Community in Mission

The gospel for this Sunday is continued next week, so I will postpone the analysis of it until then. Instead, I will focus on the first reading, from Nehemiah 8. It is a wonderful meditation on the glory and wonder of the Word of God and it deserves our attention.

The background of the text is that in 587 BC, Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians and the survivors of the war were led into exile in Babylon. After 80 years the Persians conquered the Babylonians. Cyrus, King of Persia, permitted the Jews to return to the Promised Land. Sadly, only a small number chose to return and rebuild the ruined land and city. Among them was Nehemiah, a Jew and a royal official, who led the small band back and oversaw the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

Along with Ezra the priest, he also led a spiritual renewal that was spurred on not only by the purification of exile, but also by the rediscovery of certain lost or forgotten sacred books. On one occasion the people gathered to hear the proclamation of one of the lost books. That is where we pick up today’s reading.

I. HUNGER for the Word of God – The text says, And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the Law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel.

Note that the people are hungry for the Word of God. They have gathered together and now make the unified request (as one man) that the Book of the Law be brought and proclaimed to them.

The book that is likely referred to here is the Book of Deuteronomy. It would seem that the book had either been lost or at least severely neglected in the preaching of the time prior to the Babylonian exile of Israel. In Deuteronomy was contained not only a development of the Law but also a list of blessings for following it and grave warnings for not doing so. After the painful experience of exile, the people who gathered are aware that, had they heard and heeded Deuteronomy, they could have avoided the terrible events of the Babylonian conquest and the captivity of Israel.

So now, chastised and sober, they are hungry for this Word from God. As the Book of Psalms says, Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word (Psalm 119:67).

Are you hungry for the Word of God? More so than for money? More so than for bodily food? Scripture says,

1. The ordinances of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb (Psalm 19:19).
2. Man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD (Deut 8:3).
3. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food (Job 23:12).
4. I rejoice at thy word like one who finds great spoil (Psalm 119:162).

Are we hungry for the Word like this? It seems that we won’t miss a meal for our bodies, but we’ll go days without the Word. Our bodies gain weight and obesity is widespread in our culture. But our souls too easily languish and endure famine from the Word of God and the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Are you hungry for his Word? An old song says, “More about Jesus in his word, holding communion with my Lord, hearing his voice in every line, making each faithful saying mine. More, more about Jesus, more of his saving fullness, see more of his love who died for me.”

II. HEARING of the Word of God – The text says, And Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden pulpit which they had made for the purpose

Notice these two things:

ASSEMBLY – There is a communal dimension to the celebration of God’s Word here. It’s not just a private celebration or reading. And while there is today in a more literate culture the possibility of reading the Scriptures alone, we should not neglect to gather with the Church and be taught the Word of God by others, especially the clergy, who are trained and anointed unto this task. Scripture 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). Too many think that all they need is the Bible alone. But notice that the proclamation of the Word is communal here. We’ll develop more on this topic in a later portion of the text.

AMOUNT of time – The text says that the proclamation and explanation of this Word took place from “morning to mid-day.” This is no “say it in seven minutes” sermon. It is an extended time spent studying, praying, and hearing the Word of God. Many today consider a Mass that runs longer than 45 minutes to be counterproductive. It’s funny how we excited we get when a three-hour football game goes into overtime, but then we complain when a sermon lasts longer than “regulation” time. We find so much time for other things and our attention span for them is long, yet we have so little time for the Word of God and we are so impatient that the reflection be over sooner rather than later. Yes, we find time for everything else. You can blame the preacher, and we may deserve it, but there’s usually more to the picture than just the preacher.

III. HONOR for the Word of God – The text says, And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people; and when he opened it all the people stood. And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God; and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands; and they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.

Note the remarkable honor given to the Word through active listening. While it is true that many today, especially more traditional Catholics, see silent and passive listening as the proper, pious, and respectful demeanor during the readings and sermon, this is not the cultural setting described in this passage. Neither is a quiet demeanor the ubiquitous norm in the Church today. It is not a question of which is right and which is wrong, but of whether or not the Word of God is being honored.

The listeners that morning some 2,500 years ago stood and said “Amen, Amen!” They lifted up their hands and even prostrated themselves on the ground while the Word was read. They were engaged in active listening, giving the Word their undivided attention and interacting with its sounds as it resonated within them. This is attentive listening, reflective and responsive, hearing with thoughtful attention.

