Fr. JC Maximilian

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“Spe Salvi:  Saved in Hope”
A Presentation to the Hamilton Council of the Knights of Columbus
On the Pope’s Recent Encyclical”
April 28, 2008
Fr. John C. Garrett

In October 2000, I had the privilege of being in Rome for the canonization of St. Katharine Drexel.  There were several persons raised to the Altar of the Saints that day; one of them being St. Josephine Bakhita.

St. Josephine was born in the Sudan, and at the age of 9 she was kidnapped into slavery.  As a slave, she was beaten regularly.  Throughout her entire life she bore 144 scars left from the many times that she was flogged.  Five times she was sold in the slave-markets of Sudan.

In 1882, when she was about 13, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the consul Callisto Legnani, who then took Josephine back with him to Italy.  It was then that she came to know a completely different kind of “master,” and I do not mean Mr. Legnani, who did treat her kindly.  No, Josephine learned about the “master” above all masters; the living God, who was goodness in person.  She came to know that this “master,” the Lord, knew her and loved her.  She came to know that this Lord had been flogged like her, and now awaited her at His Father’s right hand.

In fact, she came to more than just know about Jesus; rather she encountered Him through His disciples, His Church.  From her encounter with Jesus, Josephine came to have hope.  Not just a hope to have a less cruel master, but the great hope.  In her own words, “I am definitely loved, and whatever happens to me — I am awaited by this Love.  And so my life is good.”

In 1890 Josephine was baptized, and in 1896 she took vows as a Canossian Sister.  In addition to working in the sacristy and as the porter, Sr. Josephine promoted the missions, “the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people” (Spe Salvi #3).

Now you might be wondering what does this story about St. Josephine Bakhita have to do with the topic of tonight’s talk, Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Spe Salvi, which is translated, Saved in Hope.  I started with this personal connection to St. Josephine Bakhita because His Holiness holds her up in his encyclical as an example of true Christian hope.

What is hope?  The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes hope as, “the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC #1817).  In developing a deeper understanding of this definition of hope, the Holy Father starts by presenting an analysis demonstrating how throughout much of the Sacred Scriptures, particularly in the New Testament, the word “hope” is often used interchangeably with the word “faith.”  I will not go through all the examples of this from the New Testament that the Holy Father uses to show this — you will have to read the encyclical for that — rather I just want to emphasize the importance of this point.  For many people in our world the word “hope” is equated with the idea of a wish for a better future, but largely cut off from any connection to the present reality of their lives.  The Christian concept of hope is much different.  While certainly looking towards the future, it is not focused on just the “not yet.”  Certainly the Kingdom of Heaven will not come to completion until the end of time, as Christians we are called to start building up the Kingdom of Heaven here and now.  Our faith in Jesus Christ draws the future into the present, so that the present is actually changed.  Life itself is given a new basis.  If we really have hope, we live our lives differently.  As the Holy Father says in the encyclical, “Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future:  it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness.  Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well” (Spe Salvi #2).

What is Christian hope?  It is to come to know God, the true God.  St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians says that before they encounter Christ Jesus, through his preaching, they were without hope because they were without God in the world.  Christianity is not a message calling for some kind of social revolution.  Rather Christianity is an encounter with the Lord of Lords, the living God, or the Master above all the other “masters” as St. Josephine Bakhita discovered.

A point emphasized by the Pope is that our encounter with Christ is both informative and performative.  By this His Holiness means that it is not sufficient to know a lot of facts about the Church.  It does not matter if one has memorized a bunch of the doctrines of the Church.  What is essential — that is pertaining to the core or heart of the matter — is the encounter that changes how we now live our lives.  It is not necessarily a changing in “what we are doing” but a change in “how and with what attitude we are doing it.”  As Christians, that is as a person who has encountered the Risen Christ and has formed a relationship with Him, we live as pilgrims:  living in the here and now, the particular circumstances of our lives, while always remembering that our true homeland is heaven.

