Tuesdays at the Table – Year 1

As we move through the Boston diocese’s Year of the Eucharist, one of the things I’ve been doing is sharing quotes on a weekly basis about the history and nature of the Eucharist. These #TuesdaysAtTheTable tidbits have been taken from Christian Sacraments & Christian Personality, a wonderful book on the Sacraments written by pivotal American theologian Bernard J. Cooke and published towards the end of the Second Vatican Council (1965). As I look forward to starting a new set of quotes from a new book next week (seeing as the Year has been extended into 2022), I thought I’d share some of my favorite quotes form the last year.

– – – – – – – – – –

“Since a sacrament is distinguished from other human actions by the fact that it produces its effect by meaning or signifying something, it is important that we study the meaning of the last supper. The nature of Christian liturgical life, the nature of the Church and the nature of salvation itself are dependent upon the significance Christ and his apostles attached to the external ceremonies and words of the supper event.”

“At the last supper, as they were gathered together with Jesus, the apostles were conscious of all [the] Jewish meanings of the Passover celebration. Christ’s own awareness went far beyond theirs. He saw all the historical significance of the dinner. He also knew that this was the beginning of the new Exodus, and that his presence with the apostles was the fulfillment of the idea of God’s dwelling, for he was God, living among men.” 

“Moses, after taking the blood of the victim and sprinkling it on the people, said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words’ (Ex. 24:8). …The parallel between Christ’s words at the supper and those spoken by Moses at Sinai indicates that the last supper is the establishing of the new covenant in an act of sacrifice.” 

“[T[he words of Jesus when he speaks of his blood–‘This is the blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many’ (Mk. 14:34; cf. Mt. 26:28)–point to the ritual use of blood in the sacrifices of the Jerusalem temple. In the Septuagint, the Greek word used for ‘pour out’ is the technical word for the pouring of the sacrificial blood upon the altar of the temple. …From beginning to end the last supper is  a sacrificial action.” 

“If Christ, in the assertions he made during the previous three years and in the extraordinary actions of healing that he performed, was pointing progressively to something which would be his supreme act on behalf of mankind, it certainly would have been anticlimactic had the last supper not been a genuine sacrifice, had Christ not truly given himself under the form of bread and wine.” 

“When the gospel account of [the multiplication of the loaves] was written, the early Christian community had already been celebrating the Eucharist for two or three decades. Hence it is not surprising to find the text filled with more or less technical expressions for the Eucharistic liturgy. This very fact points to the insight of the early Christians into the relationship between the episode of the loaves and the [last] supper event.” 

“Christ, in offering himself, had that internal attitude which is the heart of sacrificial action. This conclusion is confirmed by St. John’s gospel, which gives us rich insight into Christ’s consciousness at this privileged moment. Christ repeatedly voices gratitude for the task which the Father had given him to do. …Christ was submitting himself in gratitude to his Father, to render supreme worship to him by the sacrificial gift (oblation) of himself in death and resurrection.” 

“While it is true that Christ from the first moment of his incarnation accepted the fatherhood of his Father and the role which was his own, the last supper marks the solemn public commitment of himself to the fulfillment of this role. In saying, “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk. 22:19), Christ was dedicating himself through a public cultic act to the work of overcoming evil and restoring mankind.” 

“The last supper is essentially a sacrificial action, a preeminently spiritual and personal sacrifice, the total self-giving of Christ in humanity to the mystery of man’;s salvation in conformity with the Father’s will. This sacrifice recapitulates and fulfills the sacrificial liturgy of the Old Testament and of all the natural religions of mankind.” 

“Catholic belief in the Mass as Christ’s continuing act of sacrifice is grounded in the mystery of his resurrection. Because he is in this new state, to which he passed in the mysteries of redemption, he is able to abide with his Church and continue his sacrificial action in her midst.” 

“Christ in his present state of consciousness is still fundamentally marked by that spirit of self-oblation which characterized his life on earth. It is the same conscious oblation to which he gave solemn expression at the last supper and which continued through his death into resurrection.” 

