Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings: Isaiah 65:17-21; Psalm 30:2.4-6.11-13; John 4:43-54

It’s easy for the Good News to become old news. Yeah, we’ve heard these stories, parables, psalms, and histories many times. Maybe even some of us have preached them many times.

From creation, God has been doing something new, something truly incredible. For somewhere around three decades, this newness dwelt on earth in the flesh. True to His promise not to abandon us or leave us orphans, the Word made flesh sent His Holy Spirit.

Rather than trying to imagine the Holy Spirit as someone separate from Jesus Christ, perhaps the best way to think of the Spirit, to borrow words from Catholic Bible scholar Luke Timothy Johnson, is as “the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence” among, in, and through us until He returns.

God’s kingdom, as our reading from Isaiah indicates, is not only something completely new but quite beyond our imagination. In relation to our Old Testament reading, our Gospel today is a case-in-point, a demonstration of what God is doing through Christ by the power of their Spirit.

Before getting to the miracle of Jesus curing royal official’s son, it is important to deal with His rebuke. Word of the miracle at the wedding feast, which, like today’s pericope, took place in Cana of Galilee, in addition what Jesus had done while in Jerusalem (in between was His encounter with the Samaritan woman) had spread through the town. So, when the royal official came looking for Jesus to ask him to accompany him home and heal his son, who was near death, Jesus seems to recoil a bit.

Rather than responding to the man’s plea to go with him to heal his son, the Lord chastises His fellow Galileans for needing signs and wonders to believe. Jesus was not going to go the house of the royal official to create a spectacle, to perform a trick. He resisted being a circus seal. In fact, Jesus never goes to the royal official’s house.

Nonetheless, Jesus told the concerned father “your son will live.” That is all that those hanging around Jesus in Cana were able to witness; no signs or wonders, just a few words. Believing Him, the royal official set off for home. His journey must’ve been a long one because he does not seem to meet up with his servants until the following day.

His servants tell him the good news of his son’s healing. This is the second (of seven signs) contained in the Gospel According to Saint John, which is sometimes referred to as “the Gospel of Signs” (we will hear the seventh sign this Saturday in the Gospel for the Third Scrutiny of the Elect). This second sign is obviously very low-key.

Because it is low-key, this sign provides us with a deep insight into just how the Lord usually works: in small, quiet, but profound ways. In addition to being symbols, sacraments are also signs (if sacraments are not both signs and symbols, then they are literally nothing- slightly out-of-context quotes from Flannery O’Connor notwithstanding).

The sacrament of sacraments, of course, is the Eucharist. If you’re unable to discern the efficacy of this sign, what makes you think you’d be able to discern others? Has it become old, rote, mechanical?

As the old catechetical definition reminds us, the point of the sacraments is to impart grace to our souls. Grace is nothing other than God sharing divine life with us. Therefore, in receiving grace, we receive God. Isn’t this the very concrete point of Holy Communion?

The mystery of life in Christ is that Christ can live in you (Col 1:27). Otherwise, how you can fulfill the purpose of attending Mass, at the end of which you are sent forth on mission?

I read something today that struck me as very fitting for this point of Lent, the point at which maybe the newness has worn off and many of our good intentions haven’t been realized. What the author of this short piece sought remind his readers is that, in essence, Christianity has

always been about Jesus. Loving Him. Following Him. Trusting Him. But somewhere along the way, we pile on expectations, stress, and distractions, and before we know it, we’re exhausted—trying to do for God instead of just being with Him (West Salem Four Square Church blog post “Back to the Simple Things”- emphasis in original)

Beyond the rebuke of the spectacle-seekers of ancient Cana is the faith of the royal official who simply believed Jesus when He told him “your son will be healed.” Not knowing how or when this healing might occur, yet trusting in the Lord, the man went on his way.

In every Eucharist Jesus gives you His pledge of eternal life. Giving is the key word. You can’t earn eternal life. It’s not what you can do for God but living in the reality of what God has done for you in Christ. This is the life of the Spirit, the life the inspired author of Isaiah seeks to evoke.

