Author: Msgr. Charles Pope

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Are you really ready for the coming of the Lord?

Every now and then I hear of my fellow Christians, my Catholic brethren among them, speaking with great conviction that the Lord may be coming soon, or at least that he will bring a great chastisement upon the world. There is almost a longing for this to occur.

Such a longing is not without biblical precedent. Indeed, the closing words of the New Testament, an hence the whole Bible are these:

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life….He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen. (Rev 22:16-21)

Hence there is an eagerness for Christ’s return. This eagerness is also expressed in the Church’s liturgy in the “embolism” of the Pater Noster:

Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Yes, there is an appropriate eagerness for the Lord’s second coming.

However, there is also a context for that eagerness that we ought not forget. The context is one of repentance and humility, a context of our need to be purified and delivered from sin to be ready for the “Great and Terrible day of the Lord.”

The words of Revelation uttered above occur only after a period of intense purification for the Church expressed in chapter after chapter of purgative sufferings and persecutions experienced by the faithful. And the embolism of the Our Father utters our hope only after mentioning our need for mercy and the grace to be kept always free from sin.

Hence our eagerness for the coming of the Lord ought to framed in great humility, beseeching a prevenient grace of mercy not only upon us, but on the whole world, a grace of readiness for ourselves and all the world before the Lord comes.

The danger to be avoided in our zeal for the Lord’s coming, is a triumphalist notion of “Lord give this world the punishment it deserves.” For in asking God to crush the wicked, we ought not too easily presume we are not among those who will get stomped. God is very Holy and the Lord’s second coming, or even his coming upon the world in “mere” chastisement, might not necessarily include us in his inner circle of the blessed, no matter how highly we think of ourselves. Again, God is very holy, and we have many reasons to not to be too eager to usher in the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. The prophet Amos warns us in this regard:

Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord. The Day of the Lord. (Amos 5:16-20)

This text ought not be seen to cancel the Christian longing for Christ’s return, but, rather, to frame it carefully in the context of repentance and the need for God’s saving grace to “deliver us from the wrath to come.” (cf 1 Thess 1:10).

No room for triumphalism here, only pleas: “For the sake of thy sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!” Yes, Lord, do come! But please prepare us for that great and terrible day, that day of awe. What shall I frail man be pleading? Who for me be interceding? When the just are mercy needing! Righteous judge for sin’s pollution, Grant thy gift of absolution, Before the day of retribution. Yes, any call to usher in the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, should be made in great humility, in a spirit of repentance and recognition of the need for great mercy and grace to precede it. Otherwise, who can be saved? In this light the Second Letter of Peter gives us good advice in this regard:

[The Lord] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it coming. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him….Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:6-18)

Yes, do come Lord! Maranatha! But unto that very day Lord, pour forth your mercy and love, send forth your call unto the ends of the earth. Save us from the pride that forgets we need your mercy every day, even as do our enemies and those who have rejected you. Bring all to conversion Lord, and establish us in on-going conversion. For the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Maranatha!

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A Warning from the Lord to Priests, and a request for prayers

The first reading from Wednesday of this week is a significant admonition for priests. Permit in this post for one priest to wonder aloud how this warning from the Lord might apply to us who are priests and shepherds today.

For you who read, who listening to the wonderings of one priest, please pray for priests, for we who have received much will also have much for which to account.

The passage from Ezekiel 34 is in bold blue, italic text, my own reflections are in plain black and bold  text.

The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, in these words prophesy to them to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been pasturing themselves! Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep? You have fed off their milk, worn their wool, and slaughtered the fatlings, but the sheep you have not pastured.

We who are priests owe a great deal to our people. They take great care of us, giving us a place to live, food, a salary, health insurance, retirement plans, and other benefits. They also pray for us and are supportive of so many parish activities we depend on and benefit from. Yes, they are so very good to us.

We who are priests therefore must surely be willing to serve them with love and devotion. And, while there are human limits to what we can do, and while it is important to get proper rest etc., we ought to embrace the truth of offering our lives in sacrificial love and service for them. In the Old Testament the priest and the victim (e.g. a lamb) were distinct. But in the New Testament, the priest and the victim are one in the same, for Jesus, our High Priest offered the sacrifice of his very self. And we who act in his person must also learn to offer ourselves sacrificially to our people.

Cardinal McCarrick, my Archbishop for six years, used to tell us priests, “If you don’t routinely go to bed tired, something is wrong.” It was his way of telling us to work hard for our people, and he often reminded us of the difficult lives they led.

