NOT SEEING IS BELEVING

On December 27 the Church celebrates the feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist. The two readings at mass make for a good meditation on the gift of Faith. 

First, there are the opening verses of the First letter of John:

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life —for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing this so that our joy may be complete. (1 Jn 1-4)

The words in bold print seem to indicate that John was handing on to us things which he had actually experienced. He had seen, heard, and even touched with his hands. That doesn't sound like the faith that you and I are called to. 

But then there’s the gospel passage. As you remember, on Easter morning Peter and John run to the tomb to see for themselves what Mary Magdalene had reported. John gets there first and peers into the empty tomb, but waits for Peter to catch up and enter first.

When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.

In this passage John is no longer dealing with the Jesus who walked the roads of Galilee preaching and healing, the one whom John saw and heard and touched. Now John is encountering the resurrected Christ and sees only the empty tomb and yet believes! This the kind of faith that you and I experience.

John's feast comes only two days after Christmas. After weeks of listening to the Old Testament prophets foretelling the coming of the great King, the Messiah who will deliver us form sin and suffering, what do we get on Christmas morning? Just a newborn, helpless infant. Yet we keep returning with great joy and devotion to the manger. We take for granted  the wonderful gift of faith that allows us to see in that babe the long-awaited Savior.

On this feast each year I remember a certain woman I met in a pizza parlor some years ago. I was sitting at the counter. When thus woman comes and sits on the stool to my left, the waitress, who knows both of us, says to the new customer, "He's a priest."  Almost immediately this woman says to me, in a sad tone of voice, "How I envy you! I wish I could believe the way you do, but I just don't have your faith. I wish I did!" As I remember it, we had  a pleasant conversation for some time sitting there at the counter.

She gave me a great gift that evening, one which I hope I'll always remember: Gratitude to God for the gift of faith. During this season when we are thanking God for the gift of His Divine Son in the stable at Bethlehem, I always think of that lady who keeps reminding me of what a special, incredible gift I have in the gift of Faith. 

SMALL RELIGION, SMALL GOD

 I'm rereading Richard Rohr's "Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality," which I highly recommend. On page 148 he offers an example of how God forgives and transforms us. Here are a few lines:

Paul, of course, in the New Testament, is presented as a transformed accuser, a converted persecutor, maybe even a mass-murderer, whom we now call a saint. No one had been more pious, Jewish and law-abiding than Paul (Philippians 3:5-16). He was a perfect Pharisee, as he said, and suddenly he realized that in the name of love he had become hate, in the name of religion he had become a murderer, in the name of goodness he had become evil.

Paul was set up to recognize the dark side of religion, the scape-goating mechanism, the self-serving laws of small religion. He went global and that changed everything, and is probably why most of us are reading the bible today." 148

During the Easter season the daily mass lectionary has been taking us through the story of the early church with readings from the Acts of the Apostles, so we're familiar with the story of Saul's conversion as well as the opposition of the Pharisees and Scribes. One phrase in the above passage caught my eye, however, and gave me pause: "the self-serving laws of small religion." 

What does "small religion" look like? I'm afraid that a description might start hitting pretty close to home for some of us. "Small religion" limits God's sphere of action only to members of the particular in-group, those who have the legal formulas for pleasing God and the moral laws that, if obeyed, guarantee ones entrance into eternal reward. 

The first Christians were, as we know, all Jews. When non-Jews began being converted to Christ and seeking Baptism, these Jewish Christians faced a momentous decision: Should non-Jews be required to become Jews first and follow Jewish dietary laws and observe the sabbath? The principles of "small religion" were telling many of these Jewish Christians to insist that any convert must observe Jewish laws (Acts 15:1). But Peter, Paul and others, seeing how the Holy Spirit had come down upon these gentile converts, insisted that there be no such restrictions placed on the gentile converts. Thanks in great part to Paul, who had once been a champion of "small religion," the temptation to make Christianity a "small religion" of exclusivity and self-serving laws had been overcome, and the Good News could then begin to spread throughout the Gentile world with a speed that still to this day amazes even atheistic historians and scholars.  

To what extent is my religion a "small religion?" The answer is not a matter of black-or-white, but one of degree. For example, to what extent am I so preoccupied with obeying rules and regulations that I overlook any intimate personal relationship with God? To what extent is my God a fearsome enforcer who punishes us sinners (the contrary of the loving Father revealed to us by Jesus in the parables)? What is my God's attitude toward atheists, or Buddhists or Jews or Protestants? To what extent is my religion confined merely to Church and its clear boundaries, obligations, authority structure and so forth? I'm afraid that there are Catholics who take great comfort in the "small religion" aspects of our church, and ignore the saving message of the Universal Christ who came to save the whole of humanity. We could all do well to listen (again?) to the message of a certain visionary priest and scholar. 

