Journeying with Jesus

Readings: Isa 66:10-14c; Ps 66:1-7.16.20; Gal 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12.17-20

I love this long season of Ordinary Time because we read through the Gospel for any particular year in a semi-continuous way. I especially like this time during Year C of the Sunday lectionary, when we read the Gospel According to Saint Luke. The long section of Luke's Gospel we read over the summer and into the fall is about Jesus' journey to Jerusalem.

This "Travel Narrative" is the heart, the center, and the core of Luke's Gospel. It begins in Luke 9:51 and extends to Luke 18:14. This Travel Narrative, wherein Jesus goes from his native Galilee to Jerusalem, makes up 351 of the 1,151 verses that constitute Luke's Gospel. In other words, his Journey to Jerusalem is just a little shy of one-third of this Gospel (30.4%). Jesus' journey is in accord with the overarching idea of Luke-Acts, which is to show that Jesus came not only for Jews and those who kept the Law but for Gentiles and sinners too.

For those inclined to story-telling, keep in mind that for the next several months, we're in the midst of the Greatest Story Ever Told, the story of Jesus' life and ministry. We spend a lot of time on his birth, his passion, and death often to the neglect of his life and ministry. While I think stories can be and often are useful for making homiletical points, we run the risk of telling stories at the expense of understanding the Story, in which are participants.

Last week, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the beginning of our Gospel reading was Luke 9:51. In English, this verse is two clauses of an even longer sentence: "When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). In all the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus only goes to Jerusalem once. To follow Jesus is to follow him through passion and crucifixion, which is the only path to resurrection.

Christian discipleship is not only intentional, it requires determination, commitment, and deep trust. The theological name for deep trust is hope, which we often dismiss as mere wishing.

The above observations are borne out by our Gospel this week. Jesus sends out seventy-two of his followers as advance parties to the places he intends to visit en route to Jerusalem. He tells them up-front that he is sending them "like lambs among wolves" (Luke 10:3). They are to proclaim- "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Luke 10:9). As the advance party for Jesus, proclaiming the imminence of God's kingdom is just another way of saying, "Jesus is coming!" How is that, you might ask? Well, as autobaselia, Jesus is the kingdom of God in person.

Wherever Jesus is, God's reign is established. Hence, whenever and wherever we make him present, which is what we are to do as members of his true body, there is God's kingdom.

In our second reading from Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the apostle reiterates that our response to Jesus' call to discipleship is to journey with him to Jerusalem. The man from Tarsus, no doubt referring to his own travails, notes that he bears "the marks of Jesus" on his body." Just as the Risen Lord still bears the wounds of his crucifixion, I have no doubt that our scars, our wounds, especially those received from the vulnerability of our love, are most dear to him. It bears noting that he does not inflict these scars. Heaven forbid! He heals them and transforms them into something beautiful.

Isaiah's post-exilic hymn to Jerusalem is, even for us Christians, a beautiful hymn: Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her, all you who love her. One thing that links our readings from Isaiah, Galatians, and Luke together is the pattern of hope being realized through suffering and/or hardship. This is nothing other than the dying and rising that is the essence of Christian life.

So, over these next several months, let us resolutely determine to journey together with Jesus to Jerusalem in and through the liturgy.

If you're looking for something to help you on this journey, the late Eugene LaVerdiere's Dining in the Kingdom of God: The Origins of the Eucharist According to Luke remains a great companion for reading Luke's Gospel.

Paul's take on the opposition between "spirit" & "flesh"

I meant to post this sooner, but, well... I was not motivated to do so until today. In our second reading last Sunday, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year C of the Sunday lectionary (a mouthful, I know!), which was from the fifth chapter of Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians, we heard about the opposition between "Spirit" and "flesh."

In Galatians 5:17, we hear/read: "For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other..." In the original Greek, "Spirit" is pneuma. The reason "Spirit" in this passage is capitalized is because the Greek word is taken to be referring to the Holy Spirit.

It is the word for "flesh" in Galatians 5:13-18 that needs to be explained. In Koine Greek, the word for "body" is soma. This is not the word Paul uses in this passage. Hence, he is not making a dichotomy between "Spirit," or even "spirit," and matter. Frankly, this would've been inconceivable to him as well as those to whom he wrote. The word he uses for "flesh" is sarx.

In Paul's view, which was shaped as much by Greek philosophy as by Hebrew theology, the important distinction is between things that last and things that don't last, between what is real and what is transitory. He seeks to distinguish between the eternal and ephemeral. What is of the flesh is ephemeral- here today, gone tomorrow. What is of spirit, especially of the "Spirit," lasts forever.