So also,  in this admonition the Lord, through Ezekiel warns his priests, and shepherds not merely to live off the people, not to use them, but to live for them; to give them a shepherd’s care, loving attention, the protection of prayer, the Sacraments, and the truth of God’s word. The Lord does not say the shepherds have no needs. They do indeed need the wool, milk and food the sheep can give, just as we priests need our people’s support. But in the end, we receive these gifts not for ourselves or as an end in themselves. But rather we receive them so as to be able to better serve our people.

Woe to priests who life selfishly off our people rather than sacrificially for them. Most priests I know work hard and do live this, but woe to those of us who fall back from our duties and look more to ourselves than to our people.

You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured.

Surely priests do at times tend to the physical weaknesses and illness of our people. But more usually our is a ministry to those who are spiritually weak, and injured by sins, whether their own, or the sins of others who have hurt them. How essential for us to lovingly reach out to those who are hurt, those who struggle with sin and the weaknesses due to sin and temptation.

Sacramental confession ought to be generously and conveniently supplied to God’s people. Early in my first pastorate I realized that the traditional Saturday afternoon confession time, was inconvenient for my people. So I instituted a policy of hearing confessions for a half an hour before every scheduled weekend Mass. Many other priests do the same. It is sometimes a burden on a Sunday to rush from Sunday school to confessions, and then right into the next Mass, but God’s people have wounds that need binding and the medicine of the sacraments.

Counseling and spiritual direction is also needed. Thank God I have a good staff that effectively manage the business and administrative details of parish life. This enables me to do a lot of counseling and spiritual direction for people each day.

But God’s people need care and we who are priests and shepherd ought to do everything we can to become more available and effective in healing the spiritual sickness of sin and helping to bind the wounds of those hurt by the human struggle with sin.

We do this first by seriously tending to our own wounds and submitting our own weakness and sin to others, (our spiritual directors and confessors) for healing. And, as we gain skill in self understanding and make our own journey, we can help others.

We must also do this by preaching charitably but clearly about the reality of sin and the need to repent. Many many Catholics are critical that their pulpits have been “silent” for years on many critical moral topics and that little moral guidance is given God’s people by the clergy. Hence we must commit to speaking the truth in love about sin, morality and the need for repentance. Otherwise we are likened to the absurdity of a doctor who never mentions disease and who merely shrugs when clearly sick people seek his help as to how to get better.

Woe to us if we are too busy to bind the wounds of sinners and bring healing love to those who struggle. We are like the pharisees of Old who simply wrote off “sinners” as the great unwashed. Jesus welcomed and ate with sinners. Yes, woe is us if we fall short in reaching out to sinners. Some of the Lord’s most severe warnings were reserved for the pharisees and other religious leaders who scorned sinners but little or nothing to teach them, help them or bind their wounds.

You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost....

It seems clear that most Catholics today are strayed and lost. on 27% come to Mass at all, and even among them there are those who stray and have been deceived by the world, who have lost their way.

One of the greatest struggles of the modern priest is to know how or what to do with the overwhelming number of strayed and lost Catholics. Too many Catholic parishes have an evangelization program little better than opening the doors and hoping people come. We have to do better. We have to actively seek the lost and straying and call them home.

Yet, often overwhelmed with parish tasks and fewer in number, priests struggle to find the time for active and personal evangelization. Yet some things help:

– Wearing clerical attire when away from the parish, shopping, traveling, etc., and being approachable to those who seek answers and attention.

– Using opportunities like funerals and weddings (where many unchurched, and lapsed Catholics are in attendance) to call people home and to invite and summon them to a closer walk with God.

– Taking walks in the neighborhood and local park to greet people and engage them.

– Asking help from parishioners to specifically ask fallen away family members, to attend instruction programs and to return to Church.

–Asking group leaders to specifically reach out to members of their particular group who may have drifted, to return.

– Priests should also actively teach and engage his people in how to be better evangelizers. In the end, shepherds don’t have sheep, sheep have sheep.

But, however we do it, we priests must bring back the strayed and lost.

So they were scattered for the lack of a shepherd, and became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered and wandered over all the mountains and high hills; my sheep were scattered over the whole earth, with no one to look after them or to search for them.

I shudder to think of the immense losses the Church has suffered on the watch of we priests who live today. The flock is surely scattered. And while it is true that huge cultural waves have swept through western world and brought devastation, we who are leaders of God’s flock cannot escape any blame. The flock has been scattered on our watch. Vast numbers of our people have been deceived by innumerable errors and too often we have been silent, or, at best, an uncertain trumpet. Often our silence has been due to concerns with remaining popular and accepted. At other times it has been simple laziness in studying the cultural problems and developing a coherent and courageous response to errors. At still other times, it has been our own sin that has blinded us and caused uncertainty, even a cynicism toward the Scriptures and Church teachings.