The French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), was a priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian and philosopher who taught that the idea of evolution was at the center of God's ongoing plan for the world, and that everything in the universe was taking part in this development; the Universal Christ and his mystical body were part of this evolution that was heading toward one ultimate goal. His vision of the Holy Eucharist is a perfect antidote to "small religion's" view of the world.

When he gazed at the host as he elevated it during mass, he saw not God captured in a small wafer of bread for the benefit of the people attending mass, but a point from which infinite energy of divine love radiated out  beyond the farthest galaxies into the entire universe, and into every electron and every atom in every molecule in the universe. This is not "small religion!" He encourages us to see ourselves as members of the Body of the Universal Christ, the One who loves all of creation with unbounded love. This is the Christ that Saint Paul spent the rest of his life preaching.

May the graces of the Easter Season open our hearts and minds to this vision of a universal Christ and a universal Church!

MISSING COMMUNION

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This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, or "Corpus Christi." The celebration offers us a couple of timely points for reflection and prayer.

Abbey Manna: 350 bags last Saturday 

FOOD FOR THE COMMUNITY

One of the effects of the Covid-19 crisis becomes visible in front of our monastery on Saturday mornings, when a single-file line for the food pantry stretches up to the corner of William Street and extends part way down the hill alongside the church. Last week we distributed 340 bags of groceries, and the week before 360. For the folks on the line, food is a lot more than a subject for meditation; but for me, on this Corpus Christi weekend, I think of how the Lord fed his people in the desert.

The first reading in tomorrow's mass, from Deuteronomy Ch. 8, shows Moses in his role as "seer," interpreting for the people the meaning of the manna, the "bread from heaven" that had been feeding the Israelites in the desert: This was God's way of demonstrating his love and protection for his chosen people.

During these days when we are closed up inside our own homes, we  naturally think of food in terms of nourishment for ourselves and our families. But in the bible, manna is never seen as food given to each individual, but rather as food given by the Lord to the community to feed the community as they wandered in the wilderness.

The documents of Vatican II treat the Eucharist from that same perspective: They emphasize that the mass is the celebration by the People of God as a community rather than as a collection of individuals each isolated in their own devotional thoughts at mass. The community is united as one around the altar, and shares in the bread that makes us all one in Christ.

People who are used to attending mass on Sundays have had a chance during the past couple of months to think about what it is they miss most about the Sunday celebration. I hope that many or most of us miss the aspect of community -- "communion." I say this because it seems to me that what our country needs right now is not a spirit of isolation and separateness (think social distancing), but a sense that all of us (that means all of us) are, at the deepest level, a single community, brothers and sisters of one another.

ONE BREAD, ONE BODY

On the other hand, certain of our  political leaders seem to be emphasizing the things that make us different from one another, and exploiting these differences in order to form us into opposing camps that are full of anger and hatred toward the opposing group. This is not the role of leadership in a democracy, but it seems to be working.

As some national leaders are sponsoring rallies where people can vent their hostility toward certain of their brothers and sisters, our Church continues quietly celebrating our oneness as children of the one God. While some people are looking forward to being able to gather in large groups for noisy rallies to share their fears and fan their hatred, others of us are looking forward to being able to gather again in large groups to celebrate God's boundless love for everyone, and to share humbly in the Sacrament of Unity that reminds us that God nourishes all of us and watches over all who honestly seek for the Lord. And meanwhile we hand out hundreds of bags of groceries to our hungry neighbors on Saturdays at 10:00 a.m..

Think about this: we talk about gathering as a community of believers on Sundays, but I don't hear anyone referring to the community of racists getting together for a rally. Fear and hostility and hatred make lousy glue. Try Jesus instead.

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi!

WE ARE CHAPTER 29

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Paul under house arrest in Rome

The book of the Acts of the Apostles, Luke's account of the growth of the early church, ends very abruptly, with Paul in Rome awaiting his hearing before Caesar. Here are the last words of the book:

"[Paul] remained for two full years in his lodgings. He received all who came to him, and with complete assurance and without hindrance he proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 28:30-31).

