All Saints

Readings: Revelation 7:2-4.9-14; Psalm 24:1-6; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12a

In the end, when it is all said and done, when Christ returns and judges the living and dead, the Church will only consist of saints. “There is only one sadness,” it has been noted, “that is for us not to be saints.”¹ To disbelieve this is to place yourself in in danger of not being included in the white-robed multitude we heard about in our first reading.

How you live today and tomorrow matters. As for the past? Repentance is available. Your priorities are revealed by how you spend your time, not by giving the correct answer in Church by saying what you’re expected to say: “I put God first.” Is this really true? Something to ponder.

How often do you pray? By this I mean, how often do you dedicate time to prayer, to cultivating your relationship with God, through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit? A lie from the bowels of hell, one I sometimes even hear repeated by people who profess to be Christians, is that you cannot have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Having an ever-deepening personal relationship with Christ is the entire point of the Christian life. Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, which is the bestselling book of all-time after the Bible, start-to-finish, it is a dialogue with our Risen Lord. Taking a cue from our Responsorial, do you long to see the Lord’s face, to hear His voice, to be in His presence?

As G.K. Chesterton urged, “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.” Love, specifically agape, or self-sacrificing love, is the essence of holiness, of sanctity. It is the beating heart of the life of the Blessed Trinity. How this looks in reality is set forth beautifully in the Beatitudes from our Gospel tonight.

This amounts to being humble, empathetic/sympathetic, meek, merciful, desiring righteousness, committed to seeking peace. Teaching children the Golden Rule (i.e., “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you”²), they typically respond with something like, “If you’re nice to others, they will be nice to you.” But it doesn’t take a lot of experience to realize that this is often not how it works. What’s tough about being a Christian, is you must persist even when kindness isn’t reciprocated.

There is a reason why at the end of this teaching Jesus immediately speaks about persecution. To paraphrase the late theologian, Father Herbert McCabe: “if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you.”³ Far from being pessimistic, this is hopeful.

Hope is not optimism! Nick Cave pointed out that “Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth.”⁴ Failure to recognize this is to place yourself in danger of despair.

Optimism means wishing for what you want to happen. Hope means surrendering yourself to God, abandoning yourself to Divine providence, recognizing God’s ways are not our ways and that His will is holy and perfect.⁵ As in all things that truly matter, Jesus, while in the garden, shows us the way, saying to the Father: “not as I will, but as you will.”⁶ “Surrender don’t come natural to me,” sang Rich Mullins, “I’d rather fight You for something I don’t really want than take what You give that I need.”⁷

This is hard because we live in a society that is literally hellbent on control. Because, culturally, being self-determining is the supreme value, surrendering control, strikes most people as crazy. This view is not merely unchristian, it is anti-Christian. It is anti-Christian because being fully committed to your own will is the surest way to evade sainthood.

Something easy to miss in our reading from Revelation is an elder asking the revelator, rhetorically, “Who are these wearing white robes?” Answering his own question, the elder goes on to say: “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress.”⁸ It is always the time of great distress until Christ returns.

Our reading from 1 John says we are to become “like” Christ.⁹ Likeness, it bears noting, is not identity. You will never be Christ! To be children of God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is the greatest gift imaginable. This pales in comparison to what we can become.

Becoming a saint cannot happen accidentally. It requires an intention born of deep desire. Holiness must be your deepest desire. Fourth among the Luminous Mysteries of Our Lady’s Holy Rosary is the Lord’s Transfiguration. The fruit of this mystery is the desire for holiness. We need to pray for this desire because it doesn’t come naturally. Rather, it is supernatural.

Cooperation with the grace given to you in baptism and confirmation as well as each time you make a good confession and receive Holy Communion is vital. While amazing, grace is not magic. Using Holy Communion as an example, it is like good nutrition. What makes certain foods “junk” foods is a lack nutritional value. To be healthy requires you to eat healthy foods. To eat in a healthy way requires intention and effort, not to mention self-denial. Cooperating with God’s grace requires intention and effort.

Finally, make some heavenly friends. Get to know some saints. Ask them to intercede for you. Wear a blessed medal featuring that saint(s). Read their words, study their lives. You don’t have to leap back 2000 years. The Church exists to make saints. There are holy men and women from every age of the Church. The darkest times produce the greatest saints.