Starting, stopping, restarting- tales of blogging

A year ago tonight, the Church celebrated the Paschal Vigil- the Great Easter Vigil. After posting something for Good Friday, I could not bring myself to post anything or log into any social media site/app/platform/shitstorm for quite a while- from the end of March to the middle of June to be exact. Over that time, I simply hit pause on my online engagement.

Since that blessed time, my relationship with social media has changed and lessened. Social media does not work the way most people think it does. Facebook, X, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc. are not the digital agora. Far from it. You can't beat the algorithms. We've become irretriably meme-ized. IRL, social media simply does not work.

I remember how weary I had grown of online engagement last 30 March. Several times over the course of last year I seriously considered downloading my back-up file for this blog and saying "So long!" For some reason, I was unable to do that. Something kept telling me I would regret it.

August of this year will mark my twentieth anniversary of starting this blog. July of 2026 is my anniversary for starting to "blog" (nice verb) in earnest. While these significant milestones added to my reluctance to call it quits, they were not the determining factors. Over those weeks and months, as I considered whether to blog or not to blog, I thought about switching to a fancier platform.

Wordpress was all the rage for a while but it has faded. Several years go, I set up everything up to blog on Wordpress under the title Diaconal Digressions. This time around, I considered moving to Substack but I have no desire to monetize my writing. What I have to offer (which is not much), I offer for free.

In the end, I like simply Blogger. If nothing else, it keeps my html skills sharp. In any case, this platfrom is the home and digital habitat for Καθολικός διάκονος. Since recommitting to this effort at the start of the current liturgical year, I have been surprised by how much I am enjoying this again. It's been a true rejuvenation. It took me several years of blogging before I realized that the best benefit I derive from this is personal growth.

I know this is a blog post about blogging (Yawn!). Since I noticed that my moratorium began a year ago, I thought I'd observe it by indulging myself a bit. I am more than grateful for the surprising number of kind email notes and comments I have received from readers telling me how what they have found in this little cyberspace has helped, encouraged, and challenged them.

Since I am already blogging about blogging, I would note that with this post and tomorrow's, which will be my homily for Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent, I will have posted seven more times than I did the first three months of 2024, prior to my hiatus. So, I will press forward and see where the road leads us. For anyone reading, I appreciate your time and attention. I pray you derive some benefit from spending time (virtually) here.

Fourth Sunday of Lent- Homily for Second Scrutiny

Readings: 1 Sam 16:1b.6-7.10-13a; Ps 23:1-6; Eph 5:8-14; John 9:1-14

In our fast-paced overly entertained culture the phrase “cut to the chase” is often used. What does it mean to “cut to the chase”? It means, let’s just get to the action, no explanation and no context needed and none wanted. This can be the case in preaching when the urge to go right to the Gospel reading takes over. This is especially true when, like today, the Gospel reading is a long one.

Of course, the Gospels are the heart of Sacred Scripture because “they are the principal witness for the life and teaching of the incarnate Word,” our Lord Jesus Christ¹ Certain depictions of the Sacred Heart aside, it’s a bit weird to think of a heart without a body. Jesus has a context that is neither incidental nor accidental.

During Lent, readings from the Old Testament lay out salvation history from beginning to the promise of the New Covenant.² Unlike Ordinary Time, during Lent, pains are taken to harmonize the epistle reading with the Gospel. Our reading from 1 Samuel shows that throughout salvation history God doesn’t choose according to human criteria. Instructing Samuel in his choosing among Jesse’s sons who would replace Saul as king, God tells the prophet:

Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature…
Not as man sees does God see,
because man sees the appearance
but the LORD looks into the heart³

The Responsorial Psalm is also a reading. Our Psalm for this Mass with the celebration of the Second Scrutiny, is Psalm 23. Even in a time of increasing biblical ignorance, this Psalm remains the best known of the one hundred and fifty inspired compositions.

