WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?

The gospel passage assigned for this Sunday is the famous "Confession of Peter" at Caesarea Philippi (Mt. 16:13-20) in which Jesus asks his disciples "Who do people say I am?" They recount the various theories they've heard - some people say you are John the Baptist come back to life, others say some other prophet, etc.

Then, you recall, he asks the much harder question, "And who do YOU say I am?"  We can imagine the embarrassed silence, the uneasy shuffling of feet, the sidelong glances. This is an entirely different question from the previous one. Jesus is no longer asking them to be mere reporters, reciting what others are saying. The answer to this second question has to take the form of a commitment. 

So Peter, whom Matthew always portrays as the bold leader who jumps in feet first (sometimes literally), Peter takes up the challenge. Leaving aside other people's opinions (which are way off the mark anyway) Peter risks everything by stating his personal and obviously deeply held conviction: "You are the Messiah." (The Greek word is Christos, which can also be translated "the anointed one," or "the Christ.") "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God."

See how different this is from saying "Some people say you are the Messiah." The latter is a recitation, merely quoting others' opinions. To recite this sentence requires no commitment on the speaker's part - he or she has no stake in the situation, is not taking any risk as to the truth or falsity of the statement, nor of its consequences in their life.

WORDS THAT CHANGE THINGS

It reminds me of what linguisitic analysts call "performative language." A perfomative statement brings about a change. For example, I'm watching a baseball game on t.v. and I shout "Strike three!" as the pitch hits the catcher's glove. The umpire standing behind home plate shouts "Ball four!" His cry is essentially different from mine - it causes something to happen, it makes the pitch into "ball four" by his simply uttering it in his capacity as umpire.

Here's a second example of performative language. The bride and groom are standing at the altar and the minister says, "Do you, Charles, take Agnes to be your lawful wedded wife?" When Charles says "I do!" something happens -- his "I do" is performative - it's called a vow. It creates something that wasn't there a moment ago: a bond, a commitment, etc.

NOT "JUST SAYING"

The latest English translation of the mass texts seems to be suggesting a similar point by re-introducing the word "I" as the first word of the Creed. The Latin "credo" means "I believe," but the earliest English translators wanted to create a feeling of community and common belief, and so translated it in the plural, "WE believe in one God..." The new translation, however, by re-introducing "I" into the statement of the Creed, offers us a challenge if we are willing to accept it.

It's harder to be a mere repeater of faith statements when beginning each statement with "I believe." That pronoun offers at least a reminder that this profession of faith should not be a recitation but a commitment - similar to what Peter said, in contrast to the other disciples' simple reporting of other people's statements.

Of course I can mindlessly recite the words of the Creed at mass each Sunday, and be a mere reciter of these eternal truths without any real commitment to changing my life. But that's missing the whole point of the Creed. The official heading for the Creed in the missal is "Profession of Faith." Monks and other religious make "Profession of Vows." This is the realm of performative language. Maybe there's a message here for all of us who "profess our faith."

When I preside at mass I don't say "Let us now stand and say the Creed." Nor do I invite the congregation, "Let us now recite the Creed." I challenge the assembly and myself with the words "Let us now profess our faith." "Professing" your faith is decidedly NOT "just saying" it.

Jesus asks his disciples "Who do YOU say I am?" inviting them to commit themselves and their lives to him. The emphasis should not be misplaced so that the question reads "Who do you SAY I am?" Saying it is easy! That's not Jesus' point at all; he's not just asking his disciples (and us) to SAY something, but rather to take a leap and commit themselves (ourselves), like the groom who "says" the words "I do"  or the nun who "professes" her vows and thereby changes her life.

Think about that when you hear Jesus asking you "Who do you say I am?" Behind his question you can hear the real questions: "Are you living your faith?" "Do you act as if I am really the Messiah?"

Remember this the next time you "say the words" of the Creed: "I believe in one God....": you're not "just sayin'", you're professing your faith, you are, it seems to me, implicitly promising to act in a certain way because of those truths you're professing. Otherwise why bother professing them?

Just sayin'.
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OR AT LEAST IT'S SUPPOSED TO!

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ASSUMPTION LESSON

I first wrote this a a post for August 13, 2012. But I think it merits some more reflection on my part, and, I hope, yours as well.

QUID MIHI? 
The Latin question “Quid mihi?”, “What’s it to me?", was posed by certain non-Catholic theologians in protest when Pius XII declared in 1950 that the Assumption of Mary was a dogma of the Catholic Church: "Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

When I do my daily lectio divina (reflective reading) with sacred scripture, I always ask myself "Quid mihi?": What does this reading mean for me? What is it saying to me? I think it’s a great question to ask as we celebrate the feast of Mary’s Assumption on August 15, not in protest but in an earnest effort to find some answers.