“The last supper does not stand by itself, discrete and separate from what follows. Rather, it marks the first stage of that single event which continues in the death and resurrection of Christ…. Together, they constitute a single movement, from limited bodily existence into that fuller risen life in which he will be able to share himself with the whole of the human race.” 

“Christ still offers sacrifice for us. He still accepts willingly the fact that he had to die in order to give himself to men. He still accepts the Father’s mandate that he give himself to men. The very choice of bread as part of the Eucharistic symbolism indicates Christ’s inner desire to share with man the very same life which is his.” 

“Christ would not really be offering sacrifice in this world were he doing nothing more than abiding in invisible fashion in his Church. For there to be continuing sacrifice in the true and full sense, Christ’s inner attitude must find sensible expression in the context of human living. Such expression comes through his Church which, as his body, expresses him externally.” 

“It is not accidental that the symbols used at Mass are fundamentally the same symbols as those used at the last supper. …In the Mass today, Christ with his Church uses these same symbols to say that he still accepts with full willingness his passage through death into risen life.” 

“If the Mass has efficacy as a redeeming sacrifice, it is not essentially because of the external ritual, but because of the underlying attitude of Christ which the ritual expresses. Christ’s human love and knowledge is the redeeming force at the heart of human history.” 

“The Eucharist is recollection, commemoration, in a way that is absolutely unique. It is commemoration by way of identification. The Eucharist is the continuing redeeming action of Christ.” 

“Strictly speaking, the last supper was not the first Mass. The supper is what is continued by way of commemoration in the Mass. In the Mass, Christ continues his original sacrifice and the Church, sharing now in this sacrifice, offers herself and Christ to the Father.” 

“All ancient peoples, Israel included, thought of sacrifice as a means of establishing contact with their divinity, of achieving union with the god who could guarantee their life. In the Eucharist, the Church enters into profound union with Christ and through him with the Father.” 

“‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’ (Jn. 14:9). Whatever Christ speaks to us in the Eucharist the Father also speaks, for Christ is literally the Word of the Father.” 

“In the Eucharist, the heavenly Father, who gave life to the Israelites through manna and rain and the prophetic word, effectively speaks his life-giving intent by sending the eternal Word to provide life for men through the sacramental sign of bread.” – Christian Sacraments & Christian Personality, Bernard J. Cooke, S.J. 

“The Eucharist is the final stage in this progressive unfolding of the Father’s intent to provide men with unending life. It speaks more fully and more effectively than the Old Testament revelation, because it speaks the Father’s own creative Word, Christ.” 

“It is impossible to have genuine Christian faith without a personal commitment in love to Christ and to all he stands for. In performing the action of the Mass, the Christian community makes public this commitment to the Lord.” 

“[T]he Eucharist is the most important revelation about the Church itself. Unless we understand the Eucharist, we cannot understand the Church, for the Church is most basically the community which performs the Eucharist.” 

“What is involved in the Eucharistic presence is this personal fidelity in love to those whom he has made his brethren. Christians not only trust the fact of Christ’s resurrection; they trust this person who is man and risen for their sake.” 

“Without an awareness of the Eucharist, without sincere participation in it, it is impossible for a Christian to develop adequately the divine life of grace planted in him at his Baptism.” 

“[T]he action of the Eucharist plays a privileged role. It, and it alone, bears the entirety of Christian revelation; for it alone is the mystery of the redeeming Christ. Any other speaking about the mystery of Christ must be done in human words.” 

“Had he wished merely to make himself present to a certain place or places, he could have chosen any physical element and changed it into himself. He purposely took food and drink so that the external aspects…which signify the presence of a life-sustaining reality could point to the Eucharistic presence of Christ himself as a life-sustaining reality.” 

“All Christian apostolate is grounded in the Eucharistic action; Christians are meant to take the vision and the hope and the love which the Mass provides and with these transform the world in which they live.” 

“Because it is a sacrament, and effective word, the Eucharist not only speaks of men’s return to the status of sons of the Father; it actually effects that return.” 

“[B]y transforming the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, the Father makes our human gift his own. In a true sense, he has removed it definitively from our possession. But he has also prepared it as a gift in return, thus sealing in unexpected fashion the reconciliation.” 