Whatever the causes, cultural, or clerical, we who are leaders cannot escape significant responsibility for the lost and scattered quality of God’s people today. And neither can we blame the previous generation. We just have to get to work and trust that God will bless us.

I will save my sheep, ….For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep.

And in this is our sole hope, that despite every human weakness of priests, parents, educators and all Church leadership, the Lord God alone can overcome all this and will ultimately bring to perfection the flock who follow him in faith. And we who are priests, who feel so often overwhelmed, do well to remember that the Lord is the ultimate and true shepherd who can overcome our weakness and supply what is lacking. None of this excuses our laxity, it only shows God’s grace and mercy in spite of it.

Disclaimer: most brother priests I know are good, hardworking men. But it is also true that none of us are perfect men and the admonitions of this passage challenge all of us somehow.

Please pray for priests. Much has been given to us and much is rightly expected. Pray, pray, pray.

This video has a song that may not exactly fit for this sort of reflection, but the footage from Fishers of Men shows good priests in action:

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How to handle a woman

When I speak on marriage or do marriage preparation work, I sometimes get accused of being tough on men. I plead guilty, with an explanation, or two.

First of all I am a man and it’s just easier for me to speak firmly  to men. I tend to be more polite with women.

Secondly, I think most men are encouraged when they are summoned to duty. A lot of men I have talked to are a bit sick of all the hand holding that goes on in Church, literally and figuratively. Most men I know are more interested in hearing of their duty and being summoned to it in a manly way. (However, I must say I have experienced some very definite exceptions to this rule. Some men especially react with great bitterness that I do not better articulate women’s shortcomings when it comes to marriage. I suspect there is a personal dimension to this story).

Finally, I believe in male headship when it comes to marriage. Some call me old fashioned, some call me misogynist. I just prefer to call myself  “biblical”  (Eph 5:19ff; Col 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1). But headship in the Scripture means responsibility rather than privilege. Hence the husband has the first obligation to love, to sacrifice, to anticipate and fulfill the needs of his wife and children. So yes, I am tough on men.

In that vein allow me a moment to extend some old advice to men, especially those who are husbands. Women are surely invited to listen in and to apply some of this to themselves too! For although men have the first obligation, women are not thereby passive or without duty in this regard.

And here is the central question for a man: “How to handle a woman?” An old song from Camelot answers the question well, and biblically I might add:

How to handle a woman? There’s a way,” said the wise old man, “A way known by every woman Since the whole rigmarole began.” “Do I flatter her?” I begged him answer. “Do I threaten or cajole or plead? Do I brood or play the gay romancer?” Said he, smiling: “No indeed. How to handle a woman? Mark me well, I will tell you, sir: The way to handle a woman Is to love her…simply love her… Merely love her…love her…love her.”

Alright men, It’s not that complicated is it? Love her. Simply love her, love her!

In marriage counseling I will sometimes ask the husband privately, Do you love your wife…Honestly now, do you really love her? The answer is not always obvious. Many people confuse mere toleration with love.  Because I put up with you means I must love you, somehow.

But my question goes deeper: Do you have a deep affection, a warmth, a compassion and desire for your wife? Do you like her? Some of the men who are more  honest with themselves realize that many of these qualities are no longer operative and that, at best, they have a tense toleration for their wife. And there are often protests as well:  Father, you don’t know how my wife can be!….She’s hard to love. (Actually I do have some idea. We priests are not mere bachelors and we too are called to love some people who are difficult to love). Love remains the answer. And so I inevitably invite the husband to pray for a miracle:

When you go home, get on your knees and pray for the miracle to really love your wife. Pray for the miracle of a tender and humble heart that will love her with a deep, abiding, compassionate, and passionate love. Pray to love her unconditionally, not because she deserves it, or has earned it, not because she feeds you or sleeps with you. Pray to love her “for no good reason.” Ask God to give you the same love he has for you. You and I are not easy to love, we have not earned God’s love and don’t really deserve it. But God loves us still the same. Yes, pray for a miracle. Your flesh may  think of 50 reasons to be resentful and unloving  toward your wife. Pray for the miracle to love her any way, deeply and truly. Pray for a new heart, filled with God’s love.

In the end, the only way to “handle” a woman is to love her.

I can hear the fear talking as well: Are you saying I should be a doormat? No, love speaks the truth and insists upon it. But only love can distinguish between respect for the truth and mere power struggle. Only love can distinguish properly between reverence for the good of the other and merely insisting on my own preferences. Love can speak the truth but it does so with love.

