Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist (August 29th, 2015)

Today the Church celebrates the Passion of St. John the Baptist. A popular understanding of the word “passion” is taken to mean intense, romantic affection, but the word passion really means suffering, and suffering of an extreme kind.

The sufferings of John of Baptist were not just associated with his death, which was particularly brutal and cruel, but with his life. John’s mission set him against the great powers of his culture- those of temple, priesthood and king, and because of his opposition to these powers, his life was one of self-imposed exile, a life on the margins.

From his exile he cried out for the great powers to repent, and announced an end to their reign. God was coming into the world to set things right and with him would arrive a new temple, priesthood and kingdom. Of course, power is rarely surrendered willingly, and the powers of the old order set themselves in as fierce an opposition to John as he had placed himself in opposition to them.

The passion of John the Baptist was fueled by his love for God, a love that he understood to be most often resisted and refused. The great powers of the world were manipulators of the people’s affection for God and a distraction that prevented their conversion. John had no patience for their pomp and pretense and proclaimed that their only option was to repent before God revealed himself to the world. With the revelation of God, the world of the great powers was coming to an end, and if they were to have a place in God’s new world, they would have to change.

Christ would be the revelation that John longed for.

John also perceived correctly that behind the great powers of the world were fallen spiritual powers, sin, death and the devil. These were not powers with whom it was possible to negotiate. Those earthly powers that had aligned themselves with these dark powers would face along with those powers the full opposition of God. John believed that now was the time for earthly powers to extricate themselves from their relationship with the dark powers no matter the cost.

Many of the earthly powers considered that cost and refused to abandon their commitment to the dark powers much to the dismay of John the Baptist.

John the Baptist, burned with a passion that the world be set right, and grieved that so many would choose to be ruined, rather than changed.

Today’s Gospel provides the grisly details of the murder of John the Baptist. It is truly a tale of terror.

There are profound levels of meaning that are enveloped in the succinct description of the events leading to John’s death.

John is the prisoner of Herod, the son and namesake of the tyrant Herod who murdered the children of Bethlehem. Herod has imprisoned John because John insists that Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias, is a sham and an affront to God’s law. John sees in this sham marriage a kind of elitism, which insists that the wealthy and powerful are not held bound by the standards of decency that bind everyone else. John has the audacity to proclaim this truth publically and for this reason he is imprisoned.

Herod, who as king should be the great driver of the events proves in reality to be merely a pawn of his own and other people’s desires. In fact, corrupting desires are the real movers of the events. These desires are infectious, and their corruption comes to its terrifying fulfillment in the request of the daughter (Herod’s niece) of Herod’s lover, (Herodias, the wife of Herod’s brother) who asks her uncle for the head of John on a platter, a request that is has no motive other than to fulfill the vanity of the her mother, the awful Herodias.

Adding to this horror is a detail that is often missed (or ignored): The original language of the text, which is Greek, reveals that young girl who dances before Herod and his courtiers is not a sultry seductress, but a mere child. This makes the story all the more disturbing. A mother sends her little girl to perform a suggestive dance before her husband, the child’s uncle, in hopes of stirring up his perverse desires so that she can manipulate the situation to effect the murder of an innocent man.

Herodias is awful. Herod is despicable. The child is an unwitting accomplice in murder. Like I said, truly a tale of terror.

This story, which is as dramatic as the libretto for an opera, is a profound reflection on what happens when to serve our own corrupted desires, rather than God. It illuminates what happens when we try to use our willfulness to control and manipulate others. In these circumstances, the end always justifies the means, and the end is usually satisfying the desire for wealth, pleasure, power and honors.

Today’s Gospel is not just a tale of terror but a cautionary tale in regards to what happens when as a result of our desires, we abandon God’s will and seek instead the fulfillment of our own will.

When we are unreflective in our moral choices, enamored of our own egoism, caught up in the rapacious need to be admired or to get our own way- disaster will follow, and it will come not only for us, but also for all those around us.

When we connive and scheme to get our way, when the commandments of God are always met with an insistence that one is exempt or excused from responsibility, no one is safe, not even the innocent. In fact, it is the innocent who will suffer and the innocent who will die.

Attending to this story of the passion of John the Baptist we can understand better why he resisted the fallen powers of the world and so looked forward to the revelation of God who would come into this world to set things right.

What about our own passion to resist? What about our own passion for God to come into our own lives and set us right?

Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (August 28th, 2015)

Today the Church celebrates the life, legacy and heavenly intercession of Saint Augustine.

Saint Augustine is one of the Church’s greatest teachers, a master of theology and spirituality. He surrendered his prodigious intellectual gifts to Christ, who elevated and transformed them into instruments that would not only benefit the Church, but civilization. Though composed centuries ago, the spiritual treatises, cultural commentaries, scriptural exegesis and theological essays of St. Augustine remain fresh and new.

