Monday, November 7, 2011
10 Virgins and the Importance of Latin
We are now, this weekend, almost at the end of the group of
ordinary Sundays which began back in July.
In two weeks, the Feast of Christ the King marks the close of the Church
year, and on the following Sunday—three weeks from now—we begin again with
Advent. This morning the tone of the
liturgical readings becomes increasingly urgent in warning us to be ready and
to prepare ourselves…whoever for (wisdom’s) sake keeps vigil shall quickly be
free from care…because she makes her own rounds, seeking those worthy of
her….For the Lord Himself…will come down from heaven…and the dead in Christ
will rise first….
And in this Sunday's Gospel, we hear the parable of the ten
virgins, five foolish and five wise. The five wise ones have flasks of oil with
their lamps. The foolish do not. Now, why couldn't the five who had thought of
it simply share some of their oil with the others? Why did they have to make it
so complicated? It could all have been so simple. Instead it goes all wrong.
While the young girls are off buying more oil, the bridegroom arrives. The door
is being locked, and when they are back, they can't come in. It is one thing to wait for the bridegroom,
Who is Christ. But it is not enough to
wait for the bridegroom with the others if the waiting is not accompanied by an
inner faith, represented in the parable by the oil that makes the light of the
lamp shine forth. God is not asking us
only to…hang around…waiting for the bridegroom—waiting for Christ to
appear. He asks for our personal
engagement as a response to His engagement with us. The Church is the institution who has as her
prime mission to announce the Gospel of the Lord, leading all people to faith
by the sacraments and the liturgy, and through the lives of every Catholic who
witnesses to the mercy of God. It is
through the Church that the presence of Christ is realized here on earth—and
here is the whole point: the point of Christ’s coming, His death and
resurrection, His giving us the Church—we are to make ourselves ready for
judgment: judgment at the moment we die; judgment at the time of His second
coming on the last day.
For many years—in some ways for more than 30 years—the
Church in the English-speaking world has been preparing for what will take
place three weeks from today—November 27th—the First Sunday of Advent. On that day the new English version of the
Latin Roman Missal will begin to be used in our nation and in most of the
English-speaking world (a few places, like Australia, have begin its use
already). What is particularly
distinctive about this missal is that it is, as much as possible, an exact
translation of the Missale Romanum—the Latin Roman Missal. This is as it should be, because Latin is the
Church’s language. Whenever I hear a
remark such as I recently heard…if I wanted to hear Latin, I would go to the
Latin Mass…I have to lament that, after nearly 50 years, the intention of the
Second Vatican Council and the popes since the council is still not understood
by so many Catholics, clergy and laity alike.
The Second Vatican Council never condemned nor forbade the use of Latin
in the liturgy. Unfortunately, after
1965 there was a dramatic change in most places that gave this impression: the
Church went from using almost all Latin at Mass, to almost totally excluding
it. Yet quite the contrary to being
forbidden, following upon Blessed John Paul II’s final encyclical Ecclesia de
Eucharistia, the instruction from the Holy See Redemptionis Sacramentum, taught
that…Priests are always and everywhere permitted to celebrate Mass in Latin…. The Second Vatican Council, while permitting
translations into the vernacular, taught that…care must be taken to ensure that
the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of
the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them…. Not only does the Council
plainly insist on keeping some Latin in the Mass, it goes on emphatically to approve
the use of Gregorian chant; the council taught in these words…The Church
recognizes Gregorian chant as being especially suited to the Roman
liturgy. Therefore…it should be given
pride of place in liturgical services….Latin is the language of Gregorian
chant.
What the Council had probably envisioned was gradual changes and a mix of English and Latin. Obviously it is beneficial that the readings, homily and many of the prayers should be in English for ease in understanding. But this in no way meant the Church should forget the Gloria, Creed, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Pater Noster—all of which the Council says we should still be able to say and sing. In 1974 Pope Paul VI sent to all the world’s bishops a booklet titled Missa Jubilate Deo—a booklet of simple Latin Gregorian chants; the Holy Father asked that all Catholics become familiar with them and use them in the celebration of the Mass. These are the Latin chants you find today in every issue of our missalette.
But what makes Latin so important, why should it be used? First, Latin is still the official language of the Church, used whenever the pope issues an encyclical or other official document. Much more so, we have a treasury of sacred music which goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church—what would we say about an institution which simply forgot the bulk of its historical character or patrimony? What is regrettable about the use of only English at Mass, especially music sung only in English, is that we are in danger of losing part of the Church's rich heritage of thousands of years of Latin chant, dating back to the time of Pope Gregory the Great, from whom it derives its name: Gregorian chant. Some of the most theologically accurate and hauntingly beautiful hymns are the great Latin classics. Perhaps we should ask it this way: how many of our English glory and praise songs and folk melodies will still be sung in 1500 years?
When St. Boniface brought Catholicism to Germany in the 8th Century, he celebrated Mass singing…Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus…not…Heilig, Heilig, Heilig Gott…. When St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena assisted at Mass in Medieval Italy, they responded not in Italian, but in Latin…Et cum spiritu tuo…. Ss. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross both wrote beautiful Spanish poetry in the 16th century, but at each Mass they sang the Pater Noster, not the Padre Nuestro. Sts. Therese of Lisieux and John Vianney lived in 19th century France, but at each Mass they sang the Agnus Dei, not Agneau de Dieu. No matter from where our ancestors came to this country, they sang Kyrie eleison, not Lord have mercy…that’s what the Episcopals sang, and Catholics knew they were Catholic, not Episcopals. Latin gives us a connection with 2000 years of history, with millions of Catholics from dozens of generations. Saints from the 4th, 12th and 20th centuries have sung these very chants, hundreds of thousands of priests have said these same words of consecration, billions of Catholics have sung these same Latin chants.
Being one with the mind of the Church, our use of Latin Gregorian chant can be a reminder of the sacredness of what takes place at Mass. The Mass is essentially a mystery—it takes us out of the things of earth and inserts us into the dimension of heaven. We can never fully comprehend what takes place in the Eucharist. We are not supposed to understand fully the mystery of God, because we cannot. We never will. We only can accept and give thanks for that partial understanding of the divine mystery revealed to us. At Mass, we are singing and praying neither to ourselves nor to each other, but to God, Who is essentially Mystery. The Church’s universal use of Latin keeps that truth always before us.
