B.I.B.L.E.

In today's first reading at Mass (from the Book of Nehemiah, chapter 8) the Israelites gather to listen to Nehemiah proclaim the Word of God.  They hear God's Law, the way that God showed them to live so that they would be safe and prosper.  What was their reaction when they heard the Word proclaimed?  They break into tears.  Why?  They grieve because they realize that they had not followed God's Law and the result was disastrous. God's Law gave them directions but they ignored the directions and lost their way.

How do Nehemiah and Ezra respond?  They say, "Do not be sad, and do not weep."  They tell them to celebrate: "Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength."  Basically they are being told: "Don't look back.  Don't dwell on the past, nor on your failures.  Learn from your mistakes but don't dwell on them.  Be joyful because now you know better.  You can make a fresh start."  

Every Sunday God's Word is proclaimed in the Church.  In fact, every day we have an opportunity to hear or read God's Word.  But do we listen?  The statistics say "no."  In 2008 the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) took a survey of U.S. Catholic adults.  The good news is that when asked if they had a Bible in their home 87% answered "yes."  The bad news is that when asked how often they read that Bible in the past year 32% answered "never" and 31% answered "a few times."  Apparently their Bibles were heirlooms in which to record significant family events and then to sit on a shelf gathering dust.  

Another, informal survey found that the average Christian, including those who described themselves as "Bible-based" Christians, spent more time in one evening watching T.V. than the rest of the week reading the Bible.  In other words, if one watched 3 hours of television on any given night, 3 hours or less were spent during the entire week reading God's Word.  What does that say about what is forming the minds, the hearts, the attitudes and values of the average Christian?  

We need to hear God's Word as much as the people of Nehemiah's time did.  I have a CD that was created with music from the Great Jubilee Year 2000 World Youth Day.  It's called "One" and it includes a song written by Steven Delopoulos and John Philippidis called "Basic Instructions."  The "basic instructions" are found in the Bible which can be said to stand for "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth."  The Bible--God's Word, God's Law--is our guide book for how to live in a way that leads to the Kingdom God has prepared for humanity from the beginning.  

The Bible is not the sort of book that one can say, "I've read it several times.  I know what's in it.  I know the story and how it ends.  There's nothing new there for me."  The Bible is unlike any other book.  We do not read the Bible for information nor for entertainment.  We prayerfully read the Bible for "formation"--to have our minds and hearts formed by the "living Word" (see Hebrews 4: 12).

With today's technology there are new and convenient ways to make Scripture more a part of our lives.  I have an app on my phone that can be found at www.downloadjesus.com.  I also receive  two daily email messages that briefly reflect on the Mass readings.  One is from a group called "Presentation Ministries" ( https://www.presentationministries.com/obob/obob.asp ) and the other is from Bishop Robert Barron  ( https://dailycatholicgospel.com/sign-up-daily-gospel ).  

But the Eucharistic celebration is a special time and place where Jesus is alive, speaking to us through the Scriptures.  Then, having our hearts set ablaze by the Word present in the Scriptures, Jesus opens our eyes to His special presence in the second part of our celebration, the breaking of the bread (see Luke 24: 30-32).  The Word becomes flesh on our altars.  The bread and wine are transformed into Christ's Body and Blood.  

In this way today's Gospel (Luke 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21) is fulfilled.   Jesus proclaimed a passage from the prophet Isaiah and announced "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."  It's as though Jesus is saying: "Today you are not only hearing the Word of God you can see that Word in the flesh.  You can see the one about whom Isaiah was speaking. You can see this Word standing in front of you accomplishing what was described."  

At Baptism we were joined to the Body of Christ.  This was not a mere enrollment into a human organization.  A divine and organic union took place.  And when we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, His very flesh, in Holy Communion, that baptismal union is nourished and strengthened.  We are not individuals alienated from one another.  We are, in the words of the second reading (1 Corinthians 12: 12-30) parts of One Body, the Body of Christ.  We belong to one another.  We need one another.  We cannot exist apart from one another and our Head, Jesus.  We are one and a sign to the world that unity and the peace that follows from it are possible.  Only sin separates us from the Body, from Christ and one another.  

Hearing this Word that God speaks to us today and seeing this Word made flesh and joining Himself to us, we go forth to fulfill the Word as Jesus did.  We go and live the Word that is spoken, seen, and received.  We hear God say to us through Nehemiah "Do not be sad."  Do not look back.  Do not live in the past regretting and resenting.  Be joyful.  Live in the present and be God's Word in the lives of others, one day at a time.  

