of the Cross that transits the Brooklyn Bridge each Good Friday. Good Friday, of course, is a day of fasting and abstinence. As they were making their way across the bridge, one friend said to the other, "I've never wanted a hamburger worse than I do right now."

Grace requires cooperation, consistent, persistent cooperation. This cooperation is an act of hope, hope that what I am doing or not doing is good and will bear fruit for the Kingdom. No matter how you want to parse it, faith without works is dead. Remember repenting before believing? Remember Jesus from last week's Gospel, do what they say and not what they do because they don't do what they say?

One way to view the virgins is that the foolish ones operate on the presumption of God's grace, which presumption bids them do nothing, whereas the wise virgins do not wait in that way.

As we near the end of one liturgical year and look forward to a new year of grace, it's important for each of us individually and for us as a Christian community to examine our consciences and our lives and recommit ourselves to following Christ, to letting the Holy Spirit transfigure us (the fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary is Jesus' Transfiguration and the fruit of that mystery is to desire holiness), recreating us evermore into the image of Christ, our Lord, whose Kingship we acknowledge.

For the love of neighbor

Readings: Exodus 22:20-26; Ps 18:2-4.47.51; 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10; Matthew 22:34-40

This week's readings only require a short-take. I will provide mine in a numerical sequence:

First, probably the reason Jesus spent so much time talking to the Pharisees is that they were the Jews who were most like him. In other words, they encouraged their fellow Jews to practice their religion. Far from being bad thing, religion is a product of faith. It isn't very likely that all Pharisees were opposed to Jesus.

Second, what is at the root of most of Jesus' disputes with the Pharisees as set forth in the Gospels, bubbles to the surface in today's Gospel. What is this root? Mistaking means for ends. The Law is but a means to the end (singular) of loving God and neighbor. While I could go all Pauline on you, I will refrain, except to say that only Jesus fulfilled the Law in both letter and spirit.

Third, among Jewish teachers before, during, and after Jesus, the teaching handed on in this pericope isn't stunningly new. After all, it is right there in the Law! What eventually emerges in Jesus' teaching as something of a departure, but not in this passage, is his answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?" But, again, when one considers today's passage from Exodus, you can see this, too, isn't such a dramatic departure.

Fourth, "neighbor" is not an abstract concept. I think the Spanish word, closely related to our English word "vicinity," gets at this better. Vecino indicates clearly someone in close physical proximity to you. This is also true of the Greek word that transliterates as plésion, from the adverb plésios, meaning "near," "close to."

Therefore, as the Beatles sang, "All You Need Is Love." Add to this something Saint Augustine preached in what we have cataloged as Sermon 110: "Love God and do whatever you please." Not too surprisingly, the back end of this sentence is usually omitted: "for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved." For good measure we might throw in Chesterton's "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair." This is probably enough to chew on.

While lovely in the abstract, this teaching is quite difficult to apply. You see, there are two big obstacles- me and other people. It's easy to love "humankind" or "humanity" (increasingly we seem to have no love for humanity, either our own or anyone else's). "Humankind" is an abstract category or, as in logic and mathematics, a set that includes all human beings.

To love everyone does not necessarily mean you love anyone in particular. To love no one in particular is the same not loving anyone. Many, far too many, who have claimed to love humanity have harmed and oppressed others out such "love."

I will end by going a bit Thomistic. Love is not a feeling. It's an act of your will. This means love is choice, not chance. Like all choices, the choice to love or not to love has consquences.

When a homily is really a sermon: Mother's Day revisited

Someone asked where I draw the line between a homily and a Mother's Day Sermon. It's a fair enough question and one I am happy to answer. But before answering, I feel the need to point out the obvious. As indicated in my Integrity Notes, everything on this blog falls under the caveat "in my view." While, like everyone else, I share a view because I think it is more or less a correct one, I make no claims to infallibility.

Generally, what is supposed to be a homily becomes a sermon when it has nothing to do with the readings proclaimed or even when it renders the readings tangential by veering off onto other things. This is merely to state the difference between a sermon and a homily. This difference is something with which those of us charged with preaching should know. Bait and switch is usually the tactic employed.