We are preparing for the use of the new English translation of the Roman Missal beginning in just three weeks. This translation is an exacting translation of the Latin Roman Missal. We will have to get used to saying…and with your spirit…rather than…and also with you…when we hear the priest sing or say…The Lord be with you…and with your spirit…and with your spirit…practice will make perfect. Clearly the Mass prepares us for the coming of the end—our own end as well as the world’s end. We will hear this prayed for clearly in the new translation of the Third Eucharistic Prayer……as we look forward to His second coming, we offer You in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice….May we use the gift of the Mass always to prepare ourselves for what is surely to come.
Fr. Robert Behnke
The Thirty-Second Sunday per annum, November 6, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
"That’s How I Treat All My Friends"
The episode in this morning’s Gospel – the meeting of Our Lord with the Canaanite woman – puts me in mind of another conversation Our Lord had with another woman - with St. Teresa of Jesus – Teresa of Avila. There are several versions of this famed conversation, including one involving Teresa’s having fallen into a puddle of mud. But the one I like the best focuses on St. Teresa’s life in her religious community. Teresa was a Carmelite; she was also a mystic; she was sometime in such metaphysical, transcendental, communion and conversation with Our Lord that others at times observed her to be levitating, especially during the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Now one might think that those fellow sisters, seeing this miraculous occurrence, would have been edified, and perhaps even perceived and even used it as an actual grace sent by God for themselves. And perhaps some did, but others of her sisters evidently did not, instead accusing Teresa of all kinds of mischief; some even saying she was in league with the devil. Much of this accusation took the form of backbiting and gossip; does this at all sound familiar?—gossip was not an invention of the 20th or the 21st centuries. Finally Teresa had had enough, and so, in one of her mystical conversations with Her Best Friend Our Lord, she complained…Do You see how they all treat me. Why do You allow it? Came the answer…Teresa, that’s how I treat all My friends….It’s no wonder You have so few, Teresa replied.
Imagine having the kind of closeness, that deep friendship, the genuine intimacy with Our Lord, that you could say that to Him and get away with it. Yet that is precisely what Our Lord wants for each of us. He doesn’t want us to be strangers, or just acquaintances, or even just on good terms; He wants to be our Best Friend - yours and mine.
The woman in the Gospel this morning is a Canaanite. St. Matthew says Our Lord and his disciples had withdrawn to the region of Tyre and Sidon. This is the only time in the Gospels that speak of Jesus coming close to leaving the borders of the Holy Land. Tyre and Sidon still exist today; they are in Lebanon, north of Israel, and so going beyond the boundaries of the Holy Land is quite significant in Our Lord’s ministry. And in the Bible, over the centuries, the Canaanites are cast in a very bad light. Among their false gods and goddesses were Baal (who was reduced to a laughingstock by the prophet Elijah) and Astarte; the Canaanites practice fertility rites, child sacrifice, and many other abominations. The Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament declares about them… The land itself vomits out its inhabitants…. This helps to explain both Our Lord’s initial and protracted coolness and the disgust of the apostles (…Send her away, Lord….). Yet she calls Our Lord…Son of David…, perceiving in Him His power to cure her daughter of her demonic possession. Her initial approach to Our Lord shows us that God will offer His sufficient grace to everyone, no matter whom, where, or when–even to this daughter of pagan gods, goddesses, and multiple abominations. And she takes that initial actual grace from God in hand, and she persists in it, against all obstacles (even the sting of being referred to as a…dog…). She turns even that around and tells Our Lord that there are…dogs… and then there are…dogs…–there are the unclean scavengers who roam through the garbage, and then there are the domesticated house animals that lie near the dinner tables of the children of Israel. She takes that little initial actual grace and persists in it until it has the effect she desires. One might imagine Our Lord with a look of satisfaction–even perhaps a slight grin–as He tells her…O woman, great is thy faith. Let it be done for you as you wish….
God gives each one created in His image and likeness–which is to say every person, including each one of us–that same grace. It is always there; we don’t need to ask for it. Our Lord wants to be the Best Friend we have–and He is the Best Friend any of us could ever have. But we must persist in that friendship so that grace will have the desired effect in us. But it would seem that, today—in our own day and age—too many Catholics do not have friendship with Our Lord and, even worse, many either have little interest in that kind of relation with Christ or—worst of all—many do not know how to go about allowing Our Lord to be their best friend. They simply do not know how to persist in the life of grace—in God’s life available to every man. This lack—of divine friendship, of interest in divine friendship, of awareness of how to gain an intimate friendship with Our Divine Lord—manifests itself in all kinds of ways today. The large number of Catholics who are so casual about the practice of the Faith—not faithful to Sunday Mass, never going to confession, hardly ever praying; or, once in church, do not genuflect because they have no understanding of toward Whom and toward Where their genuflection should be placed; those who dress inappropriately for Mass; those who see little difference between a church and an amphitheatre; those who during the homily spend a lot of time conversing, texting, or reading the parish bulletin. Or those Catholic politicians of either political party who try to live spiritually schizophrenic lives, by claiming personal opposition to, but yet consistently voting for, abortion, same-sex marriage, contraceptive permissiveness for school-aged children, assisted suicide, or any of the other anti-life issues that is embraced by so much of our culture. These behaviors indicate a deep misunderstanding of what it means to be Catholic, coupled with a tendency to take one’s cues from the prevailing ideas of the culture rather than from the Church herself. For the Church teaches infallibly in matters of faith and morals (commonly called Catholic doctrine, or when formally proclaimed as such, Catholic dogma). Catholic doctrine is guaranteed by God Himself; but when those claiming to be Catholic and claiming to understand what that means assert that doctrine is a matter of opinion, while specific social strategies can be dogmatically approved or rejected, then we are no longer dealing with a Catholic mind, and that person can never have a truly intimate relation in the life of divine grace with Our Lord, because He tells us that He Himself is the Truth. The Catholic whose mind and attachments are primarily formed by the world will then relativize doctrine and absolutize their own opinions, rather than submit to all that the Church teaches must be held as true. They can then never know the Truth Which is Christ; not knowing Him Who is Truth Itself, they can not have an intimate relation with Him.
