Restoring the Kingdom to Whom?

The Ascension of the Lord (Year A)

Acts 1:1-11

Ephesians 1:17-23

Matthew 28:16-20

What is the meaning or significance of Christ’s victory over sin and death? What did the Easter Season mean for the Apostles: those 40 days between His Resurrection and His Ascension to God’s Right Hand? What is it that shines forth in the very intimate experiences reserved for His Apostles in His repeated appearances and teaching over those 40 days since His Resurrection and, now as Jesus is taken from their sight, as He commissions them to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth? What is it that the Ascension of the Lord crowns or confirms?

The liturgy for today says it very simply in the words: “where He has gone we hope to follow.”

However, the lessons the Risen Christ taught them during these 40 days were not all that evident to the Apostles, as we can see from the readings today, both from the Acts of the Apostles and from Matthew’s Gospel:

“Lord, has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

“When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated.”

It is St. Paul in today’s 2^nd Reading from his letter to the Ephesians who explains to us what the Apostles only learned on Pentecost Sunday with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Basically, today explains the greatness, the profundity, the length and breadth, the height and depth of what is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. We come to see things clearly. In terms of time and history we leave behind us B.C. (all of history from the dawn of Creation, all that which went before the coming of God’s Anointed, His Christ) and we enter into God’s Kingdom, now firmly established in the person of Jesus (Anno Domini, A.D., in the year of our Lord, as good Christian folk used to start off when they were writing something).

“He has put all things under his feet, and made him as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church; which is his body, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation.”

And a lot of us, just like the Apostles before Pentecost say: “And…?” Taking our Christianity for granted as we do, we wonder about what makes us different or, God forbid, better by reason of our baptism into Christ than anyone else. “Where He has gone we hope to follow.” How can we, how dare we say that we are bound to Him, to Jesus, and consequently to God’s Chosen One, His Only One:

“He has put all things under his feet, and made him as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church; which is his body, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation.”

Paul is right in praying for us, because the implications of this, of the mystery of the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, aren’t all that easy to grasp:

“May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that he has exercised for us believers.”

The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord celebrates Christ’s victory and our hope to share in the same forever with Him in Heaven. It is indeed an absolute sort of thing, not necessarily moving us to scorn this life, but certainly inspiring a hope which goes beyond the ordinary.

These days I’m listening to CDs from a basic course in Ukrainian and reading a couple of books on the history and customs of that great country, which will soon be my home. According to the one book, buffet food or finger food at receptions is not that popular. Ukrainians, if the book is correct, still seem to believe that the best time comes from sitting around the table and eating and drinking together. The scene the author describes reminds me of a scene from a country home in one of Dostoyevsky’s books, where the young man is for all practical purposes smothered in food, drink, and the warmth of this country home. He likes it, I think, but finds too much what the elderly couple would judge as just right and truly living.

“Where He has gone we hope to follow.” Or as we read elsewhere: “here we have no lasting dwelling place.” Our world today is generally far from Dostoyevsky’s lovely little couple in the country; people tend to be lean and, sadly too, often mean. Food and drink, society and song is not necessarily the antidote for the typical type of alienation from which our Western world suffers. The great cultures of India and China or Japan, for that matter, don’t necessarily provide. Our hope can and must ultimately be found elsewhere or, should I say, beyond elsewhere and forever.

I think it is right that our lives be happy and that we have a certain measure of contentment which we share with everyone else. Maybe our world’s practical atheists don’t miss God, but if they were to encounter Him in our shared joy and in our hope to know His sacrificial love and live with Him forever beyond the grave, I firmly believe that much else would fall by the wayside and they might take us by the sleeve and beg us to lead them to the Lord.

We affirm with St. Paul, that God the Father:

“(He) has put all things under his feet, and made him as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church; which is his body, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation.”

Let your Sunday meditation carry your thoughts, beyond common friends, good times and even generous service to neighbor, to Him and where we hope to follow! His is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever!

 “May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that he has exercised for us believers.”

Life and Joy in Swaddling Clothes

Christmas Night Mass

2010

Rosary Monastery - St. Ann’s

Isaiah 9:1-7

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-14

          The 2^nd Reading for Christmas Night, which we just heard from St. Paul’s Letter to Titus, contains a whole program and one well worth reflecting upon in this Holy Night:

“He (as St. Paul identifies Him “our great God and savior Christ Jesus”) sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good.”