Let us heed what Saint Paul wrote in the passage chosen by the Church for the scripture reading for Evening Prayer on this Solemnity:

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, and in the fear of God strive to fulfill our consecration perfectly¹⁰

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1 Alan Morris, OP. “Leon Bloy: A Man for the Modern World,” in Dominica Journal 33 no 2, 119.^↩
2 Matthew 7:12.^↩
3 Terry Eagleton. "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching."London Review of Books, October 2006.^↩
4 Stephen Colbert Show. 15 August 2024. “Nick Cave On Singing With Johnny Cash And The Joyful, Uplifting Vibe Of His New Album, ‘Wild God’” Timestamp: 21:07-21:52.^↩
5 Isaiah 55:8.^↩
6 Matthew 26:39.^↩
7 Rich Mullins. Song "Hold Me Jesus."^↩
8 Revelation 7:13-14.^↩
9 1 John 3:2.^↩
10 2 Corinthians 7:1.^↩

All Hallows Eve

At sundown, the annual 3-day festival of All Saints/All Souls begins. Let's not forget the Christian foundation of these hallowed, that is, sanctified days. Tomorrow, 1 November, is the Solemnity of All Saints. This is a celebration of the communio sanctorum, the communion of holy people and things.

As Catholics, we have a sacramental view of the world. Creation, in its materiality, is good. For Catholics, a Church is not just a building, a paten is not just a plate, and a chalice is no mere cup. We have sacramentals, too. Around my neck I wear a chain. On that chain are blessed medals: one of Mary's Immaculate Heart and Jesus' Sacred Heart, Saint Mary Magdalene, and Venerable Matt Talbot. I also always carry a Rosary in my pocket. These are not just ordinary objects. They are sacamentals, means through which God channels grace. I also have a Saint Benedict medal on my nightstand, in my den, and both my working offices.

As a deacon, when I bless a Rosary, a medal, a statue, or other appropriate items, I always pray that it will be a channel of God's grace for the one who wears, carries, sees, and/or uses it.

2 November is the Feast of All Souls. All Souls is Roman Catholic Memorial Day, the day we remember our beloved dead, pray for them, and pray for all the souls in Purgatory- something we don't do enough. This also includes seeking indulgences.

In any case, tonight is Halloween. Have some fun. No need to go dark to do this. Always remember, by virtue of your baptism, your confirmation, your belonging to the communio sanctorum, "... you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness" (1 Thessalonians 5:5).

Trying to pick the pieces of a fragmented year, the late Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London," performed by Adam Sandler, is a Καθολικός διάκονος Halloween traditio:

Feast of Saints Simon & Jude, Apostles

Readings: Ephesians 2:19-22; Psalm 19:2-5; Luke 6:12-16

At what we might call the “high end” and “low end” of the Twelve, some apostles do not have their own feast day. At the high end, Saints Peter & Paul share a Solemnity on 29 June. Beyond that, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on 25 January and the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter on 22 February.

On the “low end,” today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Apostles Simon & Jude together. Unlike Saints Peter & Paul, Saints Simon & Jude do not have other days on the liturgical calendar. But the reason we celebrate them together isn’t because they’re second-rate apostles. Among the Twelve called by Jesus, there is no such category.

Rather, we remember Simon and Jude together because Tradition hands on that they met their martyrdom together in Persia, where they went to proclaim the Gospel, as Peter went to Rome, Thomas to India, and Paul throughout Asia Minor, etc. 

Simon is identified as a “zealot.” In Jesus’ time, a zealot was an observant Jew who fervently sought to restore the kingdom of Israel. Restoring Israel as a kingdom meant getting rid of the occupying Romans and having a descendant of David on the throne. What distinguished zealots from their fellow Jews, who, by and large, also wanted Israel restored, was that the zealots resorted to violence as a means to achieving their desired end.

Jesus, too, was a revolutionary. But His is a revolution of love, not violence. The Lord’s most revolutionary act was to die on the cross. Saint Simon, then, was converted away from violence to the Gospel. Love has its own violence, which is experienced inwardly. A modern-day successor of the apostles, Saint Oscar Romero, summed this up beautifully:

We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness… The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword… It is the violence of love, of brotherhood…¹

Jude Thaddeus is the patron of hopeless causes and is held to be the author of the New Testament letter of Jude. It is a one-chapter book. If you want homework, go home tonight, take 5 minutes, and read the Letter of Jude.

An apostolos is Greek for one who is sent. In Greek, “martyr” simply means “witness.” Given that, we can safely assert that Jesus sent the Twelve to be martyrs, that is, witnesses of His life, death, and resurrection. In imitatio Christi, the Twelve were martyred.