Born in the year 354 AD, Augustine was the son of a religiously indifferent father and a pious Christian mother. His path to the Lord was filled with obstacles, the most significant of which was his own pride. The story of Augustine’s struggle to know God and accept Christ as his Savior and Friend is told by Augustine himself in one of the greatest autobiographies ever written- an autobiography known as the Confessions.

The story of Augustine’s Confessions is that of a man for whom faith did not come easily and through careful consideration of Augustine’s testimony was can gain empathy for those who hold ideas that are contrary to God’s revelation in Christ, defiantly resist Christ, sadly leave him, or seem to have no faith at all. Despite all this in Augustine’s own life, he eventually came to accept Christ and share a relationship with him in the Church.

Augustine’s struggle and troubled path to Christ reminds us that faith is foremost, not just an act of the will, but a wondrous and deeply mysterious gift. God in Christ will fulfill his promise to draw all things, all people, into relationship with him, but how this is accomplished is unique for each person and the way in which faith “happens” cannot be forced, but must happen in accord with Christ’s will and purposes.

Faith, like a seed that is planted, cannot be compelled to grow by brute force. No plant would survive if out of concern to expedite growth, a person aggressively pulled on the stem of the plant to make it grow. So it is with the gift of faith.

Our own role in how the gift of faith is to nurture, to trust and to help, offering assistance in accord with our own charisms and gifts and leading the seeker to those who have the charisms and gifts that are needed, but that we might lack ourselves.

St. Augustine eloquently proclaimed “You O Lord have made us for yourself and out hearts are restless until they rest in you.” This restlessness of the heart is the condition of all of us, and it is God’s way of prompting us of the reality of his existence and of his interest in us.

That so many seem so restless in their faith should not be understood as merely an unwillingness to ever believe. If we learn anything from St. Augustine’s circuitous journey to Christ, it is that the Lord can very effectively use our resistance as the very means of drawing us into communion with his life and his love.

Memorial of Saint Monica (August 27th, 2015)

Saint Monica was likely born in the year 331 AD and died in the year 387 AD. Her husband was a Roman of minor nobility named Patricius and with Patricius, Monica had three children- one of whom was named Augustine. Augustine would become one of the premiere converts to the Catholic Faith and his works of theology and spirituality are among the greatest of the treasures of the Church.

But the path from Augustine to Saint Augustine would not be clear and easy. Augustine spent much of his youth resisting Christ and the Church and this resistance caused his mother, Monica, much in tears and in turmoil

Monica petitioned the Lord for years that he might intervene in the life of her son. When this intervention finally did take place, and Augustine came to know Christ, and accepted a life as a disciple in the Church, Monica was overjoyed, but would not live long enough to see the full flowering of Augustine’s faith.

Petitionary prayer is the most common kind of prayer offered by the faithful and though common, it is perhaps the most mysterious.

The Lord knows our needs better than we do and nothing that we request of him comes as a surprise. Further, our petitionary prayer, no matter how eloquent or persistent, has no power to force God to act in accord with our desires. We ask God for many things in prayer, but the deepest purpose of our petitions is not to get what we want, but to discern what God wants. Augustine’s conversion to Christ happened, but it happened on the Lord’s terms, not Monica’s.

Saint Monica trusted that God in Christ would not abandon her son to a directionless life of faithlessness and dissolution. She trusted that God’s purposes for her son’s life were greater than what his narrow perceptions could conceive. It is this act of trust, which is truly a manifestation of the theological virtue of hope, which became the crucible through which Monica’s sanctity was accomplished.

God’s purposes were as much accomplished in Monica’s willingness to abide in hope that God ultimately loved her son, even though he resisted that love, as his purposes were accomplished in Augustine’s conversion to Christ.

It was not Augustine’s conversion that made Monica a saint, but her willingness to surrender her will to Christ’s and in this surrender to abide in hope that Christ’s purposes for Augustine would one day be fulfilled. Monica lived to see that day, but even if she had not, her sanctification would have been accomplished.

Hope is one of the least remembered and least understood of the great theological virtues. This is sad in so many ways as it is often because people are bereft of hope that they refuse to believe and refuse to love.

Hope is not merely optimism, but an act of trust that God who did not abandon Christ to the powers of sin and death and the devil, will also not abandon us. Hope dares to believe that God’s purposes will be fulfilled even if we cannot foresee how this will be possible or when such fulfillment will take place.

On this day that the Church remembers the witness of St. Monica, let us renew ourselves in the hope that is instilled in us by the promises of Christ the Lord.