Just to be clear on it, when we say that Jesus sacrificed Himself we are referring to His sacrifice which was completed upon the Cross, but which began with tonight, with His being born a man like us in all things but sin. Christ’s outpouring for our salvation, and this is why we genuflect when we recite the Creed tonight, His sacrifice began when the Word became Flesh, born this day at Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. Freeing us from wickedness began with the Incarnation. Purifying a people for His very own with no ambition but to do good (I repeat) began with the Incarnation.

What indeed has God-become-Man, the Word-made-Flesh, accomplished in us, such that we can and should take on His ambition for us, His Will for us? Does your will conform to that of the Lord? What sorts of ambitions do you have? Are they only to do good? I really wish I could say that about myself, that purified I had indeed set my heart on the world to come, on the Kingdom of Christ, on His Will alone.

Sadly, yes, I would have to judge myself and say that I am not all that simple and straightforward. This is not to say that I have ambitions to do anything except the good, but honest is honest, and so I had better concede that I don’t quite think I have that first and longer sentence of the reading quite down yet. I come up short when it comes to the important details concerning what St. Paul means when he speaks of Christ’s sacrifice so that I might be His and have no ambition except to do good. St. Paul tells Titus and us that the Christ has “…taught us that what we have to do is to give up everything that does not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions; we must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world…” Having no ambition except to do good means giving up everything but God. My salvation depends upon my wholehearted and self-sacrificing response to Christ’s sacrifice for my salvation. But how do you do that? Is it even possible? Yes, it is possible, but not without our wanting it, not without real effort on our part. Our own hesitancy or slowness to embrace God’s Will wholeheartedly is a big part of what is wrong with our world.

What is the real reason that too few babies are being born in a lot of developed countries? Why is Western Europe aging so quickly, dying really? Why are fewer young people today entering into Christian matrimony? Why do we here in Trinidad have a genuine shortage of vocations to priesthood and the religious life? Maybe it’s simply because people have other ambitions in life, ambitions which have little to do either with how the Son of God ended up in a manger in Bethlehem 2000 years ago or why He was lifted up on the Cross for our salvation. Maybe too few people nurture ambitions to do only good, ambitions which can save us from death, ambitions which can lead us to God. I’m not pointing an accusing or condemning finger to say folks are bad or folks are selfish, but there would certainly seem to be a lack of focus in people’s lives, a lack of the kind of singleness of purpose St. Paul is recommending. The shepherds didn’t wander off to Bethlehem in this Holy Night looking for action or entertainment. They came looking for the One proclaimed to them by the hosts of Heaven, the angels. They, as shepherds the lowliest creatures in the world at that time, were summoned by angels to share in the most sublime mystery the universe has ever had to offer.

Approximately 30 years or so ago, in the context of what they used to call “film study”, I remember being annoyed by a Swedish film thing which contrasted the happy and carefree life of a family of entertainers, who really cared for each other, and whose daughter, widowed young, was sent away from this fun-loving family to be married off to a Lutheran pastor and condemned with her children to a dreadfully austere life and seemingly for no reason. Why she had to marry again, when she and the children were getting on so famously at home, is just one of those mysteries of “film study”. The film gave the impression that this poor woman and her children went from life and love, from what the film described as the good life in a carefree extended family to a sort of somber antechamber to death in a Lutheran parsonage. The film director seemed to want to characterize Christianity in his home country Sweden as a sort of living death.

Is this image fair? I don’t know, maybe things were that bad back then in Sweden. But let’s talk about being truly Catholic and right here and right now. Does this art film business describe us? Is this really what our religion is all about? Is this the meaning of St. Paul’s words: “…we must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world, while we are waiting in hope for the blessing which will come with the Appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Christ Jesus”?

          Personally, I feel very sad for all those people who feel constrained to reject faith, to boycott the Christ Child and to send out cards that have no more than a sprig of holly, a poinsettia or a frosty bell on them and make no mention of “Christmas” or “Holy” but only talk about the “season” and “lovely”. For me, those are the folks trapped in the antechamber of death, not my poor little widow in the Swedish art film and not those who give praise to the Infant King born in a stable at Bethlehem. Life and joy are not tied to all-inclusive fetes or to giant HD flat screen 3D entertainment centers. You cannot cook up or bottle the fullness of life and joy, no matter how long you age it in oak barrels. The reason for the season lies elsewhere. Life and joy, even if crippled, sick or financially destitute, keep company with that host of angels singing glory to God and with those poor shepherds come in the middle of the night to see the Holy One of God, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger: “God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race…” And with St. Paul, I proclaim that to be the one and only real joy.