Likewise, a similar obstacle to intimacy with Our Lord can occur in one’s evaluation of the Church herself, for the Church has both human and Divine elements, both fallible and infallible. For example, if a Catholic is willing to cooperate with grace, Catholic doctrine and the sacraments infallibly then engender holiness; however, the Church’s administrative programs bear fruit only according to their prudential matching of the right action to the right situation, and the behavior of individual churchmen bears fruit according to their own individual personal conformity with Christ. For this reason, when a Catholic says…I am leaving the Church—especially because of this Church teaching, or because Father or Bishop So-and-so did this or that—and so they in effect say…I don’t need the Church to have intimacy or friendship with Christ…because they dislike or react negatively to particular programs and policies or to things that particular churchmen have done, they can never have an intimate friendship with Our Lord, because Our Lord gave us the Church as the sole means of intimate friendship with Himself. A Catholic reacts with a Catholic mindset only if he distinguishes such human things as bad administrative decisions or sinful churchmen from the essential holiness of the Church herself. The tendency to dismiss the Church because, in this or that era, the actions of some Church leaders were either immoral or ill-suited to the needs of the time, is to characterize incorrectly the Church by her human element. This tendency to judge the Church by her human and fallible elements, which are very frequently alleged as reasons for rejecting her infallible teachings, is simply another example of a mind and heart formed not by Christ but by the world—today by instruments like The New York Times. And a mind and heart formed by the world (formed by the Times or The Chicago Tribune) can never be one in mind and heart with Our Lord, Who gives us not the world but the Church as our means of salvation.
And recall that the Canaanite woman came to Our Lord not for herself but for the healing of her daughter. So in our own friendship with Our Lord, we must persist especially in hope and in prayer for those who may have lost their own friendship with Christ; He desires to be their Best Friend too. Intimacy with Christ—having Our Lord as our best friend—cannot ever mean that we exclude others from the relation we have with Our Lord. Again, Our Lord gave us the Church as His chosen means of, not only my salvation or your salvation, but of the salvation of everyone. To speak of Jesus and me to the exclusion of anyone else automatically will exclude Jesus Himself, Who told us over and over again to see Him and find Him in the faces of both our neighbor and the stranger, in both our loved ones and our enemies. Very likely, as in the case of St. Teresa of Jesus, if we face sufferings, especially at the hands of those who should be closest to us, it means our friendship with Our Lord is growing; recall His words to Teresa…I treat all my friends that way…. And if we truly persist in grace by prayer, by our communion with the Church and especially by faithful reception of the sacraments, Our Lord will surely remain our Best Friend; even if, as St. Teresa said…it’s no wonder you have so few…; even if He is the only Friend we have, He really is the only Friend any of us needs absolutely, because He is, always and only, the best.
The Twentieth Sunday of the Year
The New Health and Human Services mandate is wrong on every level...
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
Stranger
and stranger yet, life ever does seem to get.
As I reflected this past week on today’s Gospel and Our Lord’s parable of
the unjust—but clever and wily and industrious—steward, it was difficult for me
not to see certain parallels with the goings-on culminating last week in
Congress and in the White House: the master, the steward, and the
laborers. It was hard f0r me to see much
self-abandonment and altruism in the actions of our elected representatives
relating to the raising of the government’s debt limitation; it, at least to
me, appeared to be rather strategies in self-interest and politics—especially in
election, or re-election politics—since one important action now is postponed
until after the November 2012 election.
In the Gospel we have a master (whom we should not in this case confuse
with God); a master who nobody much likes (he is portrayed as an absentee
landlord). The master’s steward has been
caught with his hand in the till, and so his livelihood as steward is about to
come to an end. The steward, of course,
is angry; judging from his performance as steward, he does not have his
master’s best interests at heart. Now he
has found a way to get even. Debts in
Palestine—contrary to the Old Testament prohibition of usury—included interest
prefigured into the debt. If 40 barrels
was borrowed, the debtor, as in the first instance in the parable, would
automatically owe 100 barrels; it is somewhat like the value-added tax in many
European countries; the price for an item may be 100 euros; the tax of 23 euros
is hidden in that total of 100 euros owed for the purchase, rather than being
added at the moment of the transaction.
So here the steward has found a way to ingratiate himself with the
master’s debtors: ‘you borrowed 40 barrels of oil and so you now owe 100 in
repayment; give the master 50 instead—so he’ll make less; I will get even with
him, and you’ll owe me one.’ The master
praises the steward for his ingenuity in his facing his personal crisis and so
is not so annoyed even though he the master has lost some profit. He still made a little profit, and in this
case there seems to be honor among thieves.
No one has lost anything of what he originally had: the master has his
money back; the steward has probably skimmed something for himself and now has
a lot of his masters’ former debtors now in his debt—and those who were in debt
to the master are now debt free.
Ingenuity combined with self-interest—and note, there seems neither any help
nor concern for those in need. Whether
master, steward, or debtors, it is all about me, me, and me. Would that—Our Lord almost laments—would that
the children of light were as energetic as promoting the Kingdom of God as are
the children of darkness in promoting their own self-interests. Does it not resemble the way much political,
social, economic life operates? And is
it not the direction in which promoters of abortion and same-sex marriage want the
rules to head? Years ago, the well-known
columnist for the Chicago Daily News Mike Royko opined that the motto of the
Chicago City Council should be Ubi est mihi?—Where’s mine? Is that not what secular culture and the
religion of self-success want the world to cry out: Where’s mine?
Beginning in August
2012, all private insurers in the US must provide women with coverage for
FDA-approved contraception--including sterilization and contraceptives that
have an abortifacient effect--under a mandate announced on last Monday by the
US Department of Health and Human Services. According to the department,
insurers must provide this coverage—a quote here—…without charging a copayment,
deductible, or coinsurance…. The
decision was announced in time to take effect for colleges and universities
that offer health-care plans for their students. HHS is led by Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic
whose bishop has exhorted her not to receive Holy Communion. There is in this regulation of the
president’s administration an exemption for certain religious employers, but the
exemption is extremely narrow. The
Church would have to cease either hiring or serving non-Catholics to qualify
for the exemption. Plus, the drugs that
Americans would be forced to subsidize under the new rule include Ella, a drug
approved by the FDA as an emergency contraceptive, but which can act like the
abortion drug RU-486—it can abort an established pregnancy weeks after
conception. It is hard to see anything,
moral or otherwise, that is not objectionable about this decision. Most importantly, of course, the new mandate
forces health insurers to pay for the immoral use of drugs, therefore violating
God’s law, which ought to be no small consideration. It even forces those insurers who may abhor
contraception to participate. And
finally, it forces all Americans who pay for health insurance, whether
privately or through taxes, to subsidize this immorality. But there are also other objections that ought
to be raised as well. Pregnancy is not a
disease, and the use of contraception to prevent it is purely elective. It forces health insurance to subsidize
inherently risky behavior—the link between contraception and promiscuity is
simple and clear, as is the link between promiscuity and a wide variety of
diseases. Moreover, contraceptive ‘treatments’
carry a significant health risk of their own.
Encouraging women married to men (you see how specific we now have to be—women
married to men) not to bear children runs completely contrary to our social
interests. Around the world, countries
afflicted with this mentality face rapidly aging populations demanding support,
a support which the smaller younger populations will not be willing to provide,
and very likely will not be able to provide.