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (August 23rd, 2015)

Our first scripture for today is an excerpt from the Old Testament Book of Joshua. The Book of Joshua details how the Israelites reclaimed their ancestral lands after suffering as slaves to the gods of Egypt and wandering for years as nomads in the wilderness.

After many trials and tribulations, the Israelites have been tempered like steel in a crucible, and they are now ready to go home. But first, they must make a decision- will they give their lives over to God or serve false gods? The Israelites must decide. There is no possibility of evasion or equivocation. It’s God or the false gods.

Idolatry, the worship of false gods, is the capital sin of the Bible. All other sin originates in idolatry. Idolatry happens when we elevate a finite reality, even a good thing, to our ultimate concern, and making some thing our ultimate concern, we make it into a god.

So, you need not worship mythological beings to be an idolater or participate in bizarre rituals. False gods can be constructed out of nearly anything and are most often constructed out of our desires for wealth, pleasure, power and honors.

The Bible insists that all those who would profess faith in the true God must abandon service to false gods. This is not just a matter for ancient Israelites, it is a matter of pressing urgency for all Christians.

The challenge laid down before the Israelites by Joshua is a challenge laid down before all of us- there is no possibility of evasion or equivocation.   It’s Christ or the false gods. Whom do we serve? Whom will we serve?

Our second scripture is an excerpt from Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

The Letter to the Ephesians is St. Paul’s testimony about the relationship of Christ to his Church and the Church to Christ and our relationship to both.

Today’s excerpt from the Letter to the Ephesians likens the relationship of Christ to the Church as akin to that of a marriage, in which the love of spouses is manifested in self-sacrificial love. Christ gives his life over as a sacrifice for his Bride, the Church and she in turn gives her life over to Christ, her Groom, as a sacrifice.

It is this mutual, self-giving, sacrificial love that expresses itself in the life of that the Church generates in the world. All the works of the Church are meant to be understood as expressions of the self-sacrificial love of Christ for the Church and the Church for Christ.

Without this self-sacrifice, there is no potential for creativity and life and the mission of the Church falters and fails. The conditions for the possibility of life in the Church are a disposition of love and willingness to make sacrifices.

St. Paul understood that that it was the mission of Christ to love the Church and the Church to love Christ and this love would demand sacrifice- each would mutually give their lives for the other.

If we think of Christ in impersonal ways, merely a figure of historical significance, lacking a relationship to him which manifests itself in genuine acts of faith, hope and love; and if we think of the Church as merely an corporation that provides services in exchange for a monetary transaction, we should not be surprised that our experience of the Catholic Faith lacks life-giving power.

Christ is a living, divine person, and his relationship to the Church, that is, to us, happens when we accept that he is a living, divine person who offers us a relationship with him. Acceptance of the relationship is not like a financial transaction that secures for us membership in a club, but it is more like the vows that a husband and wife accept as the conditions for their marriage.

A marriage without love will not endure and there is real love, authentic love, true love without sacrifice. Unfortunately, too many Christians attempt to have a relationship with Christ and his Church without either love or sacrifice. It is for these reasons that parishes decline, dioceses becomes distant and impersonal bureaucracies, and the mission of the Church falters and fails.

For the past few weeks the Church has presented the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John as the Gospel text for Sunday Mass.

The sixth chapter of the Gospel of John provides us with Christ’s own testimony about the Eucharist, what the Eucharist is and what it means.

Christ is clear- the Eucharist is the gift of his divine life and presence given to us as food and drink. The Eucharist is not merely a symbol of Christ or an expression of community values. Even less is the Eucharist a cultural or ethnic custom. If we approach the Eucharist in there aforementioned ways, we distort the gift Christ gives us into an idol.

The Eucharist is the life and presence of the Lord Jesus himself!

Christ gives us his divine life and presence as food and drink so that sharing in his life and encountering his presence, we might become ever more like him. Christ gives us his divine life and presence as food and drink so that we can be fortified and strengthened for the mission he gives us to accomplish- both in this world and heaven.

The Eucharist is called the Blessed Sacrament and I don’t know how many of Christians actually consider what it means to call the Eucharist the Blessed Sacrament, but the reason the Church refers to the Eucharist is directly related to today’s Gospel.

At the dramatic conclusion of today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus insists that the Eucharist he gives will place the demand of a decision upon us- those who would be willing to participate in Christ’s Eucharist must decide whether or not they believe that the Eucharist is really and truly what Christ declares it to be.

Many refuse, and in their refusal, abandon Christ.

Christ insists that our reception of the Eucharist is always bound to a decision for or against Christ- are we for him or against him, do we profess to believe in him or not? No evasions or equivocations. We must decide. We cannot be simultaneously for and against Christ.