          A special word for adults and specifically for parents and grandparents: is that happiness yours which would put in first place and above all else a child and the Child born at Bethlehem? Do we have time for others as the Last Judgment scene in Matthew’s Gospel would prescribe: when I was hungry, thirsty, naked, in prison…? St. Paul tells us that Bethlehem and the Cross: “…taught us that what we have to do is to give up everything that does not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions…” Have we truly learned the lesson? Or are we raising our own crop of budding Swedish film directors or snotty newspaper columnists who will have nothing but criticism for our faith and the cause of our joy?

          When we say with St. Paul: “…we must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world, while we are waiting in hope for the blessing which will come with the Appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Christ Jesus…” do we add a spontaneous “Oh joy!” or do we break out in a cold sweat?

          On this Holy Night I think the secret to joy is to be found in looking to the shepherds and remembering once again the answer to the very first question in the basic catechism of once upon a time. “Why did God make me?” For conspicuous consumption? No! For the good life as defined by the Hollywood Dreamworks or some crafty and probably crabby old Swede? No! “God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life, so as to be happy (happy, yes!) with Him in the next.” I really wonder some times if the forces of unbelief and secularization are really all that powerful or if maybe we don’t just need to turn off the noise, walk outside of an evening and contemplate the handiwork of our Creator… as simple, yes, as simple as that!

“For there is a child born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace. Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end, for the throne of David and for his royal power, which he establishes and makes secure in justice and integrity. From this time onward and for ever, the jealous love of the Lord of hosts will do this.”

“He sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good.”

A Blessed Christmas to you one and all!

Where are you headed?

Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Holy Thursday, 20 March 2008
Rosary Monastery, St. Ann’s

“We pray that in this Eucharist we may find the fullness of love and life.” Thus the Opening Prayer of this Liturgy for Holy Thursday!

The Holy Week services contain a lot of theology, but for some they carry a very high emotional or devotional charge as well. The Easter Triduum is the high point of the whole year; it is really central for all those who are into Church, heart and soul. Perhaps that is why Holy Thursday and Good Friday are not days of precept: they are meant to draw people of their own accord; they are meant for those who have been working up to them through works of penance all Lent long.
Maybe it is just an annual Lenten thing, but I have the impression this year that there is more than the usual amount of talk going on in public (TV, radio, news) about WHO’S GOING TO CHURCH THESE DAYS AND WHO IS NOT. For instance, a big statistical study on the topic of Catholics and church attendance published in the United States not too many weeks ago caused quite a stir and just the other day I saw an article asking people on the street whether for St. Patrick’s Day they were planning on going to church or to the pub. In case you were wondering, even on the Emerald Isle the pub won out three to one.

Whether we are talking about a serious, scientific study or about the type of on-the-street-interview typically presented on a live television talk show or some kind of a radio thing, what follows, when people say they will be going anywhere but to church this Easter let’s say, is always a judgment call on the part of someone, be that person an analyst with an academic title or a talk show host. Somebody draws a conclusion from the behavior they record and says, “You see: people aren’t as Catholic as they used to be” or “You see: Church doesn’t play an important role in people’s lives any more”. While many people are scandalized by such, some people brush it off and others just remain silent. Thinking people usually cry “Foul!” and object, saying “Is that any way to judge where people’s hearts are?”

Leaving aside the issue of the fairness of the conclusions drawn, the question itself must be asked. But rather than pointing fingers at others, we should look to ourselves. Holy Thursday really is a good time to ask “Where is your heart? Where is my heart?” While on the one hand recognizing that the so-called “church mice” or the “bats in the belfry” are not what is meant by those who have followed Christ faithfully and stand as His witnesses before the world, we need to look and see whether we ourselves truly draw our water from the fountain of salvation or rather from the occasional pothole on our aimless path through life. Is ours the path of least resistance or indeed the road less traveled?

Today, Holy Thursday, the Church celebrates the anniversary of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, as well as of the Priesthood, the Sacrament of Holy Orders, which assures that this Gift of Christ, of His Sacred Body and Blood offered up for us upon the Cross and given to us as food under the forms of bread and wine, will be available to the Church to strengthen us on our way until the end of time. Today we focus on the source and summit of Christian existence. Today’s optional ritual of the washing of feet and the passage we just heard from John’s Gospel recounting that event focus on the nature of genuine love, true love, of God-like, Christ-like love as self-sacrifice, as self-oblation, as laying down your life, as something more than just service to fellow human beings.