We profess that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. When asked what it means to profess the Church as “apostolic,” most Catholics, understandably, would likely say something about apostolic succession. This, of course, is not incorrect. It is, however, incomplete.

In professing the Church as apostolic, we mean that the Church is sent. “Mass” comes from the Latin word missa, which, in addition to meaning "to be sent," is also closely related to missio, or mission. Mass concludes with a dismissal ("dismissal" is why Mass is called "Mass"). So, we are sent forth to proclaim the Gospel, to be martyrs, that is witnesses.

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1 Oscar Romero. The Violence of Love. Trans. James R. Brockman, S.J., Farmington: Bruderhof, 2003, 25.^↩

Year B: Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 53:10-11; Psalm 33:4-5.19-20.22; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45

The Buddha was right about many things. He was certainly correct when he observed that to live is to suffer. This is not to say that life only consists of suffering. For most of us, thankfully, it does not. Digging beneath the surface a bit, most of us also know from experience that to love is to suffer.

From a Christian perspective, suffering is necessary, as troubling as that may sound. Let’s remember Jesus’ call to discipleship, which, in Mark’s Gospel, He issued a few chapters before the chapter we are currently reading:

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it¹

Lest we fetishize it, you do not need to go in search of suffering. If you live and love enough, suffering will find you, practically guaranteed. It is also important to recognize that, in philosophical terms, God is never the formal cause of anyone’s suffering. In other words, God does not plan and carry out your suffering. It is self-evident that God permits or allows suffering in the world. This is the problem of theodicy. Understandably, it is something with which many people struggle mightily.

Our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews provides us with a deep and divinely revealed insight into the mystery of suffering when the inspired author notes that Jesus, our “high priest,” can “sympathize with our weaknesses” because, like us, He “has…been tested in every way.”² Yet, unlike us, he passed His test without sinning.

Being sinless, even though he was tempted, none of the Lord’s suffering was the result of bad choices. part. What should worry you more than suffering as the result of making sinful decisions, is prospering through sinful and even wicked choices.

Much suffering, maybe most, comes unbidden. It just happens. Such things are not God’s punishment for other, unrelated, things you’ve done. God is not petty nor hellbent on exacting revenge. God is love and, as such, desires your salvation. By recognizing this, you can use everything that happens to you not only for your own salvation but that of others.

Earlier in Hebrews, in a passage we heard two weeks ago, the inspired author observed that “in bringing many children to glory,” God made “the leader of their salvation perfect through suffering.”³ The leader of our salvation is Jesus Christ. This brings us back to Jesus’ invitation to take up your cross and, by a roundabout way, to today’s Gospel.

I love the original, British, version of the television comedy The Office (I have never sullied my eyes by watching the American knock-off). David Brent, the lead character played by Ricky Gervais, is a cringe character and the entire series is cringe comedy. James and John asking Jesus if they can sit on his right and on his left when He comes into glory is similarly cringeworthy.

Rather than simply tell them, “the places you ask to be reserved for yourselves are not mine to give,” Jesus asks them if they can suffer in the way he will suffer. Clearly clueless, which is often the state of the Twelve in Mark’s account, they reply- “We can.”⁴ Jesus, then, effectively tells them, “So be it.” He then lets them know their suffering in no way guarantees them what they ask for. Jesus entered His glory on the cross, where the places on His right and left were reserved for two thieves.⁵

The Lord only gets around to the cringe worthiness of their request when He responds to the equally shallow indignation the other ten show toward James and John. The way to be great, Jesus tells them, contra mundum, is to be small. The way to have more is to seek less, or even nothing at all. It is having the courage to be a nobody. A corollary to Jesus’ assertion is that the way to not be happy is to make your own happiness your focus.

God shows His preference for the nothings of this world over and over. Consider Saint Bernadette Soubirous, Saints Jacinta & Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos, all lowly peasant children to whom Our Lady deigned to appear. Think of the much-loved Little Flower, Saint Therese of Lisieux, or the simple Capuchin friar, Padre Pio, who never ventured beyond the southeastern part of his native Italy, or the patron saint of parish priests, who struggled through seminary, Saint John Vianney, to mention a few, familiar, and recent saints.

One who is genuinely great is the one who, like Jesus, seeks to serve and not to be served. Being “large and in charge” has no place in God’s kingdom. The English word “servant” is a translation of the Greek noun diakonos. Translated literally, diakonos is “deacon.” The words “serve” and “served” are from the Greek verb diakoneó.