“[T]he ceremony of reconciliation in the Mass is not only a matter of God’s acceptance of man’s appeasing gift; it is a familial exchange of gifts. The Father once more recognizes us as sons by the very action of making us sons.” 

“[The Church] exists in the world of men in order to gradually transform human society according to the vision and love of Christ. In this process, the Eucharist is intended to play the pivotal role.” 

“If the Eucharist continues Christ’s redeeming activity in human history, it must be the principle of all genuine Christian apostolic effort. …[T]he Christian love that is the heart of all true apostolic work flows from Christ’s own love present in the Eucharist.” 

“For the vast majority of men, the lay person is the only point of contact with the mystery of Chrsitanity. …Hence it is vitally important that lay people participate in the Eucharist with understanding, so that they can bring the word that the Mass speaks into the lives of men.” 

“The Eucharist is the law of Christianity because Christ is still freely and totally expressing his love.” 

“Because of fear, we leave undone many things we really wish to do. If such fears can be banished, we are much freer to act as authentic persons, much freer to be our own true selves. If it can be understood for what it is, the Eucharist can powerfully help to free us from these dispiriting fears.” 

“Until the end of human history the Church will always be a community ‘on the way’; and the celebration of the Eucharist will be the sign that the community is truly being led by Christ to eternal fulfillment–for her himself in his risen life is already in possession of that goal.” 

“Christian worship of the Father in the Eucharist is a sacrament of Christ’s own worship which is expressed through the words and gestures of the faithful… The Mass is the ultimate act of worship because it is Christ’s own act of worship.” 

“As far back as we can trace the Eucharistic liturgy (to Saint Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians), we find that the Mass has been a profession of faith in the redemptive mission of Christ. The very notion of ritually commemorating Christ’s Passover involved belief in the unique significance of this event.” 

“Christian faith consists in two elements: intellectual assent to the truth of the Father’s self-revelation in Christ, and practical acceptance of Christ and Christian life. Both of these elements of faith are able to come to their fullest realization in the Eucharist, for [it] is the situation in which the Christian community is confronted with the totality of divine revelation in a living and present form.” 

“For one who understands what is happening in the Mass, it is a situation of great familial intimacy…in which the three divine Persons reach out, as it were, to draw men into the circle of their own transcendent happiness. In response to this divine offer of love, the Christian community answers with the action of the Eucharist.” 

“The highest achievement of man comes precisely in the act of Eucharistic worship. This action most completely fulfills the human person.” 

“This is the Eucharistic situation–a man’s power of understanding comes face to face with infinite divine truth personally revealing itself to him. A man’s power of love is challenged to its depths by the infinite good confronting him as the three divine Persons offer him their friendship.” 

“As the supreme and fulfilling action of the community that is of its very nature meant to be catholic, the Eucharist plays the key role in directing all human history and all created reality back to the Father.” 

Meditation on the Joyful Mysteries on the Last Day of the Year

“‘Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy… For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth.'”

I hate the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.

It is a misplaced hatred. I don’t actually hate the Mysteries themselves. I hate how sad meditating upon them makes me feel. I hate not being able to share the source of my joy with my family, friends and loved ones effectively. I hate that, like with so many other things I’ve done over the years, no one gets the interest or the passion or the drive, not necessarily to do the same or enter into the experience, but even to understand or to want to try to understand.

• I want us all to notice God’s message when He calls to us; I hate how even now in these days of social exile we surround ourselves with so much noise that we can’t hear Him, let alone listen.

• I want us to rejoice in sharing those messages and personal callings with each other; I hate how, in this time where seemingly everyone is free to be–and must be respected for–whatever they want to say or do or become, those who do share or try to share those genuine messages and callings are pariahs.

• I want an eternal Christmas, where Christ is born within us every single day; I hate how even the idea of Christmas has become so commercially saturated that by the time its annual celebration begins it has ceased to mean anything of significance to most people (let alone what it actually means).

• I want us all to bring each other into God’s presence and present ourselves and all that we are to Him; I hate how much we hide from ourselves, let alone each other, and how we’ll make ourselves to present to everyone and everything but Him.