As a priest I have found that the more I love my people the better equipped I am to lead them to the truth. And when they know and experience that I love them, there is trust and they can better accept the truth I am summoned to preach. But it is love that opens the door.

Advice to husbands, How to handle a woman? Love her.

In case you’ve never heard the song from Camelot here it is:

Now, you will say, “Camelot ended badly.” Yes, but in the end we do not love merely with good results in mind, we love unconditionally, as God does. God loves because God is love and that’s what Love does, He loves. And so to for us, called to be possessed of God’s love, we love. We risk  to love. The Lord was killed for the love he had for us. We do not love merely to get something from it, we simply love. Others may accept or refuse our love, but as for us we love. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16).

Simply love her, love her, love her.

Here’s another video clip that says it better than I. This is clip from the movie “Fireproof” wherein a husband struggles to love his wife. This scene is the turning point of the move, the breakthrough:

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"…whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts…" A consideration of how Scripture is History

One of the issues most apologists of the faith, eventually and frequently encounter,  is the reliability of the Scriptures as an historical reference. Does the Bible record history? It surely does. However, the Scriptures do not necessary recount history in the very technical and chronological sense we usually do (or like to think we do) today. And some sophistication is required of those who have recourse to the Scriptures and other ancient documents.

While we want (as apologists) to exercise care in insisting on too much from a text, neither should critics be simply dismissive of the historical veracity of Scripture because it recounts actual historical events in ways not always in conformity with modern and Western notions.

Regarding the historicity of the Biblical accounts, Dei Verbum, (The Dogmatic Constitution on Sacred Scripture) from the Second Vatican Council insists on the historicity of the Gospel texts while also making some importatant observations about the nature of the History involved:

Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1). Indeed, after the Ascension of the Lord the Apostles handed on to their hearers what He had said and done. This they did with that clearer understanding which they enjoyed after they had been instructed by the glorious events of Christ’s life and taught by the light of the Spirit of truth. The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus. For their intention in writing was that either from their own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who “themselves from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word” we might know “the truth” concerning those matters about which we have been instructed (see Luke 1:2-4). (Dei Verbum, 19).

Thus the Scriptures, in this case the Gospels, recount actual history, an actual history vouched for by eyewitnesses.  But it is a history that is inspired, one that is written in such a way that earlier events are seen and depicted in the light of later events. It is a history that involves selected events and wherein many things are synthesized and applied to the listeners and audiences to whom the apostles spoke and wrote at a later time.

As such the Sacred Authors, (beginning with the Holy Spirit), were less concerned with details such as exactly where and when a certain event took place. Was it the Sermon on the Mount, as in Matthew or the Sermon on the Plain, as in Luke?  Does it really matter? Perhaps it was in both places, perhaps the sermon was actually a collection of things Jesus said in many places and synthesized later by him, or his apostles. Did two or three women go to the tomb on Easter Morning? How many angels, one or two appeared? Why are there two very accounts of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2? What exactly happened to Paul when he arrived in Rome and why does Acts suddenly end without telling us? These sorts of details interest us moderns intensely, but the ancients were less concerned about such things.

Our modern, Western notion of history likes to carefully pinpoint dates, times and rather exact accountings of what was said and done. We are, of course, helped in this by our modern capacity to record events in voice and picture.

Indeed, our modern, Western approach to things in general is to control by measuring, whether it is borders, or time, or science or history. Statistics, dates, demographics, etc. not only impress us, but they also act to reassure us that what we say is true, because we have measured it.

To some degree, measuring accurately is related to truth, e.g. a debate between doctor and patient as to whether the patient has actually gained weight or not, is pretty well resolved by recourse to a scale.

But other things, especially those related to history,  are less measurable. For example, what is the meaning of a certain historical event? How important is a certain utterance, or the unfolding of a certain chain of events? When one recounts the history of a people or an era, what relative weight should certain things, people, events, movements, statistics, etc., receive?

So, when it comes to the recounting of history, while recourse to scientific measures of date, time, and high specificity to what is said or do, is helpful, it may not always be possible to render such details, and, even when it is, such specificity may or may not help us in history’s other task of connecting the dots and rendering  coherent the meaning and significance of history. There will always be, and must be, some degree of interpretation, of selectivity and yes, even of bias.

Some who like to be dismissive of  Scripture as history, because it is told from the point of view of faith, are often less willing to accept that all history is told from some point of view.

As a sacred history, Scripture IS history, speaking of things that actually happened and were said. But it is a sacred history, since God prophetically interprets for us the reality that history records. It is history from a point of view inspired by God.

We moderns have liked to think that our way of telling history is largely free of strong or biased interpretation. We like to think that history can be recounted with a “just the facts,” approach. But this is naive. For any time something moves from event to word, there is interpretation.