“The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”⁴ Perhaps the best way to understand this might be: “Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything.” Jesus + nothing = everything. This is what each of the three people who figure prominently in our readings for the three Scrutinies demonstrate in different ways.

Before it is anything else, true faith is a matter of the heart. As Romano Guardini insisted: “In the experience of a great love, all that happens becomes an event inside that love.”⁵ Now, this sounds “intellectual,” but it isn’t. It is descriptive of experience. All someone needs to understand this is to have been in love. A familiar quote, usually erroneously attributed to G.K. Chesterton, provides some clarity: “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind,” Jesus is asked by His own disciples.⁶. Now, this question cuts to the chase! Just as God vindicates Job contra his well-meaning but catastrophically wrong friends, turned accusers, with a few words, Jesus obliterates this immature and even pagan understanding of God.

“Neither he nor his parents sinned,” declares Jesus, destroying their grave error, “it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”⁷ In his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul, takes this theologically farther:

creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God⁸

Jesus healing the Blind Man, by Brian Jeke

It is crucial to understand that sending His Son as Savior and Redeemer was not God’s Plan B, which went into effect when Plan A failed as the result of the ancestral sin. God only ever had one plan; there is no Plan B. At the beginning of the Easter Vigil, during the singing of the Exsultet, the Church, referring to fall, proclaims:

O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!⁹

This is so fundamental that to get this wrong by thinking human beings can frustrate God’s plan, forcing God to double-clutch, leads to the heretical and self-defeating idea that you save yourself by being really good and that you can be really good by trying really hard. This is the road to futility, not salvation.

I ask you, apart from being born blind, what did the man in our Gospel do except testify to the truth of what he experienced after the fact? The answer is simple: he humbly let himself be healed. My friends, your blindness, as well as mine, is so that the works of God might be made visible through us. You are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the Good News!

As He did with the Samaritan woman last week, Jesus reveals Himself to this poor, blind beggar. Thus showing what Msgr Luigi Giussani observed: “The real protagonist of the history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man’s heart, and man’s heart that begs for Christ.”¹⁰

Amazing Grace is a great hymn for the First and Second Scrutinies. The Samaritan woman was lost, alienated from her community, and then found. The man born blind was blind but now sees. Let’s not lose track of the irony that, in the end, it is only the man born blind who truly sees. The light by which he sees is Christ. This is the backward and upside-down theo-logic of the Gospel. This is the wisdom of the Cross, which is foolishness to those who are blind.

In one of the intercessions for you, dear Elect, which we will pray in a few minutes, we ask God “That, contemplating the wisdom of the Cross, they learn to glory in God, who confounds the wisdom of this world.”¹¹ This is the same wisdom expounded by the Lord in today’s Gospel:

I came into this world for judgment,
so that those who do not see might see,
and those who do see might become blind¹²

The purpose of your election to the Easter sacraments is to confirm that though you were formerly blind, you now see by the light of Christ. After your baptism, you will be presented with a candle, lit from the Paschal candle, which is a symbol of Christ. The candle is presented with these words: “Receive the Light of Christ.”

My dear Elect, today these words from Ephesians are addressed to you:

Awake, O sleeper,
      and arise from the dead,
      and Christ will give you light¹²

---

1 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation [Dei Verbum], sec 18.^↩
2 “Introduction to the Lectionary,” sec. 97.^↩
3 1 Samuel 16:7.^↩
4 Psalm 23:1.^↩
5 Romano Guardini, L’essenza del cristianesimo [The Essence of Christianity], Morcelliana, Brescia, 1981, p. 12.^↩
6 John 9:2.^↩
7 John 9:3.^↩
8 Romans 8:20-21.^↩
9 Roman Missal. The Easter Vigil, sec. 18.^↩
10 Luigi Giussani. Speech before Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter’s Square for the Meeting with Ecclesial Movements and New Communities, 30 May 1998.^↩
11 Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, sec. 167.^↩
12 John 9:39.^↩
13 Ephesians 5:14.^↩

"You don't know what you've got till you lose it all again"

This Tuesday is April Fool's Day. With the beginning of April begins the second quarter of 2025. With no exaggeration whatsoever, I can say that the first quarter of this year, which itself marks the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, has been discombobulating and difficult for me. Don't worry, I am not going to rehearse here a list of my woes.