The following selection is from The Water and the Fire by Gerald Vann, O.P. The paragraph headings and any italics or emphases are mine. I hope you enjoy Father Vann’s answer to the question “What’s the Assumption to me?”

THE IMPORTANCE OF BODILINESS

The gulf between matter and spirit, between material things and the praise of God, is widening at a pace and to an extent hitherto unknown: it would be very easy to despair of this civilization of ours, very easy to despair of the future of our race, very easy to feel that, so far from marching triumphantly forward to a golden age, we are rushing headlong into an abyss; very easy to feel that our world is doomed because all the physical and material side of life must continue to drag man down and degrade him till the heavens are closed to him. But it is just at this moment that the voice of the Church comes to us like a challenge: we are on the contrary to shout aloud our belief in the dignity and holiness of material things; we are to affirm our faith and our hope in the future of man's flesh. The woman who stands in the heavens, the Mother of God, is also the mother of men, and her glory is the guarantee of theirs.
The doctrine of the Assumption is of supreme importance not only to Catholics but to all men and women because it means that there is still in the world, there will always be in the world, a voice to affirm and a power to defend the dignity and the ultimate glory of matter, of material things, of human flesh and blood, of the lovely mystery of human love, of the beauty which is the work of men's hands. There is a voice which affirms, there is a power which defends, all the material things which make life worth while; and they bid us be of good heart because we can hope in the end to achieve our own lives, full, rich, deep, unified, free, not by escaping from the flesh and material things, but by the healing and sanctifying of the flesh and material things.

In the greatest of the Church's definitions of doctrine concerning our Lady, the doctrine that she is the Mother of God, it was her Son that the Church was defending. But she is also the mother of all men; and here, in the doctrine of her Assumption, it is all her sons that the Church is defending. Just as the figure of motherhood is at the very center of the earthly history of every human soul, of the earthly history of the human race, so the figure of this Maiden-Mother is at the very center of the eternal history of individuals and of the race. If she is attacked, later on her Son will be attacked, and in the end her other children will be attacked. Men will begin by denying some part of the God-given greatness and glory; they will go on sooner or later to deny the divinity of her Son; and in the end there will be no defense for the greatness of humanity itself. The Church's voice is a challenge because, while it tells us to hope because in Mary the flesh is sanctified and glorified, material things are sanctified and glorified, it also tells us to beware because the dragon, defeated, went elsewhere to make war on the rest of her children. ...And he stood there waiting on the sea shore.

-- Gerald Vann, O.P. "The Water and the Fire" (New York, Sheed and Ward, 1961), pages 175-176. 

QUID MIHI?

In a world that seems to have lost a sense of reverence for the human body and everything related to it, the feast of the Assumption seems to have a lot to say to me. And to you, too, I hope!

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CAN YOU WALK ON WATER?

 When was the last time that someone tried to scam you? We seem to be besieged with emails and phone calls from people who promise us everything from thousands of dollars to avoiding a prison term simply by providing them with some personal information or a little cash. So, we have by necessity become a nation of skeptics. Our mantra is "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."

This mindset is a necessary survival tactic when dealing with anonymous phone calls and offers that come to us out of cyberspace. But in the realm of faith this skeptical attitude wreaks havoc, and has been doing so for thousands of years. The gospel story for this Sunday, Aug. 9, gives us a striking example: the story of Peter walking on the sea until he starts to sink and Jesus has to quickly reach down and pull him out of the waves (Matt. 14:22-33).

THE EAGER STUDENT

I read somewhere that in Jesus' time when a young man wanted to become a rabbi, he would find a rabbi that he respected and would ask to become his student. The rabbi's students learned by imitating everything their teacher did: how he sat, how he ate, how he spoke and walked. They tried to act like him in every possible way.. 

So, here's Simon Peter, a student of Jesus. When he sees Jesus walking on the waves, he wants to imitate his rabbi by doing the same. He asks permission, and Jesus says "Come!" Imagine Peter's excitement as he steps out of the boat and finds that the water supports his weight! To  his amazement he begins to walk on the water just like huis Master! So far so good.

We remember what happens next: Peter begins to hear the roaring of the wind and see the towering waves around him and begins to be afraid. "This can't be real! This is too good to be true!" he thinks. And at that moment he begins to sink beneath the angry sea. 

As Jesus hauls his soaked apostle out of the water he says to him "O you of little faith! Why did you doubt?"

MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

I want to look with you at Jesus' question, "Why did you doubt?" The Greek verb that is translated as "doubt" is "distazo." It's made up of the familiar prefix di-, meaning "two," and the root "stasis, to stand." Our Lord, then, is asking Peter literally: "Why were you standing in two places at once?" 

