Happy Birthday, John!

Usually the Church celebrates a feast on the death date of a saint.  That is their "birthday" into heaven.  But for three people we also celebrate their earthly births--Jesus (on Christmas Day), the Blessed Virgin Mary (on September 8, nine months after a celebration of her Immaculate Conception), and John the Baptist (today, June 24).  Three months ago we celebrated the Annunciation when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive and that her kinswoman Elizabeth was sixth months pregnant with a son, the one who has come to be known as St. John the Baptist.

You and I celebrate the days on which we were born and we also, at the end of our lives, are remembered and prayed for by our friends and relatives.  In between those dates--our birth and our death--we live our earthly lives.  John the Baptist is a great example for how to live those days.

What is the most important lesson that we can learn from John?  Humility.  In the second reading at Mass today (Acts 13: 22-26), in a speech of St. Paul, we hear how John told the many people who had come to follow him that he was not the Messiah, the Anointed One.  In fact, he said, he was even lower than the Messiah's servant: "Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet."

Yet our first reading (Isaiah 49: 1-6), in words that the Church applies to John the Baptist, says that "it is too little for you to be my servant.... I will make you a light to the nations...."  That sounds pretty glorious.  However, light is humble.  We don't turn a light on and then focus our attention on it.  Light is not there to be stared at. It does not draw attention to itself.  Rather, it humbly enlightens a place so that one can find one's way in the dark.

We too are called to be light for others, not to draw attention to ourselves but to help others find their way through the darkness of the world.

There is an expression: "to make a name for oneself."  Those who try to make a name for themselves want to become famous so that many people will recognize their name.  They want to draw attention to themselves.

John the Baptist did not try to make a name for himself.  He was given a name by God.  He should have been called "Zechariah," after his father.  But on the day of his circumcision, his parents made it clear that in obedience to God's will, which came to them through the Angel Gabriel, their son was to be named "John."  It's a name that means "God is gracious."  John's identity was to show the graciousness of God who sent the Son to live our life, suffer with and for us, and even share in our death so that we could share in his resurrection.  John prepared the way for the One who embodied the graciousness of God, the goodness and generosity of God.  John pointed to Jesus, the Incarnation of God's graciousness.

You and I were also given a name by God.  It wasn't the name our parents chose for us but the name that we received when we were baptized and joined to the Body of Christ.  We were named "Christian."  We became "other Christs."  The name "Christ" means "Anointed One."  At baptism we were anointed with the Sacred Chrism which is used to consecrate the altar and four walls of new churches, setting that space apart for the sacred purpose of worship.  When I was ordained, the bishop anointed my hands with Sacred Chrism, consecrating them for the sacred purpose of offering worship to God.  And when we were baptized and then confirmed, our foreheads were anointed with that same Sacred Chrism, consecrating each of us for the sacred purpose of offering worship to God.

We do that when we celebrate Mass and offer the perfect worship, joining ourselves to the perfect offering of Jesus as he renews his greatest act of love for the Father and for us.  But our worship doesn't end there.  We go forth and continue our worship in our daily lives, offering every thought, word, and deed, every prayer, work, joy, and suffering to God as an act of love and for the salvation of souls.  Our Daily Offering prayer helps us remember to offer the worship of daily life for which we have been anointed.

Like John, we are now called to live up to our name--Christian.  We are called to be true to the anointing and name that we received at baptism.  We are called not to make a name for ourselves but to make the Name of Jesus known and glorified.  For it is in this Name alone that the world has come to know salvation.

The Priesthood of the Baptized

Today is the feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, a bishop and doctor of the Church whose preaching was so inspired that he was called "Golden Word." He only lived about fifty years, but the 183 sermons of his that we have continue to speak to us over 1500 years after his death. In one of them, he reflects on St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 12: 1: “I urge you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”  These words are at the heart of what we strive to do in the Apostleship of Prayer: to live a Eucharistic life, a life in which we offer ourselves one day at a time with Jesus who offers himself to the Father for the salvation of the world.  The following is from Homily 108 of St. Peter Chrysologus:

How marvelous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering.  He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God: with himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer God for himself.  The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same.  Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill.  Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered without being shed.

Paul says: “I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living and holy.”  The prophet said the same thing: “Sacrifices and offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me.”  Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest.  Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you.  Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity.  Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection.  Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you.  Keep burning continually the sweet smelling incense of prayer.  Take up the sword of the Spirit.  Let your heart be an altar.  Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice.  God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender; God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will.