While at work earlier this week, I decided to go to lunch on my own. I went to a local taco place. I usually eat lunch in my office. So, going out is nice once in awhile. As I was waiting for my order after placing it and making a trip to the salsa bar, a song came on that struck me in a very lovely way.

"Evocative" is a good word to describe music. On this sunny early Spring day, Bruce Hornsby's "Mandolin Rain" sounded nice to my ears and resonated in my heart. I can't claim to be a great Bruce Hornsby fan, though, during his few years of popularity, I liked his music just fine. "Mandolin Rain" along with "The Way It Is" (a song that should resonate right now) are his biggest hits. Apart from those songs, I can't say I know his catalog very well.

The day after I heard the song, I ran into an old comrade. We spent some time reminiscing about days long past. We joked about getting to be sentimental old guys. Maybe we are but, then, isn't it good to look back on your life? It's seems fitting when you realize that you have more life behind you than in front of you. It's always bittersweet to stroll down memory's lanes. Gratitude for what was and perhaps longing for what wasn't.

Tempus fugit. Memento mori. Seems a good shout our to Lent. By the way, I hope yours is fruitful

It's not too hard to guess that our Friday traditio is Bruce Hornsby & the Range with "Mandolin Rain." After a week of sunny days with mild temperatures, it's a cloudy day here. Looks like rain. But as Pope Benedict XVI once said at an outdoor audience at the Vatican that happened on a rainy day- "Rain, too, is a grace."

Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

Readings: Isa 7:7-14.8:10; Ps 40:7-11; Heb 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38

At the earliest Easter can fall on 22 March. The latest Easter can occur is 25 April. We generally celebrate the great Paschal feast somewhere between these two poles. So, along with the Solemnity of Saint Joseph on 19 March, which always occurs during Lent, the Solemnity of the Annunciation is almost always observed during this penitential season.

The best years are when one of these two solemnities happen on a Lenten Friday. When this occurs, the obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays of Lent is abrogated. To the extent possible, solemnities are to be observed as Sundays.

Often confused with the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord is proof that liturgical arithmetic works. Today is nine months before Christmas.

Even during Lent, Sundays remain celebrations of the Lord’s resurrection, just as throughout the year, unless there is a solemnity, each Friday is a penitential day on account of Christ’s crucifixion. And so, this evening and tomorrow morning the Church will sing the Gloria, which we don't say or sing during Lent, and recite the Creed.

In her celebration of Morning Prayer for each of the first four Sundays of Lent, the Church reminds those praying of the sacred and celebratory nature of Sunday. This is done by means of the scriptural reading, taken from the Book of Nehemiah: “Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”¹

Speaking of the Creed, whether we recite Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed, as we confess the incarnation of God’s Son in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we bow. In his Letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul wrote:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”²

The incarnation is an earth-shattering, cosmic-altering, event. As our reading from Hebrews clearly points out, it is necessary for God’s Son to become human so that he could really die and be bodily raised from the dead. For His sacrifice to be an acceptable one, He also had to be truly divine. Being human, unlike an animal that is sacrificed, the Son had to freely offer Himself.

It was necessary for Jesus to say to the Father, “I come to do your will.” As the inspired author of Hebrews insists, “By this ‘will,’ we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.”³

Just as Jesus’ sacrifice was made efficacious by His freely abandoning Himself to the will of the Father, so Mary’s fiat, her “May it be done to me according to your word,”⁴ was also necessary. Her fiat was risky, potentially lethal and at a minimum perceived as shameful- a young, unmarried woman, turning up pregnant with a child who was not conceived with her betrothed. Mary, too, freely offered herself to God.