The abruptness of this ending raises a question that has vexed readers and scholars since the Second Century, namely, did the rest of the manuscript get lost, or is this the ending that was written by Luke? Does the writer really intend to leave us hanging like this?

Yesterday on the feast of his patron saint, our Fr. Luke preached a fine homily that included this way of answering the question: The author intended to leave the story unfinished, so that we, the readers, would get the idea that we have to continue the story ourselves. The inspired writer stopped at the end of Chapter 28, leaving the writing of Chapter 29 to the Christians that were to follow. I like that idea.

We, the church of today, are the renewed People of God, we are writing with our lives Chapter 29 of the continuing story of God's faithfulness. We are part of God's plan, we are the fulfilment of prophecies. In other words,we are each of us sacred authors, each adding our bit to the story through our actions, through imitating Jesus by the way we treat one another, the way we think and the way we pray. It's our vocation to advance the Kingdom and to move it towards its completion.

The normal way for us Christians to see our lives is as our struggle to get to heaven. Anything else is just a sidelight or irrelevant background noise. But the truth is much more expansive than that. It's not about my getting to heaven, it's about heaven coming to earth in Christ, about God's infinite Love showing itself in history through me, as it has been showing itself since the first "Let there be light." That's my rightful place in the story: My life gets its meaning from the fact that I'm part of God's overall plan for the world, and all my actions are part of the story of Chapter 29 of Acts, the ongoing task of cooperating with God's purpose for the world. Along with countless millions of sisters and brothers past, present and future, you and I are helping to write Chapter 29 every day.

Let's pray that we can continue to encourage one another as we move the story along together.

THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES

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Today in the monastery we're celebrating the solemnity of the anniversary of the consecration of our abbey church, St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, by Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley in 1890. (The church had already been dedicated in 1857, but couldn't be consecrated until it was completely paid for.)

By happy coincidence, the second reading at tomorrow's Sunday Mass begins with this familiar passage from the Letter to the Hebrews:


Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,

let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us

and persevere in running the race that lies before us
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus (Heb. 12:1-2).

The preceding chapters in the letter had given a long, detailed list of the great figures of the Jewish Scriptures whose faith serves as an encouragement to all of us. This is the "cloud of witnesses" the writer is referring to. So as we were singing Lauds (Morning Prayer) this morning in church, looked around at the saints, the colorful "witnesses" in their stained glass windows. I noticed the German inscriptions in the windows, and started to think about the great cloud of witnesses who have worshipped in this building: The earliest monks from St. Vincent Archabbey in Pennsylvania, the German parishioners, the students of St. Benedict's Prep and St. Mary's Elementary School, as well as others who would come for Sunday Vespers, or employees of the nearby courthouse who attend mass here on Holy Days, and the members of the congregation that packs this church every Sunday to sing and shout God's praises at the 10:30 mass.

The communion of saints includes you and me 

Then, as the monks' chanting continued, I imagined the cloud extending to my own ancestors in the faith: grandparents, great-grandparents and so on, back through the ages, people whose faithfulness in handing on the gospel made it possible for my parents to hand on the faith to me.

The cloud then grew to include my two brothers and my sister Eleanor, who died at the age of two,  all of my aunts and uncles and cousins. Then I thought of the students I've taught who have gone on to glory, and the deceased parishioners who listened to my Sunday sermons.

I then realized why the sacred writer referred to a "cloud" of witnesses: because it's quite a varied and disorganized crowd. But today I feel their presence and their encouragement: All of these people of faith are my personal "great cloud of witnesses" who, having already arrived at the heavenly goal, are cheering me on right now, encouraging me to continue to grow in my faith, to fight the good fight and finish the race as they did.

I expect all of them to raise a loud cheer some day when I cross the finish line. Then I'll take my place in the grandstand and start cheering for the next people in the race.

H.HAINES & CO.

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In the monastery’s guest dining room, hanging on a wall, unnoticed among a dozen tintypes

Abbey church, early days 

and old photos, is a handsome wooden picture frame about 14” by 18.” At first glance it looks as if someone has removed the picture that’s supposed to be there and left the wooden backing, a piece of age-blackened wood.  But a closer look at the wood reveals an intriguing detail: its surface is covered with nearly invisible scratches that, on further inspection, turn out to be names: Ed Amend, Otto Heresel, H. Haines, and others. When the light is just right, you can make out, among the names crudely scratched with a nail, a couple of elegant signatures done in what appears to be pen and ink. The latter seem to be much older than the others, but maybe that’s simply because the ink has disappeared into the dark wood.