Paul's anthropology, that is, his view of the human person, is ideally holistic, harmonious. As such, it isn't wholly unrelated to the body. Living according to the flesh, as Paul notes several verses on (see Galatians 5:19-21), means something like seeking to satisfy every urge and impulse. Let's face it, as Americans, we live in a pretty hedonistic milieu, a situation that tells us wanting something is what makes it good.

In Philippians, he writes about those who "conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ." Of them he says, "Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their 'shame.' Their minds are occupied with earthly things." (see Philippians 3:18-19). We've practically lost all sense of the necessity of acesis.

His exhortation to the Galatians in this passage is to eschew the ephemeral and seek the eternal. Eschewing the ephemeral and seeking the eternal is not only why Christ set us free, it is the essence of freedom!

From a Christian view, the essence of freedom is not freedom from. It is freedom for. In all circumstances, as Paul not only teaches in his writings but bears witness to in his life, you are free to follow the Spirit.

The fruits of the Spirit, which, he points out a few verses further on, are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). These are the ways that one fulfills the Law, which, as the apostle notes in verse 14 of the same chapter, "is fulfilled in one statement, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Galatians 5:14). What provocation!

Because living according to the Spirit is determined internally (and then lived outwardly) there is not nor can there ever be any law that constrains your freedom, especially the Spirit-empowered freedom you have from Christ. If you want to read about what this means "in-real-life," I urge you read Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan's book: Five Loaves and Two Fish: Meditations on the Eucharist.

"Riding with Mary protecting immaculate love"

It's July, the seventh month of the year. How crazy is that? In June I more or less took a breather from blogging. Oddly enough, I remain doggedly committed to this ever-morphing medium. I am also currently taking a break from all social media. Instead of engaging on social media, I have been reading, listening, walking, praying, and resting.

One of the best things I've listened to recently was an interview with John Doe. Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot spoke with John for their Sound Opinions podcast. While Doe has an impressive and surprisingly long acting resume, he's best known as the bassist and driving force behind one of the best, most enigmatic punk bands- X. Doe was interviewed on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the release of X's third studio album: Under the Big Black Sun.

Under the Big Black Sun, which I have been listening to this week, remains a truly great record. A longtime friend, who is a professor of Philosophy, and a musician himself, insists that X was and remains (in 2020 they released their album Alphabetland) a very "Catholic" band. I saw X live on 2 August 2018 with another good friend who alerted me to this podcast.

In addition to Under the Big Black Sun, I've also been listening to Bach's Mass in B Minor. It is sublime in every aspect. At least to me, there is not now nor has there ever been any incongruence in my listening habits.

I've also been reading more (I always read- it's like breathing). I am finishing up a fascinating and well-written biography of Saint Ignatius of Loyola- Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint, by the Basque priest José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, translated from Spanish by Cornelius M. Buckley, S.J. I am also finishing Barbara Walter's How Civil Wars Start: and How to Stop Them. This book is a good companion to the Congressional Hearings on 6 January 2021. In a different vein, I am also reading Arthur Brooks' From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.

Once I finish these I am going to re-read Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World and read Amanda Ripley's High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out.

Thinking of reading in the summertime, I am reminded of how unencumbered I was during summers growing up. It was during summers that I received a good deal of my education. I am more autodidactic than is probably good for me. This "education" consisted of simply reading a lot of books. During the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I read 1984, Farenheit 451, and A Brave New World successively. This was 1982, the same year Under the Big Black Sun was released. The experience of reading those three books one after the other changed my life as much as any experience I've ever had. It was the beginning of my awareness.

Towards the end of my sophomore year, for English class, I read Orwell's short story A Hanging. Reading that was the effective cause of my opposition to the death penalty. Because this happened at a low ebb of my religious belief, while my opposition to the death penalty is certainly part of my religion, my opposition to it did have not its genesis in that.

In many ways, Orwell, most of whose works I've read (many I have re-read), remains something of my political lodestar. Another book I plan to read this summer is John Sutherland's Orwell's Nose: A Pathological Biography, which I acquired a few years ago from the University of Chicago Press, during their annual blowout sale.

If you haven't read it, I encourage you to read Jonathan Haidt's article for The Atlantic, "Why the Past 10 of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid." In an amazing chapter of her book, Walter demonstrates how our stupidity is exploited by and through social media. At end of his piece, Haidt makes some public policy proposals worth considering.

Since Easter, I've been working to ensure that July is what I've taken to calling a slack month. This means I have no commitments outside of my normal ones. I am learning to protect time, which is a way of protecting myself.