Going beyond this, Jesus gives the Twelve the key to Apostolic leadership. Because they are the Successors of the Apostles, this refers to specifically to the office of bishop (everything in the scriptures is not directed at everyone).⁶ Not only are they to be "deacons" of all but doulos, that is, slaves of all. As Saint Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible.”⁷

While deacons are ordained and sacramentally empowered for the threefold diakonia of liturgy, word, and charity, every Christian, by virtue of baptism, confirmation, and genuine participation in the Eucharist, is empowered for Gospel service, for evangelization, for spreading the Gospel. Just as there is a priesthood of all the baptized, there is a diaconate of the all the baptized.

And so, dear friends in Christ, strengthened by the Eucharist, it is this service, this ministry, we are sent forth to engage in at the end of Mass. In essence, it is evangelization. It is to “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”⁸

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1 Mark 8:34.^↩
2 Hebrews 4:15.^↩
3 Hebrews 2:10.^↩
4 Mark 10:39-40.^↩
5 Mark 15:27.^↩
6 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church [Lumen Gentium], sec. 20.^↩
7 1 Corinthians 9:19.^↩
8 Roman Missal. “The Order of Mass.” The Concluding Rites, sec. 144.^↩

How Occasional? Eighteen years on

I haven't been posting much since Easter. This is not my first pause over the years of this labor of love. Since Good Friday, when I took a hiatus, I have posted pretty sparingly. There is nothing to this apart from the fact that I was busy on Good Friday and Holy Saturday and, on Easter Sunday, I was utterly exhausted. As a result, I made a difficult and deliberate choice to just let it go and not post anything.

As the Easter octave unfolded, not only did I decide not to post here but I went largely inactive on social media. Initially, I vacated for six straight weeks. I have to say, that was liberating, de-toxifying. I did not grasp the effect frequent social media engagement had on me until I just walked away. Since that break, I dip in and out of social media.

Two months ago, I read on great article on The Gospel Coalition (a Reformed site from which I derive much benefit): "Why I Left Social Media—and Won’t Go Back." I am not going to delete all my accounts, but I don't plan to "be back" in the way I have been for the past decade. I shared the TGC article with my wife. As a result, over the next few weeks we mutually decided to scale back our social media use. When I am not engaging (Facebook has been my primary platform), I deactivate my account.

Blogging, even when it pretty much amounts to posting my homilies, takes time as well. It takes more time to sit and compose posts on various things. To not write about or comment on matters of interest doesn't mean I've stopped following what interests me.

Time is the basic ingredient of life. On the whole, my lack of posting is a positive, not a negative development. I have a full life. By "full," I mean most of my time every day is actively spent. While I have flirted with the idea of ending this effort, I have decided to post when I have time and there is something of interest to post. Way back in 2006, which was the year I began blogging (weird verb) in earnest, I composed a post entitled "How Occasional?" Looking at it now, I didn't answer the question. I didn't answer it because I did not know the answer. I still don't. So, we'll see.

As I almost always do when blogging about my blogging, I have to mention that Καθολικός διάκονος has been a valuable vehicle of growth for me. This blog began life as "Scott Dodge for Nobody," which was a blatant rip-off of a now-ended late Sunday night local radio show,"Tom Waits for Nobody." This past August, I passed 18 years! I was 40 years old when I started and 41 when I began in earnest. I was only a few years ordained. Another leitmotif in recent years here is how quickly time passes.

So, in addition to posting this update, I will post my homily for last Sunday, the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. I urge you to stay tuned. Advent is coming quickly. The occasion of a new year of grace may well prompt a more sustained effort

Year B Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Exodus 16:2-4.12-15; Ps 78:3-4.23-25.54; Eph 4:17.20-24; John 6: 24-35

“I am the bread of life,”¹ says Jesus to those who ask for “the bread of God… which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”² Keep in mind, the crowd followed Jesus across the Sea of Galilee was seeking another free meal, not eternal life. Imagine their surprise!

It is easy for the provocativeness of Jesus’ answer to be lost on us as 21st Catholics. We are well-versed in understanding Jesus’ “Real Presence” in the consecrated bread and wine. Considering the Eucharistic Revival, we must face squarely our loss of a sense of wonder and awe at the deep mystery we participate in so regularly.

For example, how often have you participated in the Eucharist, received Holy Communion, and then, when life throws you a curve, asked, “Where is God? Where is Jesus?” This is like those in today’s Gospel who ask Jesus to perform a sign “that we may see and believe in you.”³ Is Jesus giving himself to us, as we like to repeat (a bit ad nauseum), body, blood, soul and divinity, that is, wholly and completely, not enough? It is important to bear always bear in mind what the Lord went through to make hmself present to us on this altar.