• I want all of us to be found in the Father’s House; I hate how even those that try to seek or claim to have relationship with God have relegated Him to the ever-subtly abusive “will always be there” position to the point of never thinking (or wanting) to visit Him where He is.

There are few things more painful than not being able to share adequately what brings you joy. I am a Christian. I am a Catholic Christian. I love being a Catholic Christian. I love the Church–the home if not its caretakers. I want the Church to be the home for the world. I want us all to abandon faulty or incomplete notions of personal “transcendence” here on earth and simply act like the united family we actually are with the God Who shares our DNA.

I have loved seeking expression through drawing, through painting, through writing, through singing, through composing, through teaching, through digital art. And I hate that my joy cannot grow beyond myself because no one knows–or perhaps wants to know–what to do with Joy.

The Joy of having God as your best Friend. The Joy of never being alone for even a moment. The Joy of working so hard at a relationship that you know He knows you’ll always be there even when you screw up. The Joy of knowing that you were specifically personally willed in the history of the cosmos. The Joy of trusting that you fit into the Pattern, even when you don’t know where or how or why. And the Joy of understanding that if it’s true for you, then it’s true for everyone else–that that’s what the Church is, and why She exists: so that God can be everyone’s best Friend, so that no one at all has to be alone, and so that we can each make it easier to get to know Him. Because the Pattern isn’t chess board, or a painting–it’s an ocean.

I hate how sad Joy makes me.

“‘Be vigilant at all times, and pray that you have the strength…to stand before the Son of Man.'”

Dusty Palms

Now What?

Still she trusts.

Rising again, she wonders anew what today will bring. Evening has come, and morning has followed: the first day of the week. The day of rest has ended, and it is time to get to work.

The other women are gone. She is by herself in her sorrows. She is often alone, reflecting on her joys and sorrows in her heart. She has often been by herself in recent years. But these days have brought on a new loneliness. Her parents and her husband are gone, for many years now. Her Son is gone, brutally executed just days ago. And now her women companions are gone, leaving her alone in her room. Once long ago when she was alone in a room, she felt a great presence; now, a desolation. She doesn’t even have the energy to cry or lament. She simply does what she has always done: she rises, and she trusts.

She wanders through the house, as His friends are beginning to rise. The other women are not here either. They have gone to the tomb, perhaps. Where else would they go so early? So she sees to His friends’ needs herself. They have not left her alone in her grief; she will not leave them in theirs. They were His brothers; they are her sons. The other women – it is all hard to process, for all of them, even for herself. They trust, surely, as she trusts. Yet they grieve, as she grieves.

She passes by the door, and sees a dark red smudge. And she suddenly recalls leaning against the door on her return the other night. She hadn’t noticed it before. No one has, it seems. All are lost in their own minds, their own hearts. Even she has been fighting not to be consumed by the mystery of it all, something she has felt herself doing ever since that first question to her strange visitor decades ago: “How can this be?” She asks the question again now, in trust, in the silence of her heart, as she looks upon the blood on the doorpost, from her own Lamb slaughtered in the evening twilight.

The door flies open, and it shakes her from her reverie. It is the other women, frenzied and shaken. They clutch her as they run amongst his friends, frantically shouting about what they had seen: the stone rolled from the tomb, and empty scene inside, strangers in white speaking the impossi–no, not the impossible. “For nothing shall be impossible for God.” His friends are disturbed, but she is struck to the core. She is unable to move as she ponders this new turn of events in her heart.

It suddenly occurs to her: where is little Mary? Where is Magdalene? Was she not with the others?

As if in answer, little Mary comes racing in, her beaming face streaked with tears. She has seen Him, she says. He is alive, He is risen, He is returning to our Father and God. He sent her to tell everyone. Peter and John have heard enough, it seems, as they hurriedly leave the house. The others, both the men and the women, talk and argue amongst themselves at the door of the house and make their way outside into the dawning light. No one notices her retreat, slowly, softly, back to her room.