We reap what we sow, and when we sow nothing, there is nothing to reap.
So, the new Health
and Human Services mandate is wrong on every level. This is yet another example of the energetic
ingenuity of the efforts of today’s parable’s children of darkness. And so what about…the children of light? Perhaps one purpose of Our Lord’s telling
this story is to compare the enthusiastic response the children of darkness
show in their dealings with other children of darkness to the lackluster
response of the disciples—those who can rightly be called the children of
light—to the Kingdom of God. And the children
of light now? Today’s children of
light? Will they—we—roll over and play
dead—we 56 million Catholics in America who, each at our baptism, were
presented with a candle signifying our acceptance of the light of Christ,
signifying that on that day each one became one of the children of light? Roll over and pretend not to notice, as
Catholics did when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973; or when so called Gay
Pride parades each year began to take over our streets and, more horribly, the
attention of our children; or when Oregon first legalized assisted suicide; or
when—not states made up of non-Catholics—but when Catholic states like
Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and New York said any two humans could enter
into marriage; or when our own state of Illinois, with its Catholic governor
and Catholic senate president and Catholic house speaker, legalized unions
between any two humans, making those civil unions “a marriage” in all but the name? When will Catholics in America learn the
lesson of this 2000-year-old parable?
Will this latest plot of the children of darkness—led I am certain by
the Prince of Darkness—this clever ingenious plot to make each of us pay for
contraception and abortion disguised as emergency contraception—will this be
the final straw that awakens the Catholic sleeping giant in America? Or will that giant look, yawn, and again—roll
over?
Last Thursday the
Church observed and celebrated the Feast of St. Jean Marie Vianney—the Cure of
Ars—the patron of parish priests. There
is a lesson to be learned, I think, in the very small number of secular,
diocesan, priests like the Cure of Ars, who have been canonized. That small number of canonized secular,
diocesan priests could very well be a big reason why the sleeping American
Catholic giant continues to sleep in the face of continuous abomination after
abomination. In the Office of Matins
last Thursday, we read these words written by the cure:…the Christian’s
treasure is not on earth but in heaven. Our
thoughts, then, ought to be directed to where our treasure is… But the cure is not telling us to ignore the
evil goings-on here on earth. He tells
us:…this is the glorious duty of man: to pray and to love…. Is it love to ignore these continuing successive
abominations? Is it love to allow our
culture to continue to descend into destructive death? Is ignoring the death of American Christian
culture how we will attain our treasure in heaven? Can ignoring this possibly unite us to God
forever? Is this loving our neighbor as
ourselves? …And still worse, the cure
continues,…there are some who seem to speak to the good God like this: ‘I will
only say a couple of things to You, and then I will be rid of You.’ I often think that when we come to adore the Lord,
we would receive everything we ask for, if we would ask with living faith and
with a pure heart…. We, Catholics in
America, must learn the lesson of this parable: we have the power, and the
opportunity, and now again yet another chance, to end the abominations
infecting our national life today, if we have the will to do so—having that
will, having a living faith and having a pure heart, we would receive
everything we ask for…because all along, God has been on our side.
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, August 7th, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Only Answer to Same-Sex "Marriage" is Caritas in Veritate
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
You probably are aware that, at the end of last week, the state senate of New York passed, and the “Catholic” governor of New York signed, legislation which makes same sex “marriage” legal in the state of New York. Early this past week I received a news article by email, the headline of which stated The majority of New York bishops praise state passage of same gender marriage. The article said, in part….At least one…Church bishop in the state of New York has said that clergy in his diocese may solemnize same-gender marriages as soon as the state's recently passed Marriage Equality Act goes into effect…The Bishop…of Rochester said in a statement…that he would soon set up a diocesan task force…to help us chart our course to engage this journey reverently, deliberately and in congruence with church law….(The bishop)....had actively campaigned for at least two years for passage of the law….Bishop Mark Sisk said in a statement that…the legislation, as enacted, appears to be closely aligned with the long standing views of this diocese that the civil rights of all people should be respected equally before the law….Sisk noted in his statement that the new law…does not determine church teaching about the nature of sacraments….That is our continuing work, he said. However, nothing in the unfinished nature of that work should cause us to hesitate to give our most profound thanks for the step that has been taken in affording equal civil rights for our brothers and sisters….Sisk had written to the New York Times in May to note his and the diocese's long-standing support of allowing same-gender couples the right of civil marriage.
You have probably figured, by this time, that these are not Catholic bishops (they are bishops of the Episcopal Church, the USA version of the Anglican Church). The Anglican Church has been fighting within itself for a number of years about this and other issues relating to the nature of human sexuality and of marriage, and they are sharply divided, on these types of issues, into opposing camps.
This Sunday, the ordo for the extraordinary form of the Mass allows for a choice—an unusual situation for the extraordinary form. The priest is free to choose from among three celebrations: the Mass for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, the Mass for the Feast of the Sacred Heart—last Friday’s feast—or the Mass for the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul—last Wednesday’s feast. I chose Ss. Peter and Paul for several reasons. The feast of Ss. Peter and Paul on June 29th is one of the four universal holydays of obligation which, by indult, have never been observed as days of obligation in the United States (the others being Epiphany, St. Joseph, and Corpus Christi). Ss. Peter and Paul is by far the more ancient of the two feasts. But, more significantly, we here at St. Thomas More have just this past week, in union with the Church throughout the world, had sixty hours of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in observance of the 60th anniversary of the ordination to the priesthood of Pope Benedict XVI on the very day of this Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. Today we should—and every day we must—give thanks to God for the gift of the papal office to the Church; likewise, we must give thanks to God for our current Holy Father. We have been blessed in all our lifetimes to have holy popes at the head of the Church, and Pope Benedict continues that succession of holy popes. We can be thankful today, now, here, in the United States, in 2011 and onward, that we will never awaken to a news headline stating, with any accurate meaning, The majority of Catholic bishops praise same gender marriage. In giving the Church this guarantee of faithfulness—this needed authority—Our Lord makes it possible for each of us to know and to believe what is true, in spite of our own sinful inclinations caused by the sin of Adam—our inclination to believe as true what we would like to be true, what would appear to suit our own needs. The essential, the core, the substance, of our Catholic Faith is “apostolic,” meaning it comes from the apostles who received it from Our Lord Himself. The Church’s teaching, its sanctification, and its governance, have been passed on to us in an unbroken Tradition from the apostles over the past 2000 years. On this Independence Day weekend, it is particularly important to observe this, because the United States in its current perilous moral state can only be saved by the truths of Christianity, and all the truths of Christianity have been preserved perfectly and fully taught only by the Catholic Church.