There are different cultural expression of attentiveness, but you can tell a lot by looking at peoples faces. Even in cultures in which people exhibit a prayerful silence, these same people get excited at football games, even jumping to their feet. Excitement and exuberant joy are not unknown in cultures in which religious reserve is the norm. One would hope to rule out that such reservation is merely indicative of boredom. For those of us who are more reserved, we don’t want to be sour-faced saints, bored believers, distracted disciples, or cold Christians. While reverence is expressed by many through prayerful and attentive silence, we want to be sure it is not simply the face of the “frozen chosen.”

And for those of us who are more demonstrative, we want to be sure those outpourings are not a merely formulaic recitations of “Amen” or a sort of egocentric, theatrical acting. Neither should one simply seek to exalt the preacher or the pew just to get everyone “pumped up.” The “Amen corner,” where it exists, should be sincere.

The key point is to honor the Word of God, whether by reverent silence or exuberant response. But in no way should the Word of God leave one bored and unmoved.

IV. HELP unto the Word of God – The text says, The Levites also, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

The Word is not alone. It is explained and interpreted. We need the Church in order to properly understand the Word of God, to have it authentically interpreted. And while devotional reading is to be encouraged, the Word of God is not meant to be read apart from the Church. As the Protestant experiment has shown, an attempt to have the Scriptures without the Church and the Magisterium, from whence the Holy Spirit uttered them, is to usher in disastrous, never-ending division. This truth is expressed well in the story about the Ethiopian official: So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless some one guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him (Acts 8:30).

The authoritative preachers of God’s Word; the Bishops, priests, and deacons; have the task to read, analyze, organize, illustrate, and apply the Word of God in the liturgical setting.

In the task of proclaiming the Word of God, there is a need beyond that for authoritative teachers; there is also the need for the pastoral assistance of others. In my own community there are excellent lectors who often read the Word with such power and inflection that I hear it as I have never heard it before. Further, I have a wonderful choir that often sings hymns and passages rooted in the Scripture such that I come to know them as never before. It’s really pressed to my heart. My congregation, too, by its vivid response to the proclaimed Word and the preaching, brings forth insight and makes the Word of God an experienced reality.

V. HEARTFELT reaction to the Word of God – The text says, And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.”

They are so moved by what is proclaimed that they weep. Their weeping is due to the realization of what their past stubbornness has brought about: disaster, decline, and exile. Had they but heard and heeded God’s Law, this terrible period of Israel’s history could have been avoided.

True listening to the Word of God should bring forth a response. The desired outcome of preaching the Word is to elicit a response. The purpose of the Word of God is not only to inform, but to transform. It might make you mad, or sad, or glad, but if you are really listening to the authentic Word of God, you cannot remained unmoved. Scripture says,

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do (Heb 4:12).

VI. HEEDING of the Word of God – Nehemiah chapter 8 continues beyond the passage in the lectionary today. It goes on to say, On the second day the heads of fathers’ houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the law. And they found it written in the law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should publish and proclaim in all their towns and in Jerusalem, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and dwelt in the booths; for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the book of the law of God. They kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.

Among the things they discovered was that Israel had not been celebrating an important and appointed feast day: the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths). This feast, while a harvest festival, was also a celebration that acknowledged the gift of the Law on Mt. Sinai. It is quite symbolic that they had stopped celebrating this particular feast. The leaders, having studied the Word of God, reestablished it and commanded the people to observe it carefully. This illustrates heeding of the Word of God.

Notice all the respect we’ve seen for the Word of God: they hungered for it, heard it, honored it, helped in its proclamation, and had a heartfelt reaction to it. But here’s where the real honor is given: now they heed it. There’s a lot of “lip service” paid to the Word of God, a lot of praise. Some even shout “Amen” in Church. But the real acid test is whether we heed the Word. An old spiritual says, “Some go to Church for to sing and shout. Before six months they’s all turned out.” Another says, “Some seek God don’t seek him right, they fool all day and pray at night.”

We are warned of the danger of failing to heed:

1. And every one that hears these sayings of mine, and does them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it (Mat 7:26).
2. And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more (Luke 12:47).
3. An hour is coming, has indeed come, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have heeded it shall live (John 5:25).

There is wonder in the Word of God, but only if we heed it.

It’s snowing today in Washington, D.C. and I had a beautiful walk coming back from the March for Life this afternoon. Tonight I will enjoy another walk through the winter wonderland.

Not everyone likes snow but it is an amazing work of God. He takes a barren winter landscape and creates it anew. I can almost hear the Lord saying, “Behold, I make all things new!”