Why is this encounter with Christ Jesus so profound?  The Holy Father uses two images found on ancient Christian tombs to explain this.  The first image is that of the philosopher, represented on the tombs as Jesus holding a staff and a scroll.  When we think of an image of a philosopher today, we probably think of the stereotypical “absent-minded professor” who seems to be lost in the world of ideas and out of touch with the practical reality of normal life.  This is not the idea of the philosopher in the ancient world.  The philosopher was someone who taught the essential art, the art of living and dying, the art of being authentically human.  The philosopher was seen as a person who really knew what life was all about.  The early Christians clearly saw Jesus as someone who really knew what life was all about, and took seriously His promise, “I have come that you might have life, life to the full.”

The other image from the ancient Christian tombs is one one more familiar to us; Christ as a Shepherd. The image of the shepherd recalls for us the dream of a tranquil and simple life.  In the words of the Holy Father, “The true shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me, guiding me through:  he himself has walked this path, he has descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with him, we can find a way through.  The realization that there is One who even in death accompanies me, and with his ‘rod and staff comforts me’, so that ‘I fear no evil’ (cf Ps. 23 [22]:4) — this was the new ‘hope’ that arose over the life of believers” (Spe Salvi #6).

The Holy Father asks each of us a fundamental question:  Is the Christian faith for us today a life-changing and life-sustaining hope?  Does it change the shape of our lives?

The Pope then uses the example of the Baptismal Rite as means for exploring this issue.  In the Rite of Baptism, the priest or deacon should meet the child to be baptized with their parents at the door of the church.  Then, after asking the name given to the child, the priest asks, “What do you ask of God’s Church for this child?”  One of the responses that the parents can give is “Faith”, and then the priest asks, “What does faith give you?” and the parents respond “Eternal life.”  This is what baptism is really all about.  It is not just an act of socialization within the community.  It is about receiving the gift of Faith, which is oriented towards Eternal life.

Perhaps the reason so many people seem to reject the Faith today is because they are not attracted to the prospect of eternal life.  The Pope points out that this is due to confusing eternal life with living this life forever.  What we call “life” in everyday language is not real “life.”  Ultimately we do not know what the reality of the blessed life is really like, but there is a knowing in our not knowing.  We know that this blessed life exists because we desire it.  “We do not know what we would really like; we do not know this ‘true life’, and yet we know that there must be something we do not know towards which we feel driven” (Spe Salvi #11).  We want a true life, untouched by death.  This unknown “thing” is the true “hope” which drives us.  It can cause despair if in our pride we are not patient with our not knowing.  The Holy Father describes eternal life as “To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality” (Spe Salvi #12).

The Holy Father then turns to an analysis of the modern world’s critique and deformation of Christian hope.  The most common critique of the Christian concept of hope is that it involves an abandoning of the world to its misery, in order to take refuge in a private form of salvation.  Christian hope is portrayed as being individualistic.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  Sin was understood by the early Church Fathers as the destruction of the unity of the human race.  They understood redemption and salvation as the re-establishment of the unity.  In fact the word “community” comes from the Latin “com” which means “with” and “unitas” which means “oneness.”  Thus the redemption and salvation that Jesus won for us begins to take shape in the world through the community of believers, which we call the Church.

It is rather interesting that this critique that the modern world makes of Christian hope — that it is individualistic — really stems from its own deformation of Christian hope.  The basis of the modern age is the correlation of experiment and method to arrive at an interpretation of nature in conformity with its laws.  Everyone can see that Man’s dominion over the world has become disorder (as Christians we would say it is because of the Fall), and up until the modern age it was expected that what was lost by the Fall would be recovered (redeemed) by faith in Jesus Christ.  However, with the modern age came the idea that redemption/recovery of the lost unity and dominion will only come through scientific discovery that is put into practice (what we might call a short definition of “technology”).  In doing this, religious faith is not denied explicitly, rather it is just made a purely private matter that is irrelevant for the world.  Hope becomes “faith in progress.”  Just consider the example of all the “promises” made on behalf of embryonic stem cell research — if only the religious fanatics would stop bringing their religious faith into the public square we are promised we will have cures for all the worse diseases in the world.  They rather not be bothered by the “inconvenient truth” that other, more ethical means that respect the dignity of the human person are available, and have already demonstrated to be more useful than stem cells from embryos.

