St. Thomas More Chicago

Fr. Robert Behnke

My having been a priest for 38 years last month, I have been preaching, and so preparing, homilies for that same number of years—actually, for 39 years, since I preached for a little more than a year as a deacon before my being ordained a priest.  During that year as a deacon, I developed a personal method for homily preparation, and I still use basically the same method over the week, beginning right after the previous Sunday.  I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that I have tried consistently to stick to my weekly preparation timetable; the Church teaches in the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the priesthood that preaching is one of a priest’s primary responsibilities.  However, since most rules have some occasional exception (not divine law, but human rules), I have had occasionally to interrupt my well-established homily preparation routine: my dad’s sudden death on the Wednesday morning before Father’s Day comes immediately to my mind.  

“Did Pope Benedict take Vice President Biden to school today on abortion? We may not know.  Their brief Vatican meeting today was strictly private, diplomatic speak for how we're not going to get photos or a transcript of Pope Benedict XVI's meeting, just like we didn't get them when then-speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Benedict in 2009.  What unites the visits of the top American leaders? These are two faithful, Mass-attending Catholics who vote for all the social justice issues that the U.S. bishops stand for on topics like peace, poverty and immigration. But their views favoring abortion rights wipe all that away to the thinking of those for whom abortion is a litmus test….The Associated Press, in covering the Biden/Benedict visit, picked up the Catholic Vote "non-negotiable" lingo that actually never appears in the current U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops policy on Faithful Citizenship.  That document, intended to guide voters on Catholic teachings, not to endorse specific candidates, has traditionally been reissued each presidential election cycle. Last time, conservatives, campaigning for stronger public condemnation, and denial of communion for Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, were unhappy with the document.  Later this month, when the bishops hold their semiannual meeting, they're set to discuss whether they're going to plunge into the fray again, revising Faithful Citizenship for 2012….”

…These things I have spoken to you that you may not be scandalized.  They will expel you from the synagogues.  Yes, the hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering worship to God.  And these things they will do because they have not known the Father nor Me.  But these things I have spoken to you, that when the time for them has come you may remember that I told you….

You are surely familiar with all those precious, naïve images in which only the feet of Jesus are visible, sticking out of the cloud, at the heads of the apostles. The cloud, for its part, is a dark circle on the perimeter; on the inside, however, blazing light. It occurs to me that precisely in the apparent naïveté of this representation something very deep comes into view. All we see of Christ in the time of history are his feet and the cloud. His feet—what are they?  We are reminded, first of all, of a peculiar sentence from the Resurrection account in Matthew’s Gospel, where it is said that the women held onto the feet of the Risen Lord and worshipped him. As the Risen One, he towers over earthly proportions. We can still only touch his feet; and we touch them in adoration. Here we could reflect that we come as worshippers, following his trail, close to his footsteps. Praying, we go to him; praying, we touch him, even if in this world, so to speak, always only from below, only from afar, always only on the trail of his earthly steps. At the same time it becomes clear that we do not find the footprints of Christ when we look only below, when we measure only footprints and want to subsume faith in the obvious. The Lord is movement toward above, and only in moving ourselves, in looking up and ascending, do we recognize him.  When we read the Church Fathers something important is added. The correct ascent of man occurs precisely where he learns, in humbly turning toward his neighbor, to bow very deeply, down to his feet, down to the gesture of the washing of feet. It is precisely humility, which can bow low, that carries man upward. This is the dynamic of ascent that the feast of the Ascension wants to teach us.

I looked in my hand missal and, sure enough, on the page picturing the Ascension—no head, only the feet, of Our Lord.  What is God telling us by all the activities of evil that seem now to be surrounding and enveloping the Church?  Surely more penance, and repentance, and charity—on our part—and better use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit—wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord—gifts we have from our Confirmation—gifts to be activated when we encounter any of the forces of evil—whether they are hot or cold or indifferent.  And our faith must always come with humility—a faith that never forgets that God is God, and that I am no and never will be, God; a faith that knows that, neither my own wisdom, nor the forces of evil, but Divine Providence has control of all things.  And perhaps most of all, a faith that believes, just as He always has, He still remains with us, guiding the Church now through all this mess—through everything—believing that, at last,  He will come again—finally—in glory.