Sacramentum, the word from which “sacrament” comes from means “oath”. An oath is testimony, a profession of what we believe to be true. The condition for the possibility of an oath is a decision. That decision will reveal whether or not our oath taking is true or false.

The Eucharist is presented to us, and once presented and then we must decide whether or not to take the oath and receive. This is what our “Amen” made loud and clear before we receive is meant to signify.

If we receive, we are taking an oath, making a profession of faith, giving public testimony to what we believe to be true. If we cannot or will not do this, we should not receive. Receiving the Eucharist becomes dangerous to the soul if we construe it as a merely passive act without serious consequences.

Receiving the Eucharist is not a symbolic gesture of affirmation in regards to my membership in “Club Catholic”. Nor is receiving the Eucharist a matter of whatever an individual chooses it to mean.

Receiving the Eucharist is a serious decision. It is an oath we take. It is an encounter with the Lord Jesus in which we either give our lives over to Christ, the Holy One of God and the Master of Eternal Life or we return to the false gods and the former way of life we believed to be true before we knew and accompanied Christ.

Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 22nd, 2015)

Today the Church celebrates the Queenship of the Mother of God. This is a curious, one might say, ironic title, given that Christ’s Mother likely knew little honor during her earthly life, let alone the honors paid to a queen. Though her Queenship was justified beyond that of any mortal sovereign, she lived her life uncrowned and mostly unknown.

There was no sign of regal splendor in her home in Nazareth. No monuments were raised to her greatness during her lifetime. She commanded no armies and presided over no governments.

In the eyes of the worldly, she would have appeared to be insignificant.

Yet she is the Queen of Earth and Heaven, and by the command of her Divine Son, no power in heaven or earth is her rival. Even the mightiest of the angels cedes to his place to her. She is the most profound example of the fulfillment of Christ’s promise that the last will first and first will be last. Why such honors?

Mary is the privileged bearer of Christ into the world. All the honors and titles that the Church acclaims as belonging to her are a proclamation of her mission as Mother of God.

The Church’s celebration of Mary as Queen is not an attempt to honor femininity in general or elevate her to the status of a goddess, instead, it is way of directing our attention to the great and mysterious revelation that makes our communion with God possible- the mystery of the Incarnation.

Remember, the Incarnation is the startling revelation that God has accepted a human nature and lived a real human life. This revelation happens in the real flesh and real blood of Jesus of Nazareth. We Christians believe that God has acted in such an extraordinary way so that he might share his divine life with us and elevate the dignity of our humanity. Because of the Incarnation, God shares kinship with us, making us members of his family- becoming his sons and daughters, his brothers and sisters.

The saints and sages of the Church testify to the Incarnation as a “marvelous exchange”- God accepting from us a share in our humanity so that he might give to us a share in his divinity. This “marvelous exchange” is really and truly what the Gospel is all about.

Christ who elevates us to share in his life and make of us his kin, chooses as his mother one who is lowly, and lifts her up to reign as Queen over earth and heaven.

Marvelous exchange indeed!

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Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time (August 18th, 2015)

The Bible is a book of battles, both literal battles that take place on fields of combat and spiritual battles that take place in our souls.

Today’s scripture from the Book of Judges is about literal battles, wars that took place as the Israelites exerted violent force to reclaim their ancestral lands. The Book of Judges is about a warlike time, and it recalls both military defeats and victories. One of the heroes of these war stories is the warlord Gideon, who is not only described as a brilliant military tactician, but a man of charismatic religious intensity, chosen by God for the purpose of protecting the Israelites from their enemies.

The Israelites believed that God fought on their behalf and each of their military victories were credited to divine intervention. Defeats were correlated to their infidelity to God. The Israelites sincerely believed that they were justified in taking up arms against their enemies and also believed that their cause was justified by God’s command.

These beliefs might make us uncomfortable. But they are the reality of the biblical text.

The great saints and sages of the Church insisted that the war stories of the Bible be interpreted spiritually. They represent God in Christ’s resistance to the dark powers of sin, death and the devil. These are our true enemies. These biblical war stories instruct us that we make ourselves vulnerable to these dark powers if we are not faithful to God. God in Christ will act to defeat the dark powers, but we must let him, follow his instructions, and do what he asks us to do. And finally, God in Christ resists and ultimately defeats the dark powers, not through employing worldly weapons or political schemes, but through the overwhelming power of his will to love, his will to forgive, and his will to redeem. In his will to love, forgive and redeem are found the weapons of the spirit, weapons he employed to defeat the dark powers in the battle of his suffering and death- weapons that he has given to his faithful so that they can share in his victory.