This “progress” which we are now expected to put our faith in is the growing dominion of “scientific” reason.  Progress is the overcoming of all forms of dependency so that we can achieve “perfect” freedom.  Both “freedom” and “reason” are seen by the modern world as being in conflict with religious faith.  This “faith in progress” develops not just in natural science but in political “science” that calls for new structures of society that will lead to freedom; i.e. communism.

Pope Benedict asks what does this progress really mean?  Certainly scientific and technological progress offers new possibilities for good, but they also offer possibilities for evil; e.g., nuclear weapons, the “Final Solution” that attempted to rid the world of those races that were “scientifically” seen as inferior.  Clearly these scientific and technological developments need to be checked with ethical development.  Moral growth is also needed.  We need a criterion of measurement in order to tell good from evil, and when we look at every human criteria all are found lacking.  Something infinitely Good, True, and Beautiful is needed.  We discover that Man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope for discovering the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.  Faith and reason are not in conflict with each other, rather they need each other in order for each to fulfill their mission.

Incremental progress is only possible in the material sphere.  While we can build on the moral treasury of the past, moral decision making is always new and free.  Science can help, but it cannot redeem Man.  Man is redeemed by Love, which implies a relationship, and unconditional Love provides true certainty in life.  An honest looking at our relationships with other people shows us that they cannot provide this unconditional love we need for certainty.  No matter how hard people try, we human beings are all finite.  Hope can only be founded on our relationship with He who is Goodness itself, Truth itself, Beauty itself.  Hope is our relationship with He who is the source of life; God, who embraces the totality of Reality.  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

Finally the Holy Father discusses several settings for learning and practicing hope.  Unsurprisingly, the first setting is prayer.  St. Augustine once said that “prayer is the exercise of desire.”  Man was created for God, however our hearts are too small for the greatness to which they are destined.  God stretches our hearts.  God always listens to us even when others do not.  Prayer is not a stepping out of history into a private happiness.  Rather it must be incarnate, it must be rooted in our time and place.  While prayer is personal, an encounter with God, yet it is guided by the public, liturgical prayer of the whole Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ.

Another setting for learning about and practicing hope is action and suffering.  While we cannot “build” the kingdom of God by our own efforts, we can receive the grace of God’s Kingdom.  We must open ourselves to allow God to enter us.  We must open ourselves to truth, love, beauty and goodness so that we will do God’s will.  While we should do what we can to banish suffering, we must have the humility to recognize that it is not within our power to completely banish suffering.  By accepting our finiteness we open ourselves to God’s infiniteness.  “The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer….  A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through ‘com-passion’ is a cruel and inhuman society” (Spe Salvi #38).

Allow me to end with the invocation that the Holy Father ends the encyclical, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you.  Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us  and guide us on our way!” (Spe Salvi #50).

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St. Peter tells us, in our second reading today, to “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope….”  How many of us are truly ready to do just that?  A good starting point for answering this question is looking at what do we, as Christians, mean when we use the word “hope.”  Fortunately for us, Pope Benedict XVI recently wrote a beautiful encyclical that is all about hope; in fact it is entitled, Spe Salvi, which is translated “Saved in Hope.”

For many people hope is little more than a wish for a better future.  It tends to be rather abstract and “pie-in-the-sky.”  Hope is not seen as something that has anything to do with present reality.  As Christians, we have more solid understanding of the virtue of hope.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes hope as, “the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC #1817).  A quick reading of this definition of the virtue of hope might lead some of us to conclude that it is just a fancier way of saying that it is a wish for a better future.  There is no denying that there is an element of looking to the future in Christian Hope, but there is much more to it.  Hope is the desire for the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness.  This is not just a desire for something only in the future, but a desire for something NOW.  While the kingdom of heaven will not be complete until the end of time, it is the desire of every person who takes serious their Christian faith to desire the building up of the kingdom of heaven now.