In the modern world we often walk past the glory of God hardly noticing the gifts that He provides every day. Tonight and tomorrow I don’t want to miss God’s gifts. It is true that these gifts come along with weather-related hardships, but maybe—just maybe—God can get a few of us here on the East Coast to stop for just a minute, rest a while, and behold His glory.

Getting “snowed in” provides a wonderful chance to become reacquainted with our family and even with our very selves. Just looking out the window and marveling at the snow as it falls with hypnotic and calming steadiness can be a prayer, if we think of God who sends it. Wherever you are, don’t walk through life and miss the glory of God!

In the Book of Sirach there is a beautiful and poetic description of God and the majestic work He creates even in the “dead” of winter. Enjoy this excerpt from Sirach and reflect spiritually on the glory of God in winter.

• A word from God drives on the north wind.
• He scatters frost like so much salt;
• It shines like blossoms on the thornbush.
• Cold northern blasts he sends that turn the ponds to lumps of ice.
• He freezes over every body of water,
• And clothes each pool with a coat of mail.
• He sprinkles the snow like fluttering birds.
• Its shining whiteness blinds the eyes,
• The mind is baffled by its steady fall.
• (Sirach 43, selected verses)

Enjoy this video, which reminds many of us of the joy and wonder of a snowfall like some of the ones we experienced when we were young.

We march today in cold weather and with snow bearing down on the area. The coldest march I ever endured was back in 1985 when the temperature was 4 degrees and there were 15 inches of snow on the ground. It was so cold that year that Reagan’s second inaugural on the previous day had been moved inside to the Capitol Rotunda. The next day, the day we marched, was even colder!

But the sacrifice is worth it, for the magnificence of life is really too wonderful to put into words. I found this description some years ago, which summons reverence by its very ability to baffle the mind:

MIRACLE OF LIFE—Consider the miracle of the human body. Its chemistry is just as extraordinarily well tuned as is the physics of the cosmos. Our world on both sides of the divide that separates life from lifelessness is filled with wonder. Each human cell has a double helix library of three billion base pairs providing fifty thousand genes. These three billion base pairs and fifty thousand genes somehow engineer 100 trillion neural connections in the brain—enough points of information to store all the data and information contained in a fifty-million-volume encyclopedia. And then after that, these fifty thousand genes set forth a million fibers in the optic nerves, retinae having ten million pixels per centimeter, some ten billion in all, ten thousand taste buds, ten million nerve endings for smell, cells that exude a chemical come-on to lure an embryo’s lengthening neurons from spinal cord to target cell, each one of the millions of target cells attracting the proper nerve from the particular needed function. And all this three-dimensional structure arises somehow from the linear, one-dimensional information contained along the DNA helix. Did all this happen by chance or do you see the hand of God

Today, many of us march for life. We march here in Washington, D.C. as well as in other communities all across the country. Today we ponder the great mystery that is expressed Psalm 139:

For it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother’s womb. I thank you for the wonder of my being … Already you knew my soul my body held no secret from you when I was being fashioned in secret … every one of my days was decreed before one of them came into being. To me, how mysterious your thoughts, the sum of them not to be numbered! (Psalm 139 varia)

No human being is an accident, no conception is a surprise or an inconvenience to God. Mysteriously, He knew and loved us before we were ever conceived. He says, Before I ever formed you in the womb I knew you (Jer 1:4). And as Psalm 139 says above, God has always known everything we would ever be and everything we would ever do.

It is often mysterious to us why human life is, at times, conceived under difficult circumstances: conceived in times of poverty, conceived in times of family struggle or crisis, or even conceived with disability and disadvantage. But in the end we humans see so very little. We must ponder the mystery of God’s reminder that many who are last today will be first in the Kingdom of God (e.g., Matt 20:16; Luke 1:52-53).

So today many of us will march. And all of us are called to remember the sacred lives that have been lost. We acknowledge our loss, for the gifts of these children and their lives have been swept from us as well. We pray for women who struggle to bring children to term and who are pressured to consider abortion. We pray for the immediate and sudden conversion of all who support legalized abortion for any reason, and for the dedication to assist women facing any difficulty in giving birth to or raising their children.

The following video is a shortened version of the masterpiece called Genesis by Ramos David. It magnificently depicts fetal development. I have taken the liberty of adding a different music track to fit this shortened version. The music is William Byrd’s Optimam Partem Elegit (She has Chosen the Best Part). The lyrics are quite fitting because we pray that all mothers will choose life. The full length video can be found (in higher definition) on YouTube by searching for “Genesis Ramos David.”