Today’s scripture from the Book of Judges isn’t just about battles, it also portrays an extraordinary sacrifice in which the elements of a meal are consumed by heavenly fire in the presence of an angel.

This strange story is meant as a foreshadowing of the Eucharistic mystery, at which the elements of a meal are transformed by the Holy Spirit into the divine life and presence of the Lord Jesus. From our earthly perspective, this transformation is not perceived by the senses and we must make an act of faith that God in Christ has accomplished what he has promised. But from the perspective of heaven, from that of the angels and saints, the great transformation of the Eucharistic mystery looks very much like what is described today in the Book of Judges.

Christ warns us yesterday and today about our attachments to wealth and how such attachments can be a detriment to our ultimate purpose, which is to become ever more Christ-like, and in becoming Christ-like, become a saint.

His observation about a camel passing through a needle’s eye is about how our attachments to worldly attainments- like wealth, pleasure, power and honor, prevent us from being Christ-like. Rather than becoming like him, we become like them. Communion with Christ becomes impossible, for our attachments block our access to him.

Wealth, pleasure, power and honors are glamorous illusions and they can only be redeemed if they are surrendered to Christ and transformed by generosity, self-denial, service and humility. If this redemption is not accomplished or if we resist it, the risk to our souls is great. Eventually, these things will all be stripped away and if worldliness has been all that we are, what will remain?

In our attachments to worldliness, to wealth, pleasure, power and honors, we foolishly risk gaining the world and losing our soul!

Solemnity Of The Assumption Of The Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15th, 2015)

On August 15^th the Church solemnly celebrates the Assumption of the Mother of God. The Assumption of the Mother of God is the awe filled event (a revelation) in which at the end of the course of her earthly life, Christ’s mother passed both body and soul into the reality of heaven. This truth of the Catholic Faith was defined as a dogma in a rare exercise of the Bishop of Rome’s infallible magisterium by Pope Pius XII in 1950.

The Assumption does not mean that the Mother of God is divine or was made divine by a declaration of the pope. Christ’s mother is human through and through. It means that the fullness of the promises of the redemption of Christ have been accomplished for her. As Christ’s mother is now in heaven, we hope to be.

The mystery of the Assumption is illuminated by the Scriptures the Church assigns to be proclaimed at the Mass offered today.

First, an excerpt from the New Testament Book of Revelation likens the Mother of God to the Ark of the Covenant. Remember, the Ark of the Covenant was a container created by the Israelites as a receptacle for the tablets of the Law of Moses, the scepter of Aaron the priest and the heavenly bread called Manna.

The identity and mission of the Mother of God is suggested by the symbolism of the Ark of the Covenant. The body of Christ’s mother is likened to the Ark of the Covenant, for in her womb gestated God in Christ who is the New Law, the great High Priest, and the Heavenly Bread of Life.

Also, from the Book of Revelation, the identity and mission of the Mother of God is suggested by the great sign of the “woman clothed with the sun with the moon beneath her feet.” The cosmic symbols of light, sun and moon are all gesturing towards the Mother of God- she, like the moon, reflects of light of her Divine Son- Jesus Christ. In the radiance of the Mary’s reflected light, we see the glory of God in Christ.

The 12 stars which crown the head of the woman clothed with the sun indicate the 12 tribes of Israel, indicating the status of Christ’s mother as a faithful daughter of Israel, whom the patriarchs and prophets longed to see.

The dragon indicates the devil and the seven crowns he wears gesture towards his false claims to dominion over the earth. The stars which his beastly tail sweep from the heavens are the fallen angels. The Mother of God is the great enemy of the evil one and her appearance signals his defeat.

The Church also presents a scripture from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

The Apostle Paul gives testimony to our faith in Christ’s resurrection from the dead as a precursor to our own resurrection.

We Christians believe that death has been transformed by God in Christ’s passage through it and has become by his divine power and grace not an end but a beginning. As we pass through death, Christ’s faithful make that passage sharing in the Lord Jesus’ victory over the power of death. The victory of Christ over death is not just about the soul, but also of the body- the resurrection is fulfilled in spirit and in flesh and as such, our bodies, glorified, perfected, restored and redeemed have been created by God so that they can share communion with God in heaven.

The Assumption of the Mother of God reveals the fullness of Christ’s promise of resurrection, a promise made not only to his mother, but to all his faithful disciples.

The Gospel of Luke reveals that the honor given to the Mother of God is a gift, a grace, that is manifested in her obedience to God’s will.

The Mother of God gave herself over to the will and purposes of God and in doing so, she is a model and exemplar of what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

The way of a disciple is about giving ourselves over to the will and purposes of God. In doing this, we imitate Christ, who shows the humanity in its perfection is radically obedient to God.