This is one of the reasons why in Scripture the words faith and hope are often used almost interchangeably.  Faith and hope is not just about the “not yet.”  Rather they draw the future into the present, so as to change the way we live in the present.  Our faith in Jesus gives life a new basis; He reveals to us what life is really all about.  One of the first images of Christ to appear on Christian tombs had Jesus carrying a philosopher staff.  For the people of that time, a philosopher was someone who teaches the art of being authentically human, both in living and in dying.  Christian faith and hope is lived because Christ Jesus has communicated the substance of what true life is.  As He says in the Gospel, “I have come that you might have life, life to the full.”

In his encyclical, Pope Benedict uses the sacrament of Baptism as an example for learning about hope.  The sacrament of Baptism actually begins outside the church; the parents and the child should be met at the door of the church as a sign that the child is not yet a member of the Church.  After asking the parents what name do they give their child, they are asked “What do you ask of God’s Church for your child?”  Now there are several acceptable answers to this question such as “baptism,” “entrance into the Church,” etc., but one of the better answers is “Faith.”  In the old rite of baptism the priest would then ask, “What does faith give you?” and the parents would answer, “Eternal Life.”  Right in that simple exchange we see the connection between faith and hope; Faith in the Lord Jesus points to Eternal Life.  It also points to the nature of this faith and hope.  The child is obviously not able to understand a bunch of doctrines and dogmas; in fact the parents and godparents have to say the Creed for the child.  So faith is not primarily about knowing a group of facts.  Faith, and hope, is about having an encounter with God, and encounter with Jesus Christ who loves us and has saved us.  It is Jesus, through His Passion, Death and Resurrection, who has redeemed us so that we can share in eternal life.  While their parents, and hopefully their godparents, will teach the newly baptized child their prayers and the basic “facts” or doctrines of the faith, their real responsibility is to witness a living, loving relationship with Christ Jesus in their own lives so that their child will also desire a living, loving relationship with Christ Jesus.

So what is this hope that we should always be ready to give an explanation of?  St. Paul, in writing to the Ephesians says that they were without hope because they were without God in the world.  As Pope Benedict says in his encyclical, hope for the Christian is to come to know God.  Hope is a relationship with God who is Beauty, who is Truth, who is Love.  Hope is a relationship with God who is the source of life.  The unconditional love of God is what gives us the certainty that we need in life.  As St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).  How do we give an explanation to anyone who asks us for a reason for our hope?  By witnessing in our lives our relationship of love with Christ Jesus which calls us to love our brothers and sisters with His love.

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[An Olive wood statue of the Good Shepherd.  Naturally, I do not want to get into “advertising” here on my blog, but since I borrowed this image from www.holylandmarket.com, I would like to give a plug for them, and the other communities of Christians still living in the Holy Land, often in poverty, who make a living making these items.]

The image of the Good Shepherd is one of the most familiar in all of Christianity.  Archeology has uncovered tombs of Christians dating from the second century after Christ that have this image carved into them.  Clearly, for the early Christians, and for us, Jesus was identified as the Good Shepherd, guiding His flock to heaven.

Even for us, who have been raised far removed from the pastures, we recognize in the image of the Good Shepherd that the shepherd protects and cares for his sheep, wanting them to be happy and healthy, and giving them all that they need to grow and multiply.  One of the favorite images for Christ Jesus in Christian art, from the earliest years to the present day, is that of the shepherd carrying a little lamb around his shoulders.  Who of us do not take some comfort in that image of the loving care that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has for each of us?  I think if we were more familiar with shepherding most would be very surprised at the real meaning of that image of the shepherd carrying the lamb around his shoulders.

The only time that a lamb is likely to wander away from the shepherd, and the rest of the flock, is when it is either fearful or overconfident.  And when the lamb wanders away, it is putting itself in great danger because it cannot protect itself from predators, and it lacks the experience and knowledge to really recognize danger.  When a lamb keeps wandering away, either because it is fearful or overconfident, a shepherd will sometimes purposely break one of its legs.  Then the shepherd puts the lamb around his neck and carries it to and from the pasture for the few weeks it will take for the leg to heal.  By that time, the lamb has become so attached to the shepherd that it will never again stray from its master’s protection and guidance.