Just what is the point of his complete self-giving, anyway?

“This is the work of God,” Jesus says, “that you believe in the one he sent.”⁴ When we gather, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God indeed sends his Son in a unique and powerful way. In the Eucharist, Christ is sent and becomes present in four distinct and integrally related ways.

First, Christ is present in the assembly, in the gathering of the baptized. Christ is also present in the person of the priest. He is really present in the proclamation of the scriptures, which are to be made flesh in our lives through our participation at the one table of his word and body. Finally, he is really present in the bread and the wine, which we eat and drink.⁵ What this all builds toward is not the moment of consecration. It builds toward the moment of communion!

Having sent his Son to us, God then sends us to perform his works, which flow from believing in Jesus Christ, “the one he sent.”⁶ Each of us, whether intentionally or not, lives what we believe. Because of the demands of discipleship, a Christian must live intentionally. Believing in Jesus Christ inspires one to live in a particular and, in our time, an increasingly peculiar, way. It has been observed- though not by Flannery O’Connor- “You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.”⁷

Preaching is not entertainment. Taking a cue from our reading from Ephesians, preaching is for telling others about Christ and teaching Christ. It is aimed at conversion, the renewal of minds, so those who hear can live “God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.”⁸ To enable those who hear, as well as the preacher, to incarnate God’s word.

La multiplication des pains, by James Tissot, 1886-1896

You have not only heard of Christ, but you have also “learned Christ,” and more than learning Christ, you have received him who is the Bread of Life. This should change you, convert you, renew your mind to the point of making you over time, through experience, what our second reading calls as a “new self.”⁹

Something Flannery O’Connor did write is relevant to this. In a letter to her fellow writer Cecil Dawkins, O’Connor stated: “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”¹⁰ Put simply, what the Lord asks of those who consider themselves his followers is what is not possible without him. But he gives you the means to do what you cannot do without him. He gives you grace.

Grace is God sharing divine life with us. Hence, grace is nothing other than God sharing himself with us, which is precisely what happens in such an astonishingly concrete way through the Eucharist. Yet, as O’Connor, in her brutally honest way, went on to observe in the same letter: “Human nature is so faulty that it can resist any amount of grace and most of the time it does.”¹¹

Often, like the ancient Israelites, instead of being recreated in the image of Christ, we look back at our former way of life longingly, despite knowing its futility, despite knowing it leads to death. We are often content to work for and eat the food that perishes. The Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, is the antidote to being toward death, the cure for what Walker Percy (another great Catholic writer of the last century) called in the title of his last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome.

In the verse immediately following the last verse of today’s Gospel in John 6, which is part of a six-verse interlude that is not picked up next week, Jesus tells this same crowd that “although you have seen me, you do not believe.”¹² What a damning indictment!

“The Holy Spirit,” O’Connor wrote, “very rarely shows Himself on the surface of anything.”¹³ This includes the Eucharist. It is not intuitively obvious to the casual observer that the bread and wine are transformed into Christ’s body and blood. What happens on the altar is not a magic trick. It is not hocus pocus, which, incidentally, was derived from the Latin words of consecration: Hoc est enim corpus meum- This is my body.

You and I, along with everyone who partakes of Christ’s body and blood, are the only convincing proof of this transformation. But only if, not resisting the painful change grace seeks to bring about, you are transformed.

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1 John 6:35.^↩
2 John 6:33.^↩
3 John 6:30.^↩
4 John 6:29.^↩
5 Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy [Sacrosanctum Concilium], sec. 7.^↩
6 John 6:29.^↩
7 Mike A. Shapiro Blog. “A source for the quotation ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.’” 21 January 2021. Accessed 3 August 2024.^↩
8 Ephesians 4:20-21.24.^↩
9 Ephesians 4:24.^↩
10 Flannery O'Connor. The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, 307. Macmillan, 1988.^↩
11 Ibid.^↩
12 John 6:36.^↩
13 O'Connor. The Habit of Being, 307.^↩

Year B Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Amos 7:12-15; Psalm 85:9-14; Ephesians 1:3-10; Mark 6:7-13

To be a Christian is to be called. The Lord sends those he calls. In today’s Gospel, Jesus, having already called the Twelve, sends them. While he “gave them authority over unclean spirits” and they cured many sick people, they were primarily sent to preach repentance.¹

Along with our Gospel, our first reading from the book of the prophet Amos provides some insight into who God calls as well as what he sends them to do. Amos was a shepherd “and a dresser of sycamores.”² LLike Jesus, was also not of the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, Amos was not a priest. Nonetheless, God called him to be a prophet.