Obedience to God is an act of trust. The Mother of God trusted in God, accepting the totality of her life’s experiences as imbued with the power and presence of God. Her trust was steadfast, even in the face of circumstances that were devastating and difficult, even in the face of death. The Mother of God trusted that God, who did not abandon her Son to the power of Death, would also not abandon her. This fidelity manifested itself in a life-giving fruitfulness that the power of death could not overcome.

May the Mother of God intercede on our behalf. May her witness of obedience inspire us to offer our own lives to Christ in acts of humility and love. May the Assumption of the Mother of God give us hope, that though this earth and all things in it pass away, God remains faithful, and in Christ, he will draw us through death so that we can she fully in the promises of his resurrection.

Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (August 14th, 2015

A young boy named Raymond Kolbe had a vision of the Mother God, beckoning towards him, her arms extended, in each hand a crown, one white and the other red. Which would he choose? What kind of life would such a decision create?

Raymond dedicated his life to Christ, a commitment that expressed itself in taking vows as a Franciscan, accepting as a new identity in religious life that was externalized in a new name- Maximilian. Maximilian Kolbe would be ordained a priest.

He founded an association of the Christian faithful called the Militia of Mary Immaculate, whose efforts were directed on promoting devotion to the Mother of God. In bringing people to know Christ’s mother, they trusted that she would introduce people to Christ.

The movement grew and Maximilian became a rather formidable and outspoken figure. In another time, his charisma might have brought him fame and ecclesiastical advancement, but the time in which Maximilian Kolbe lived was the era of the Second World War and he lived in Poland.

The Nazis arrested Maximilian Kolbe during a purge of Poland’s clergy and intellectuals. He was sent to the death camp Auschwitz.

In that horrifying place, Maximilian was stripped of all vestiges of his former life. His Franciscan habit was exchanged for the striped uniform of a prisoner. To reinforce his the indignity of his situation he was made to wear a badge, an image of pink, inverted triangle, which the Nazis used to identify prisoners who were homosexuals.

The darkness that enveloped Maximilian Kolbe deepened when in retaliation for the escape of a prisoner from the death camp, ten prisoners from his cell block were chosen at random to be executed.

Maximilian, aware that one of those chosen was a man with a wife and children, volunteered to take that man’s place.

Maximilian Kolbe and the other 9 men were stripped naked, locked in a basement cell and left to starve to death. Impatient that the prisoners were not dying fast enough, Maximilian and the other remaining prisoners were killed by a lethal injection on August 14^th, 1941.

In 1982, Pope Saint John Paul II declared Maximilian a saint, acclaiming him as a “martyr for charity”.

The 20^th century was perhaps one of the most bloody and inhumane in all the many years of human civilization. Genocide was perfected with technical precision and the human person became not only a commodity, but also a disposable commodity. Acclaimed at its beginning as a century of progress, the 20^th century revealed itself to be a century of death and destruction.

It was in the heart of civilized Europe, among the fading embers of a once Christian civilization that an elitist culture waged war against those whom they perceived to be inferiors in the name of progress and built factories not only to manufacture weapons, but also to produce death on a scale that defies comprehension. The darkness fell heavy and deep.

In the midst of a world gone dark, Christ calls forth disciples, baptized in his name and consecrated to his mission. The saints are exemplars of what it means to be a disciple and they bear into the darkness of every age the radiant light of Jesus Christ.   Saint Maximilian Kolbe is such a saint.

Christian faith is not meant as an esoteric philosophy, method of self-improvement, or a comforting and comfortable routine. Christian faith is a light to the nations meant to lead people from the darkness imposed by sin and death. The disciples of the Lord Jesus risk going into dark places, so that inserted into the shadows they can be a beacon leading to people to Christ.

May the witness of St. Maximilian Kolbe remind us of the light we Christians must cast into the shadows and darkness of the world.

Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (August 13th, 2015)

This week the Scriptures revealed that with the death of Moses, a new chapter in the story of the Israelites begins. The people have returned to their ancestral lands and begin a difficult process of acclamation and settlement to a territory that until now they have only known through stories told to them by their ancestors. The lands they enter are their inheritance, the lands where the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob once dwelled, and yet the descendents of the patriarchs are now strangers in their ancestral homeland.

They are also not alone in this new place. Thus begins a violent period in the history of the Israelites, as the people battle with the other inhabitants of their ancestral lands for territory and resources. During their long journey from captivity to false gods in Egypt and during their sojourn in the wilderness, the people were led by the prophet and mystic Moses, but now they are led by the warlord Joshua. The Israelites, once a nation of slaves who became a nation of nomads, now becomes a nation of warriors.