How long she sits there she does not know. Seconds, minutes, hours – time no longer has meaning. Less two nights ago she came into this house with her Son’s blood all over her. Yesterday she spent her day of rest full of questions and wonder and sadness, as she processed what the day of this miracle Son of hers must mean, and if His friends – her new children – would ever be the same. And now this – “nothing shall be impossible for God,” but who could conceive of this? Is this some new sword to pierce her already bleeding heart? Or something more? Something new? She wonders if her Son had moments like this, and how many. How many moments like the one He shouted from the cross in His final moments? How many feelings of abandonment, loneliness, powerlessness? How many temptations to let that great love and trust, which had seen them both through to this moment, falter?

At last, in her heart she allows herself one moment, and a sound escapes her throat. It is a wail – of sorrow, of surprise, of more than thirty years of silent patience and anguish and anxieties and, through it all, trust, all focused into one single triumphant blast of sound in that small, lonely room. It is a relief, it is an embarrassment, it is a prayer, it is a question.

“Woman: behold your Son.”

She gasps and spins around, taken aback by the forcefulness of the word she had just heard. Was it in the room, or in her heart? Wide-eyed, she sees young John standing in her doorway, sweaty and out of breath but not tired. She sees the look on his face, and she knows. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she knows. They look into each other’s eyes for a few timeless moments, not knowing what to do or say, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. After a few moments, he steps forward says simply, “He is not there.”

She extends her arms, and her son runs straight into them. They embrace in silence. There is no anxiety in it, no anguish, no fear and trembling. He holds on to her like a loving child, and she returns it with a mother’s gentle hand and a soft kiss. She sighs, and she smiles.

And still she trusts.

“Merciful Like the Father” – Quotes from the Year of Mercy

The Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy ended a year ago today. And I thought I’d mark the occasion by sharing some of my favorite memories of my 64-part series of reflections. I hope you enjoy!

– – – – – – – – – –

The Mystery of the incarnation (Parts 1 through 8)
Predestination is not linear. It is not deterministic. It is not an imposition of God’s will upon human free will. Why would God ask us not to do something that would separate us from Him, yet give us the ability to choose not to do what He asks?

Happiness isn’t truly happy if it’s imposed against the will; to be fully alive, happiness has to be freely chosen.

[T]he genteel Victorians of Britain began the custom of saying “Happy Christmas,” in order to disassociate such a supreme feast with the boisterous feasting involved with “making merry” (which, after all, is better left to American papists).

[M]erriment does not come at the expense of solemnity.

The Incarnation – the literal “making into flesh” of God – is the most unfathomably compassionate act ever recorded in human history. God became human so that Man could become divine.

What was wholly natural for her divine Son [Mary] made wholly possible for her human brethren.

Let Him make Himself known to you as Himself.

[L]et yourself be amazed. Don’t pretend to know all the reasons, but be amazed all the same.

From time immemorial, and to the present day, there is no deliverance without the intervention of God.

The holy One of Israel has entered time and space as an Israelite; the God-Man is both liberator and servant.

[I]n Jesus, the profane becomes holy, the sinner becomes a saint, the stranger becomes a sibling.

Spiritual Gifts (Parts 9 through 13)
Jesus’ first miracle [at Cana] is not a demonstration of an overbearing and distant “old man in the sky” to whom the rules don’t apply… This is a demonstration of obedient and humble union with those among whom He walks.

Salvation is individual but we only get there together.

The different parts of the Body need each other, and they need the strength of the Head to be strong enough to function.

Don’t simply pierce the veil, but embrace what it covers.

The closer we get to God and to what it is He’s calling us to do, the more we have a tendency to back off or run away – as if faith is reserved only to those parts of God’s will that we “understand.”

The Fasting He Requires (Parts 14 through 22)
A gift that is expected is no gift, and gratitude that does not seek to repay is not gratitude.

Christianity is the religion of the “both/and.” To have either an internal belief or an external belief is not enough.

[I]f [the devil] dares tell us to call on the name of God to save ourselves, may we look right into his eyes and say: “You first.”

We’re not meant to “transcend” our bodies and escape them; after all, we’ll be back in them on the last day, and then for all time.

If the spiritual world is not real, the Redemption is an inspiring fairy tale. But if the physical world does not matter, the Redemption is pointless.

