Blog of the Archdiocese of Washington
At this point I would like to let G.K. Chesterton to do the talking:
Reason # 15: E Pluribus Unum (from the many there is one). I was at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception last Sunday afternoon as the Archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl, greeted men and women preparing to enter the Catholic faith this Easter. The Basilica is one of the 15 largest churches in the world, and is surely the largest Catholic Church in this fair city. It seats well over 3000 and was filled. What was amazing, though, was the diversity manifested in those who were gathered. Quite literally, there were people from all over the world: Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, the Philippines, Japan, China, and of course, from right here in the USA.
The word “catholic” is actually an adjective that means “universal.” Christ had told the apostles to make disciples from all nations. That is what I saw last Sunday afternoon. All of humanity was represented. I saw that day young and old, rich and poor, famous and not so famous, clergy and laity, and religious brothers and sisters. It is clear that all are invited; no one is excluded who will accept Jesus and his teachings.
All of this diversity makes for a rich experience in Church life. We all celebrate the one true faith and are united in the celebration of one liturgy, but there is a great diversity as to things such as music, language, preaching style, etc. Some people say they have left the Catholic Church because of boredom. But my challenge to you is that if you don’t find a parish you like in your own immediate neighborhood, look around! You’ll be surprised at what you see. Some of our downtown city parishes feature very formal liturgies, wonderful choirs, and traditional music. Our African-American Catholic parishes feature dynamic gospel choirs and exuberant preaching. One of our largest and most diverse parishes is St. Camillus in Silver Spring which features, among other things, a large multicultural choir. We have Korean parishes and Hispanic and Latino parishes. Several of our parishes also have a large Filipino communities. Mass is celebrated in over a dozen languages in the Archdiocese every Sunday. Some of our parishes also celebrate the ancient form of the Latin liturgy.
If you think every parish is the same, look again! E pluribus (and there’s a lot of pluribus) unum: “among the many there is one.” There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; but all of it is manifest in the rich tapestry that is the Roman Catholic Church. Come on home—you might be surprised what you find if you’ve been away for a while!
I’ve featured this video before, but it makes sense to do so again in this post.
Reason # 14: Here to Stay! When I think of the Church, I cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the Church is a miracle! If the Catholic Church’s survival were dependent upon human beings, how long would she have lasted? I suppose, about twenty minutes, max! But here we are 2000 years later. To me, this is a miracle and a very clear sign that Jesus both founded and sustained the Catholic Church. The Roman empire is gone. Other nations and empires have come and gone. Chinese dynasties have risen and fallen. Fads and fashions, political movements and theories, all these have had their time only to fade away and disappear. But through it all, the Church has remained. There’s just something about the Church. Sometimes she’s loved by the world, more often she is hated, but in the end she remains, firm and fixed, as everything else comes and goes. And she will remain until the end!
You may say that this sounds arrogant, but I do not base it on any human promise. Rather, I base it on the promises of Christ. The place was Caesarea Phillipi: Simon had just confessed Jesus’ divinity and that He was the Messiah. Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of John, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are rock(Peter), and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:17 -18). Thus Christ promised that the Church is here to stay. There have been many times in history that the world in some way announced the death of the Catholic Church; but here we are, still! The Church’s influence may have waxed and waned, her numbers risen and fallen, but still we remain. Do you see the miracle? No human effort could ever have sustained this 2000- year unity. Only God can do that. Don’t argue with God; behold the proof that he both founded and sustains the Catholic Church. All other human institutions that you see around you will one day disappear, but the Church is here to stay. So why is this a reason to come home? Well I don’t know about you, but if I have such strong evidence that Jesus both founded and sustained His Church, I want to make darned sure I’m on the winning team. And it’s the winning team for no other reason than this: Jesus Christ is the head of the Body, the Church. You may hear the Church ridiculed, scoffed at, and called “out of touch.” But do not be fooled. She alone is the winning team, for she alone has the promise that she will be here to the end. Jesus guarantees it! Join the winning team.