What do you think about that?  It probably changes our feelings about that so familiar image of Christ as the Good Shepherd, but should it?

We are the sheep, and Christ is the Good Shepherd.  As St. Peter says in our second reading, we “had gone astray like sheep.”  When are we most likely to wander away from the teachings of the Church, the teachings of Jesus?

When we are frightened?  We get scared of something in our lives — maybe it is trouble at work, or unemployment, or trouble in our families, or facing an illness — and we run so quickly towards things that we think will give us “quick fixes” to whatever is frightening us.  Maybe it is the bottle, or drugs, or pornography, or overeating, or shopping, or any of a large number of addictions or escapes that our modern world offers us.  We run to them thinking that they will keep us safe and make us happy, but whatever comfort they offer us does not last for long, and then we are right back facing what scared us in the first place.

Or maybe we wander away from the Good Shepherd when we become overconfident and filled with pride.  We think that we know what is best for ourselves and others, and that we can fix all the problems.  Isn’t that just what the serpent said to Eve in the Garden when he tempted her with the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  He told her, “you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.”  It was a lie when he said it to Eve, and it continues to be a lie that we often fall for.

Understanding the meaning of the image of the Good Shepherd carrying the lamb around His shoulders gives us something to think about when we encounter difficulties and suffering in our lives.  Because we have wandered away so often, we need some “pain,” some “brokenness” in order to learn that we must be dependent on the Good Shepherd to stay out of trouble, so that we will be truly healthy and happy, and grow and multiply.

Sin — whether it is from fear or overconfidence — is our wandering away from Jesus, the Good Shepherd.  Sometimes as the Good Shepherd, His correction seems painful and hard to us, but it is so that we can learn to entrust ourselves to Him, to allow Him to carry us, care for us, and protect us.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows what will truly fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts and make us truly happy.  He knows us better than anyone because He is our Creator, our Brother, and our Lord.  He does want to lead us to the dream of a tranquil and simple life.  He did come so that we “might have life and have it more abundantly.”  Pope Benedict XVI, in his recent encyclical Spe Salvi: Saved in Hope, explains why Christ Jesus is the true shepherd that leads to hope:

“The true shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me, guiding through:  he himself has walked this path, he has descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with him, we can find a way through.  The realization that there is One who even in death accompanies me, and with his ‘rod and his staff comforts me’, so that ‘I fear no evil’ (cf. Ps 23:4) — this was the new ‘hope’ that arose over the life of believers (Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, #6).

As one of my seminary professors said in the shortest homily I have ever heard, “Don’t be a stupid sheep.  Follow the Shepherd!”

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Life really can be filled with ups and downs.  Today was one such example, and in this case it had to do with two people who have dedicated their lives to the service of the Church.

First the sad note.  Last night we received a call that one of our permanent deacons here at the parish, Deacon Joseph Malloy, died suddenly.  To be honest, I do not know how many years Joe was a deacon, but I think it was over 25.  His sister-in-law is one of my mother’s best friends and lives just up the block from where I grew up, so I got to see Deacon Joe even when I was a kid, and before he was a deacon, when we went to the Kadelaks for birthdays and other parties.  He was an architect by trade, and often offered his talents to the Church — designing a chapel and columbarium at  one parish, and he was working on the designs for the elevator we are putting in at St. Anthony’s.  Deacon Joe was also very involved with Martin House, a diocesan charity that builds homes for the poor in Trenton, provides transitional housing, a thrift shop, and an educational center.  Each year, here at the parish, Deacon Joe ran the two clothing drives for Martin House, Giving Tree at Christmas, and a food collection at Thanksgiving for the Mount Carmel Guild, a diocesan charity I am involved with.

A few years ago Deacon Joe got very sick with cancer, and more than once people thought that he was a goner.  However, he pulled through, and the event had a profound effect on his life.  It helped him recognize that life, each day, is a gift from God so one should live each day in joyful gratitude.  He lived his last day that way.  He spent the day playing golf, and he called his wife, Judy, around 4 p.m. to say that he had a good day, and he was going to their one daughter’s house for something.  When his daughter came home around 5 p.m. she found him collapsed; apparently from a sudden heart attack.  He will be missed — for his gentleness, his kindness, the way he murdered names (he had dyslexia, so reading out loud was a challenge, but he practiced hard at it).