As the first Joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary, the fruit of the Annunciation is humility. Our blessed mother couldn’t quite figure out why God had chosen her. We, too, are chosen by God. One of the worst lies of the present age is that we somehow choose or decline God, take or leave Him. This despite Jesus’ insistence that He has chosen us. Faith is a supernatural virtue, a gift from God. Because faith is a gift from God, it is dynamic and remains mysterious.

Like any gift, you can receive, reject, or neglect faith. But for a person who has truly been given the gift of faith, while there are always alternatives, they tend to pale in comparison. The fourth Joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary is Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple to fulfill the Law. In the Temple, the Holy Family encounters Simeon. Recognizing Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, the old man tells Mary, “you yourself a sword will pierce.”⁵ Suffering produces hope or despair.

The fruit of this mystery is obedience. One way to think of obedience to God is as hope through suffering. Obedience to God is an act of faith. Being the flower of faith, hope blossoms through life’s trials. And so, to and through our Blessed Mother, we pray:

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears

---

1 Nehemiah 8:9-10.^↩
2 Galatians 4:4-6.^↩
3 Heberws 10:9-10.^↩
4 Luke 1:38.^↩
5 Luke 2:35.^↩

Third Sunday of Lent- Homily for First Scrutiny

Readings: Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95:1-2.6-9; Romans 5:1-2.5-8; John 4:5-42

It is hardly a novel insight to point out that you can live much longer without food than without water. Think about a time when you were really thirsty, when your mouth was dry and your throat hurt, and you were on the verge of a very bad headache. I don’t know about you, but at such times the only thing I want to drink is water, just plain, clear H2o.

One our Lord’s Seven Last Words as He hung on the Cross, which, like our Gospel this morning, comes from Saint John’s Gospel, was, “I thirst.”¹ While John’s account does not feature the Lord’s cry from Psalm 22 found in the Synoptics- “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”- His thirst likely refers to another verse of this Psalm:

My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death²

John’s Gospel also uses this psalm when, earlier in the same chapter, he tells of the Roman soldiers dividing up his clothes.³

Saint Teresa of Calcutta (i.e., “Mother Teresa”) based the spirituality of the religious order she founded (the Missionaries of Charity) on Jesus’ words “I thirst.” Sisters of Charity spend a great deal of time praying before the Blessed Sacrament.

In each of their chapels, over the tabernacle, is a crucifix, with the words “I thirst” featured prominently near it. Mother Teresa said, “We have these words in every chapel of the M[issonaries of] C[harity] to remind us what a M[issionary of C[harity]is here for: to quench the thirst of Jesus for souls, for love, for kindness, for compassion, for delicate love.”⁴

There can be no question about whether God desires you. He desires you so much that sent dearly beloved Son to save you, to redeem you, to bring you to Himself. To quote Saint Paul from our reading from Romans: God “proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”⁵ This is the grace in which a Christian stands, the source of our hope.

On their trek through the hot, dry Sinai, the Israelites grew thirsty. Knowing they could perish for lack of water, many began to wonder, “Where is God?” Thirst nearly led them to rebel against Moses. Slavery in Egypt seemed better than death from thirst in the desert. Setting aside their general lack of trust in Him, in His mercy, God made water flow out of a rock in the middle of the desert.

The scrutinizing question, therefore, is do you thirst for God? With the psalmist, can you say, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”?⁶ This is the question to ponder as you prepare to enter the life-giving waters of baptism at the great Easter Vigil.

In our Gospel, the Samaritan woman at first doesn’t seem particularly thirsty for water from the spring that wells up to eternal life. It’s hard for her to understand that in offering this water, Jesus offers nothing apart from Himself. The reward for following Jesus is Jesus.

Jesus + nothing = everything. This becomes clear when we consider the sacraments of Christian initiation, does it not? Christian initiation culminates with the reception of Holy Communion, with receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, by which you become fully incorporated into His Body, the Church. You become part of Him.