Unsurprisingly, our first song for the relaunched Friday traditio is from Under the Big Back Sun: "Riding With Mary."

Year C Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Readings: Gen 14:18-12; Ps 110:1-4; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Luke 9:11b-17

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. This solemnity is traditionally known by its Latin shorthand: Corpus Christi. So, it isn’t just a city in Texas. It is by means of the sacraments, at the center of which is the Eucharist, that theology becomes concrete. It is by celebrating the sacraments that we participate in the Paschal Mystery.

Melchizedek, who figures prominently in our reading from Genesis, is a mysterious figure. Identified as “king of Salem” and “a priest of God most high,” he offers, not a bloody animal sacrifice, but an acceptable offering of bread and wine. In Eucharistic Prayer I, the celebrant, asking God to look upon our offerings of bread and wine, which stand as symbols for offering ourselves for God’s service, “with a serene and kindly countenance” and to accept them “as once you were pleased to accept… the offering of your high priest Melchizedek.”¹

Therefore, in our responsorial Psalm today we sing, referring to Jesus Christ, “You are a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek.”² Because we live in a place where the name “Melchizedek” is one we sometimes hear, it’s important to note that the connection between Christ and Melchizedek is unique and unrepeatable. Both its uniqueness and unrepeatability are rooted in the biblical reality that, just as Melchizedek is not a descendant or even a relative of Abram, Jesus of Nazareth is not a member of the priestly tribe of Levi, but from the tribe of Judah. There is one high priesthood that of Jesus Christ. There is one High Priest: Jesus Christ.

In truth, Jesus is not a high priest after the order of the Melchizedek. Rather, Melchizedek is a type of Christ. While, chronologically, Melchizedek precedes Christ, ontologically, Christ comes before Melchizedek.³

In our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul writes that the Eucharist is something that he received from the Lord. And so, the Eucharist is what he handed on to them. Tradition is our English word for handing on. Being given directly by the Lord at his Last Supper, the Eucharist stands at the center of Tradition.

The Paschal Mystery can be summed up simply: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Paul, in our reading, notes that participation in the Eucharist is participation in the Paschal Mystery: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”⁴

Christ can only come again because he ascended. Once again, he did not ascend to distance himself from us. Far from it! He ascended and then sent the Holy Spirit not just to be closer to us than he would’ve been had he remained, but to be in us and extend God’s kingdom through us.

Our Gospel links the Eucharist with God’s kingdom. Healing is a sign of God’s Kingdom. In terms of healing, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and martyr who lived in the second century, in his own letter to the Church at Ephesus, called mystical body of Christ “the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying.”⁵ Pope Francis, expounding on this theme, insists “the Eucharist is not the reward of saints, no, it is the Bread of sinners. This is why [Jesus] exhorts us: ‘Do not be afraid! Take and eat.’”⁶

As a result of what can only be described as a “Eucharistic meal,” the inspired author of Luke notes: “They all ate and were satisfied.”⁷ Hence, our Gospel demonstrates that our participation in the Eucharist calls us into service for the advancement of God’s kingdom.

When we think about Christ’s real presence, the only question worth addressing is What do we mean by “real”? By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is mystically, or spiritually, made present in the consecrated elements. Being the empiricists we are, we set spirit and matter in opposition. But for Jesus, Paul, and the Christians of ancient Corinth, what is spiritual is what is really real.

If God is spirit, then matter only exists because of spirit.⁸ It is the Holy Spirit that comes down and transforms the gifts we place on the altar so that, in turn, these can transform us into the body of Christ. Spirit means “breath.” To speak requires breath. In all the sacraments and in a very explicit way in the Eucharist, the word is made flesh, our flesh.

We should always be mindful that the only convincing proof that Christ is really present in the bread and in the wine, spiritually or otherwise, are the lives of those of us who partake of it. It is through our communion that together we truly become the body of Christ. Being the body of Christ means realizing, as we have all heard many times before, Christ has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no voice but ours.

The Lord seeks to be present in us so that he can be present through us no matter our circumstances. Eucharist means thanksgiving. Hence, in the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer we pray these words: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks… through Christ our Lord.”⁹ Important ways of giving thanks to God for giving us Christ, the Bread of Life, are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, attending to those who are sick and in prison.

The Eucharist is not an end in itself. It is the primary means to the end of God being “all in all.”¹⁰

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1 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, Eucharistic Prayer I, sec. 93.^↩
2 Psalm 110:4.^↩
3 See Letter to the Hebrews 7.^↩
4 1 Corinthians 11:26.^↩
5 Saint Ignatius of Antioch. Letter to the Ephesians, chap. 20.^↩
6 Pope Francis, Sunday Angelus, 6 June 2021. ^↩
7 Luke 9:17.^↩
8 John 4:24.^↩
9 Roman Missal, The Solemnities of the Lord, Preface of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.^↩
10 1 Corinthians 15:28..^↩

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.