Today’s scripture passage from the Book of Joshua describes how the Ark of the Covenant was employed in the battle strategy of the Israelites. The Ark of the Covenant, a symbol of the divine presence of the God of Israel abiding with his people, becomes a kind of weapon.

The divine power of the Ark is manifested in signs and wonders, specifically a marvelous event that mimics the parting of the Red Sea, an extraordinary event through which God liberated the Israelites from the power of the gods of Egypt and defeated the God-King Pharaoh.

It is now the river Jordan that parts before the divine presence of the Ark, allowing the Israelites safe passage into their ancestral lands. Once there, the battles for control of the lands will begin.

It is likely that for many the violent imagery of the Bible is disconcerting. Our appreciation for the heroism of the warrior does not make the horror of war easy to take, nor does it justify the violence of battle. Unease with the violence of so many of the biblical stories has been the experience of many for the long years of the Church’s life. The saints and sages of the Church have interpreted the battle stories of the Bible as allegories, stories that are interpreted to indicate the struggle of God’s people (the Church) over against the dark powers of sin, death and the devil. The battles of the Israelites against their enemies are not justifications for cruelty and violent conflict.

As an allegory, the Ark of the Covenant represents the divine power and presence of the Lord Jesus, abiding with his Church in the mystery of the Eucharist. It is the power and presence of Christ that alone can defeat the powers of sin, death and the devil and without the power and presence of Christ we are prevented from entering the promised land of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is communion with God in Christ. But if the power and presence of the Lord Jesus takes the lead, then the obstacles of sin, death and the devil can be removed from the paths that lead to communion with God in Christ.

Though we might not prefer the battle imagery so often employed in the Bible, we cannot simply do away with it and hope to understand at all revelation of God in Christ. As Christ draws all creation to himself, there are powers that resist his communion, and these powers must be overcome.

There is much in this world that is opposed to Christ and disciples will inevitably find themselves in enemy occupied territory. In the midst of these conflicts, Christians will counter the power of evil, not with worldly weapons, but with the weapons of the Holy Spirit- these spiritual weapons are creative, not destructive, they build up, rather than tear down, they set right, rather than committing wrong, and rescue rather than enslave, they give life rather than impart death.

Today in his Gospel the Lord Jesus warns against having hearts hardened by an unwillingness to forgive. Like the hardened heart of Pharaoh (remember the story of Exodus), whose unwillingness to release the Israelites from bondage results in his own destruction, so to do hardened hearts that refuse to forgive result in our own destruction.

Forgiveness is always an undeserved act of compassion- no one deserves forgiveness, it is always a gift, a gift that will often time favor the restoration of a relationship as being of greater significance than giving what might be justly deserved. It is difficult to forgive, especially when we have been the victim of cruelty or have suffered a grave injustice, but Christ insists that it is better to forgive than not, even if the demands of justice cannot be adequately met.

Christ does not just pronounce this perspective on forgiveness in words, but embodies his teaching about forgiveness on the cross. In the cross humanity proves itself capable of the worst kind of cruelty and injustice, and offends God in a way that should have meant the end of any possible relationship we could have with him. It is in the cross we prove ourselves capable of committing a wrong that we are powerless to set right.

And yet Christ has power to forgive us and this is precisely what he does for us- offering us in his forgiveness a mercy that is as surprising as it is undeserved.

It is this same mercy that he expects that we will share with one another.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (August 9th, 2015)

Today’s first scripture is an excerpt from the First Book of Kings. It describes how the great prophet Elijah was driven nearly to despair and begs the Lord to end his life. He falls asleep and is awakened by an angel, who offers him food and drink, and once nourished by this heavenly gift, he overcomes his despair, is renewed in strength, and continues his mission.

The prophet Elijah, perhaps second only to Moses in terms of his power and significance, was sent to proclaim the Lord’s word of truth during a perilous time.

The mighty Kingdom of David had been fractured by civil war, with two kings and two kingdoms now competing for the allegiance of the Israelites. Elijah is sent to the Israelite kingdom of the north ruled by King Ahab and his pagan queen, Jezebel. King Ahab, hoping to solidify his power and increase his wealth, sought to ingratiate himself with the pagan kingdoms that surrounded his territory. To do this, he introduced the worship of false gods and promoted their cults to the Israelites. Idolatry is recalled in the Old Testament as the greatest of evils, an evil that is at the root of so much of the cruelty and injustice that we inflict on one another. As such, the one, true God sends Elijah to warn the king that terrifying consequences await the worshippers of false gods.

Ahab and his queen were angry beyond description with Elijah, whom they believed, quite rightly, was questioning the legitimacy of their right to rule the Israelites and sowing the seeds of rebellion.