“We pray that in this Eucharist we may find the fullness of love and life.”

This prayer is essential because, truth to be told, there are lots of people who really miss the point of life, who seem oblivious to ultimate questions, to what might be considered core values or to what matters, to what is most important in life. There are more wrong-headed people in the world, I am afraid, than either you or I would like to believe.

Those studies, which talk about people who have stopped going to the Catholic Church, also tell us that most of these folks are not going much of anywhere instead. Those who claim that people abandon the Catholic Faith in search of something better should look again at the reality. Most of those who have stopped going to Mass on a Sunday aren’t going anywhere else. They aren’t disenchanted; they are not looking for something better; they can’t be classed as conscientious seekers of any kind. There doesn’t seem to be much of a hunger or thirst that wasn’t being met and which they are seeking to satisfy elsewhere. Many folks aren’t going anywhere and aren’t even looking. They are just sitting home of a Sunday. “Indifference” is and has been typical of Western society for quite some time.

There probably were just as many indifferent people in Jesus’ day and time as there are now, people in that very neighborhood of Jerusalem all around that Upper Room who were not celebrating the Passover as Jesus and His disciples were. We don’t know about them, because in a sense they don’t enter into the drama of life either for good or for bad. There are no Judases among them; there are no anguish-filled Peters either. The folks we are talking about are just kind of there but not in the picture, if you will. It would be a mistake, however, to consider them as neutral.

Evil is not threatened by indifference. It is perhaps its greatest ally. Fairy tales invariably describe evil as a great darkness or void. In point of fact, evil is probably not all that great. It’s the black hole at the center of something much more nebulous. Indifference, on the other hand, can be quite large and extensive. Although we cannot call indifference wicked, it certainly is not of the light and has nothing of love or life about it. The rich man, who ignored poor Lazarus at his gate and went to hell when he died, may not have done much else wrong in his life beyond satisfying his own needs and those of his blood relatives without a care for the less fortunate around him. He recognized only in his torment the fullness of love and life which he had not sought or shared here on earth. Jesus tells us that Abraham assured the rich man that if the Law and the Prophets couldn’t touch such stony hearts as his then neither would someone raised from the dead be able to rescue his brothers at home from sharing his fate.

Our drama or dilemma in life may not necessarily be crime but rather stupor. The guards which the enemies of Christ set at His Tomb to see that His disciples did not steal His Body slept through the Resurrection. Without horns or tails or pitchforks, they represent the opposite of the fullness of love and life, they are aligned with evil. Yes, they were aligned with the bad guys. They lost all hope by reason of their indifference.

“We pray that in this Eucharist we may find the fullness of love and life.”

In just a few days time we will be hearing an Easter refrain which invites the sleeper to rise with Christ. Oh, that we might do so! We pray that Lent has been for each of you a time to cast sin out of your lives and that tonight and in the memorable days of the Easter Triduum we will be drawn with eyes and heart wide open to Christ!

Catholic tradition teaches us that emotion is not a trustworthy measure of either sanctity or devotion. When I ask the question: “Where is my heart?” I am really asking a dynamic question, namely: “Where am I headed?” Some people are headed toward a bad end and many more do not know and do not care where they are going as long as it is not too uncomfortable. The Catholic way is another path through life and it might be quite sober. Our cross in life might have to be worshipping and praying without feeling any tugs at our heart-strings, no emotions, no fire. Catholic faith is not a tent revival. That may be hard, but if you are in touch with what matters in life, you will know that the direction you have chosen is much more important than the dust you might kick up as you go your way.

Where is your heart? Where are you headed in life? Do you know? Do you care? Jesus’ and Peter’s dialogue over the significance of the foot-washing is very telling. Peter is one big knot of emotions over the whole business, but Jesus sorts him out in no time. Whether we are torn by emotion or numb for whatever reason, whether you have been working up to tonight all Lent long or just somehow drifted in off the street, turn again to Jesus, turn as if for the first time to Jesus in the Eucharist. Discover Him for Who He is and become a part of Him in this great sacrament. Let Jesus wash your feet and bind you to Himself.

“We pray that in this Eucharist we may find the fullness of love and life.”