The only answer that will move society away from the acceptance of homosexuality and thus same-sex “marriage” is–caritas in veritate–love in truth; the title of Pope Benedict’s most recent encyclical. And it is up to the Church fearlessly to preach this difficult, but beautiful message. It is not love to allow your children to rampantly misbehave without correcting them. It is often easier to turn the other way and purposely fail to notice misbehavior. But out of love, parents must correct and discipline their children, lest they come to harm. So too the Church, and especially her shepherds–the fathers of souls—must feed the flock, must teach the truths however difficult and politically incorrect. That is true love. The Holy Father has instructed bishops and priests to do exactly this, again and again. Perhaps some priests and some bishops shy away from this because of the reaction they know they are certain to get: from those in the pews, from other priests, from ecclesiastical superiors, from the media. It is easy for me to say these things here; I have found, in only one of my past pastoral assignments, that whenever I would speak about the Church’s teaching on practically any moral issue, opposition would come from a loud vocal minority, but one with some serious powerful connections. So I appreciate the difficulty other priests may have. It believe it was St. John Vianney who said something like…there are no bad priests, only priests for whom not enough people have prayed enough….
The Holy See has specifically warned against silence on the hard truths of homosexuality. The man who is now our pope, while he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a letter directed to the bishops, stating that silence about the Church’s teachings regarding the spiritual harm of homosexual acts stems from a false charity which he states is …neither caring nor pastoral…. There is no real choice but to speak out, with conviction and love, the truths of Christ, especially in these hard areas of human sexuality. Priests will be criticized for it, but they must trust that God will see to it nonetheless. And it is important that Catholic faithful support priests who speak the truth especially in places where that message is opposed or ridiculed. As I said, it is easy to speak thus here; for that and for you, I am grateful. But in every Catholic parish church, love demands it and the future of the Church depends on it, because in this battle of homosexuality, a time of persecution of the Church is near at hand, and indeed, in many parts of our own country it has already arrived.
A few weeks ago, Malawi’s Ambassador to the United Nations said privately that the Obama administration had threatened to withhold $350 million in aid unless Malawi’s government struck down its laws on sodomy. Among Malawi’s roughly 16-million inhabitants, the life expectancy is a paltry 51.7 years, which is the 211th lowest life expectancy in the world. Malawi has the eleventh highest infant mortality rate in the world. And 44 percent of the population does not have safe sanitation, meaning they very well might be peeing where they drink. Malawi is also among the poorest countries in the world. A $350-million aid package goes a long way there, yet here are President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holding Malawi hostage to the new U.S. homosexual agenda. Make sodomy legal or your people can twist in the wind. Within days, Malawi’s government committed to changing Malawi’s sodomy laws. President Obama hailed this as a great victory. Yes, you can usually get your way if you are strong by threatening the world’s weak. And take note that this story was characteristically overlooked by the media.
The successor of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, in an address given only 18 days prior to his election as pope, and one day prior to the death of Pope Blessed John Paul II, then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger said…Very soon it will not be possible to state that homosexuality, as the Catholic Church teaches, is an objective disorder in the structuring of human existence…. As so many of our modern popes—as Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae—Pope Benedict has proven himself prescient. The time may be coming shortly when we are forbidden to state the basic truths of the Church. Will we then have the courage to proclaim Christ’s truth with the possibility of losing our jobs, our homes, our friends, our freedom, or perhaps even shedding our blood? If we choose silence now because of cultural pressures, the loss of human respect and political calculations, how can we imagine that when the penalties are increased to include imprisonment, and possibly even torment and death, we will dare to speak the truth of Christ? Our Catholic Faith is not a religion that provides a formula for not sinning. Rather, it teaches If you do sin – and you will – repent, get up, and then go on. Our Lord knew we needed doctrine, grace, habit, purpose of amendment, penance, and forgiveness. And He knew we needed certainty and assurance. That’s why He gave us Peter, then Linus, then Cletus, then Clement—all the way down to our own Benedict.
Especially in America, too many ministers and purveyors of religion tell the world in every way that everything is fine, especially themselves – just do what others do. Do not judge. Do not distinguish. If something is wrong, it is not your fault. It’s the system. It’s no one’s fault. You are ok. Don’t worry. Be happy. Who needs God in all that, let alone penance and change of heart? That’s why all this is not the work of God; it is the work of the Enemy, the Devil. The successor of Peter is not pleasing to the Enemy. He speaks caritas in veritate—truth in love... The devil hates all that. That’s precisely why our prayers for the pope must increase in our lives, in the life of the Church. The Enemy just hates Peter and his successors; that’s why we must love him, and never cease to pray for him.
Fr. Robert Behnke
The External Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul
Monday, July 4, 2011
Gift of the Body and Blood of Christ
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
This Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ began in the 1200s. It was begun in order for the Church to be able to express a joyful gratitude for the Gift of the Blessed Sacrament in a way that was not possible on Holy Thursday because of the nearness of the horrible events of Our Lord’s passion and death commemorated the following day. The first Holy Thursday, the day Our Lord gave the Church Himself in the Holy Eucharist, was a day steeped in sadness, because the next day was Good Friday–the day of the cross, the day of Our Lord’s atoning death on the cross. The Mass given to the Church on Holy Thursday was an anticipation of the sacrifice of the cross on Good Friday–an anticipation of earth at last being able to touch heaven. The purpose in instituting today’s feast was to focus specifically on the Gift of the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. The Mass and the Office for Corpus Christi were composed by St. Thomas Aquinas upon the request of Pope Urban IV in the year 1264. It is unquestionably a classic piece of liturgical work, wholly in accord with the best liturgical traditions—Pange Lingua and Tantum Ergo, O Sacrum Convivium, Ecce Panis Angelorum—all these hymns were composed and used first for this feast day. It is a perfect work of art. So on this feast, we are invited to contemplate the Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament in Itself: What It is; what It does – and, what happens to you and me when you and I receive Holy Communion
How many Catholics really expect anything to happen when they receive Holy Communion; how many Catholics really expect to be changed by the Mass they attend? How many expect to hear a Word proclaimed and preached that will powerfully change the way they think and the way they see the entire world? How many expect actually to encounter Jesus Christ and be changed forever by that encounter? How many expect to receive Holy Communion and to be marvelously helped by this reception in ways far beyond what Tylenol or Advil or Prozac or any other medicine could ever achieve in the physical order? On this Feast of Corpus Christi, what do you expect from receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion?