You are Necessary

I celebrated Mass at 8 AM today, the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, with the Discalced Carmelite Sisters in Flemington, NJ and the small community that gathers on Sunday to pray with them.  Here is my homily:

I want to begin with a question: when did God think of you?  Was it nine months and a day before you were born?  Or ten months before your birth?  In the first reading (Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19) we hear God say, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you...." So God had us in mind before we were conceived and began to develop in our mothers' wombs.  But when did God first think of you?

In a homily he gave shortly after being elected to lead the Church, Pope Benedict XVI said that "each of us is the result of a thought of God."  The thoughts of God are eternal. God had you in mind from all eternity, not just at some moment in time preceding your conception and birth.  The Holy Father went on to say, "Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." 

Me?! Necessary?! Yes!

We have a tendency to think along the lines of the people of Nazareth whom we see in today's Gospel (Luke 4:21-30). They had an agenda and expectations about what the Messiah would be like. They thought he would be a great religious leader, a great military leader. Jesus, the hometown boy and son of a carpenter, didn't meet those expectations. They saw Him as insignificant.

We too have expectations. We too judge according to worldly standards of greatness.

Paul confronts that in our second reading (1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13). He writes that what's important is not prophecy or speaking in all sorts of human or heavenly tongues. What's important is not the miraculous moving of a mountain or being able to "comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge."  What's important is not giving up everything and living a life of poverty like that of St. Francis of Assisi.  What's important is not even undergoing great sufferings for the faith or undergoing martyrdom.  All of these can become the source of pride, that which first separated the devil and the first humans from God.  What matters is love.  We and what we do are nothing without love.

Why?  Because God is love and we're made in the image and likeness of love. We are here on earth for one reason--to learn to love. We exist to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength. Loving God totally, we will love what God loves--our neighbor, those others whom God also had in mind from all eternity.

What matters--what makes us necessary to God and for God's plan--is not doing great things, but the love with which we do everything. This is what Blessed Teresa of Calcutta taught when she said: "It is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do." This was the "Little Way" of the Doctor of the Church, St. Therese of Lisieux. This was the way of St. Teresa of Avila who, at the end of The Interior Castle, wrote:

"In sum, my Sisters, what I conclude with is that we shouldn't build castles in the air. The Lord doesn't look so much at the greatness of our works as the love with which they are done. And if we do what we can, His Majesty will enable us each day to do more and more, provided that we do not quickly tire. But during the little while this life lasts--and perhaps it will last a shorter time than each one thinks--let us offer the Lord interiorly and exteriorly the sacrifice we can. His Majesty will join it with that which He offered on the cross to the Father for us. Thus even though our works are small they will have the value our love for Him would have merited had they been great."

This is the way of the Apostleship of Prayer. We offer to God every day with its thoughts, words, and deeds, its prayers, works, joys, and sufferings, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In that way, every moment can be an act of love. United to the perfect offering of Jesus on the cross and at Mass, every moment becomes significant, eternally significant. And in that way, a necessary part of God's plan for you and the world. You and every act of love are necessary.

Receiving the Word

Today I celebrated Mass with the Sisters of St. Francis, the group that owns the building in which the national offices of the Apostleship of Prayer are located. Here is a summary of what I said in my homily.

According to our First Reading (Isaiah 55: 10-11), God's word is powerful and universal. God's word accomplishes what it was sent to do. In Genesis we see that when God spoke, creation came out of nothing. Like rain, God's word comes to the whole world; it comes to the just and the unjust. God sows the word, scattering it over a variety of terrains and peoples, as we read in the Gospel.

But, as we hear in the Second Reading (Romans 8: 18-23), "all creation is groaning." All creation, including ourselves, is made for more than what we currently experience. We're made for more than sin and its effect, death. We're made for what Isaiah prophesied in Chapter 11: 1-9--a peaceable kingdom where there will be total harmony, a time when "the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (verse 9). When will this be? In another letter of St. Paul's, Ephesians, we hear that it will be when our destiny is fulfilled, when the union for which we are made will be consummated, when God will be "all in all" (1: 22). Or, as Paul puts it a few chapters later, when we and all creation will "be filled with the fullness of God" (3: 19). In short, the groaning will be over when the seed of God's word is received and brings forth the fruit of eternal life.