It would be pretty hard to squeeze a Mother's Day homily out of the readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A of the Sunday lectionary. In these circumstances, the bait and swith usually happens by means of a transition, sometimes smooth and sometimes not. This is where the person preaching begins by addressing the readings, or an aspect of the readings, then transitions to something else s/he wants to talk about. In evaluating the preaching of prospective deacons, this is something I am pretty consistent about calling out and strict about discouraging.

Shouldn't we draw from life in our preaching? Only if you want your preaching to have some relevance. This is not the issue I am addressing and nothing I wrote contra Mother's Day sermons indicates otherwise.

Elsewhere, I made a comment about last Sunday's readings in which I said something about how lacking pneumatology often is Roman Catholic preaching and teaching. By contrast, our liturgical pneumatology is sublime. Being prima theologia, liturgy is a good place to start. Along these lines, I have one word: epiclesis. Last Sunday's readings provided a great opportunity to address, creatively, of course, the Holy Spirit: who the Spirit is, what the Spirit does in the divine economy, how the Spirit works, and why it even matters.

I will restate another issue with Mother's or Father's Day sermons: the cue concerning the family is not usually taken from the New Testament, at least not from Jesus or the authentically Pauline letters. "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it" (Luke 8:21). The first sentence of the NABRE footnote to this verse states: "The family of Jesus is not constituted by physical relationship with him but by obedience to the word of God."

The paralell passage from Mark 3, lacking the background of Luke's Infancy Narrative, is more stark (see Mark 3:31-35). Of course, this, too, can and has been put to nefarious use. Our quick dismissal of this revealed reality causes all kinds of problems, certainly doctrinal and, more practically, in forming and sustaining Christian community, the Father's eschatological family. This also negatively impacts how the Church gets with the larger society.

Do last Sunday's readings present any possibility to bring up Mother's Day? While not claiming to have algorithmically analyzed every possible connection, one hook might be Paracletos, rendered "Advocate" in the NABRE. A paracletos is one who stands beside you, who literally takes your side. This is something good mothers certainly do. But this is easily rendered vapid by making recourse to a stereotype: the mom who takes her child's side even when her child is way off-base. So, in this vein, a mention here might not be out of line. But nobody's Mom, however sainted, is the Holy Spirit.

One also needs to be mindful of those for whom such observances are a bit painful for various reasons: wanting children but not being able to have them, not having a good experience with one's mother, to name perhaps the two most obvious. There is no issue with adding some intercessions to the Prayers of the Faithful appropriate for Mother's Day, which can also include prayers for those women who desire to be moms and healing for those who may have issues with their mothers. Another possibility is a blessing for mothers, which might include those who want to be moms, between the Prayer after Communion and the Dismissal.

I am not proposing ignoring Mother's Day altogether. But it is important to not make-up a Mass for Mother's Day.

Return to Ordinary Time- "I'm not sleeping"

At least for Roman Catholics in the United States, today marks our return of Ordinary Time. We'll persist in Ordinary Time until Ash Wednesday, which we'll observe on 22 February. The "ordinary" in Ordinary Time is not contrasted with extraordinary. Rather, it means ordinal. What ordinal relates to is position in a series. For example, today is the First Tuesday in Ordinary Time (note we don't say/write of Ordinary Time, but in). The series that positions the days in Ordinary Time is the numbered Sundays. This coming Sunday is the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

What prompted this post was Morning Prayer for today, which is taken from Week I of the Psalter. It is the same passage used by the Church for Morning Prayer on the First Sunday of Advent, the first day of the new Year of Grace or Liturgical Year:

it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness [and] put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day (Romans 13:11-13)

This somehow strikes me as a fitting way to begin this season of Ordinary Time. In verse 14, Saint Paul exhorted: "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh."

The Greek word the ends the fourteenth verse of Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans is not sarx, which needs to be distinguished from soma, or body, in the apostles' writings. Rather, it is ἐπιθυμίας, which, transliterated, is epithumia. It refers to "passionate longing" or "lust." Our passionate longing, our erotic desire, should be for the Lord.