Called and Chosen

The readings at Mass today (15th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle B) are about vocation. In the first reading (Amos 7: 12-15) we hear about the call of a prophet who never planned on being one. In the Gospel (Mark 6: 7-13) we see how Jesus "summoned" the apostles and sent them out on a mission trip to confront evil and sickness head-on.  But I want to focus on the second reading from the first chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians.

It says that God chose us.  We are called to be children of God, followers of Jesus, members of the Body of Christ.  Or, as Paul puts it, "to be holy and without blemish."  We are made for union with God, to be holy as God is holy.  To be children of God and part of the Body of Christ means to be holy.

When did God call you?  When did God choose you?  Paul's answer may be surprising.  He writes that God chose us "before the foundation of the world."  In other words, before this world was created, God had you in mind. Shortly after his election as pope, Benedict XVI told the cardinals that "each of us is the result of a thought of God." And since those thoughts are eternal, God had you in mind from all eternity.

Why?  Why did God choose to create you and call you?  Pope St. John Paul II said that "each person is unique, precious, and unrepeatable."  There never was, never will, and isn't another "you" among the billions of human beings.  You give God a joy and pleasure that no other human being can.

You were chosen to be holy, like God. For that to happen a transformation is required.  This is where another word that Paul uses comes into play: "In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ."  Through baptism we became adopted children of God. However, when we say that we're speaking of something deeper than human adoption.  Human adoption is beautiful.  Parents give a child their name and their love, food and shelter and education. But parents cannot give an adopted child their own genetic makeup, their blood.  With God it's different. An interior transformation takes place. Through baptism a real change occurs.  God gives us grace to transform us into true children of God.  This is our deepest identity.   A person at baptism is flooded with sanctifying grace and is "holy and without blemish."

Now we are called to live out of our deepest identity: to be and to act what we truly are--children of God, joined to Christ, members of his Body.

All Christians have this most basic vocation and it is within this context that other calls are heard, other vocations arise.

Today is the wedding anniversary of a very special couple. They had nine children, four of whom died early. Four of the surviving children became Discalced Carmelite Sisters and one became a Visitation Sister.  The cause for the beatification of the latter, Leonie, has just been opened.  Of the four other daughters, one has been canonized--St. Therese of Lisieux. And the parents, who celebrate their anniversary today in heaven--Louis and Zelie Martin--will soon become the first married couple in the history of the Church to be canonized together.

You can find out more about this beautiful family at the following websites:

Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway
Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, the Parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux
Leonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Therese of Lisieux

"I Will Draw Everyone to Myself"

I'm giving a parish mission this week at Mary Immaculate Church in Farmers Branch, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. I'm preaching at the 5 English Masses this weekend (there are also 3 Spanish Masses) and then giving mission talks on Monday and Tuesday and helping with a Reconciliation Service on Wednesday. Here's the gist of my homily this weekend.

Jesus said: "And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself." The Gospel of John states that in saying this, Jesus was "indicating the kind of death he would die." Jesus, on the cross, draws all people to himself, to his Sacred Heart. This is the greatest sign of love the world has ever known. In his first encyclical letter, "God is Love," Pope Benedict said that in a world that uses the word "love" for all sorts of things, our definition for love must begin at the pierced side of Jesus on the cross.

The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love. At every Mass Jesus is lifted up and draws us to himself. He gives himself for us and to us. The Eucharist is the "new covenant" about which Jeremiah wrote in the first reading. It is the covenant and law of love that is not out there, exterior to the human person, but is within us and written on our hearts. It is written there because Jesus unites his Heart with ours in Holy Communion and transforms our hearts so that we are able to love as he loves.

When we look at the love of Jesus revealed through his pierced heart on the cross, we see that love is not so much a feeling as a decision, a choice. It is not so much an interior feeling but action. And it is not automatic.

Our second reading from Chapter 5 of the Letter to the Hebrews shows this. It is a strange passage that requires some reflection to better understand. First, it says that Jesus "offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears." Of course Jesus prayed to the Father throughout his life, but this description makes us immediately think of his prayer in a garden called Gethsemane. There he prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me" (Luke 22: 42). Hebrews says that the prayer of Jesus was heard. Every prayer is heard. But sometimes the answer that is given is not the one for which we are praying, just as it was with Jesus. The cup of suffering and death on the cross did not pass. Jesus drank it to its bitter dregs.

Then our second reading goes on to say, "Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him." What?! It sounds as though at some point Jesus was not perfect and then became perfect through his obedience and suffering. How are we to understand this?