Perhaps given the multitude of intimate relationships this woman has had, she’s grown a bit weary, a bit leery when it comes to promises of happiness. Given what Jesus tells her about herself, even among the Samaritans, she would’ve been looked down upon. Some have speculated that it was due to her ostracism that she comes to draw water in the middle of the day instead of early in the morning or at dusk- the normal times for this activity.

It's difficult to tell in her response to Jesus’ request to go get her husband whether she’s being disingenuous, seeking to hide her less-than-ideal living arrangement. It doesn’t matter because the Lord knows her situation and lets her know that He knows. Yet, He does not utter one word of rebuke, correction, or condemnation. Rather, He offers her life-giving water.

Like Jesus, we have nothing to say to someone about morality until s/he has caught a glimpse of how much God loves them. “In this is love,” another passage of scripture teaches us in harmony with Saint Paul, “not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”⁷ The best antidote for sin, as our Collect for today’s Mass indicates, is loving God through the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

I admit that I sometimes think if others really knew me, they wouldn’t like me, let alone love me. I believe most of us are conscious at some level of our unloveableness. This can be a cause of deep insecurity, not to mention a lack of authenticity, which causes me to be someone I think I should be instead of simply who I am. God’s love given in Christ, God’s love “poured into” my heart, is my security, my rock, my salvation. Frankly, without this coming to this realization, the rest is futile.

Like the Samaritan woman, Jesus knows everything about you and, because of, not in spite of, your unloveableness, He died and rose so that you may have life in and through Him. Just as it easy to love humanity because it is an abstraction but hard to love the person in front of me, so it is easy to say something like “Jesus died for the sins of the world” because that, too, is an abstraction.

C.S. Lewis nicely summarized the realization a Christian must have: “When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only [person] in the world.”⁸ Let that living water sink into the desert of your soul and the desert will bloom, teem with life.

Mother Teresa made Jesus’ statement “I thirst” so personal that she urged the sisters to imagine Jesus saying those words directly to them. She encouraged them to put their own name before “I thirst.” And so, today Jesus says to each of you, "I thirst." And the Church asks, “Are you thirsty?”

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1 John 19:28.^↩
2 Psalm 22:16.^↩
3 John 19:24.^↩
4 Mother Teresa, ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Where There is Love, There is God (New York: Image, 2010), 51.^↩
5 Romans 5:8.^↩
6 Psalm 42:2.^↩
7 1 John 4:10.^↩
8 C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity, Book IV, Chap. 3 “Time Beyond Time.”^↩

Mistrusting and fearing God's kingdom

As part of my morning prayer time, I have been reading slowing through the Gospel According to Saint Luke. I'm reading Luke, of course, because the Church is currently in Year C of the Sunday lectionary. Year C primarily features Saint Luke's Gospel. It's always amazing to re-read scripture and be drawn to aspects of the text that I've previously just read over.

Yesterday, I began reading the twenty-second chapter of Luke. I am using the original edition of the Jerusalem Bible. I like this because it is kind of non-standard. The first pericope found in this chapter consists of its first sxi verses. These verses have to do with the desire of "the chief priests and the scribes" to do "away with" Jesus. As the Jerusalem Bible translates it, they wanted to do away with Him "because they mistrusted the people" (v. 2). "Mistrusted" here is a translation of the Greek word efobounto, the root of which is the verb phobeo. It is the Greek origin of our word phobia.

In reality, this word is best translated as "they feared." Mistrusted is an interesting and, I think, insightful choice. In verse 6, Judas goes to the chief priests and scribes to freely offer to hand Jesus over to them "without the people knowing." Normally, that final phrase is brought into English as something like "in the absence of the crowd." I think the focus on things being done in an underhanded, opaque, and autocratic way highlights something important.