As for using the word "erotic" in a spiritual context, I just started reading Emanuel Falque's book of the Eucharist. I am not far into the book yet. In his treatment of what is central to Christian faith and life, Falque insists

God in his agape does not imitate the amorous lovemaking of humankind. Rather, it is humankind that learns precisely from the agape of God, in eros, how to love a body that is offered in difference: “‘This is my body, which is given for you’” (Luke 22:19). I am not suggesting here that eros and agape are the same (univocal). But we shall see later (§10) how the eucharistic act can serve as a model, a place of integration as much as of transformation, where our human eros becomes the divine agape. That is the true meaning of the erotic scene, to be taken and included with the eucharistic Last Supper (Falque, Emmanuel. The Wedding Feast of the Lamb: Eros, the Body, and the Eucharist [Perspectives in Continental Philosophy], p. 29. Fordham University Press. Kindle Edition)

One thing is for sure, love requires you not just to be awake but to be awakened, to be alert, and attentive. Each day is an Advent. Each day we don't just wait for but eagerly anticipate the Lord.

As the final verse of end of U2's song "Bad" has it:

I'm wide awake, I'm wide awake
Wide awake, I'm not sleeping
Oh no, no, no

Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity...amended

Not that many people would notice these days, but I've taken a break from blogging. I decided to take a little break for a couple of reasons. First, my minimum goal for posts in a year is 120. This works out to be 10 posts a month. I have posted 58 times this year and June is a bit more than a third over. So, I was a little ahead of schedule. My main reason is that while I am less busy than I was for the first 4+ months of 2022, I still busy. Over the past few weeks, I have been recovering from being overcommitted for a long time. This was compounded by not really having much to share and lacking the energy to dig deep enough down to bring something to the surface. Let me just say that spiritual fracking is not what I've needed.

Today, Trinity Sunday, I am feeling more relaxed, a bit more energetic. I also have time a quiet. Hence, I felt like writing something today.

We are far too prone to dismiss theology. But I think good theology is more important than it has been for a very long time. One of the concerns that I have about the Eucharistic Revival planned for the Catholic Church throughout the United States for the next few years is the potential for the proliferation of bad eucharistic theology. According to Bishop Cozzens, who is heading this effort for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the driving force behind this revival is the concern that too many Catholics reject Christ's real presence in the Eucharist.

This concern arises from a survey conducted several years ago. Even Bishop Cozzens, in the press conference rolling out the Eucharistic Revival, was forced to admit, that the survey in question has some problems. In my reading, I think what a lot of people reject is actually in line with Church teaching, namely a physicalist understanding of Christ's real presence.

By "physicalist" I mean understanding Christ's real presence as something like his corporeal body suddenly becoming present on the altar. We then dole it out like turkey at Thanksgiving. My concern is that this is the kind of thing that is going to reinforced. I wonder how much of a cue will be taken from the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, especially section seven of this important document that sits very high in terms of magisterial teaching.

Section 7 of Sacrosanctum concilium starts with this assertion:

To accomplish so great a work, Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of His minister, "the same now offering, through the ministry of priests, who formerly offered himself on the cross", but especially under the Eucharistic species. By His power, He is present in the sacraments, so that when a man baptizes it is really Christ Himself who baptizes. He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church. He is present, lastly, when the Church prays and sings, for He promised: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20) .

What this tells us is that Christ's "real" presence is fourfold. He is present in the gathering of the baptized, in the person of the priest, in the proclamation of the scriptures, and in consecrated bread and wine.

If you think about it, these are not only interrelated, they build on one another. Therefore, the culmination of the Eucharistic liturgy is not the consecration of the elements but the Communion Rite. Of course, Corpus Christi is next week. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. While I hesitate to use this kind of language about the Eucharist, there is a way of understanding it that leads to what I can only describe as a type of idolatry. I write that as someone who cherishes time sitting quietly with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

In a letter, Henri De Lubac wrote beautifully about the dangers of separating eucharistic adoration from the celebration of the Eucharist. It was De Lubac who, in his work Corpus Mysticum: Essai sur L'Eucharistie et l’Église au moyen âge, demonstrated that over time the referents to the corpus mysticum (i.e., mystical body) and the corpus verum (i.e., true body) had been reversed. He noted some of the ill effects of this reversal. This stands as an example of why good theology matters at the practical level.