Israel’s mortal sin was not their transgression of the new Law [from Sinai]; it was their lack of regret for doing so.

Why should we hold so miserably fast to what God Himself so lovingly forgets?

Being “merciful like the Father” means to be an ever-ready impartial minister of reconciliation. Being merciful like the Son is to be obedient in love to the Father in all things. To do one, we must do the other; for “Jesus Christ is LORD.”

[Good Friday] is the Day of Mercy. And the Divine Mercy is cross-shaped.

God’s Dwelling Place (Parts 23 through 31)
There is no better PR, it seems, than the whispers of our companions.

Today [on Easter Sunday] we celebrate the quietest world-changing event in history.

Let Him be our only yeast; for He is the only One Who can make us rise.

When God’s mercy is our priority, that is when the Church is fully the Church.

We’re all going to have our Thomas moments. May we all have Jesus moments just as readily.

Let’s be angels first and Saints next, not the other way around. Let’s not be afraid to be a Church of angels.

[N]o one can tear us away from Him – we have to wander away ourselves. Know Him. Hear His voice. And make your choice.

If He only gave us what is our due, none of us could be saved! For if we could save ourselves, the Incarnation was unnecessary, the Passion foolishness, and the Redemption delusional.

Life in the Spirit (Parts 32 through 41)
Without Trinity, God would simply be a Lover. But God is Love – so much so that He even exists essentially in loving relationship with Himself.

[T]he Essence of existence is Love – and even the smallest words we speak should reflect that same relationship.

God’s mercy is impartial. It must be impartial in order to be almighty.

In order to receive love, there must be a weak spot.

The Heart That bleeds without cease broke upon the Cross, and from that wound the Church was born.

[W]e can end up treating the Lord and His Church like relatives we only see at reunions and weddings and funerals, or like friends whom we turn to only when things go bad.

It is one of the great ironies of the religion of the “both/and” that it is through the organization of the Church that we have the best opportunities to develop and deepen our own personal relationship with God.

God has given us an invitation to the biggest and longest-running party in history; all we have to do is get up off our butts and go!

[J]ustification in the sight of God cannot be merit-based. It does not spring from perfect practice, but from an honest acknowledgment of imperfect practice.

Faith takes us where the intellect dares not go.

How fortunate for us that God is not beholden to our narrow expectations.

If we were meant to transcend this existence, the Good Samaritan should have just let the traveler die. But we know better, instinctively.

God’s Stewardship Given (Parts 42 through 49)
[H]ospitality, however much it may be considered a divine mandate legally and socially, is like any other virtue: it cannot be simply acted on by rote in order to have any real value.

All we have at any moment is a gift from the One Who is both Host and Guest.

[T]he surest way to get nothing out of something is to stop doing it.

[E]ven the Church is part and parcel of the religion of the “both/and”: using earthly constraints to accomplish heavenly designs.

For Jesus, the Kingdom was already here; it simply had to be recognized.

[W]e’re not alone in this faith thing. We trust in God, but He’s entrusting us with Himself as well.

Jesus didn’t come to bring us peace; He is our peace.

[Mary] is the Holy of Holies of the everlasting Temple, containing within herself the One Who cannot be contained by the entire universe.

We don’t like straight answers. We think we do, but we don’t.

God may have made Israel a light to the nations, but that light still had to shine!

It’s one thing not to like an answer; it’s another thing entirely not to act because we think we shouldn’t have to. No one becomes an adult that way.

No one wants to end up at rock bottom, but we shouldn’t be so quick to climb the mountain either.

Taking Up the Cross (Parts 50 through 56)
For all our reaching out, we’re still stuck inside ourselves.

[I]f you keep disregarding little things to focus on big things, it won’t be long until the little things disappear from your mind completely and you start thinking of big things as more little things.

What is the line between belief and presumption? When do we simply assume God’s mercy instead of entrusting ourselves to it?

May we never force God’s hand into action by our own inaction.

We are not called to be simply nice people; if we were we wouldn’t need God, let alone the Cross.

Unprofitable servants we may be, but we can still be good and faithful ones.