If, for example, I see a car accident and say, “Jones hit Smith,” I have already interpreted the event and given it from a viewpoint. In this case, I more than suggest that Jones is to blame. Even if I just say, “Two cars collided,” I am placing a passive interpretation on the event that suggests somehow that the cars were the moral agents. Of course cars are not moral agents and do not cause accidents. Thus my interpretive description suggests either that I do not know what really happened, or that I, for many possible reasons, do not want to speculate as to the cause. Thus, my lack of description is an interpretation no matter how I phrase it.

The ancients were more sophisticated in recognizing and accepting that any telling of history would involve interpretation. Recognizing this,  they gave greater latitude to authors and were less concerned that every little detail add up with other accounts they may have read.

In terms of Scripture, therefore, we have a more ancient understanding and telling of history that includes a lot of built-in interpretation.

But it is history. And we, who are apologists can certainly point the Sacred text as historical proof. Yet, at the same time, we ought to be careful to understand that the text does diverge to some degree from modern notions of exactitude in details. We can do violence to the Sacred text and lack sophistication to the degree that we try to make it conform to modern notions by “resolving” details the ancient authors were unconcerned about in the first place.

Trying to resolve, for example, which Gospel account of a certain event or saying is the earliest thus presumably the more “pure” account, may not be possible, and might send an ancient Christian into puzzled laughter. That both accounts are fundamentally the same is usually more than enough to compensate for the variance in details.

To non believers, who like to highlight historical discrepancies as proof of a lack of veracity, two things can also be said. First, very few non-believers doubt the existence or fundamental facts about other ancient people based on discrepancies in other ancient texts. Indeed, a lack of discrepancy might more than suggest the presence of a single author who wrote a “controlled” message to deceive, rather than to many eyewitnesses, who, though in some variance as to exacting details, nevertheless saw, remembered and recounted actual events.

Secondly, our own modern telling of history is far less precise, and free of bias than we would like to think. Even the evening news is riddled with bias and perspective, as well as disagreements as to the details. If that be the case with news less than a day old, even more so our recounting of events decades and centuries later.

In the end, sophistication is needed by all when speaking of things as “history” and “historical.” Accuracy is to be desired, but once something moved from event to word, there is always going to be some interpretation and viewpoint at work. This is the human condition, and both believer and nonbeliever alike do well to recognize and accept  that words, as analogy, never perfectly render what they describe. Assessing all history, not just Biblical History, requires this sobriety and sophistication.

Yet, as those of the household of faith, regarding Scripture, we can at least be sure, by faith,  that the Holy Spirit guided the authors and the magisterial interpreters of the Sacred Page. Thus Scripture is more than a humanly limited description of events and words, it is the divinely inspired interpretation of those events, it is prophetic interpretation of reality.

In this brief video, Fr. Francis Martin ponders the fact that the incident of the cleansing of the Temple is presented ny John at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and by the synoptic Gospels at the end.

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On the Mystery and Divine Origin of Joy

There is something deeply mysterious about joy. It is deeper than mere laughter, it is more than an emotion. Joy seems to combine both serenity and excitement along with a touch of humor or laughter. It seems to come as pure gift, emerging sometimes in an instant, sometimes as a gentle tide welling up. Perhaps its context is good news, or a humorous moment, Perhaps it exists with the satisfaction of a completed task or a reunion after an absence. It does not seem to be a learned response at all. It just is, it’s just there! Even the youngest infants show joy. It comes with the soul and is there from the start.

What is joy? It is the gift of God. We can only receive it, not cause it. It is gift.

I know that, in places, the Scriptures seem to command joy as though we could cause it. But notice those same Scriptures put that command in a context. For example, we are to not to “joy” but to “rejoice.” That is, we are to recall and revisit the joy the Lord has already bestowed, we are to “re-joy” in the Lord. Elsewhere the Scriptures say “Be joyful” but then add “in the Lord.” For joy is of God and comes from him.

Joy is an unmistakable foretaste of heaven. It leaps down from heaven and draws us up there for a time. For the Christian, joy should grow as we journey ever closer to that place where “joys will never end.”

At the interpersonal level it was once said, Laughter and shared joy is the closest distance between two people. I am not sure I want to affirm that without any distinctions, but there is surely a truth here. Sometimes two strangers on a subway can see something funny and, for a moment share the closeness of two long-time friends.

Yes, there is something deeply mysterious about joy, it is a deep gift, a wonder grace, and something earnestly to be sought. “RE-joy” in the Lord always, again I say it “re-joy!”