What a powerful image! Peter believes two contrary things at the same time: He believes that Jesus is able to make him walk on water, but he also believes that human beings cannot walk on water. He is, as it were, standing in two places at the same time. He is overcome by doubt, and, predictably, begins to sink.

I think that this attitude of "doubt" is at the root of most of our faults and sins: We think that Jesus' promise to be with us always is too good to be true, or that his statement "My grace is sufficient for you" may not be quite true. It's as if one side of us suspects that Jesus's promises are a hoax, so we better not rely on them. We lose our nerve, and we turn to other means to achieve security or satisfaction instead of waiting for God to fulfil his promises. And that's the definition of sin.

Simon Peter is a good patron saint to pray to when we start to lose confidence in God's promises and are tempted to look elsewhere to satisfy our hopes and desires. 

Saint Peter, who stood in two places at once, pray for us!  

IT'S IN YOUR HANDS

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The Gospel for this Sunday is Mt 14:13-21, Matthew's  account of the miracle of the loaves and fishes . It begins this way:

When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.

It's in Your Hands...

Meditate for a few minutes on the word in bold type above, Jesus' command to his disciples, "give them some food yourselves.” Of course, Jesus must certainly know that they don't have any food with them. So what's behind this strange request? In the context of the story, it turns out to be a challenge. a sort of prophecy of what they'll be doing for the rest of their lives as apostles, namely sharing with others out of their own nothingness, the Good News of the Kingdom. They have no training, no particular aptitude for the task, and yet they are sent out to give to the world the priceless treasure of the Good News.

In troubled times when you and I afraid that we’re at the end of our strength and can’t do any more, the Lord asks us to give Him the little that we have; he then blesses it and gives it right back to us to use, especially to use for helping others. 

With the arrival of the new freshmen and the start of a new school year this past week, I couldn't help thinking back to the summer of 1973, when we re-opened St. Benedict's Prep with incredibly thin resources on every front. The best we could do was to place our dream in God's hands, trusting that we were doing what He as calling us to do, that we were hearing Jesus say, "give them some food yourselves.”

May this miracle story give us the courage to hand our weaknesses and faults to Jesus with the expectation of getting them back transformed!

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EMPTY-HANDED

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus tells three parables of the kingdom. The parable about the merchant in search of fine pearls who finds the pearl of great price. 

Then there’s the fellow who finds a treasure buried in a field, and goes and sells everything he has to purchase the field. The third one is slightly different. It’s the one, you may remember, about the net cast into the sea that brings in all sorts of fish, and the man has to sit down and sort through the fish, keeping the good ones and casting the other ones aside. 

Jesus ends this short series of three parables with a question: “Do you understand all these things?" What's behind his question?

I think that his idea is that none of these parables, especially the first two, ends when someone discovers a valuable pearl or a hidden treasure. That’s not the point of these parables. 

No, the point is that each of these people then has to act. More than that, in fact, he has to give up everything to possess the pearl or the treasure. And it’s this giving up part, I think, that Jesus is referring to when he asks his disciples. “Do you understand all these things?“ Do you understand what it will cost you to possess the kingdom?

In the first two parables we are given models of people who give up everything for the sake of the Kingdom. They sell everything they have!

So these two parables pose a real challenge for you and me. I feel blessed that the Lord has called me to belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. But, h ow much am I willing to give up in order to enter the Kingdom? I can’t just walk in as my old self, with my old attitudes towards possessions, with my judgments about other people, and my selfishness, and so forth. 

The parables challenge you and me to let go of all of those things in order to possess the Kingdom, the pearl of great price, the treasure that is ours for the taking.

Let us ask the Lord, who promises us the Kingdom, to give each of us the strength to let go of everything else so that we can join Him in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I saw this little incident on the bus the other day as I was returning from an errand. 

As I climb up the steep steps onto the bus, I immediately see this tiny lady, easily ninety years old, sitting in the first seat right behind the driver. In front of her is a four wheel upright shopping cart filled with all sorts of things.

Since I’m walking with my cane, I’m happy to plop myself into an empty seat nearby. After a few blocks we come to the bus stop at the corner of Broad and Market, and she gets to her feet and, pushing her cart in front of her, she makes her way slowly past the driver and stops at the edge of the steep steps.

Then the next thing I know she is starting to step backwards down the steps toward the street, leaving her cart at the top step, but holding onto it. Although I get the impression that she has done this many times before, this is starting to look like a potential disaster. She reaches up and starts to tug at her shopping cart. I feel helpless because I am in no physical condition to go over and help her.

Suddenly, a young passenger in his twenties steps forward. Putting both hands on the cart, he says something to the old woman as she continues to back down the steps holding on to it.