 

In the secular world a “mystery” is something that baffles us or eludes understanding, something that lies undisclosed. And the usual response of the world to a mystery is to resolve it, to get to the bottom of if, to uncover it. Mysteries must be overcome! The riddle, the “whodunit,” must be solved!

In the Christian—especially the Catholic—world, a mystery is something a bit different. In our world, the concept includes the recognition that there are hidden aspects of things, people, and situations that extend beyond their visible, physical dimensions.

One of the best definitions I have read of mystery is one by the theologian and philosopher John Le Croix. Fr. Francis Martin introduced it to me some years ago in one of his recorded conferences. Le Croix says,

Mystery is that which opens temporality and gives it depth. It introduces a vertical dimension and makes of it a time of revelation, of unveiling.

Fr. Martin’s classic example of this to his students is the following:

Suppose you and I are at a party, and Smith comes in the door and goes straightaway to Jones and warmly shakes his hand with both his hands. And I say, “Wow, look at that.” And you say, puzzled, “What’s the big deal? They shook hands, so what?” And then I tell you, “Smith and Jones have been enemies for thirty years.”

And thus there is a hidden, richer meaning beyond what meets the eyes. This is mystery. There is something hidden, something accessible only to those who know and are initiated into the mystery and who come to grasp some dimension of it; it is the deeper reality of things.

In terms of faith there is also a higher meaning that mystery brings. And thus Le Croix added above, It [mystery] introduces a vertical dimension, and makes of it a time of revelation, of unveiling.

Hence we come to appreciate something of God in all He does and all He has made. Creation is not just dumbly there. It has a deeper meaning and reality. It reveals its Creator, and the glory of Him who made it. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands (Psalm 19:1).

In the book of Sirach, after a long list of the marvels of creation, there comes this magnificent line: Beyond these, many things lie hid; only a few of God’s works have we seen (Sirach 43:34).

Indeed, there is a sacramentality to all creation. Nothing is simply and dumbly itself; it points beyond and above, to Him who made it. The physical is but a manifestation of something and Someone higher.

In this reductionist world, such thinking is increasingly lost. We poke and prod in order to “solve” the mysteries before us. And when have largely discovered something’s physical properties we think we have exhausted its meaning; we have not. In a disenchanted age, we need to rediscover the glory of enchantment, of mystery. There is more than meets the eye. Things are deeper, richer, and higher than we can ever fully imagine.

Scripture, which is a prophetic interpretation of reality, starts us on our great journey by initiating us into many of the mysteries of God and His creation. But even Scripture does not exhaust the mystery of all things; it merely sets us on the journey ever deeper, ever higher. Mysteries unfold; they are not crudely solved.

For the Christian, then, mystery is not something to be solved or overcome so much as to be savored and reverenced. To every person we know and everything we encounter goes up the cry, O magnum et admirabile mysterium (O great and wondrous mystery)! Now you’re becoming a mystic.

Here is Fr. Francis Martin speaking briefly on the subject of mystery:

The life of St. Bernadette Soubirous was steeped in paradox and irony. She was the chosen visionary of our Lady at Lourdes and was to bring forth, by heavenly guidance, a spring that would bring miraculous healing to thousands. Yet Bernadette herself was beset with health problems that would cause her dreadful suffering. Her quiet and heroic suffering, something she accepted with obedience and as a kind of mission for souls, is not common knowledge today. Hers was a beautiful, difficult testimony; she suffered mightily. I base my reflections here on a biography of her by Fr. Rene Laurentin: Bernadette Speaks: A Life of St. Bernadette Soubirous in Her Own Words.

Bernadette Soubirous was born in January of 1844. Her father and mother were among the working poor of the town of Lourdes, France. Her father was a resident miller of a mill he did not own. For a time, the family found lodging in the Boly Mill, where Bernadette was born. Surely the persistent, gentle sounds of the mill grinding the wheat were some of her earliest memories. But famine brought financial ruin to the Soubirous family; the mill was sold and they lost everything. So poor did they become that they were forced to live in a cell of the former town jail.

Such poverty and poor nutrition surely contributed to her later health troubles and to her diminutive stature. Bernadette stood only 4 feet 7 inches tall and had an asthmatic condition that would be her cross throughout her life. Many who heard of the visionary of Lourdes and sought to meet her were surprised by the woman they met: diminutive, short of breath, and with a persistent cough. Her life was filled with suffering, and like Jesus, who suffocated on the cross, she would die in a similar (though less violent) fashion.