Joy to you!,  as you watch this remarkable video and glimpse the joy of God on infant faces:

  • Ex ore infantium, Deus, perfecisti laudem
  • (From the mouths of infants you have perfected praise O God)
  • Psalm 8:3

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Wine, a Woman, and Song: A Meditation on the Readings for the 20th Sunday of the Year.

In the readings today we are reminded of, and invited to rejoice, at the great Eucharistic Feast of the Lord Jesus. Indeed, the Lord Jesus at the great cost of the loss of many disciples, teaches us that he himself is the food of this great feast: the Bread is in fact his Body, broken and offered, the Wine is in fact his Blood in the New Covenant shed for many unto the remission of sin. And the Church, in the voice of “Lady Wisdom” from Proverbs, calls all to come to the holy feast, the Wedding Feast of the Lamb and the Church, his beautiful Bride. And in that feast we are not only to recognize the Lord and receive, we are to rejoice with song, as the second reading joyfully sets forth.

Yes, you might say we have here Wine, a Woman and Song: the Wine of Christ’s sacrificed body and blood, the Woman who is his beloved Bride the Church saying “Come to the feast!” And the song of our praise in every Holy Eucharist. Lets look at each dimension in today’s readings.

I. WINE – We are, in the Gospel continuing with the great treatise on the Eucharist by Jesus in John 6. Many of the Jewish listeners who hear him the synagogue at Capernaum are grumbling and murmuring in protest at his insistence that they eat his flesh and drink his blood. But Jesus does not back down for a minute. In fact, he “doubles down” and quite graphically teaches a very real (as distinct from symbolic) call for eating his flesh and drinking his blood. He does this in four stages. He begins by insisting on the:

A. REALITY of the Eucharist – He says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Notice therefore, the bread IS HIS FLESH. The bread is not simply a symbol of his flesh, of his body, or of his life and teachings. It is not simply a way of remembering him when he is gone. No, it IS his flesh. Other scriptures also insist on the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the truth that it is his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity:

a. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor 11:23-25)

b.The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16)

c. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. (1 Cor 11:27-29)

d. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight..Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:31, 35)

Thus the Lord teaches them first of the reality of the Eucharist, of the food, the wine that he offers. It is in fact his Body and Blood.

B. REACTION – The Lord’s teaching provokes a reaction: The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Here was one of the most difficult moments of Jesus’ public ministry. The scene is the synagogue at Capernaum. The town where Jesus worked some of his greatest miracles. You’d think he’d have a real audience here! But as it turns out: You might say he had no “Amen corner,” and the old spiritual was demonstrated that says, Way down yonder by myself and I couldn’t hear nobody pray. As we shall see next week, their reaction and revulsion is so severe that many will leave him and no longer walk in his company. It is to be wondered if Jesus did not have this moment in mind when he said of Capernaum: And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” (Mat 11:23-24)

C. REINFORCEMENT – But Jesus does not back down. Their rejection leads to his reinforcement of his teaching: Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

Yes, Jesus gets emphatic and uses the intensifier  “Amen, Amen I say to you” which is the Jewish equivalent of “Let me be perfectly clear…” And he also switches his vocabulary from the polite word for “eat” (φαγεῖν (phagein) in Greek) to τρώγων (trogon) which more graphically and impolitely speaks of gnawing on, or crunching or chewing his flesh.

Jesus wants to be very clear. They understood him to speak literally, not metaphorically or symbolically. He assures them he expect to be understood literally. Why is he so emphatic? He wants to save us and links the eating of his Body and Blood to eternal life: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. In order to be raised up and to make the journey to eternal life we must be sustained and strengthened for the journey by eating and drinking his blood.

It is just like the manna in the wilderness that sustained them for forty years in the desert as they journeyed to the Promised Land. Had they not eaten, they would have died in the desert. So it is for us in the desert of this world. Without our Manna, our Bread from heaven, without the Body and Blood of the Lord to sustain us, we will not make it to the Promised Land of heaven.

Jesus insists: EAT! Else the journey will be too long for you! For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. I am the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.

D. REWARD of the Eucharist – Here the words of Jesus speak plainly of the reward in receiving the Eucharist: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.“

And therefore, we see the most essential teaching of today’s readings: the Bread is Christ’s Body and the Wine is his blood. How can any of us doubt what Jesus teaches us here about his true presence? St Thomas Aquinas says simply of this teaching of Jesus: Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius, nil hoc verbo veritátis vérius (I believe whatever the Son of God says, nothing is more true than this word of truth).

And thus we have the “Wine” of this day, the wine of Truth, the Wine that is his Blood, the bread that is in fact his Body. And this leads us to the “Woman” of today’s feast, the Church.