The seed, the word, is a person. It is Jesus, the very Word of God. After the 2008 Synod of Bishops, Pope Benedict wrote the Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini in which he said that the Word of God is more than a book, more than the Scriptures. It is the Living Word whom we encounter through the Scriptures. Throughout Verbum Domini Pope Benedict speaks about the "encounter" and the "relationship" to which we are called and which is facilitated through the Scriptures.

Jesus is the Word-Made-Flesh, God's perfect communication to creation. But communication is a two-way street. Spouses know this well. If one of them is reading the paper or watching television or surfing the Internet and the other is talking, communication does not occur. "Huh? What was that you were saying?" is the response to the one who asks a question, hears no response, and declares "You aren't listening!" God wants communication with us, the basis for a relationship. God does not want to talk at us but to us. God wants us to listen and receive His Word. God wants to talk with us, eager for our response to His communication. In Verbum Domini 86-87 Pope Benedict writes about this process which is called "lectio divina," divine or sacred reading. It involves not only listening to God speak through the Scriptures but also responding in prayer and in action, in the way we live our lives.

Prayer isn't easy. Many people get discouraged because as they read from a book or from the Bible they become distracted. The words seem to pass before their eyes while the thoughts in their minds are very different. This seems to be natural. Our minds always seem to race with thousands of thoughts. This is even more true today when so many distractions--radio, television, the Internet--are part of our daily lives. It isn't easy to focus on the words of a prayer or of the Bible. It requires hard work and discipline. When our minds wander away from the words on the page, we ought not get discouraged but should simply bring the words back into focus.

The ultimate example of this is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was receptive to the Word, not passive. She had focus. Her Immaculate Heart was not filled with the birds and weeds of temptation and distraction. Her Pure Heart was purely open and devoted to the will of God. And, as St. Augustine said, after receiving the Word into her Heart, she then conceived the Word in her womb. She received the Word first into her Heart and then gave flesh to that Word.

Every time we celebrate Mass we do the same. We encounter the Word in the proclamation of the Scriptures and in the Sacrament. We open our minds and hearts to receive Him. We open our mouths to praise Him and to receive Him into our bodies. We receive the Word so that He might be "all-in-all" in us. We receive the Word and are transformed. We receive the Word-Made-Flesh, His very Body and Blood, and become what we receive. Having received the Word in the Scriptures and Sacrament, we now give Him flesh and bring Him to others.

Mark

Do you have a favorite Gospel? I don't know if I can answer that question myself. There are things that I like about each of the Gospels and each of them have unique stories or parables that aren't found in the others. So I have to admit, I don't have a favorite. Yet, going through Mark's Gospel these days in the weekday readings at Mass, I find myself admiring the concreteness of the details I find there.

For example, I find today's Gospel, Mark 5: 1-20, the story of the Gerasene demoniac, particularly vivid. I can just picture the poor man "crying out and bruising himself with stones." I can picture the terrified villagers trying to restrain him with chains and shackles which he pulls apart and smashes. I've often thought of this scene in conjunction with how I am tempted to "bruise" myself with past sins. I think this is common. Satan, who is also known as "the accuser," loves to get us thinking about past sins and beating ourselves up with them, even though we've confessed them and have been forgiven.

Today I learned something else about this passage. I subscribe to a bi-monthly booklet called "One Bread, One Body" which is published by a group in Cincinnati called "Presentation Ministries." They were founded by a great diocesan priest, Fr. Al Lauer, who died a few years ago of cancer. His daily one page reflections continue to appear in this booklet and online at their web site and I always find them very practical and rich in Scripture references. So here's part of today's reflection that got me thinking:

"Jesus left the district, as the people requested. However, by declining the request of the former demoniac to accompany Him, Jesus made sure that His truth, power, and love would stay in the area through the new life of the former demoniac.

"We have many places, businesses, cities, nations, families, and even churches where Jesus has been told to go away. As requested, Jesus left. However, He also has left us behind. We live in these cities and families. We work in these businesses and churches. Jesus is still present through us, the members of His body. We are to be "other Christs" in the Christ-less situations of our society. We are to be sacraments, signs of Christ's presence. We are to be walking tabernacles, invading the secular world by carrying with us God's presence."

I've always wondered about Jesus telling the healed demoniac to stay where he was rather than to follow Jesus. Now I have a better idea why He may have told him this. Also, knowing God's mercy and dropping the stones of past sins that I may be tempted to beat myself with, I find myself challenged anew to be a "walking tabernacle."

Thank you, Fr. Lauer and Presentation Ministries!