Bernadette’s suffering began at a young age; her health declined beginning in the sixth year of her life. She had stomach trouble, seemingly a disorder of the spleen. And the cholera epidemic of 1855 struck her cruelly. From that time on Bernadette was asthmatic. Even in the period just after the apparitions, she was so sick that she received the last Sacraments.

Although she recovered, she was constantly sought out by a constant influx of visitors to Lourdes; this tired her greatly. Her pastor and her family sought to protect her as much as possible, but she found it impossible to refuse such numbers entirely. Although Bernadette preferred solitude and shunned the fame that others gave her, she strove to be generous and patient with the steady stream of pilgrims and admirers.

Many were surprised by what they saw when they met Bernadette. They noted that she often coughed and that her asthma seemed to give her much trouble. One visitor was quite startled by her appearance, calling her “puny.” Some years later, another visitor described waiting in the entryway of the convent-school while Bernadette was summoned. As Bernadette came up the hall (with a sister escorting her) the visitor heard the sound of labored breathing and wheezing. The sister entered, followed by a “small child who looked to be merely 13 or 14.” Yet Bernadette was by this time 19 years old. The visitor noted that her face was oval and full, but her cheeks were rather red (a common problem in those who have asthma).

Yes, many visitors were surprised that a woman whose legacy loomed so large was herself so diminutive and in such poor health. They would ask, “Have you prayed for a cure?” The answer often came back simply, strangely, and laconically, “No.”

A visiting priest arrived to question Bernadette about the apparitions and, finding her in bed, asked how long she had been sick:

“Over a week,” she answered.
“And what ails you?”
“My chest,” she noted.
He observed that her cough indicated a considerable weakness in her chest.
“Are you asking the Blessed Virgin for a cure? Hasn’t the water from the grotto helped many people? Why wouldn’t she heal you?”
“Perhaps she wants me to suffer,” Bernadette replied.
“Why would she want you to suffer?”
“Maybe I need to suffer.”
“Why do you need to suffer?”
“Ah, God knows!” she said.
“Yes, people say that she told you that you would suffer very much.”
“Yes,” replied Bernadette, “but she promised me I would be happy in the next life.”

And here is a brief picture of what would be her life: often terrible sufferings, but accepted because she believed that she had been (in some sense) “assigned” this lot. Yes, it is a great paradox.

Despite her many illnesses, Bernadette certainly had her strengths. She stood up to strong interrogation. At one point the town commissioner, anxious about the crowds, warned her not to return to the grotto. She indicated respectfully that she was compelled to go there and that she could not guarantee that she would not. He threatened to lock her away in jail. “Then I guess I couldn’t go to the grotto!” was her fearless response. She was no shrinking violet, despite her illnesses. She knew what she had seen and heard, and no amount of scoffing or threats made her doubt what she had experienced. She also fiercely resisted anyone’s attempts to embellish or misrepresent the apparition. What had happened had happened; there was to be no adding or subtracting from it. She was serenely confident and never wavered from her descriptions.

Bernadette’s teachers among the Sisters of Charity of Nevers noted that her character was strong and that she had her stubborn moments. She could be sensitive to small injustices and was said to be somewhat mischievous, especially in her younger years. Despite her fame for being a saint (because she had seen the Blessed Virgin), she displayed no affectations of sanctity. Bernadette did not play to the crowds. Her family and the nuns who taught her insisted that she was as normal a girl as one could imagine.

As the years went by, her health problems multiplied. One of the sisters in the school she attended noted that Bernadette was regularly short of breath and that she experienced all kinds of other troubles: toothaches, frequent rheumatism in her leg, and a painful shoulder—so painful that it almost caused her to faint. Her frequent coughs brought on vomiting, and she often coughed up blood, sometimes in large quantities. She would often have to be brought to the window to help her breathe.

In sickness Bernadette was never known to be impatient. The winter and the months of early spring were the worst for her.

Many visitors would ask her if she wanted to be a nun. She said, “Yes, but I haven’t the health.” By 1864 her poor health had not improved much, but her attraction to the religious life had grown. Bernadette despaired that she would ever have the health to enter into the religious life. And yet the sisters who saw her growth in holiness were willing to make exceptions.