Year C Ascension of the Lord

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Ps 47:2-3.6-9; Hebrews 9:24-28.10:19-23; Luke 24:46-53

Today we observe the Lord’s Ascension. Traditionally, and still for most Catholics throughout the world, Ascension is observed forty days after Easter. This means that it is ordinarily celebrated on Thursday during the Sixth Week of Easter. Because it comes directly from the scriptures, this liturgical arithmetic is important.

Forty has a particular significance in Sacred Scripture. For example, after being liberated from Egypt, the Israelites spent forty years in the desert before crossing the Jordan and entering the Promised Land. In a kind of recapitulation, Jesus spent forty days and nights fasting, praying, and being tempted by the devil in the desert before being baptized by John in the same Jordan River. His baptism was the start of his public ministry. In our first reading, the inspired author (who also wrote Luke’s Gospel) asserts that for forty days after he was resurrected, Jesus continued to appear to the apostles.

During those forty days, we learn, Jesus spoke to the apostles “about the kingdom of God.”¹ The risen Lord’s teaching during this time is sometimes called “The Gospel of the Forty Days.” What is truly astounding is that, despite being instructed in person by their resurrected Master, the apostles still didn’t understand the kingdom of God. Proof of this is their question to him: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”²

Notice that while he instructed them about “the kingdom of God,” they asked him when he was going to restore the “kingdom to Israel.” What they failed to grasp is that these are two different things. One, the kingdom of Israel, is a political entity. The other, the kingdom of God, is not. I think this is instructive for those today who lament the loss of Christendom. Christendom and Christianity differ in the same way as the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of God differ.

Theologically, it is important to grasp that Jesus did not ascend in order to distance himself from us. On the contrary, he ascended so he can be closer to us than if he had remained. So, it is significant when, in our reading from Acts, Jesus promises his apostles that “in a few days you will be baptized with the holy Spirit.”³

Believe it or not, next Sunday will be fifty days since Easter Sunday. On that day we’ll celebrate Pentecost. Pentecost, which is the most important celebration of liturgical year after Easter, marks the beginning of the Church. The foundation of the Church, the Body of Christ, is part of the resurrection event. It was on the first Christian Pentecost, in fulfillment of the Lord’s promise, that the apostles, Mary, and other disciples were “baptized with the Holy Spirit.”⁴

Why do I say, “first Christian Pentecost”? I say that because Pentecost, which is Greek for “fifty days,” was how the word used by Greek-speaking Jews to refer to their feast of Shavuot. Shavuot, or Pentecost, is fifty days after Passover. It is on Shavuot that observant Jews commemorate God giving the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai.

It is also important to understand theologically that the Holy Spirit is the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence between his ascension and his return. And so, it is through the Holy Spirit that Christ remains present among us, in us, and through us. The Holy Spirit is the mode, the way, the means through which Christ becomes closer to us than if he had remained. This is made very concrete when you think about receiving holy communion.

The Ascension, by Benjamin West, 1801

In our celebration of the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit does not only transform the bread and the wine. Through our communion with the body and blood of Christ, the Holy Spirit transforms us into Christ’s Body. In turn, filled with the Holy Spirit, we are sent to extend Christ’s resurrected presence to wherever we are. This is really what it means to be a Christian. This is why participating in the Eucharist, especially the Sunday Eucharist, is so vitally important, not only for us but for the redemption of the world.

These days it seems we experience weekly, if not daily, a deluge of bad news. These past few weeks our nation has been traumatized again by mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas. These and other events reveal how badly the world needs to be redeemed. How badly everyone needs genuine hope. As Christians, we are called to be agents of the hope God gives us through Christ by the power of their Holy Spirit.

For those who pray the Blessed Virgin’s Rosary regularly, you know that Jesus’ ascension is the second Glorious Mystery. You also know that the fruit of this mystery is hope. At least in Christian terms, hope is not mere wishing. Rather hope arises through experience.

Experiencing our mortality, our finitude, prompts the question: Is this all there is? Genuine hope can only be seen through the lens of the Paschal Mystery of Christ. In short, the Paschal Mystery is: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Saint Paul, I think, explains well the point I am trying to make:

we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us⁵

This is also highlighted when one of the men in white asks those who were witnessing Jesus ascending why they were just standing there looking up. By then pointing out that Christ will come again, he seeks to draw their attention to the time between now and his return. The question is clear: How are we to live in this mean-time?