Some people put more faith in Aleve and Tylenol than they do in Holy Communion. That’s because when they take Tylenol they expect something to happen. But many people don’t really expect anything to happen when they receive Holy Communion. But consider this: According to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, God did not have to redeem us by assuming a human body. There are bound to be, Thomas opines, other ways in which God could have saved us. The sisters told us in school that, by a simple thought, by a momentary act of His divine will, God could have effected man’s salvation. The humanity of Christ, then, becomes an especially significant instrument of our redemption. The humiliated and then raised and glorified body of Christ becomes a visible sign of redemption that stretches out across time and space to reach all creation, beginning with Adam. Consider the following passage from an ancient sermon read during the Office of Holy Saturday…The Lord goes in to them [in Hades] holding His victorious weapon, His Cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees Him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'May the Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand, He raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light….
In this passage the hand of Christ, his Body, raises Adam to life. As Catholics we all believe in the true humanity of Christ; the consequences of that belief are even more radical: Christ makes all His followers members of His Body, the Church, and gives us physical, bodily signs: the sacraments. …Take this and eat it, this is My Body; take It and drink It, this is My Blood….. If we believe in something so unimaginable as God Himself becoming one of us for our salvation, if we believe something so astonishing that, imperfect as we are, we are made members of that holy Body, the Church, why would we ever doubt yet another amazing grace which is, through His own promise, Christ is really and truly and substantially present in the Eucharist?
The Body and Blood of Christ in Their sacramental, mystical Form under the appearances of bread and wine are left for us so that our lives as members of the Body of Christ, the Church, may be strengthened and nourished by the Body of Christ, the Eucharist. This again is part of Jesus' promise: …Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day…. This is the radical consequence of the seemingly simple act of receiving Holy Communion, eating what appears, to the uninformed and to the unbeliever, a tiny small piece of unleavened bread—That Which, when I received my first Holy Communion 56 years ago, we approached, with a simple faith and childlike understanding, What we together called, in our child’s prayer, our Little White Guest. That Little White Guest repeatedly affords us an extraordinary level of intimacy with God Who not only walked on earth 2,000 years ago and established us as members of His Body in the Church but also feeds us with Himself. How can an intimacy greater than any other intimacy we can possibly experience this side of heaven not possibly change us? How can that intimacy not but change the way we think and change the way we see the entire world? How can we not be changed by this, our own personal encounter with the intimacy of God? Only by the mistaken use of the power of our own freedom, a freedom given to us by God which allows every man to reject even the intimacy of an encounter with God. And our own world proves to us the truth of this intimacy with divinity—proven by the many souls who strive to live as God has taught us to live: sins are put to death; they have more joy in the Lord, more confidence and serenity, less anxiety and resentfulness. They love more, are more compassionate and have more understanding. They do not fear most of the things that they used to fear. They are less greedy and more generous. And they do not boast, since it is not they who have done any of this. It is Jesus in them. They are not yet fully what they want to be but they are also not what they used to be. Likewise our world proves to us the truth of the ability to reject this intimacy—proven today by the sins made possible by the misuse of our freedom—so many evils that cry to heaven for justice—all wars: the war of our culture against marriage and the family (late last/Friday night, same sex marriage became legal in New York state by the action of the state legislature and the signature of the “Catholic” governor); the casual approach by many—in the government, some medical providers, some politician and too many citizens—to the elderly, the terminally ill, those challenged mentally or physically; most of all the rejection of divine intimacy no more obvious in our own time than by the continuing evil of the murder of the bodies of the unborn in the wombs of their mothers—the sin of abortion that, with more agony than any other evil in our own time, cries to heaven for justice; an act that is a total rejection of intimacy with God.
Again, St. Thomas Aquinas instructs us: …My dearly beloved, is it not beyond human power to express the ineffable delicacy of this sacrament in which spiritual sweetness is tasted in its very source, in which is brought to mind the remembrance of that all-excelling charity which Christ showed in His sacred passion? Surely it was to impress more profoundly upon the hearts of the faithful the immensity of this charity that our loving Savior instituted this sacrament at the last supper when, having celebrated the Pasch with His disciples. He was about to leave the world and return to the Father. It was to serve as an unending remembrance of His passion, as the fulfillment of ancient types — this the greatest of His miracles….
Today, and always, let us use our freedom to be thankful for the Gift of the Body and Blood of Christ that so perfectly corresponds to our needs as it nourishes our hearts and our spirits, and as It feeds and purifies all our senses: touch and vision, smell, taste and hearing. …He gave Himself, what more could He give? O, how He loves you and me….
Fr. Robert Behnke
Corpus Christi, June 26, 2011
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Delving More Deeply Into the Holy Trinity
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
Trinity Sunday is, for me and I suspect for many who preach, a particularly challenging Sunday. How can one say anything helpful, nourishing, spiritually significant let alone spiritually challenging, about the Mystery of God the Blessed Trinity, when in the first place man could never have figured out that God is a Trinity? God had to reveal supernaturally the mystery of what theology calls His “Godhead.” Though man can reason to the existence of God and following that, some truths about God, it would be utterly impossible for man on his own to have come to the conclusion that God is Three Divine Persons in one; God had to reveal this truth to man, because our reason cannot adequately wrap our minds even around the idea, let alone the reality. And the great blessing we celebrate, surely every day, especially at every Sacrifice of the Mass, but particularly on Trinity Sunday, is that we don’t have to figure God out on our own. Surely He has not, and will never, reveal to us all there could be to know about Himself; we would need to be God to know God in His fullness. But the blessing is that we who have met and believed in the Son of God Our Lord Jesus Christ have been told by Him all that we need to know about God. Anything that is true—any truth—can be either external or internal in relation to our own lives. We may know and be able to rattle off the names of the capitals of the fifty states, but that information remains really external – peripheral – to our lives until, perhaps, a person may become first a little curious, then mildly interested, and then passionate, about the history of America and her fifty states: how they came to be, how the boundaries were determined, how they were named, when they entered the union. Then that same knowledge that was once external – peripheral – incidental – now has become internal – important – significant – crucial – to the man who has come genuinely to breathe the study of American history. For one man, knowing the fifty capitals is merely incidental to his life; for another, it becomes like the marrow in his bones.