II. A WOMAN – The First reading describes the Woman this way: Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table. She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the city: “Let whoever is simple turn in here; To the one who lacks understanding, she says, Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.”

The “Woman” here is “Lady Wisdom” an allegory for the Church, Christ’s Bride and our Mother. Notice two things that the Church as Mother does:

1. She FEEDS – the text describes here as having set up her seven columns (the Sacraments) and that she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table. She calls out: Come, eat of my food. And in the great banquet of the Eucharist She feeds us with the Word and Eucharist. To every Catholic our Mother, the Church calls every Sunday, and she says “Eat! Partake of what my Spouse offers, His Word, and his Word become flesh, his very Body and Blood. Come Eat!”

2. She FORMS – For the Church, like any mother says, “Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” She calls us not only to be informed by the Word of God but to be transformed!

Yes, there is a Woman in today’s feast, Christ’s holy Bride and our Mother.

III. SONG – and finally there is a song as described in the Epistle today: Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

Yes, we are called to the feast to partake the WINE of Christ’s Body and Blood, by the WOMAN, our Mother the Church, and she calls us to SONG, to rejoicing, to celebration.

And as the text from the Epistle says, we ought to sing in thanksgiving, the very meaning of the word “Eucharist.” Scripture says that we were made to praise the Lord: we…have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory (Eph 1:12). It also says, The joy of the LORD is your strength. (Neh 8:9).

Yes, we are called to this feast to tell our story and recount the victory of the Cross. Every Sunday we rejoice that, whatever our trials, God can and does make a way, and that we already have the Victory in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So today, Wine, a Woman, and Song. The wine, the feast of Christ’s Body and Blood, the Woman, his Bride and our Mother the Church, the Song, our very rejoicing and the feast of Victory for our King, Jesus.

Somehow this post reminds me of an old Monteverdi Motet entitled “Jubilet Tota Civitas” (from Selva Morale) wherein Holy Mother Church Bids the whole city to rejoice. Here is a translation, then the motet:

Jubilet tota civitas.
 Psallat nunc organis Mater Ecclesia Deo aeterno, quae Salvatori nostro gloriae melos laetabunda canat. Let the whole city rejoice.
 Mother Church now sings with instruments to the eternal God, she who to our Savior now joyfully sings a song of glory.

Quae occasio cor tuum, dilectissima Virgo, gaudio replet tanta hilaris et laeta? Nuntia mihi! What glad and happy occasion, most beloved Virgin, fills your heart with such joy? Tell me!

Festum est hodie Sancti gloriosi
 qui coram Deo et hominibus operatus est. Today is the feast of a glorious Saint
 who worked in the sight of God and of men.

Quis est iste Sanctus qui pro lege Dei tam illustri vita et insignis operationibus usque ad mortem operatus est. Who is this Saint who, for the law of God,
 with such a distinguished life and outstanding works labored until death?

Est Sanctus Cyprianus. It is Saint Cyprian.

O Sancte benedicte! O holy and blessed one!

Dignus est certe ut in ejus laudibus Semper versentur fidelium linguae. Jubilet ergo. Jubilet ergo tota civitas. Alleluia. He is assuredly worthy that in his praises
 the tongues of the faithful will always be exercised. Rejoice therefore! Let the whole city rejoice.
 Alleluia.

Enjoy this Soprano solo, so light and joyful.

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The Inner Life of the Pipe Organ

When I was young and in high school I was a rock ‘n’ roll fan. It had to be loud and in your face. Then one day I walked into a large church and the organist was practicing with all the stops pulled (i.e. LOUD). The organ shook the building and resonated through my very body. I was hooked! I said, “I have to learn to play that!” And I was off on my adventure. Alas, I am no virtuoso but I can play hymns well and I do all the footwork. I love to play the organ and make the whole building shake with the big 32 Foot in the pedal.

My early fascination with the Pipe Organ led me not only to learn to play it, but also to tune and repair the organ in our parish church. That in turn led to a great summer job I had for three years.

I worked for Lewis and Hitchcock and company that built and serviced pipe organs. What a great job it was! I went all over the city helping to tune and repair pipe organs in some of the grandest churches of the area, both Catholic and Protestant. When you build and service Pipe Organs you have to know a little of everything: electrical, HVAC, carpentry (for the casework), plumbing (for the pipes and tubing that supply the wind), electrical motor repair (for the blower), even leather work for the air reservoirs and pipe valves. It also helps to know music and architecture to bring it all together. It was a great job it was. I learned so much. I was also very thin in those days and was able to squeeze into some pretty tight spaces to tune and make repairs. I shudder to think today of some of the high ladders and narrow platforms I negotiated to do the work.