Amos lived in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, in Galilee. This is the area where, centuries later, Jesus came from. Judah is where Jerusalem is and, being the holy city, where the Temple was. The main Israelite shrine in the Northern Kingdom, as well as its capital, was Bethel. It was to Bethel that God sent Amos to prophesy. His prophesy was to call those prophets and leaders to repentance, back to fidelity to God’s covenant.

As you might imagine, Amos’ prophesying went over like a lead balloon. He was told to leave Bethel and go prophesy in Judah. In essence, the chief priest, Amaziah, told Amos, “Get out of here. Who do you think you are to speak to me, to speak to the king, like that?” This should take us back to our Gospel for last Sunday.

If you remember, after healing, casting out demons, and preaching repentance throughout the rest of Galilee, Jesus went home to Nazareth. On the sabbath, he taught in the synagogue. As a result of his preaching, the devout people in Nazareth, Mark tells us, “took offense at him.”³ Their offense caused the Lord to observe: “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”⁴ You see, being Messiah means that Jesus is a prophet.

Immediately after being baptized, a child is anointed with sacred chrism with the words: “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.”⁵ “By Baptism,” the Catechism teaches, we “share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission.” Together, the Catechism continues, the baptized “are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light.’ Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of all believers.”⁶

Your being called and sent is no accident, at least if our second reading from Ephesians is to be believed: “In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ.”⁷ This is a clear reference to baptism, through which you are reborn, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit’s power, as a child of God. Through the blood of Christ, “we have redemption…, the forgiveness of transgressions…”⁸

Amos, the prophet, by Naomi, used under the rules of Creative Common License

It is only by experiencing the sweet fruits of repentance that you are able to share them with others. It is then, like Amos, like the Twelve, you are sent on mission, so that you can evangelize, share the Good News. Because it is only then than you can tell others what difference knowing Jesus makes in your life.

Living as we do at the intersection of time and eternity, truly knowing Jesus makes a lot of difference. It is easy to be mistaken about this difference and all too common to exaggerate it, often to an absurd degree. Michael Knott, who was a pillar of Christian alternative music and who passed away earlier this year, when asked the usual question during a lengthy interview, something like “Who are you?,” he replied:

Basically, I'm a human being and I believe in Christ, period. It doesn't make my life rosy, it doesn't make my life terrible, it doesn't do anything with that. I know Christ⁹

What Knott nailed was that knowing Christ isn’t transactional. In other words, it doesn’t work by believing in Christ and neatly following all the rules in exchange for nothing bad ever happening to you, let alone a promise to live your best life now. As our Gospel from three Sundays ago showed us, Jesus is with us in and through the storm, even when, maybe especially when, it doesn’t seem like it, when it seems like he’s asleep. Rather, as the psalmist puts in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”¹⁰

To know Christ, to really know him, means that being a Christian constitutes your identity, becomes who you are. As Saint Paul insisted, “whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”¹¹ Knowing Christ isn’t just a way to add a little morality, a little religion, to your life. That is old and dead, not new and alive.

Like Jesus in the garden, you must learn, to borrow the title of a great spiritual classic, to abandon yourself to divine providence. In other words, to trust him even when the chips are down and when the deck seems stacked against you.

The only way to really know Christ is to experience what I am trying to describe for yourself. Only then, can you fulfill your prophetic call. Only then can you be sent to proclaim the Gospel, that is, to tell others what it means, through experience, to say, “I know Christ.”

Only once you truly repent, can you preach repentance. For a Christian, repentance is just another word for redemption, another word for true freedom, another word for realizing what the Lord means when he says, “Blessed are you…”

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1 Mark 6:7.13.12.^↩
2 Amos 7:14.^↩
3 Mark 6:3.^↩
4 Mark 6:4.^↩
5 Rite of Baptism for Children, “Rite of Baptism for Several Children,” sec. 62.^↩
6 Catechism of the Catholic Church, sec. 1268; 1 Peter 2:9.^↩
7 Ephesians 3:4-5.^↩
8 Ephesians 3:7.^↩
9 Doug Van Pelt & Daniel Johnston. “Michael Knott- A Candid Interview.” HM, 2003.^↩
10 Psalm 23:4.^↩
11 2 Corinthians 5:17.^↩