Abbey church today

Some fifteen years ago, we hired someone to restore the paintings in the abbey church. While moving through the crawl space between the roof and the flat ceiling of a side aisle, he noticed this board nailed to a beam. When he realized that it was a collection of workers’ “signatures,” he detached it and brought it down to show the monks. Scratched among the names, the date 1/19/15 appears twice. But some of the signatures appear to be older than the carved date.

Evidently the names belong to men who built the church in the 1880’s or improved it in 1915.

Whenever I look at the now-framed piece of wood, I started musing: These men were not architects or artists, right? They were probably laborers hauling lumber for the the roof and ceiling. Did the first people to sign the wood do so in broad daylight, before the slate roof was installed?Did Otto and Ed know one another? Did they eat lunch together?

The men who scratched their names on that dark wood would have made up a team, hoisting wood up to the roof together, and holding beams in place as one of them drove the nails or the pegs. Each of them was a unique individual, as you can see from the way each signed his name, from the fastidious fellow who signed in ink, to “H. Haines” who signed his name four times in four different ways (I bet his co-workers laughed, knowing that this was just H. Haines being himself).

With permission of  Marylou and Jerome Bongiorno

Constructing a church requires a lot of different people all cooperating with one another. Building a community requires the same thing, whether a parish or a monastery. Each time I bring visitors into our guest dining room, I show them the dark board with the names scratched on it, and thank these workmen for building our church for us, and also for reminding us, by writing their names on a single small piece if wood, that in order to build a community we need to work together as one -- even if some of us sign our name four times.  

THE POPE'S SPEECH

PRE- CONCLAVE SPEECH

The archbishop of Havana says that a speech given by Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) during the cardinals' pre-conclave meetings was "masterful" and "clear."

Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino spoke of Cardinal Bergoglio's speech at a Mass on Saturday in Cuba, having returned home from his trip to Rome to bid farewell to Benedict, participate in the conclave, and welcome Francis.

Cardinal Ortega said that Cardinal Bergoglio gave him the handwritten notes of the speech, and the permission to share the contents.

"Allow me to let you know, almost as an absolute first fruit, the thought of the Holy Father Francis on the mission of the Church," Cardinal Ortega said.

During Saturday's Mass, Havana's archbishop spoke of the address as "masterful, enlightening, calling for a commitment, and true."

Then he read the full text that the future Pope gave him, in which he summarizes in four points the thoughts he wished to share with his brother cardinals and which express his personal vision of the Church in the present time. Here is the text. The headings in caps are mine.

Then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires in  footwashing ceremony

"The Sweet and Comforting Joy of Evangelizing"

Reference was made to evangelization. It is the raison d'etre of the Church -- "the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing" (Paul VI). It is Jesus Christ himself who impels us from within.

THE CHURCH GOING OUT OF HERSELF

1. - To evangelize implies apostolic zeal. To evangelize implies a desire in the Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries not only in the geographic sense but also the existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance, of doing without religion, of thought and of all misery.

THE SELF-REFERENT CHURCH

Popes should pay their hotel bills!

2. - When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referent and then she gets sick. (cf. The hunchback woman of the Gospel). The evils that over the course of time happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in a self-reference and a sort of theological narcissism. In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Evidently the text refers to his knocking from outside in order to enter but I think of the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out. The self-referent Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him come out.    

 

TWO IMAGES OF CHURCH

 3. - When the Church is self-referent without realizing it, she believes she has her own light. She ceases to be the mysterium lunae and gives way to that very great evil which is spiritual worldliness (according to De Lubac, it is the worst evil that can come upon the Church). The self-referent Church lives to give glory only to one another. In simple terms, there are two images of the Church: the evangelizing Church that comes out of herself; the Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidente proclamans, and the worldly Church that lives within herself, of herself, for herself. This must give light to the possible changes and reforms which must be made for the salvation of souls.

THE JOB OF A POPE

Pope on Palm Sunday

4. - Thinking of the next Pope, he must be a man that from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to come out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother who lives from the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.   

 

After Francis' election, Cardinal Ortega again asked permission to share the text, and Francis again agreed. Cardinal Ortega reported that he is keeping the original as a special treasure of the Church and a privileged memento of the present Supreme Pontiff of the Church.        

BLOGGER'S NOTE

After reading this pre-conclave speech it's hard to accuse the new pope of "blind-siding" the people who elected him.  The cardinals in the conclave knew who they were electing. Let's pray for Pope Francis and for the Church, that we will all be able to put his Christ-like vision into practice.