Today is Trinity Sunday. There is an important thread that runs from Easter to Ascension to Pentecost to Trinity to Corpus Christi. Ascension and Pentecost, the latter of which marks the beginning of the Church, are part and parcel of the resurrection event. If you pay attention to the liturgical texts for Trinity Sunday, both the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours, and even our Gospel reading for this Year C, you will notice that the Holy Spirit figures prominently, thus linking it closely to Pentecost.

It is the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and Son, who animates the Church making it, not the mystical Body of Christ, but the true Body of Christ- the verum corpus. It is the mystical Body of Christ (i.e., the Eucharist) that makes the Church the true Body of Christ. Understanding the "mystical" nature of the Eucharist tends to highlight the spiritual nature of the Eucharist. Therefore, moving us away from physicalism. Living as we do in a material world, to quite Madonna, even as religious people, we tend to think the empirical is what is real. For the ancients, the spiritual constituted the real. By contrast, we tend to equate the spiritual with the emphemeral.

It is by participating in and partaking of the Eucharist that we are filled and refilled and then filled again with the Holy Spirit. I am an unapologetic double processionist. That means one who holds, as Catholics confess in the Creed, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. I will go so far as to assert that the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son personified.

It is, of course, the Holy Spirit who is called down to transform the bread and the wine into Christ's mystical body and blood. It is the Eucharist (in toto, not just in part, meaning the while eucharistic liturgy), in turn, that makes us the true, that is, "real" Body of Christ- the Body capable of making Christ really and truly present in the world. Because Jesus Christ is autobasalia, which means "the kingdom in person," wherever he is there is God's kingdom.

Grace is nothing other than God sharing divine life with us. The essence of the divine life, the life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is agape, self-giving, self-sacrificing love. In baptism, you were immersed in the God who is love. Being a trinity of persons means that God is love. Love that is not narcissistic requires at least a lover and a beloved. But because agape is profuse, it gives life.

Christians are people who have received and seek to give not just life but what Saint Augustine, in a letter to the wealthy Roman widow Proba, called "the life that is truly life." God is love. God is life. God is light. Knowing this, really knowing it, knowing it well enough to communicate it is a matter of experience what is really real, not warmed over paganism.

This brings me back to Christ's real presence. Just as Christ ascended and sent the Spirit not to distance himself from us but to be closer to us than if he had remained, Christ becomes present in the Eucharist only to be present in and through those who partake of it. Our lives constitute the only convincing proof (or disproof) that he is present in the bread and wine. As Michael Card sang: "the mystery of life in Christ is that Christ can live you." Christ lives in us through the Holy Spirit. Where the Spirit is the Father and Son are also.

Triduum: Holy Thursday

Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet (John 13:12b-14)

In his book, The Kingdom, a strange blend of memoir, history, and fiction, Emmanuel Carrère recalls an experience he had during a L'Arche retreat he went on. During the retreat, the participants washed each others' feet. He participated in this retreat after he had ceased being a fervent and practicing Catholic. He goes on to contrast Saint John's account of Jesus washing his disciples feet with the Synoptic (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke) accounts of the Last Supper, at the center of which is Jesus blessing bread and wine.

He recalls thinking to himself during the rite “that things could have happened differently: that the central sacrament of Christianity could be foot washing and not Communion.” He continues pondering this by noting that what those who participate in L’Arche retreats do for each other on occasion “could be what Christians do every day at Mass, and it wouldn’t be any more absurd – less, so in fact" (The Kingdom: A Novel, trans. John Lambert, pg 381).

This is how our Christian High Holy Days begin.

"the joy of the Lord must be your strength"

As we do each year on the First Sunday of Lent, today we hear about Jesus' three temptations during his time of fasting and prayer in the desert. It's significant that in the Synoptics (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke) this happens immediately after his baptism:

1) Turn stones into bread- make it all about you, become self-focused

2) Worshipping power- forcibly make others do your bidding instead of selflessly serving them

3) Testing God- instead of trusting God; undermining trust in God is the work of the evil one

12th Century Mosaic, Saint Mark's Cathedral, Venice

These temptations are perennial and common to all human beings in every age. That Jesus was tempted like this is a sure sign of his actual humanity. He was tempted in every way that we are tempted, but, unlike us, he did not yield to temptation (Hebrews 4:15). I don't know about you, but I can resist anything but temptation. This is what makes our Responsorial today to so very meaningful: Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble. When am I not in trouble?