Our faith requires us to hold things in tension: three and one, human and divine, virgin and mother, etc. While, as the liturgy puts it, we “await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ,” we must recognize that he is with us and has never abandoned us.⁶ Not only that, but that he seeks to dwell in us so he can act through us. Because of this, God’s kingdom, while not yet fully established, is never absent.

As Christians, we are to live God’s kingdom as a present reality, not as a dream deferred. This is the difference between hoping and wishing. It is how we “hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope.”⁷ Passively awaiting the arrival of God’s kingdom is the result of failing to recognize it has already been inaugurated, is now present, and, by virtue of your baptism, elicits your participation. To think God’s kingdom will take the form of a restored Christendom is, like the apostles at the Ascension, to miss the point and maybe to ultimately miss the boat.

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1 Acts 1:3.^↩
2 Acts 1:6.^↩
3 Acts 1:5.^↩
4 See Acts 2:1-13.^↩
5 Romans 5:3-5.^↩
6 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, Communion Rite, sec. 125.^↩
7 Hebrews 10:23.^↩

Sixth Monday of Easter

Readings: Acts 16:11-15; Ps 149:1-6.9; John 15:26-16:4a

Among the reasons Christianity is not hereditary is that it is an error to reduce Christian faith to morality or to "values". It's true that God has no grandchildren. This is why, during the crisis experienced by the early Church as a result of the influx of Gentile members, Paul and Barnabas, the chief evangelizers of the Gentiles, insisted so vehemently that these Christians had no need to keep the Jewish law.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul pushed back against the decree of the somewhat anachronistically named "Council of Jerusalem" that stipulated Gentile Christians could not eat meat sacrificed to idols.¹ In the eighth chapter of First Corinthians, written some time after he and Barnabas took their case to Jerusalem, Paul wrote that the only reason not to eat such meat is if it would undermine the faith of a new or perhaps a Jewish Christian. Otherwise, due to the fact that there is only one God living and true, the apostle saw nothing wrong with it.²

Why was eating sacrificed meat such a big deal? One reason is that, unlike our culture today, meat did not make up a large part of the diet of ancient Mediterranean people, especially the poor. Major pagan festivals were huge celebrations. After the animals were ritually sacrificed, the meat was made available to people who did not often eat meat.

What this means is that for Christians it is faith that matters, not rules that are handed down. Christianity is not now nor has it ever been a religion that mainly consists of keeping rules. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul insists that "whatever... commandment[s] there may be, are summed up in this saying, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law."³ Love is the fruit of faith.

This leads us to the conversion of Lydia. Along with her household, this wealthy merchant woman was converted by Saint Paul's preaching about Christ. According this passage from Acts, she was converted on-the-spot. It's unclear whether she along with members of her household were immediately baptized in the river, on the banks of which they encountered Paul and his companions.

Conversion is the result of faith. As such, it is the work of the Holy Spirit. It bears repeating that the Holy Spirit is the mode of Christ's resurrection presence among, in, and through us until he comes again. Christ did not ascend to distance himself from us. He ascended to draw nearer to us than he could ever be if he had remained. "Near" doesn't accurately capture how the Spirit relates us to the risen Christ. It is by the power of the Spirit that Christ comes to be in and among us.

It is by the power of the Spirit that the bread and wine become for us Christ's body and blood. By our reception of Christ's mystical body we, the Church, become Christ's true body. In what is often called his High Priestly Prayer, which is the Gospel of John's version of the prayer in the garden at the beginning of his passion, Jesus says how those who believe in him become one in and through him. Praying to the Father in the power of the Spirit, Jesus asks, with reference to his disciples, "that they may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me."⁴

How does Christ come to be in us? By the power of the Holy Spirit. This becomes a profound reality in the Eucharist.

This is where what Jesus says in today's Gospel becomes vitally important. It brings us back to sacrifice. In the Eucharist Christ gives himself to us wholly. In the Eucharist there is an exchane of gifts. This exchange, at least at Sunday Mass and Masses on solemnities, is symbolized by the gifts of bread and wine, along with the collection, being presented at the altar. These gifts are symbolic of our very selves.

When it comes martyrs, like Paul, they become an offering to God, but not a sacrifice made to God by their enemies. In most cases, their they offered themselves God over and over long before their martyrdom. To be converted is to offer yourself to God through Christ body, blood, soul, and humanity. The Holy Spirit is the medium through whom you do this.

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1 Acts 15:23-29.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 8:7-13.^↩
3 Romans 13:9b-10.^↩
4 John 17:21.^↩