The joyful note today was the Jubilee celebration for Sr. Marie Olivette Weiss, OFM.  Sr. Marie celebrates her 75th anniversary of taking first vows with the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia.  She has actually been with the Order for 78 years, counting her postulancy and  novitiate.  I first met Sr. Marie Olivette nearly 30 years ago when she was my teacher my freshman year in HS.  I had her for drafting, so I always give her the credit when people say that I have very good printing, and for teaching me how to draw a straight line, with a ruler.  She still walks over to the church for Mass, and is always so cheerful.  One of my favorite memories of her happened just about a year ago.  I had the 8 a.m. Mass one Friday, and then I had a 9:30 a.m. funeral, an 11 a.m. funeral, and then I had to run over to the school for stations of the cross.  I ran into Sr. Marie as I was leaving after the 8 a.m. Mass.  She was talking with one of our daily communicants, so I said a few words of greeting to them, and then I excused myself telling them about my busy day and needing a cup of coffee to get through it.  I ran to Wawa for the coffee (I was at our St. Anthony campus and the rectory is at the Our Lady of Sorrows campus, a few miles away).  I went through my busy day, and around 3:30 p.m. went upstairs to my sitting room to put my feet up.  I was only there a few minutes when the secretary buzzed me and said that Sr. Marie was on the phone for me.  I picked up the phone and said hello to Sr. and asked her how I could help her.  She started by apologizing for not inviting me into the convent for coffee, but since it is for retired nuns, she was worried that some might be in the kitchen in their bathrobes.  She said that she was bothered by that all day, feeling that she should have invited me in.  I told her not to fret one instant more about it; that I was not fishing for an invite.  It was just one example of her simple generosity.

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I would like to ask the readers of this blog to say a prayer for my sister, Ann Marie (pictured above in Hawaii).  One of the family issues that we have been facing since the beginning of Lent this year, is that Ann was diagnosed with a brain tumor (I cannot discuss the other family issue).

Ann lives in St. Louis with her husband, Kevin, and their for children, Paddy, Brigit, Deirdre and Declan (pictured below,  their 2005 St. Patrick’s picture)

Ann is a pediatrician, and she had a very bad migraine in January which led to her going for a scan which revealed a small tumor, on the surface of the brain.  Her neurosurgeon was pretty sure that it was benign, so they did not rush to have surgery.  The surgery was today.  My mother flew out to St. Louis on Sunday, and she just called to say that Ann is out of surgery.  They could not get all of the tumor out (they “left the tail”) because it was “feeding” from a major blood vessel.  We are still waiting to hear the pathology report.

Please pray that Ann will have a complete recovery, and will be able to get back to work and fun with her family soon.  I even shaved my head in solidarity with Ann (although they did not need to shave all of her head).  Also, pray from my other family issue, which I cannot share with you just now.

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[”Doubting Thomas” by Caravaggio] 

This past week I was on retreat with a group of priests involved in the Church Movement called, Communion and Liberation.  Our retreats are somewhat atypical of what one might think a retreat is like.  In the morning we do keep silent, with a conference and Mass.  However, one of the beliefs of Communion and Liberation is the importance of friends, or companions, as we follow Christ, so we also spend time socializing with each other; sharing how we encounter the presence of Christ Jesus in our different ministries.  Another aspect of Communion and Liberation is the full embracing of our humanity through contact with reality.  Since the Word of God became flesh, we too, need to experience the reality of God in the flesh, so we embrace expressions of beauty and culture.  On this retreat we attended a concert of classical music, and went to one of the Catholic Missions established by Blessed Junipero Serra; in fact the Mission where he is buried.