When the Church forgets Her relationship with God is two-sided, that’s when She stops being a hospital and becomes a museum. We can’t be for the benefit of others when we can’t even accept our own benefits for what they are.

Last Things (Parts 57 through 64)
Our Scripture is more than a story, and our faith is super-Scriptural.

Why shouldn’t [the Bible] be the most complicated book in existence? Isn’t human existence ridiculously complicated?

We have indeed been equipped for every good work, but it does help to take time to go over all the instructions!

Humility is self-less-ness in the most arithmetical sense.

God’s mercy is truly impartial; it is we who feel that some are more equal than others!

Every message of God is the same message.

[T]he spectral hallucination of “me time” nags at us like a mental illness…

Our God may be a jealous God, but the world is a stalker ex-lover with daddy issues.

Our mission of reconciliation spans dimensions!

How can we not belong to God when God even shares our DNA now!? That’s why the Son came, that’s how He did it. …[T]he shepherd became one of the sheep so that none of the sheep might be lost.

And yet, even heaven is not the end for God’s faithful. There is still more to come!

[C]areer is not exempt from the demands of faith…any more than waking and rising, weekday and weekend. If you think it is exempt, I frankly must doubt how deep and abiding your own faith is.

It takes a proper pest to evangelize rightly. But again, there’s a difference between being a pest and being dangerous.

It’s time to let Christ take over and teach us all how to be obedient and free at the same time.

Meditation on the Joyful Mysteries on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph

“Behold a faithful and prudent steward, whom the Lord set over His whole household.”

Behold Saint Joseph, patron of the universal Church, guardian of Your whole Body, prince of the priesthood of the faithful – not immaculate, not sinless, but righteous all the same. He was the first to bring You to Your Father’s house, ransoming You from the Father to humanity so that You could ransom humanity for the Father. Fulfilling the precepts of the Old Law sacrifices, he presaged those of the New. This is why he could only lose You here, in the presence of the Father where You desire all of us to lose ourselves. The singular lapse of his constant watch occurred in the one place You – and we – would always be safe.

Years later, You would give Your servant Peter “the keys to the kingdom of heaven,” setting him up as the steward of your royal house on earth, the one who could be trusted even in frailty to guide and guard the new and eternal Israel of the Church. And in doing so it was as if You were saying, “Be for my sheep what Joseph was for the Shepherd; be the protector, be the guardian, be the father that even I needed on earth. Be, son of Jonah, a faithful one whom the members of my Body can be obedient to, just as the Head of the Body was obedient to a faithful son of David.” May Saint Joseph, in his turn, protect and guide his successors and all the members of Your Body in integrity and righteousness, and may Your Church remain a royal priesthood entire.

“He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”

“Merciful Like the Father,” Part 54 – Without Stain or Reproach

Fifty-fourth in a series of reflections on Mass readings during the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Amos 6:1a, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6;11-16; Luke 16:19-31

“Compete well for the faith,” Saint Paul writes to his disciple and fellow bishop Timothy in our Second Reading. It may seem an odd turn of phrase; those of us enjoying relatively comfortable lives full of first-world problems don’t often think of our religious faith as something for which we have to compete (Greek agonizein, from agon, conflict or contest – and from which we get the word “agony”). And yet, we know instinctively that we have to fight for the things we believe in sometimes, especially when confronted with people – and maybe desires – that push against those beliefs that we hold to be of prime importance. We do this in our families, in our careers, in our politics, and in many other areas of this world that we know passes away. Why should it be any different for what we believe about our eternal life? And what does it say about our beliefs when we let them get knotted up by our inaction?

“Merciful Like the Father,” Part 50 – More Than a Slave

Fiftieth in a series of reflections on Mass readings during the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Wisdom 9:13-18b; Philemon 1:9-10, 12-17; Luke 14:25-33

In the 1970s Mother Teresa – today enrolled in the ranks of the Saints by Pope Francis – was asked in an interview about the poorest country she had ever visited. She said, “I have been to many countries and seen much poverty and suffering. Everywhere I go people tell me of their hardships and struggles, and ask for help, and I give what I can. But of all the countries I have been to, the poorest one I have been to is America.” When asked why, she replied, “Because America suffers most from the poverty of loneliness.” Her words, sadly enough, seem more true today than they did 40 years ago. There’s always a void we just can’t seem to fill. We know just enough to know that the solution lies outside ourselves. But for all the goods we accumulate, for all the knowledge we gain, for all the like-minded “Friends” and “Followers” we have, somehow it’s never enough. For all our reaching out, we’re still stuck inside ourselves.