Reason # 13: The Warning. Jesus says quite plainly in the Gospel of John, “Amen, Amen I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and Drink his blood, you have no life in you.” So the warning is clear enough: if we don’t receive Holy Communion each Sunday, we are starving ourselves spiritually and are dying, if not already dead, spiritually. I once quoted this text to a woman who was away from the Church and she said, “Oh, I have life in me.” “Well,” I said, “I’m just telling you what Jesus said, and he says you don’t.” 🙂 I wasn’t gonna back down. Sometimes we just have to stick to what scripture says!
And really, we ought to just listen to Jesus here and not get into arguments based on our own subjective self-evaluation. Besides, no one is a fair judge in his own case!
So here is a powerful reason to “come home” to the Eucharist. Without Jesus in Holy Communion, you starve. Come on home now; you gotta eat! Don’t block your blessings! An old Gospel song that we sometimes sing says, “Come over here, where the table is spread, and the feast of the Lord is goin’ on!” Enjoy this video of the old Gospel song in a Catholic Context.
Reason # 12: The Promise. The Lord Jesus makes some pretty powerful promises to those who faithfully and fruitfully receive his Body and Blood in Holy Communion: I am the bread of life, who ever comes to me will never hunger…I am the living bread that comes down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world…Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day…whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him…the one who feeds on me will have life because of me…Whoever eats this bread will live forever. (John 6:35ff).
So here is a central reason to come home: Holy Communion is not some empty ritual; it is a partaking of the living Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. Many people today have lost touch with the power of the Eucharist. Sadly, many people put more faith in Tylenol than in the Eucharist, since when they take Tylenol they expect something to happen. But they expect little or nothing from Holy Communion. But look at the promises of Jesus! He promises radical transformation and new life to those who receive with faith. Take Jesus at his word!
Try not to understand the Eucharistic promises in a magical way. Sacraments, in order to be fruitful, require that we receive them with faith and that we be open to their full effects. It is an absolute truth that everyone who receives Holy Communion truly receives the Body and Blood of Christ. But not everyone receives it as fruitfully. Picture two people at an Art Museum. One person is a well-trained artist who appreciates art history; knows color, shadow, and techniques; knows the personal styles and stories of artists and the subjects they paint. The other person has no such training, or even an appreciation for art. Now both of them look at the same work of art, say a Rembrandt, but the one appreciates it richly while the other is downright bored. This is how it can be with the Sacraments. The Lord makes wonderful promises to us if we receive the Eucharist, but what we bring to each Holy Communion is also important. Beg the Lord to help you grow in appreciation for his greatest gift—the gift of his very self in Holy Communion. If you do, I promise you, Jesus will bring forth in you new life and powerful transformation that will usher you right into eternal life. It is Jesus who promises, and Jesus always keeps his promises. Reason # 12 to come home is the promises of Jesus in the Eucharist. He promises his True Presence and amazing transformation to those who receive it with faith.
The following video explores the true presence and recent miracles that confirm Jesus’ promise in the Eucharist. I think the video is very balanced and scientific in its exploration of these miracles.
Reason # 11: Companionship for the journey. There is a line from the Book of Hebrews that says, And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:24-25). We are not meant to make this journey alone. We need both company and protection.
In the days of Jesus, it was almost unthinkable for a person to make a lengthy journey alone. Once a person left the relative safety of the town, the journey got dangerous. There were robbers lying in wait along the roads just looking for vulnerable targets. For this reason, people almost always made journeys in groups. This is a good image for the spiritual journey we must all make. Alone we are easy targets. We are vulnerable and without help when spiritual demons attack. The Bible says, Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up. (Ecclesiastes 4:11) Belonging to Church in a meaningful way has a powerful and protective influence.
In my twenty years as a priest I have taught the people of God the Word of God. But I have learned far more from them than they ever learned from me. I have learned from the people I serve what it means to have faith and to persevere. I have experienced correction when necessary, and encouragement in my struggle. It is impossible to fully overstate how much my membership in the Church has blessed me; I could not begin to count the ways. I know my parishioners have prayed for me and that their prayers and example has put a hedge of protection around me. I pray for them too, and who knows what power my prayers have had for them? In the Church, we learn not only from good example, but also from the difficulties that inevitably arise in any community. We learn to be more patient and forgiving. We learn from the mistakes others make as well as from their gifts.