In terms of Jesus not giving in to temptation, there is always the "What if,..." In this regard, never loose sight of the fact that God is a risk-taker. If creating was a risk, then why wouldn't redemption be a risk as well?

In rides Saint Paul with an important reminder, especially during Lent, that you are not saved by your own good works, by your ability to resist temptation, by your determination not to live by bread alone. Rather, you are saved by believing in your heart (even if, maybe particularly if, your head finds this incredible) that Jesus is Lord because he rose from the dead and by confessing this with your mouth. Each Sunday, in the context of Mass, you confess with your mouth that on "On the third day he rose again from the dead." It is obvious that there is an irresolvable tension between resisting temptation (avoiding evil and doing good) and not being able to save yourself. Like all such tensions inherent to Christian faith, it is imprudent to try definitively resolving it.

Even during Lent, Sundays are always a celebration of Christ's resurrection. So, today we can heed the words from the Book of Nehemiah that constitute the Church's reading for Morning Prayer on this First Sunday of Lent:

Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep;
for today is holy to our Lord. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength! (Neh 8:9-10)

Ash Wednesday: Lent begins

I have no desire to expound on today's Mass readings, except to urge anyone reading this to quietly consider how you might engage in the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Even if you're not a believer, spend some quiet time, go without in solidarity with those who do so involuntarily, and serve others in helpful and kind ways.

I was struck today by three things in the Church's liturgy. The first two arose from Morning Prayer. One of the Intercessions cuts to the heart of what Lent is all about:

Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments,
- but above all in the ordinary events of daily life

The second also gets to the heart of the reason for this sanctifying season. It is from the Prayer that concluded this morning's office:

As we begin the discipline of Lent, make this day holy by our self-denial

What struck me about this is something that I "knew." But this prayer helped it penetrate my too often hardened heart.

What I did realize (again)? That I will never become holy simply by performing acts of self-denial. Only God can, by his grace, make me holy, or even make this day holy to me.

There is also the sense that not only is every day holy but that I am holy. Like the golden ring that gets dropped on the ground and covered with dirt, my holiness, buried beneath detritus of all my striving and distractions, needs to be "unearthed." I think the spiritual disciplines help in this regard. There's a line in the chorus of Jennifer Knapp's beautiful song "A Little More" that articulates this in such a heartfelt way: "Unearth this holiness I can't earn."

As to this seemingly audacious idea that I am already, in some sense, at some level, holy (and so are you!), Pater Tom (Merton), in his still amazing and eclectic book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, noted:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us

As to how practicing spiritual disciplines is an aid, and only an aid- means, not an end, I invoke something James Kushiner wrote more than a decade ago on the old Touchstone blog, "Mere Comments," continues to resonate with me, which is why I probably overuse it:

A discipline won’t bring you closer to God. Only God can bring you closer to Himself. What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace

Thirdly, I was struck by the Collect for Mass referring to Lent as "this campaign of Christian service."

Of course, these three things are connected, even if inversely to the order in which I presented them. Laying it way too cleanly: the purpose of Lent to better love God and neighbor - and the way we do this is through a more intentional and perhaps more intensive practice of the fundamental spiritual disciplines - almsgiving, which constitutes "this campaign of Christian service," is the fruit of prayer and fasting.

Blessings and peace. May you be ready to celebrate the Glory of Christ's Resurrection at Easter and renew your baptismal promises from your heart.

Reflection on the Lamb of God for "Lamb of God" choir

Since this is a choir preparing to sing a production of the Lamb of God gathering to practice in a Catholic church, it seems appropriate to share a reflection on the Lamb of God, or, in Latin, the Agnus Dei.

In the first chapter of Saint John’s Gospel, John the Baptist, seeing Jesus walking toward him as he baptized in the River Jordan, according to the Latin Vulgate translation of the Sacred Scriptures, says: Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi. Or, in English translation: “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”¹

During the part of the Mass just before the reception of Holy Communion, the priest uses these same words as he elevates the consecrated host over the chalice containing the consecrated wine.