“Merciful Like the Father,” Part 41 – The Image of the Invisible God

Forty-first in a series of reflections on Mass readings during the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading: Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

One of the most ancient and persistent Christian heresies (Greek hairesis, taking by the hand, take into power) is Gnosticism. It didn’t start with Christianity – it had been around for a few hundred years – but it did creep its way in, resulting in some of the apocryphal Gospels of the 2nd century A.D. (like Thomas) that some people tend to love more than the authentic ones. In brief, the Gnostic approach teaches that the physical world and its Creator God are false, evil, something that needs to be escaped, and that the path to escape the lie and find the truth lies in a secret knowledge (in Greek, gnosis) that is revealed to a select and worthy few – in this case, which Jesus passed on to His disciples, including Mary Magdalene, in secret. The most definitive refutation of Gnosticism was set down by Saint Irenaeus of Lyons around the year A.D. 180 (if you’ve never seen or heard of Against Heresies, it’s a great resource for what constitutes authentic Christianity – which is by far less complicated than Gnosticism!). But this philosophy that sees the physical as too irredeemable and the way to God as too mysterious has always been incompatible with the Judeo-Christian tradition – and, ultimately, with being “merciful like the Father.”

“Merciful Like that Father,” Part 40 – Never Boast Except in the Cross

Fortieth in a series of reflections on Mass readings during the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 66:10-14c; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

This time of year I think of my home parish in Hyde Park, Boston’s southernmost neighborhood. Its cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1880, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood that year. That feast no longer exists in our liturgical calendar, but it does live on in both the name and the mission of the parish 136 years later. Through His redeeming Blood we are all constantly called to be “a kingdom and priests for God” – or, as the parish’s first pastor once put it, “to edify men by leading exemplary lives.” What does that mean, though – to lead an exemplary life? What does it mean to make of our very selves a pattern that other people should imitate?

“Merciful Like the Father,” Part 39 – The Lord Stood by Me

Thirty-ninth in a series of reflections on Mass readings during the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
Readings: Acts 12:1-11; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18; Matthew 16:13-19

At the end of the 18th century, when Napoleon captured Rome, he famously remarked to one of the representatives of Pope Pius VII, Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, that he intended to destroy the Catholic Church. This Cardinal simply replied, “In 1800 years we clergy have failed to destroy the Church. Do you really think you’ll be able to do it?” And this quip does manage to capture, in its dark whimsy, an attitude with which even the most devout can view the organizational aspect of the mystical Body. We’ve seen these flawed men countless times tripping all over themselves and each other to the seeming detriment of their congregations. Some can be overly legalistic in their application of Church teaching. Some flippantly disregard any authority, including their own. And many are guilty of any and every misstep in between. We may even wonder sometimes just what third-rate theology school this weekend’s homilist kept falling asleep in for 8 years. And for some who have a tenuous relationship with the Church at best, it is due in no small part to the fact that the bedside manner of some pastors leaves much to be desired.

Yet we put up with them, ultimately for two reasons. First, these flawed men are no more flawed than the rest of us. The Church is “the sinless one made up of sinners,” and our priests’ every ignorant misstep can be – and should be! – an occasion of compassion on our parts, for they remind us of our own. And second, and perhaps more to the point today: it’s because He wanted it this way. He actually wanted flawed and fallen men overseeing His Church on earth, sinners governing sinners – sinners called to something much more, but sinners nonetheless. He wanted them too, these men upon whom He sets His seal to act in His person, to be ordinary people leading extraordinary lives. After all, at its very beginnings He put in charge an uneducated coward and an overeducated murderer – two very flawed witnesses of the Gospel whose martyrdom we celebrate today, two unlikely evangelists who would become what Bishop Robert Barron calls “the Church’s indispensable men.”