Think of the physical muscles of a body. A baby has perfect "baby muscles" but they need to grow and develop in order to become a child's muscles, a teen's muscles, and an adult's muscles. The virtues--like obedience or faith, trust or hope, patience or chastity, or the greatest, love--also need to grow and develop. They could be called "spiritual muscles." Just as the physical muscles of Jesus needed to grow and develop, so too his spiritual muscles. They were always there in perfect form, but they became even stronger as they developed until, in the case of his obedience, it reached its fullest perfection in the Garden of Gethsemane and the next day on the cross.

How do muscles whether physical or spiritual develop and grow? Through the hard work and discipline of exercise. Virtues don't come automatically or out of the blue. They are given to us in seed form and we need to exercise them in order for them to grow and reach perfection. Very often people tell me that they pray for patience and God does not hear nor answer their prayer. They say that they end up facing even more situations where they lose their patience. God is answering their prayer for patience; just not the way they expect. They expect the virtue of patience to come out of the blue in answer to their prayer when the truth is that God answers their prayer by giving them more and more opportunities to exercise patience so that it will grow.

A parish mission is a time to exercise. We will come away this week to reflect on the gifts we have received in the Holy Eucharist and Baptism. We will talk about ways that we can exercise the gifts that are given to us in these Sacraments. Then, as we allow the Lord to draw us to himself when he is lifted up at Mass, and as we receive his Body and Blood, including his Heart, to transform us, we will be better able to live the transformation in our daily lives.

Abundant Water

Today's first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapter 47, paints a picture of a tiny trickle of water that flows "from the right side of the temple" and becomes a river so high that it cannot "be crossed except by swimming." This water freshens and heals everything that comes into contact with it. Since this was the vision of a prophet, it's fair to ask, when was this prophetic vision fulfilled?

On Good Friday.

In John's Gospel, at what is called "The Cleansing of the Temple," Jesus said: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" (2: 19). Verse 21 explains: "he was speaking about the temple of his body." It was from this body, this temple, that the water which Ezekiel saw came forth. After His death, when the side of Jesus was pierced by a soldier's spear, "immediately blood and water flowed out" (John 19: 34). The Heart of Jesus is the source of the abundant water that freshens and heals. From His Heart, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the earth by transforming all who are baptized, all who are "born of water and Spirit" (John 3: 5).


Praise the Sacred and life-giving Heart of Jesus!

St. Paul's in Fenton

I'm at St. Paul's Church in Fenton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, where I preached at five Masses this weekend in order to drum up interest in the parish mission which will begin tomorrow evening and go through Thursday evening. On Monday night I'll be talking about "The Transforming Power of Baptism" and then on each of the successive evenings I'll talk about the Baptismal call to be prophets, priests, and kings or royal people.

It's providential that the pastor, Msgr. Michael Dieckmann, asked for this topic when I presented him some options a year ago. Baptism was the focus of Pope Benedict's message for Lent this year. In the first part of his message, the Holy Father wrote: "Baptism is not a rite from the past, but the encounter with Christ, which informs the entire existence of the baptized, imparting divine life...." We don't reflect on this enough. We tend, like Samuel in the first reading at Mass today, to judge by appearances. Like the Pharisees we focus on externals and do not appreciate the truth of Jesus and the truth of ourselves whose deepest identity is that of children adopted into God's family. Divine life is at work within us. In the conclusion of his message, Pope Benedict called Lent "the journey of conversion towards Easter [that] leads us to rediscover our Baptism." He continued: "This Lent, let us renew our acceptance of the Grace that God bestowed upon us at that moment, so that it may illuminate and guide all our actions."

The two priests at St. Paul's are in the process of moving back into the rectory which was extensively damaged by a tornado that landed on Fenton last New Year's Eve. I'm staying in a house that they rented less than a block from the church. Today the temperature reached 85 and storms are predicted tonight as a front approaches that will drop the temperatures back down into the 40's. Such drastic changes can only mean one thing: the possibility of severe weather. What are the chances that a tornado will hit here again just three months after the last one? Stayed tuned....

John's Prologue

On the last day of the calendar year, the Gospel reading at Mass is the Prologue of John, the first 18 verses of John's Gospel. Prior to the liturgical changes that followed the Second Vatican Council, the first 14 verses were read at the end of every Mass and were known as the Last Gospel. They culminated with the words: "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth." Taking the entire Prologue or beginning of John's Gospel, as we do today, one might have the impression that verse 14 is the climax. It isn't.