For Catholics, just as the words of the Baptist alerted his listeners not only to a life-changing encounter but to a cosmos-altering event, the words invoked by the priest to the kneeling congregation draw their attention to this same reality.

In the case of the Mass, this reality, by the reception of Holy Communion, which Catholics also refer to as “the Eucharist,” moves from one that is externally visible to one that is internally accessible.

Just as it is not intuitively obvious to the casual observer that the elevated bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood, it was not glaringly clear to those gathered to hear and perhaps be baptized by John that the man walking toward him was the Lamb of God, the only begotten Son of the Father, God in the flesh.

In one of his sermons, Saint Augustine, who lived in the fifth century, noted that, unlike other food, which becomes us, as the well-known saying “You are what you eat” indicates, by receiving the Eucharist, “we become what we receive.”²

Eucharist is the Greek word for giving thanks. By becoming what we receive, like Christ, we, too, become thanksgiving to the Father. This receiving and becoming are only made possible by Jesus’ passion and death. The Lamb of God, after all, is a sacrificial lamb.

Becoming thanksgiving ourselves means that we are also to become a sacrifice. This is precisely what Saint Paul refers to when, at the very beginning of the twelfth chapter of his Letter to the Romans, he writes: “I urge you therefore, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”³

Catholics say that in the Eucharist Jesus gives himself to us “body, blood, soul, and divinity.” In exchange, we give ourselves to the Father, through him by the power of their Holy Spirit, body, blood, soul, and humanity, which is to say wholly and without reservation.

This exchange is only made possible by the Son’s becoming human, what we call his Incarnation. This is brought into bold relief by the words said inaudibly by the deacon while pouring water into the wine that is to be consecrated: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”⁴

In response to the priest’s words “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb,” the kneeling assembly replies: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”⁵

In this sacrament, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sins, doesn’t say the healing word. Now really (i.e., sacramentally) present in the consecrated bread and wine, he himself is the healing Word.

In Revelation, “angels who surrounded the throne and the living creatures and the elders,” the number of whom were “countless,” “cried out in a loud voice”

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength,
honor and glory and blessinga ⁶

In a Roman Catholic context, we give Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, honor, and glory and blessing by letting ourselves be transformed by our reception of Holy Communion.

The word “Mass” comes from the Latin word missa, which, in this context, means to be sent forth and not merely dismissed. Missa, in turn, is related to the Latin word missio, from which we derive the word “mission.” Having received the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, we are sent forth to make him present wherever we go.

At the end of Mass, the Dismissal is given by the deacon. I’ll end with one of the several forms of the Dismissal: Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.⁷

---

1 John 1:29.^↩
2 Saint Augstine, Easter Sermon, 227.^↩
3 Romans 12:1.^↩
4 The Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, sec. 24.^↩
5 The Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, sec. 132.^↩
6 Revelation 4:11-12.^↩
7 The Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, sec. 144.^↩

Hope saves us from being crushed

First Friday of February. Sorry, I couldn't resist the alliteration! But, hey, here we are. It's cold here along the Wasatch Front of the Rocky Mountains.

I was kind of tempted to post "I Got You, Babe" as the traditio. If today had actually been Groundhog Day, I probably would have. There are so many things going on right now. It's exhausting. One of my key take-aways from John Eldredge's book Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad is that we're not built to carry the weight of the world. Trying to do that will crush me. One of those everyday practices he recommends is called "benevolent detachment."

Benevolently detaching does not mean not caring. It does mean recognizing my limitations and trusting in God, giving those weighty things to God. I was convinced, even before reading Get Your Life Back, that we daily run the risk of traumatizing ourselves by being exposed to every catastrophe, every controversy going on. Frankly, that's insane.

My life is busy enough. In fact, many days, many weeks, like this week, I am too busy. Being too busy doesn't mean having more to do than I can do. It means having more to do than is good for me.