In 1866 Bernadette entered The Sisters of Charity of Nevers, the same order that had schooled her in Lourdes. Entering the novitiate, she looked forward to the relative seclusion and solitude. The steady stream of visitors and the burden of her fame continued to weary her.

Within a month of entering, as the cool of late September approached, Bernadette’s asthma grew worse. The sisters who ran the infirmary marveled at her ability to withstand suffering. Her choking and coughing were profound yet she did not complain. She said to the sisters, “It’s necessary; it’s nothing.”

So intense were her sufferings that by late October the chaplain was summoned. It was announced to the community that Bernadette would probably not last through the night. The local bishop was summoned as well, and he admitted her into solemn vows that evening presuming that she would not survive the night. Indeed, she had just vomited a basin-full of blood and could barely recite her vows; the Bishop of Nevers recited her answers on her behalf. He left the room that night convinced he would never see her alive again.

And yet Bernadette made another miraculous recovery. Patterns such as this continued until her death in 1879. With every passing year, the asthmatic flare-ups in the winter and early spring worsened, each time bringing her closer to death.

Bernadette entered the infirmary for the last time in December of 1878. In addition to her asthma, she had a tumor that produced rigidity in her knee and caused horrible suffering. The pain was so intense for Bernadette that it sometimes took an hour to move her into a “good” position. Her face was said to have taken on a cadaverous appearance.  If she was able to sleep at all, even the slightest movement of her leg would elicit involuntary screams. She lost weight and was said to have slipped away to almost nothing. The descriptions of her condition at this time included the following: chronic asthma, chest pains accompanied by the spitting up of blood, an aneurysm of the aorta, a tumor on the knee, stomach pains, bone decay, abscesses, and bedsores.

Bernadette revealed that she was no longer able to meditate. She was heard to murmur from time to time, “My God, I offer this up to you. Give me patience.” One of the sisters in the Infirmary said that Bernadette’s poor body seemed to be nothing but one large wound.

During Holy Week of 1879, Bernadette’s bedsores became extreme. She coughed almost continuously. By now she knew and stated aloud, “My passion will last until I die.” Still, she rarely complained, though involuntary groans often came forth. Bernadette’s concern seemed to be more about the others around her in the infirmary who were disturbed by her coughing, than about her own condition.

Added to this were satanic attacks. She was heard to say, “Be gone, Satan.” She admitted that the devil tried to frighten her. But when she invoked the holy name of Jesus, the devil soon disappeared.

As death drew near she marveled, saying, “I wouldn’t have thought it took so much suffering to die.” But she then added, “It is no sacrifice to give up a miserable life, where we encounter so many hardships, to belong to God.” She further lamented, “I’m afraid I’ve received so many graces, and have profited so little.”

Her gaze was now directed most frequently toward the crucifix on the wall. She began to extend her arms in imitation of Christ on the cross, saying, “My Jesus! How I love Him!”

Two days before she died, St. Bernadette offered a metaphor for the mystery of her suffering. Something in her hearkened back to the Boly Mill where she grew up in Lourdes. The grinding of the millstone had lulled her to sleep as an infant and accompanied her first years as a child. Perhaps it was that now-distant memory that caused her to say, shortly before she died, “I am ground like a grain of wheat.” She had never willfully complained about her suffering. Somehow she seemed to know this was her mission: to suffer for others.

Yes, it was a supreme paradox that this visionary of Lourdes, who found through God’s grace and Mary instruction a spring of healing water for multitudes, would herself suffer so much for souls, offering her agonies for them, for us. It was her personal and hidden passion for us. The other side of the gift of healing that Lourdes gives is the grace to endure suffering.

Bernadette died on April 16, 1879. Her long passion was now ended. Like Jesus, she gave over her spirit and breathed her last. She was 35 years old.

Visitors to her tomb are able to see her incorrupt body in the glass casket at Nevers. But the face that they look upon is really a wax mask. Surely it captures her beauty, but it also hides the glory of her suffering: suffering embraced and accepted. Her true face at death was more gaunt and showed the effects of the cross she accepted as she was “ground like wheat” and as she lost herself entirely in the Cross of Jesus.

Most know St. Bernadette simply as the little girl kneeling in prayer before the Virgin Mary in countless grottos throughout the world. Less well known is the private, personal, and profound passion of a great woman who discovered that her mission was to suffer for others.

Where does the water of Lourdes get its power to heal? Surely from the Lord. But something of Bernadette’s passion runs through those waters as well. They are indeed precious waters, bought at great price.