Don’t journey alone; it’s dangerous. Find a parish, get involved, and live in real communion with others who can lift you up if you fall, encourage you when you are faint of heart, instruct you when you wonder, and complete in you what is lacking. Alone I am lacking, but together and with the Lord we have all the gifts we need to get to the Promised Land of Heaven: companionship for the journey!
Reason # 10: The Liturgical Year. One of the beautiful aspects of Catholicism is the way our very calendars become a call to holiness. The Catholic year is divided up into seasons, which correspond to the life of Jesus and our journey toward Him.
In Advent we long for Christ and look for Him to come again. We anticipate it much as did the ancient Israelites, who waited for the coming Messiah. The readings and prayers of this season feature Gospels in which Christ describes His coming in glory and our need to be ready. The secular world is done with Christmas on December 26 and everything goes on sale. But we are just beginning! We meditate on Christ’s birth, His circumcision on the eighth day, His Holy Family, His Epiphany, the flight into Egypt, and the murder of the innocent children by Herod. And while we meditate on the Word becoming flesh, we also consider how we must allow the Word to become flesh in us as well. We do this by reading the First Letter of John in daily Masses.
For a brief period we then enter into something called “Ordinary Time,” during which priests wear green vestments. During this first section of Ordinary time, we ponder how Jesus began his public ministry, called his first disciples, and began to teach the multitudes.
Soon enough the season of Lent is upon us. We step out of Ordinary Time and ponder more directly the events that led to Jesus’ death. We do this because it was during the spring, from what we know, that Jesus suffered, died, and rose. During Lent we read Gospels of conflict and glory in which Christ runs up against his enemies as he makes his way to Jerusalem for the last time. We also use this time to meditate on our own sins and why we need the Lord Jesus to go to the cross for us. This all leads to the greatest week of the Church’s year: Holy Week. It opens with the Palm Sunday Procession. On Thursday of that week, we enter the Upper Room with the Apostles as Jesus celebrates his Last Supper and institutes the Eucharist. At the end of Mass, we walk with Jesus and the disciples across the Kidron Valley into the Garden of Gethsemane by processing with the Blessed Sacrament to an Altar of Repose. At midnight, the time when Jesus was arrested, we remove the Blessed Sacrament to the safe and lock the Church. On Good Friday, we often gather at noon and at 3:00 pm for the Stations of the Cross, walking with Christ on his way to Calvary. At night we gather to pray together, much as the disciples must have done that fateful night. On Saturday evening, we light the Easter Fire, and after numerous readings from the Old Testament, we sing the Gloria and the Church comes ablaze with light. Hallelujah, He is Risen!
For the fifty days of Easter, we celebrate by reading stories of the risen Christ and celebrating the new life he has given us. We then see the Lord ascend to heaven on Ascension Thursday. Ten days later, just as the Lord promised, the Holy Spirit comes upon us at Pentecost. The Church is alive with the life of the Spirit.
Finally we step back into Ordinary Time and experience an extended period during which the Lord teaches us about discipleship through his Scriptures.
What a gift it is to walk with Christ through the whole cycle of His life. The whole year is laid our for us in a marvelous way. Here’s a great reason to come back to the Church and walk this journey with Jesus!
Reason # 9: Scriptural Teaching. Catholics sometimes get accused of not knowing Scripture. But Catholics do in fact know Scripture very well! We are not the type to quote chapter and verse, but if you attend Mass every Sunday you KNOW Scripture! Every Sunday at Mass we read from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and the Gospels. Four readings every Sunday! Over a three-year cycle we cover all four Gospels in totality, most of the New Testament Epistles, most of the psalms, and significant portions of the Old Testament.
Those who who attend Mass each Sunday know in great detail passages and parable like these: the woman at the well, the parable of the lost sheep, the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus walking on the water, feeding the five thousand, healing the blind man, and the parable of the Prodigal Son. We read these year after year and they are in our very substance. The Church teaches us the Bible through the Liturgy, Sunday after Sunday. If you come to daily Mass there’s even more. There are some Catholics who pray the Liturgy of the Hours and this adds even more Scripture.
If you’ve been away for a while, come home to the Catholic Church. Come to the home of the Bible—the Catholic Church. Come to Mass, where the Scriptures have been faithfully proclaimed each Sunday for over 2000 years. Before you know it, the Scriptures will become part of your very being.
The Scriptures assigned to each Mass can be found HERE.