Another everyday practice Eldredge encourages is enjoying beauty. Groundhog Day, as it happens, falls on the same day as the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, known traditionally as Candlemas. And so, instead of "I Got You, Babe," our traditio is Choral Scholar, Luke Johnson, singing the Simeon's Song, the Nunc Dimittis, in Bradford Cathedral:

Of course, Jesus' Presentation in the Temple is the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. The fruit of this mystery is obedience. What Anna and Simeon see in the holy infant is hope: their hope, the hope of Israel, the hope of the world. Simeon's song is a song of hope. Because of this hope, even though he rightly intuits that it is realized through suffering, the old man can now depart in peace.

Peace to you, dear friend.

On the Lord's baptism

At least for Roman Catholics in the United States, the liturgical season of Christmas ends today. Today is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. For some reason today it seems easier to take a broader view.

At what might be called a "macro" level, along with the Nativity and the adoration of the magi, Jesus' baptism can be seen as an Epiphany, a manifestation of the divine. Jesus' baptism, because the Father and the Spirit appear on the scene, it is truly a manifestation of the triune nature of God: Father, Son, and Spirit. Not just a manifestation but an theophany.

It is an assertion that goes back to patristic times that through his baptism, the Lord sanctified not just water, but the whole of creation.

While it is utterly obvious, is that to be baptized (as well as to suffer and die), Jesus had to be incarnated, that is, he had to have a body. This is the whole thing when it comes to sacramentality, is it not? After all, as you can tell by the suffix -urgy, liturgy is something you do, enact, perform, etc., as opposed to just something you think. Every sacrament is administered and received through a liturgy, a rite. Every sacramental rite includes an epiclesis, a "calling down." It is the Holy Spirit who is called down.

In baptism, the epiclesis occurs when the celebrant calls the Spirit down on/into the water, which is done while putting a hand into the water, touching it. But because Trinity refers to one God in three (divine) persons, where one is present the other two are as well. It is in this holy water that we are baptized "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Given that baptism by complete immersion remains and will likely always remain the premier way to be baptized, in baptism we are immersed, plunged into the very life of God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a life characterized by unity, the result of agape.

Among its several meanings, baptism is a rebirth. But it is rebirth through dying, being buried, and rising with Christ to new life. More than a birth, baptism is a resurrection.

Baptism, along with confirmation, which is closely associated with baptism and that, in a sense, can be said to "complete" baptism, not orders, not matrimony, is the fundamental sacrament of the Christian life. I deeply believe that the synodal process in which the Church is currently engaged is aimed at highlighting this truth and bringing the reality of ecclesial life more in line with it.

The final part of the final Intercession for Morning Prayer for this feast, the Church prays to Christ that he will "renew the spirit of adoption among the royal priesthood of the baptized."

As to Jesus' own baptism, I think what Karl Barth wrote in the second part of the fourth volume of his magisterial Church Dogmatics, shows well the Lord's solidarity with us in his baptism:

No one who came to the Jordan was as laden and as afflicted as He. No one was as needy. No one so utterly human, because so fellow-human. No one confessed his sins so sincerely, so truly as his own, without side-glances at others. He stands alone in this, He who was elected and ordained from all eternity to partake of the sin of all in His own person, to bear its shame and curse in the place of all, to be the man responsible for all, and as such, wholly theirs, to live and act and suffer. This is what Jesus began to do when He had Himself baptized by John with all the others. This was the opening of His history as the salvation history of all the others

Learning to see: a brief "take" on (a too?) early Epiphany

As I mentioned in an earlier post, liturgically speaking, the Christmas season this year seemed like a four-car pile-up: Christmas, Holy Family, Mary, Mother of God, and Epiphany all in about a week. I mention this not only because it is exhausting (but in that good way) but because I wonder how much of the great mystery of God's Incarnation we can really take in during such a short period.

If I could ask the U.S. bishops to do anything at all, my requests would have nothing to do with political matters. I would humbly petition them to put Epiphany back on the fixed date of 6 January, when nearly all other Roman Catholics throughout the world observe it, thus giving us back the 12 Days of Christmas. I would ask them- though this is done regionally (largely in the Western states, I think), not nationally, to restore Ascension Thursday instead of putting it on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

This year, I guess the magi took the freeway instead of the scenic route to the dwelling in Bethlehem! This reminds me of the words to the song "Run Rudolf Run," written by Johnny Marks and originally made popular by Chuck Berry, but for those of my generation, Bryan Adams' version, which appeared on the very first A Very Special Christmas album, is perhaps best known: "Run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town/Santa make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down/Run, run Rudolph 'cause I'm reelin' like a merry-go-round." Substitute some really quick camels and/or dromedaires for Rudolf and magi for Santa and you can see what I mean.