Jesus teaching in the Temple, from Standard Bible Story Readers, Book Five (1928), authors: A. Stemler and Bess Bruce Cleaveland

In the Jerusalem Bible's rendering, I think "mistrusted" is connected to Judas entering into his deadly pact with those who wanted to do away with Jesus without the people, who were gathering each day in the Temple precincts to listen to this Galilean knowing anything about it. The Lord's words against these religious figures and their corrupt institution were, to put it nicely, unsparing. His teachings clearly resonated with the people. This is what caused the authorities to fear the people in their desire to put a stop to this troublesome Galilean.

These same authorities clearly mistrusted the people who were hanging on Jesus' every word, who believed Him and in His authority. The people of Jerusalem seemed to be treating this peasant nobody from backwards Galilee as though He might be the Messiah!

Keep in mind, in the synoptic Gospels Jesus only journeys to Jerusalem once. In Luke 9:51, the inspired author writes that Jesus "resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem." He set out at once. He didn't take the typical route, which avoided Samaria. Instead, He went right through Samaria.

Without getting into the intricacies and complications of it, there is the sensus fidelium- the sense of the faithful. This very concept is mistrusted by many. Of course, this sense is not reliabliy expressed by opinion polls or through voting. In my view, one of the biggest issues with synodality as it's currently understood and practiced is that it is seen as a kind of parliament. At least to this point, even if it were meant to be a legislative body, it cannot be said to be anything close representative of the Church. It is important for the voice of the faithful to matter and to be heard, not dismissed.

Linking this up with Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, those who proclaim God's kingdom in all of its world-upending purity are still seen as troublesome. In the first section of an essay he wrote for a book on Christology- Who Do You Say That I Am: Confessing the Mystery of Christ- entitled "The Kingdom of God and the Theological Dimension of the Poor: The Jesuanic Principle," Fr Jon Sobrino, SJ noted "Forgetting the poor has gone hand in hand with forgetting the Kingdom of God." He goes on to point out that "By the time of the fourth-century conciliar debates it is clear that the Kingdom of God plays no role whatsoever in Christology" (page 113).

In short, by that time the transcendent had eclipsed the immanent, essence overshadowed existence. While since the Council there has been some attempt to recover the immanent, led primarily by liberation theologians, like Sobrino (even methodologically, "liberation theology" is far from monolithic), it seems hard to strike a better balance.

Being largely a bourgeois phenomenon, Christianity these days tends toward the metaphysical to ease the angst, the boredom, the monotony of the materially comfortable. This is the kind of self-absorption that Pope Francis has sought to identify, criticize, and lead us beyond during his pontificate. His urging us to go to the margins, to be good stewards of creation, to seek peace and reconciliation often don't land well in prosperous parts of the world or among many who belong to the theology guild. Monty Python's "Christmas in Heaven" from their movie The Meaning of Life comically sets forth a version of bourgeois heaven.

When it comes to the transcendent and immanent it is not either/or. But attempts to achieve a balance are resisted mightily by the mighty; plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. But this, as no less than Pope Benedict XVI noted in his very first encyclical Deus caritas est, only lends credence to what is perhaps the main Marxist critique of Christianity: get people to worry about life after death instead of the here and now. This way you can exploit them much easier.

I am writing this Thursday evening. As soon as I completed writing what is above, I prayed Evening Prayer. The first and second Psalm for this office for Tuesday, Week II of the Psalter, is Psalm 72 (it is split up for use in the Liturgy of the Hours). This Psalm is about the reign of the Messiah, who "shows pity to the needy and the poor and saves the lives of the poor" (v .13). One of prayers in the Intercessions is

Teach us to restrain our greed for earthly goods
    -and to have concern for the need of others

Either that or you can focus on resisting chocolate or beer, right? Something about rending your heart, not your garments... the interior work instead of the exterior show.

Our traditio is a song off Sinéad O'Connor's Christian album, Theology. Listening to her album this week reminded me of a lovely article written at the time of her death in 2023 by another Jesuit, Fr. Matthew Cortese: "How Sinéad O’Connor taught a Catholic priest how to pray." Our Friday traditio is "The Glory of Jah"