Here is where it gets interesting The more she holds on and tries to help, the less able the fellow is to be of any help to her.

Then she seems to realize that at this point she is better off letting him take the whole thing, and so she lets go. The young man then lifts the cart easily, as if it weighs nothing, and carries it down and places it gently on the sidewalk in front of the woman.

It was one of those lovely little moments that warms the hearts of everyone on the bus or waiting to get on. The Kingdom breaks in on us when we least expect it.

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In a few minutes the bus drops me off at the corner near the monastery in time for Midday Prayer. Right after that I have to celebrate the 12:15 mass. The gospel passage is Matthew 11:28-30, which begins:

“Come to me all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

As I proclaim these verses, the image of the old lady and her shopping cart comes to mind. And I remember the lesson that the woman learned: The fellow who was trying to help her with her burden couldn’t really do much for her until she let go of it.

I suppose I'm like that too. When I bring my troubles and burdens to Jesus I have to let go of them myself. It doesn’t do for me to come to Him with my problems but then still try to hold onto them.

Let's face it: It's hard to simply let go of these things and and entrust them to the Lord. Do I really believe that the Lord can lift these things from me as easily as that young man on the bus lifted that cart so easily down onto the street?

Jesus invites us in this gospel verse to hand over all of our problems to Him and let Him worry about them. That is such a beautiful offer, isn’t it? 

Yet I always have such a hard time letting go!

PEACE OR THE SWORD?

The gospel passage for today, Monday, July 13, begins with a surprising statement from Jesus: 

"Do  not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth, I have come to bring  not peace but the sword." (Mt 10:34) 

 It seems to me that Our Lord s warning us that as his followers we cannot just coast through life, making peace with the world and everything it stands for. We need to stand over against our materialistic, egocentric, earthbound culture. We're called instead to be countercultural. Here are a few thoughts to ponder

St. Paul warns the Corinthians that "time is coming to an end" (1 Cor 7:29), and tells them to act accordingly: If you're single, don't get married, if you're married then stay that way, and don't get too wrapped up in the affairs of this world (1 Cor. 7:29-31)

Then comes the verse that has kept me reflecting this week: 

"For the world as we know it is passing begins wi away" (v 31).

The Greeks says "For the schema of this world is passing away." The Greek word schema means the external form or appearance. What is it, then, that's passing away? In our passage, schema doesn't refer to the physical form of the earth but to the way of life in the world. As one commentator notes, "The reference is primarily to culture rather than to physical form." So a more helpful translation might be something like "the way of life in this world is passing away."  

Lately it seems that our "world," which has banished God and the notion of Ultimate Meaning from the discussion, is showing signs of coming apart. In the material world which has substituted money, possessions, power and prestige for God, look at the amount of hatred that gets spewed every day into our cultural atmosphere, or the anger, violence and intolerance that crowd the front pages of our newspapers each day. Ask yourself, "How well is this schema of the present world working?" "Does it leave us with a sense of meaning and direction in our lives?" 

According to the schema of this present world I may be quite successful, with lots of money, popularity and material stuff (the very things that Paul tells us are passing away).

This schema-without-God, however, always leaves us in the end wishing for more. That's because we're made for more, so much more!

Jesus preached the arrival of a new schema, which he called "the Kingdom of God." This Kingdom has little to do with our possessions, our power or prestige. Rather it exists in the spaces between us, in our relationships with others. What characterizes those spaces, those relationships in my life? Is it control? Impatience? A sense  of superiority? These are not what the Kingdom is made of. The Kingdom of God, which will replace the schema of this world, is, of course, about Loving one another. "The Kingdom of God is among you, it exists in the spaces between you."

Did you ever stop to think that of all the virtues he could have preached, Jesus constantly stressed love of neighbor, and made it the one criterion for entry into the Kingdom? He was always teaching us about love because that is who God is, because that is what the Kingdom is. We are created in the image of God, a God who is Love, who is Intimate Relatedness (the mystery of the Trinity). So to the extent that we fall short of selfless vulnerability and self-sacrifice we're falling short of being our true selves, and are failing to build up the Kingdom here and now. 

So, if you act as a true follower of Jesus, as a member of the Kingdom, of this new schema that is breaking in on the world's present schema, expect to be seen as an oddball. In the 1970's the oddballs were called "countercultural" (civil rights protesters, draft card burners, hippies and so on). The New Testament gives us the blueprint of the new schema and invites us to live in a way that is "countercultural." You can easily fill in the content of this alternative schema, since you've been hearing it and reading it in the gospel your whole life. The Schema of the Kingdom of God will last forever, and will be around long after the sad schema of the present godless world has passed away. 

Our Father in heaven, may thy Schema come!