What struck me this year about Epiphany arises from the Prayer after Communion for Mass during the Day, found in the Roman Missal:

Go before us with heavenly light, O Lord,
always and everywhere,
that we may perceive with clear sight
and revere with true affection
the mystery in which you have willed us to participate.
Through Christ our Lord

In Saint Matthew's account of the Visitation of the Magi, apart from being led to their destination by the star, their encounter seemed quite ordinary: "they saw the child with Mary his mother" (Matthew 2:11). Despite the ordinariness of the inspired author's description of this encounter, he points out that the Magi, nonetheless, "prostrated themselves and did him homage" and then offered their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:11).

This pericope (i.e., episode, as it were), is chock full of symbolism and rife for allegory. For example, the gifts are said to be indicative of Jesus' divinity (frankincense), his royal kingship (gold), and, because it was often used on the bodies of the dead, myrrh for his humanity. But the prostration and the gifts, in a word, their homage arose in what might've appeared to many in an ordinary dwelling and directed toward the ordinary child of an ordinary mother.

It seems to me that a message of Epiphany is the importance, perhaps even the necessity, of seeing reality through ordinary appearances. This means engaging reality according to all the factors that constitute it. Therefore, we must learn to see Christ in his many appearances. As Saint Teresa of Calcutta noted, Christ often appears to us in the distressing disguise of the beggar, the dying, the poor down-and-out person, etc. It is only when learn to truly see these events become an encounter, an Epiphany.

Like the magi, we must learn to discern, to follow the star, to heed the dream, to see God in the ordinary circumstances in which we daily live, move, and have our being. Too often we walk around wondering, "Where is God?" Both the simple and the complicated answer to this question is "More often than you think, God is right in front of you." But you must have eyes to truly see.

It is by gaining spiritual sight that you "revere with true affection the mystery in which [God has] willed us to participate." This gets back to the practice of the basic spiritual disciplines: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I will point out, as I did yesterday, it is no accident that prayer comes first.

It is genuine prayer that prevents our practice of the discipline from becoming yet another instance of mistaking means for ends. It also bears noting that genuine prayer consists of a lot of silence, a lot of listening. Having ears to hear often results in the development of eyes to see.

Traditionis custodes and deacons

I finally had the opportunity to read the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments's Responsa ad dubia, its response to questions posed as a result of the motu proprio Traditionis custodes. This motu proprio, issued last 16 July, was promulgated for the purpose of restricting celebrations done according to liturgical books promulgated prior to the Second Vatican Council.

The Congregation's response to questions asked by bishops from throughout the world with regard to Traditionis custodes was published last Friday, 18 December.

Of note for deacons is the response to this question (i.e., dubia): "Do Deacons and instituted ministers participating in celebrations using the Missale Romanum of 1962 have to be authorised by the diocesan Bishop?" The Congregation's response is "Affirmative."

I assume "instituted ministers" refers to those who have canonically been instituted into what are now called the "lay ministries" of lector and acolyte. These ministries may now, according to the revised Canon 230 § 2, which revision was made by Pope Francis motu proprio in January of this year (see Apostolic Letter Spiritus Domini), be conferred on men and women. These were formally known as "minor orders" because they were reserved exclusively for men moving towards ordination (i.e., major orders- deacon and priest). I appreciate a brother deacon reminding of this change, thus prompting my revision of this paragraph.

Regarding deacons, being clergy and, as such, participating in the sacrament of orders, this is quite clear. Deacons serving at celebrations according to the Extraordinary Form, must be specifically authorized by their bishop to do so.

I understand that many dioceses are still in the process of figuring out some of the hows and the whens of implementing Traditionis custodes. I know mine is. Hence, many bishops are permitting the status quo ante. I think with the publication of this Responsa ad dubia, things become clearer. As ordained ministers, it is important for deacons to keep up with what is going on in this regard in our dioceses or jursidictions.