They acted with all the force they could muster to drive Elijah into the wilderness, hoping that exposure to the elements would do him in and rid them of an insolent prophet. If not for the intervention of the Lord, Ahab and his queen just might have succeeded.

The Church presents the story of Elijah in the wilderness as a kind of allegory for our own spiritual lives. We might never face the trials and tribulations of an Israelite prophet or have to face down wicked kings or queens, but all of us have a mission and all of us will face a struggle of some sort and be tempted to despair as a result of the demands our mission will place on us. What then will the Lord offer to us? How will he intervene?

Today’s scripture foresees that the Lord’s intervention will be somewhat like what he offers to Elijah.

The angel who brings heavenly nourishment to Elijah, food and drink to sustain him for his mission, is meant to be understood as a reference to the Blessed Sacrament- to the Eucharist.

In the midst of the difficulties of life with its temptations to despair, Christ sends to his faithful the gift of the Blessed Sacrament, making his own divine life food and drink to sustain us for the mission he asks us to accomplish.

This is important to remember. The purpose for which we gather together is not to be elated emotionally by entertaining talent or eloquent speeches, but to partake of heavenly food and drink, given to us, not simply by an angel, but by Christ himself.

In our second scripture for today, an excerpt from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the apostle warns us not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God by engaging in behaviors that would tear apart the unity of the Church and paralyze the Church’s missionary endeavors.

The apostle begs of us an examination of our own consciences in regards to how we are treating one another, and whether or not our actions are building up the Church or tearing it down.

Saint Paul highlights bitterness, anger, malice, and shouting as symptomatic of severe sickness of soul, qualities that are contrary to the Gospel and make us more like an anti-Christ and less like Christ.

There have been in the recent past ideologically driven movements in the Church that have sought to drive momentum for their agendas by inciting anger, inventing grievances and leveraging disappointment. These movements have left many communities of Christians in utter ruin and have so compromised the mission of the Church that in some areas, it seems the Church is in total retreat.

All this grieves the Holy Spirit and restoration of the Church is only possible when people repent of their anger, abandon ideology, and live with the same attitude towards their neighbor that Christ has for us- that attitude is one of self-sacrificial love. Much more momentum is possible for the Church’s mission to be accomplished if our attitude towards one another is one of self-sacrificial love. Unfortunately too many Christians just don’t believe this or just don’t want to do it, and prefer to use anger and ideology to advance their causes.

This grieves the Holy Spirit.

We are moving deeper into the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. Remember, this year, the Church places emphasis on the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. Why?

The sixth chapter of the Gospel of John is about the Blessed Sacrament, about the Eucharist. In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus tells us in his own words what the Blessed Sacrament is and why he is giving the Eucharist to us.

What he tells us about the Blessed Sacrament is truly extraordinary.

The Blessed Sacrament is the Lord Jesus himself- it is his own life, his own divine presence, given to us as food and as drink. What is revealed to us in the Eucharistic mystery is not merely a symbol of Christ or an expression of the values of the community, but the revelation of the Eucharist is the Lord Jesus himself.

Christ gives himself to us in the extraordinary way so that we can be sustained for the mission he gives us in this world, but today’s Gospel gives us another reason that Christ gives us the Eucharist- to prepare us for heaven.

This world and this life is not all that there is for us. Christ reveals this truth to us definitively in his resurrection from the dead. Life in the here and now is a passage to a different kind of life and the mission Christ gives us now is preparing us for a mission in a world that is yet to come.

The qualities that will be necessary for us to fulfill our purpose in heaven are those qualities that make us most Christ-like. Christ gives us the Blessed Sacrament so that by receiving his own divine life, we can become more and more like him.

This is the purpose for which Christ gives us the Blessed Sacrament, so that receiving his life we can become more like him.

Some folks don’t appreciate this truth or reject it entirely. A lack of appreciation for Christ’s purpose for giving us the Blessed Sacrament reduces the Eucharist to merely a symbol, an artifact of culture or an expression of ethnic identity. None of this compels one to become more like Christ.

Others recoil in horror at being anything other than what they want to be. Being like Christ is a detriment to a project of self-fulfillment and self-realization. As such, they insist that the Eucharist is only important inasmuch as it might advance their own causes or agendas, or satisfy emotional needs. If the Blessed Sacrament doesn’t deliver my best life now in terms of personal and emotional fulfillment, then the attitude is that Christ can keep his gift to himself.

Refusals of Christ’s gifts, or worse, accepting his gifts and using them for purposes that are contrary to Christ’s will, are not without consequences, and this is, bottom line, what Christ is insisting that we understand today in his Gospel.

Christ gives us his divine life in the Blessed Sacrament so that we can become more and more like him. Is this what we want from the Eucharist? Is this what we have prepared ourselves to receive?