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| Archbishop Francis Chullikatt |
…In providing more than one fourth of all care for those who are suffering from HIV and AIDS, Catholic healthcare institutions know well the importance of access to treatment, care and support for the millions of people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS….The Holy See understands that, when referring to "young people," the definition of which enjoying no international consensus, States must always respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents to provide appropriate direction and guidance to their children, which includes having primary responsibility for the upbringing, development, and education of their children….States must acknowledge that the family, based on marriage being the equal partnership between one man and one woman and the natural and fundamental group unit of society, is indispensable in the fight against HIV and AIDS, for the family is where children learn moral values to help them live in a responsible manner and where the greater part of care and support is provided….The Holy See rejects references to terms such as "populations at high risk" because they treat persons as objects and can give the false impression that certain types of irresponsible behavior are somehow morally acceptable. The Holy See does not endorse the use of condoms/commodities including as part of HIV and AIDS prevention programs or classes/programs of education in sex/sexuality. Prevention programs or classes/programs of education in human sexuality should focus not on trying to convince the world that risky and dangerous behavior forms part of an acceptable lifestyle, but rather should focus on risk avoidance, which is ethically and empirically sound. The only safe and completely reliable method of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV is abstinence before marriage and respect and mutual fidelity within marriage, which is and must always be the foundation of any discussion of prevention and support. The Holy See does not accept so-called "harm reduction" efforts related to drug use. Such efforts do not respect the dignity of those who are suffering from drug addiction as they do not treat or cure the sick person, but instead falsely suggest that they cannot break free from the cycle of addiction. Such persons must be provided the necessary spiritual, psychological and familial support to break free from the addictive behavior in order to restore their dignity and encourage social inclusion. The Holy See rejects the characterization of persons who engage in prostitution as "sex workers" as this can give the false impression that prostitution could somehow be a legitimate form of work. Prostitution cannot be separated from the issue of the status and dignity of persons; governments and society must not accept such a dehumanization and objectification of persons. What is needed is a value-based approach to counter the disease of HIV and AIDS, an approach which provides the necessary care and moral support for those infected and which promotes living in conformity with the norms of the natural moral order, an approach which respects fully the inherent dignity of the human person….It may be true that, on first examination, many Christians think that the Blessed Trinity doesn't connect with anything much in either their life or worship. But our belief in the dignity of every human clearly follows from our belief in the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and in particular from what we believe about how the Blessed Trinity interacts in the life of the world. Our Lord spells it out clearly and succinctly in speaking to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel: …God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him….
The action of the Blessed Trinity for us—our creation in God’s image, our salvation by God’s death, our adoption as children of God in the sacrament of baptism—these are the reasons why the Church has always fought—and still fights today—for respect for the dignity of every human person—why the Church fought in the past and still fights today against any power, any culture, any nation, any people, any opinion that diminishes the intrinsic worth of even a single human being. This is why the Church strenuously opposes abortion and opposes anyone who in any way supports abortion or even facilitates abortion; this is why the bishops of the USA just this past week formally reiterated the Church’s opposition to assisted suicide, something now legally allowable in three states, and something that I wouldn’t be surprised to debut soon in the Illinois legislature. This is why the Church has Catholic Charities, hospitals, nursing homes, grade and high schools, senior citizen centers; this is why the Church invented the idea of universities in the Middle Ages; this is why no single institution cares for more HIV/AIDS patients than the Catholic Church—because the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, Which is a mystery of unending, self-sacrificing, eternal, other-centered love—is at the heart of the Church, at the heart of the Catholic Faith. The nations of the West and their UN ambassadors believe that HIV/AIDS can be successfully treated by acting as if narcissistic sexual activity is good but must carry a caution in the form of a condom. The Church knows that HIV/AIDS—as well as every other evil on the planet—can only be fought and defeated with self-sacrificing love—a love that entails both self-respect and respect for the other rather, than by a utilitarian treatment of persons as objects, by passing out free condoms and giving instructions even to children on how to use them. The Church teaches that people have more dignity than the UN or the US government realizes; all people have a dignity that comes directly from their creation by God the Three-in-One—Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
In today’s Second Reading, St. Paul links belief in the Blessed Trinity with the daily practice of Christian living. Being in right relationship with God is the whole point of life as a Catholic:…Mend your ways…writes St. Paul….encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you…. In other words, act and live like what you are, as what God created you to be, a human being created in the image and likeness of the God Who is eternal, unending, everlasting love. If we can decide always to try to live as what we have been created to be, we will, on this Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, today have delved very deeply into the mystery of that Blessed Trinity, and in that mystery we will see God ever more clearly.
Trinity Sunday, June 19, 2011
In the Crosshairs
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| Fr. Robert Behnke |
At times, God the Holy Spirit may seem to be the Neglected Person of the Blessed Trinity. Though we speak of the Holy Spirit every time we make the Sign of the Cross, and also in the doxology Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit we pray to the Holy Spirit, in our conversations about God many people speak much more often of God the Father, and especially of God the Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense this is understandable, since God is essentially a Mystery—not to Himself but to us—revealed in nature as the one true God, but more fully by divine revelation as three divine persons in the one true God. We could not know there is a Trinity of Persons, yet only one God, had God not revealed this truth to us; we absolutely could not have figured this out on our own. You may know that a main objection to Christianity, and particularly to Catholicism, on the part of both Jews and Moslems is that, because we believe the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, Catholics are thus accused of believing in three “Gods.” Also, our own human minds more easily conceptualize the notion of “father” and “son” than “spirit.” Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church says far less about the Holy Spirit than about the Father and the Son. In this, the catechism follows the example of the Church’s ancient creeds–the Apostles Creed; the Nicene Creed which we will recite in a few moments. Likewise, the Catechism refers to the Holy Spirit as the Inexpressible Person, but the Person Whom we know: through the Scriptures which He inspired; in Tradition; in the Magisterium which He assists; in Baptism which makes us temples—dwelling places—of God the Holy Spirit; in the other six sacraments; in prayer; in every aspect of the Church’s life. The Church prays to the Holy Spirit more often than we might think: in the Gloria of the Mass; at the conclusion of prayers; in the Divine Office, especially on Sundays in the hymn Te Deum Laudamus. In the most important part of the Mass, it is God the Holy Spirit Whom the Church asks God the Father to send so that by the power of God the Holy Spirit bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Our Lord. The Holy Spirit is inseparable from the Father and the Son; Our Lord tells us this Himself, assuring us that He and the Father are one – He who sees Me sees the Father—and in promising not to leave us orphans—not alone, not without Him, not without God—but to send the Holy Spirit–His Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son, a Love so real that That Love is an Eternal Person, without beginning or end, in the triune community that is God.