These days, Pipe Organs are still being built but more often Electronic Organs are chosen by churches. Truth be told, with digital sampling, the sound of the newest electronic organs isn’t bad. But nothing beats the sound of a true pipe organ, the king of instruments.

The first video shows you some of the basics of how a pipe organ works.

The second video shows you the work of a an organist, Frederick Swann as he plays a toccata. You’ll see how an organist switches keyboards, pull stops, play with hands and feet, and controls the swell shades (volume). The greatest virtuoso is the organist and you will see why!  It takes A LOT to be a good organist.

Incidentally, in purchasing the “Crystal Cathedral” (Now Christ Cathedral) the diocese of Orange has also acquired the 6th largest Pipe Organ in the World and you will see it played in the second Video.

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The Church is a Bride, not a Widow.

The readings from the Feast of the Assumption still echo in my mind.  I am particularly mindful of their announcement of victory:

I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed One. Rev (12:10)

Then comes the end, when [Christ] hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for “he subjected everything under his feet.” (1 Cor 15:25-27)

He has shown the strength of his arm, and has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.” (Lk 1:55-59)

Earlier this week we meditated on the need to cultivate serenity in the midst of the great cultural battle that is being waged all about us, and in which we are engaged. And one of the sources of that serenity must be the knowledge, revealed by God, that we have the victory.

This does not mean that we sit back and do not engage the fight for truth and God’s Kingdom. But it does mean that we engage the battle with the serene confidence that, even despite setbacks and times of diminishment, the battle is the Lord’s and that he has already won, only the news has not yet leaked out to some.

The Church is a Bride, not a widow. Her spouse Jesus lives, and, as the text above from First Corinthians says, he is putting every enemy under his feet, yes, every authority, sovereignty and power. And indeed the Church, his Bride has thus far outlived everyone of her opponents, from the Judaizers, to Caesar, from Napoleon to the USSR.

Many today shout doom for the Church, declare her outdated, irrelevant, and boldly (and foolishly) declare, like many before, that they will see her buried. “Ah!” they gleefully scoff, “Your day is over!” Yet long after the reductionism, materialism, atheism and confused moral vision of the modern scoffers has run its course, the Church will still be here proposing the Gospel and praising the Lord.

She is a living bride, espoused to the sovereign Lord of History. Persecute her, and she only grows stronger, command her silence, and still she sings with wedded bliss, looking always to her glorious spouse. Yes, she sings:

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.

Yes, still she sings:

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
His reign shall know no end, and round His piercèd feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet.

And even in a time of persecution and seeming decline, we ought never forget that the victory is our in Christ Jesus. The Bride’s victory is well attested by God himself:

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. (Rev 20:2-6)

It is done, the victory is certain and it is ours in Christ Jesus.

The Church is a Bride, not a widow, though you might never know it walking into some Catholic parishes where the Mass seems more like a funeral than a wedding. A quick look might yield an impression other than a wedding: sour faced saints, bored believers with a kind of “tedium delirium” look. Yes, “the frozen chosen” look. Where is the joy, the zeal, the happiness of the Bride who is loved, and has been saved by her groom from other bad suitors? Always remember that the Mass is the great wedding feast of the Lamb. And the Church, joyful to be with her victorious groom, rejoices to hear his voice, and share sweet communion with him in the Holy Eucharist.

Yes, a bride, not a widow.

Do you live this way? Are you and I confident even in the midst of conflict and setbacks? Do we engage the battle with a serene confidence that comes from knowing the ultimate victory is ours? Or does anger and vengeance in us bespeak more of a fearful striking out? Do people see a joy and confidence in us that is increasingly unassailable, or are we an easy target to unsettle with fear?

It is a very different thing to engage the battle with joy, confident of the ultimate outcome, than to engage the battle fearful, and insistent on present victory. If present victory is the only measure of success, then the cross, seen only in its present moment, was a failure. But clearly it was not. Thus, we engage the battle, not to win every present fight, but knowing that even momentary losses are often paradoxical victories. Why? Because Jesus is the Lord of History. He can make a way out of no way, and write straight with crooked lines. He can draw life from death, and victory from defeat. He has the power to do whatever he wills. And even as the sinful world laughs, he is treading underfoot all error and sin. The boastful cannot stand their ground before the Lord.

The Church is a Bride, and the joyful mother of us all. Have confidence, and be of good cheer. The world as we know it may be passing away, but the Lord has conquered, and the Church, by his grace and promise, will remain always, and share in the ultimate victory of Jesus, when He, having placed all his enemies under his feet he hands over the Kingdom to his Father.

The Church is a Bride, not a widow.