The Prologue has a chiastic structure. It forms an "X" with the theme of the first verses being repeated in the last verses, and the second set of verses being repeated in the second to the last verses, and the third set of verses being repeated in the third to the last verses. This leaves the most important verses in the very middle. And those verses are not "the Word became flesh."

Take out your Bible and see for yourself, but remember that when the Scriptures were written they were not broken down into verses. The chapters and verses that we now have didn't come about until the 16th Century. So looking only at the number of verses, and not the themes, the verses of John's Prologue are not a perfect chiasm. However, the themes of the verses are what make it chiastic.

The first verses--1 to 5--speak of the Word of God who gives light and life. The last verses--16-18--echo that theme, speaking of the grace that comes to us through the only Son of God who is closest to the Father. The next set--verses 6 to 8--speak of John the Baptist and verse 15 repeats the witness of John. Finally, part three--verses 9 to 11--speak of how the Word came into a world which did not accept Him and the third to the last part--verse 14--declares that the Word was made flesh and came among us.

Which leaves, as the center of the chiastic structure of the Prologue, verses 12 to 13: "But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God." We, the baptized, are at the center of John's Prologue. The Word became flesh and lived, died, and rose among us so that we could become children of God. This happens through the Holy Spirit who joins the baptized to Christ, making us one with Him.

All of this is a way of saying that we are very important to God. Or, as John writes a little later in his Gospel: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son..." (3: 16). Joined to the Son through baptism, we are now very close to God. How close? The last verse of the Prologue, verse 18, tells us. Joined to Christ, members of His Body, we are, with Him, "at the Father's side."

That translation--"at the Father's side"--is from the New American Bible. There are other translations that make even more clear the intimacy that Jesus and we have with the Father. The Douay-Rheims and King James translations both say that the Son "is in the bosom of the Father." In ancient Hebrew culture, to be "in the bosom" of another described the closest intimacy possible. It was an expression that was used to describe the relationship of a mother and a child, as well as that of a husband and a wife.

The New Revised Standard and New Jerusalem translations have "who is close to the Father's heart," while the old Jerusalem Bible and Revised English Bible translate this phrase "nearest to the Father's heart."

It's natural, when we come to the end of the calendar year, to look back at all the things we've done, and to look forward, anticipating all the things we're going to do in the coming year. I'd suggest that we do our end-of-the-year reflections a little differently. Look back at all the things God has done for you this past year. And instead of looking forward, spend some time savoring your identity. As a beloved child of God through baptism, you are "nearest to the Father's heart." You are "in the bosom of the Father." If we can begin the new year convinced of that, then we will be ready. For what's most important is not so much what we do, but what God has done for us and who we are. We want all that we will do in the coming year to flow from that.

Baptismal Consecration

Yesterday morning and today, as part of the parish mission I'm giving in Affton, Missouri, I went around to the grade school classrooms to talk about baptism. Most of the students had no memory of their own baptism, but in a few cases there were students who had been baptized as children, and in some other cases they had been present at the baptisms of their siblings. They remembered that the ceremony included water, oil, a candle, and a white garment.

We then talked about the oil, the sacred chrism. I asked them: "Besides baptism, what other three times is sacred chrism used?" The easiest of the three other times was the sacrament of confirmation. With a little prompting they were able to figure out the third time--at the ordination of a new priest. But they had trouble with the fourth time. An eighth grader was the only one to answer: "At the blessing of a new church."

Sacred chrism is very special. It is used to anoint the walls of a new church, setting that space aside for a holy purpose. It's used to anoint the altar of the new church, setting it aside for a holy purpose. It's used to anoint the hands of a newly ordained priest, setting them aside for God's service, the holy purpose of offering the sacraments. And it's used to anoint the heads of the baptized and the confirmed, setting these Christians aside for a holy purpose, consecrating them for God's service. One of the ways that we serve God and fulfill the holy purpose that we've been given in baptism and confirmation is to pray.

At this point in our little baptismal lesson I asked the children if they ever prayed for other people and they went through a survey of the people for whom they pray. Then I showed them how at every Mass we pray for the local bishop and for the pope. This is a general kind of prayer and I asked them: "If the pope asked you to pray for something would you?" The answer I get is usually a pretty spontaneous and enthusiastic "yes!" And then I told them about the very specific monthly prayer requests of the pope. In some cases I was able to show the students the Apostleship of Prayer web site and how to get to the "Kids' Page" or the "Teenagers' Page." And I left every teacher with a leaflet that has the pope's intentions for the year and with the encouragement to remind their students about those intentions at the beginning of each month.