Perhaps many Catholics connect the coming of God the Holy Spirit into their lives with their reception of the sacrament of Confirmation. True enough, but not the total picture. Recall that St. Paul tells us today, when we were baptized, we were…all given to drink of the one Spirit. In Baptism, God dwells in you; you are filled with sanctifying grace, God adopts you as His child and makes you an heir of heaven. What Baptism begins, Confirmation completes–the baptized person in Confirmation receives the supernatural ability to do what we cannot do under our own power—to be a witness to the truth of Christ found in His One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. That is exactly the transformation we see in the apostles on the first Pentecost. That word apostle means Spirit-enlightened witness. The disciples truly became apostles on Pentecost, or better said, they now know what it means to be an apostle - they are no longer afraid to witness to Jesus. And that word martyr means witness. Note the color red today, the color of the Holy Spirit. Because red is the color of blood, it is also the color of martyrs. It is the color of agape, the type of love that one has when he is willing to sacrifice everything, including one’s very own life, for Jesus. On the first Easter night, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus—after they recognized Jesus in the Breaking of the Bread and after He then disappears—they say to each other …Were not our hearts burning inside of us…. That is how Jesus loves us, and how He wants us to love Him. That is what Jesus does–His Sacred Heart burns with self-sacrificing love. That is what He wants from us; that is what Scripture means when it tells us God is Love.
Make no mistake; these are not idle, flowery, wispy thoughts and words. The witness of martyrdom has not disappeared; it is the golden thread that binds the Church with Our Lord for these two thousand years of the Church’s history. In the past, there have been times in which it was relatively safe—even comfortable—to be a Catholic (I think the 50s and the very early 60s were such a time in our country, but not in the nations under Communism); many more times in history, being a Catholic has been dangerous. All the martyrs, from St. Stephen to St. Maximilian Kolbe, show us this earthly danger. We now seem to be moving quickly, and deeper and deeper, into a period when in the United States it will inevitably become more and more dangerous to live a faithful practicing Catholic life. For that reason, we should pray every day to the Holy Spirit Who in the sacrament of Confirmation has already given us all we need to be faithful in a public way, that we will use His gifts to be faithful—faithful even to the point of martyrdom—since in so many ways our world is telling us that we really should not be free to be faithful Catholics in public; the culture says there is little or no place for Catholicism in the here and now of the public square—that it is wrong, a bad thing, even a crime, to be a faithful Catholic. We have seen, over just the past few weeks, how the Illinois civil union legislation has impacted the ability of the Illinois Catholic Charities to place children for adoption and foster care according to what the Church teaches about marriage and family. The freedom to be Catholic openly today in Illinois is at great risk.
Tonight's first reading, describing the descent of the Holy Spirit on Our Blessed Mother and the apostles, gives us a clue to the meaning of the experience of the first Pentecost. The reading from The Acts of the Apostles does not dwell on the fire, the wind and the noise, but on the transforming experience of the devout men and women living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven. They hear these Galileans speaking foreign languages, so that each one of them hears the apostles preaching in their own language about the marvels of God. This miracle is the reversal of the tower of Babel experience, in which man’s language became confused because of man’s attempt to climb, under his own power, right up to heaven—man’s attempt to substitute himself for God. The descent of the Holy Spirit leading to the fearless preaching of the apostles shows forth the seeds of the Church as one holy, catholic and apostolic. The Gift of the Holy Spirit does not rule out difficulty, suffering or human effort. St Paul in today's second reading reminds the Christians in Corinth that the Church is like a human body and that the gifts of the Spirit are not about enthusiasm or special knowledge for an elite group, but a variety of gifts for building up the whole body of Christ, in which each of us has a part assigned to us by God. St. Paul's image of the Church as the mystical Body of Christ reflects the truth of today's Gospel: Our Risen Lord comes on Easter night to His closest followers—those who had deserted Him—to bring them now a peace which is not just a calming of hearts and conscience, but the surety of heart which will enable and embolden them to go out and preach the gospel to the very ends of the earth. Having overcome death, now Our Lord breathes His Spirit into them, to enable them to witness to Him; He gives them the power to withstand and overcome the power of this world—the sins of the world which He bore on Calvary.
For years now, the trend toward liberal dogmatism and political correctness is serving to muzzle religious Christians who are doing nothing else but carrying on the Church’s Pentecost mission. The hateful reaction on the part of homosexual activists and activist promoters of abortion—and the opposition to the Church on the part of many civil authorities, many of whom profess to he Catholic—the hateful reaction and the civic opposition to the Church’s legitimate request to be allowed merely to place children in homes, not according to some sectarian Church teaching, but according to the dictates of the law placed by God in human nature, demonstrates how serious the problem is becoming. And, though we probably don’t think about it too much, our next-door neighbor Canada, a country where homosexual marriage is legal and opposition to abortion meets with unhidden scorn, and often with violence, punitive fines, or even jail time, is less than 300 miles from Chicago–just across the river from Detroit.
The recent and still ongoing health care debate; stem cell research; the absolute secrecy of every confession a priest hears, even for the most horrendous of sins; the Church’s right to control her own structure and finances; the right for a Catholic to refuse to cooperate in any medical procedure the Church teaches is intrinsically evil; the right of priests to preach about doctrine and morality that touch upon political questions; the right of Catholics to defend their faith in the public square without fear or intimidation; the right for me to say what I am saying right now: all these things are right now seriously challenged in some section of our country. One has only to read most journalism in the secular press, a press which admires all kinds of perversion and seriously promotes all sorts of sins that cry to heaven. Most mainstream media, entertainment in movies and TV, all the rest—all have numbed the conscience of America; years and years of Will and Grace have turned perversion into acceptable, fuzzy, warm, cuddly, laudable social behavior. And those who openly object or oppose or even criticize any of this should know: the culture is coming after them next.
And then the rest of us. Then come the laws which will put all of us, five or ten years from now, in the crosshairs of district attorneys and an increasing politically correct legal system which will then judge us guilty: guilty for using forbidden words, guilty for defending forbidden doctrine, guilty for–as the politically correct culture puts it–guilty for promoting hatred.
Yet we should not fear; we can not fear. God keeps every one of His promises: He is with us always; He has sent us His Holy Spirit, the Spirit Whose works are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear–fear not of the police, fear not of the government–fear of the Lord. It is the same Holy Spirit that enabled those first apostles to face even death for the truth of Jesus and His Church. They knew that even death would not, could not, separate them from God–God Who is both Life and Love. No matter how difficult being a devout faithful Catholic may become, all this too will end. Yet God does not—God will never—force us, as we well know. Even God the Holy Spirit will not make us be His witness. God does not make us–but God makes us able. God is all just; God cannot require our doing what is impossible, so God makes us able to do all He requires, even to do what seems most painful, most difficult—even to do what is truly impossible without the help of God. That is what God the Holy Spirit did for the apostles on Pentecost; that is what God the Holy Spirit does for us each time we receive the sacraments worthily—He gives us an increase of grace—an increase of His own life, until, when, our having have remained faithful, our earthly life is complete, over, finished, in us God will be all in all.
Pentecost Sunday
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