Saint Bernadette, pray for us.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we commemorate this weekend, is best known as a civil rights leader who worked to end racial injustice. But Dr. King had other things to say as he preached each Sunday, first in his own assembly and later as he moved about.

Among his recorded sermons is one in which Dr. King addresses the problem of unbelief, of materialism and atheism. His reflections are well worth pondering today because the issues he addresses are more widespread now than when he made these remarks in 1957. A transcript of the full sermon is available here: The Man Who Was a Fool.

In this sermon, Dr. King commented on Jesus’ parable of the wealthy man who had a huge harvest and, instead of sharing, just built bigger barns to hold the excess. The Lord called him a fool for thinking that his material wealth could supply his needs and give him security. Dr. King also addressed the problem of unbelief in this sermon, and pointed out its foolishness.

Following are excerpts from this sermon, with Dr. King’s words shown in black, bold, italics and my comments in plain red text. After discussing several reason why the man was a fool, Dr. King said,

Jesus [also] called the rich man a fool because he failed to realize his dependence on God. He talked as though he unfolded the seasons and provided the fertility of the soil, controlled the rising and the setting of the sun, and regulated the natural processes that produce the rain and the dew. He had an unconscious feeling that he was the Creator, not a creature.

Having discovered the inner realities of many processes, the materialistic atheist fails to ask the more fundamental questions such as “Where does the cosmos ultimately come from?” and “What is the ultimate destiny of all things?” Having found some answers, they mistake these answers for the ultimate answers. They are not.

There is no problem with a scientist saying that these sorts of questions lay beyond science, that science is only focused on material and efficient causality. That is fine; each discipline has its area of focus. But the modern error of scientism is in its claims that science alone explains all reality. It does not.

The usual response of those who ascribe to scientism (not all scientists do) to questions that science cannot answer is to dismiss them or to say that one day science will find an answer. When we, who are obviously creatures and contingent beings, dismiss a Creator, we are displaying a form of madness or of hardness of heart. Such a dismissal is neither rational nor reasonable.

This man-centered foolishness has had a long and oftentimes disastrous reign in the history of mankind. Sometimes it is theoretically expressed in the doctrine of materialism, which contends that reality may be explained in terms of matter in motion, that life is “a physiological process with a physiological meaning,” that man is a transient accident of protons and electrons traveling blind, that thought is a temporary product of gray matter, and that the events of history are an interaction of matter and motion operating by the principle of necessity.

Dr. King describes here the problem of modern reductionism, in which things are reduced to matter alone and attributed entirely to material causes. Thus even concepts such as justice, meaning, and beauty must somehow be explained materially in terms of their cause. The human soul that knows immaterial things does mediate its thoughts through the brain and central nervous system, but it does not follow that the medium is the cause. For it does not pertain to matter to be the cause of what is immaterial or spiritual.

Having no place for God or for eternal ideas, materialism is opposed to both theism and idealism. This materialistic philosophy leads inevitably into a dead-end street in an intellectually senseless world. To believe that human personality is the result of the fortuitous interplay of atoms and electrons is as absurd as to believe that a monkey by hitting typewriter keys at random will eventually produce a Shakespearean play. Sheer magic!

Many atheists think they have solved this conundrum, but I think that they “solve” it with a set of assumptions so outlandish and unproven that it requires far more “faith” to accept them than to believe in an intelligent designer and creator.

The statistical possibility that things could come together “by chance” to form complex life—let alone intelligent life—and not just once but at least twice (for reproduction’s sake) is minuscule! (As Dr. King says, “Sheer magic!”) Those who demand we accept this explanation are far more credulous than are believers, who observe creation and its intricately design and conclude (reasonably) that there is an intelligent creator.

It is much more sensible to say with Sir James Jeans, the physicist, that “the universe seems to be nearer to a great thought than to a great machine,” or with Arthur Balfour, the philosopher, that “we now know too much about matter to be materialists.” Materialism is a weak flame that is blown out by the breath of mature thinking. Exactly! The universe shouts design and intelligence.

Another attempt to make God irrelevant is found in non-theistic humanism, a philosophy that deifies man by affirming that humanity is God. Man is the measure of all things. Many modern men who have embraced this philosophy contend, as did Rousseau, that human nature is essentially good. Evil is to be found only in institutions, and if poverty and ignorance were to be removed everything would be all right. The twentieth century opened with such a glowing optimism. Men believed that civilization was evolving toward an earthly paradise.

The Catholic Faith defines this error as utopianism and pseudo-messianism.

Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism (Catechism of the Catholic Church #675-676).

We all know what a bloodbath the 20th century became. So much for man being his own measure!

Herbert Spencer skillfully molded the Darwinian theory of evolution into the heady idea of automatic progress. Men became convinced that there is a sociological law of progress which is as valid as the physical law of gravitation. Possessed of this spirit of optimism, modern man broke into the storehouse of nature and emerged with many scientific insights and technological developments that completely revolutionized the earth. The achievements of science have been marvelous, tangible and concrete. …

[But] Man’s aspirations no longer turned Godward and heavenward. Rather, man’s thoughts were confined to man and earth. And man offered a strange parody on the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our brethren which art upon the earth, Hallowed be our name. Our kingdom come. Our will be done on earth, for there is no heaven.”

Those who formerly turned to God to find solutions for their problems turned to science and technology, convinced that they now possessed the instruments needed to usher in the new society.

Scripture says, Claiming to be wise they became fools and their senseless minds were darkened (Rom 1:22).

Then came the explosion of this myth. It climaxed in the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and in the fierce fury of fifty-megaton bombs. Now we have come to see that science can give us only physical power, which, if not controlled by spiritual power, will lead inevitably to cosmic doom.

Atheists are forever noting how many lives were lost in the name of religion. Frankly, those numbers are not even close to those claimed in the bloodbath ushered in by atheistic materialists.

The words of Alfred the Great are still true: “Power is never a good unless he be good that has it.” We need something more spiritually sustaining and morally controlling than science. It is an instrument that, under the power of God’s spirit, may lead man to greater heights of physical security, but apart from God’s spirit, science is a deadly weapon that will lead only to deeper chaos. Make it plain, Dr. King!

Why fool ourselves about automatic progress and the ability of man to save himself? We must lift up our minds and eyes unto the hills from whence comes our true help. Then, and only then, will the advances of modern science be a blessing rather than a curse. Without dependence on God our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest night. Unless his spirit pervades our lives, we find only what G.K. Chesterton called “cures that don’t cure, blessings that don’t bless, and solutions that don’t solve.” “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Note that Dr. King has called upon two Catholic intellectuals (St. Alfred the Great and G.K. Chesterton) to be his witnesses.

Unfortunately, the rich man [in the parable] did not realize this. He, like many men of the twentieth century, became so involved in big affairs and small trivialities that he forgot God. He gave the finite infinite significance and elevated a preliminary concern to ultimate standing. After the rich man had accumulated his vast resources of wealth—at the moment when his stocks were accruing the greatest interest and his palatial home was the talk of the town—he came to that experience which is the irreducible common denominator of all men, death.

At every funeral I say to the mourners, “You are going to die.” And then I tell them that we must get ready, not with more things but with more God.

The fact that he died at this particular time adds verve and drama to the story, but the essential truth of the parable would have remained the same had he lived to be as old as Methuselah. Even if he had not died physically, he was already dead spiritually. The cessation of breathing was a belated announcement of an earlier death. He died when he failed to keep a line of distinction between the means by which he lived and the ends for which he lived and when he failed to recognize his dependence on others and on God.

May it not be that the “certain rich man” is Western civilization? Rich in goods and material resources, our standards of success are almost inextricably bound to the lust for acquisition.

The means by which we live are marvelous indeed. And yet something is missing. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. Our abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit.

An Oriental writer has portrayed our dilemma in candid terms:

“You call your thousand material devices ‘labor-saving machinery,’ yet you are forever ‘busy.’ With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else. You have a machine to dig the raw material for you, a machine to manufacture [it], a machine to transport [it], a machine to sweep and dust, one to carry messages, one to write, one to talk, one to sing, one to play at the theater, one to vote, one to sew, and a hundred others to do a hundred other things for you, and still you are the most nervously busy man in the world. Your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving machinery. They are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery and to do more business.” So true!

…The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man. Like the rich man of old, we have foolishly minimized the internal of our lives and maximized the external. We have absorbed life in livelihood.

We have maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum.

We will not find peace in our generation until we learn anew that “a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses,” but in those inner treasuries of the spirit which “no thief approaches, neither moth corrupts.” Our hope for creative living lies in our ability to re-establish the spiritual ends of our lives in personal character and social justice. Without this spiritual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the misuse of our own instruments. Our generation cannot escape the question of our Lord: What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world of externals—airplanes, electric lights, automobiles, and color television—and lose the internal—his own soul? Amen!