While on retreat I did have my copy of Magnificat, so I was able to pray over this weekend’s readings, but I did not the various commentaries that I look at in preparing my homilies.  Of course today’s Gospel is one that we are all familiar with; the story of “Doubting Thomas.”  As I prayed over this Gospel reading a question came to my mind, was St. Thomas’ doubt, his wanting to “see the mark of the nails in his hands” and put his hand into Jesus’ side before he would believe in the Resurrection really all that outrageous?  I think the answer to that question is by “yes” and “no”.

Let’s look first at the “no,” that it was not outrageous for St. Thomas to want some proof of Jesus’ Resurrection.  As I mentioned earlier, one of the themes frequently discussed in Communion and Liberation is the carnal, in the flesh, reality of Jesus.  St. John’s Gospel begins with the beautiful song of how the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us.  Throughout His preaching mission Jesus is frequently eating and drinking with people; in fact some of the scribes and Pharisees used that as a critique of Him, saying that Jesus was a glutton and drunkard.  Jesus often physically touched people in healing them.  In several of the post-Resurrection accounts Jesus reveals Himself, and that He was not a ghost, by eating with His disciples.  In today’s Gospel reading, when He first appeared to the Apostles and said, “Peace be with you,” Jesus then showed them His hands and His side, and it was only then that “the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

St. Thomas was not at that first appearance of the Risen Christ to the Apostles, so it seems quite normal for him to want some tangible proof of Jesus’ Resurrection.  And Jesus is not bothered by this doubt of Thomas; when He next appears to the Apostles and says, “Peace be with you,” Jesus right away turns to Thomas and tells him to touch Him for Jesus is eager for Thomas to have believe in Him; “do not be unbelieving, but believe.”  Jesus knows the importance of Faith in order to share the new life He came to bring to all people.  How often during His public ministry did Jesus say, “your faith has healed you,” or “your faith has been your salvation.”

Yet, there is something a bit outrageous in St. Thomas’ doubt, but I think Jesus uses that to help us so that we will “not be unbelieving, but believe.”  St. Thomas’ doubt seems to fit right in with our modern world.  We have seemed to so embrace science and technology, that most people want to only believe what they can see, touch, hear, taste or smell.  They say that they want “proof” and by proof they mean something tangible.  They seem to relegate faith as being just sentimentality and not connected with reality.

However, there are two general methods of knowledge; both direct and indirect.  Science relies on direct knowledge; we know something because we observe it, we experience it ourselves.  This is a powerful method for knowing something, indeed, but it is actually not the most common method for knowing something.  Most of the things that we know, we know indirectly.  Alexis de Tocqueville, in his classic work, Democracy in America, made this wonderful observation:

“If man were forced to demonstrate for himself all the truths of which he makes
daily use, his task would never end. He would exhaust his strength in preparatory
demonstrations without ever advancing beyond them. As, from the shortness of his life,
he has not the time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the capacity, to act in this way,
he is reduced to take on trust a host of facts and opinions which he has not had either the
time or the power to verify for himself, but which men of greater ability have found out,
or which the crowd adopts. On this groundwork he raises for himself the structure of his
own thoughts; he is not led to proceed in this manner by choice, but is constrained by the
inflexible law of his condition. There is no philosopher in the world so great but that he
believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.”

So most of the truths that we know come through this indirect method.  This indirect method of knowledge is called “Faith,” and we can define Faith as knowledge that we get through the testimony of a witness.  While it is obvious how this applies to religious matters, just think about your own life; how do we know what is in that soda can we are about to open and drink?  By faith in the testimony of a witness, a label, we know that it is soda and not poison.  Of course we need to evaluate the credibility of the witness in order to determine if we should believe what they say, but most of the truths we know in life is through this method.

And this is how St. Thomas’ doubts is a kind of failure, but one that Jesus uses for our benefit.  St. Thomas should have believed the testimony of the other Apostles.  He had lived with them, as they lived with Jesus, for three years.  Theirs was an intimate community of companions.  He should have known that their testimony was credible, and to not accept the testimony of credible witnesses is unreasonable.  However, his failure to believe through the testimony of the other Apostles, and needing direct knowledge, is for our benefit for it demonstrates to us, who did not live with original Apostles the credibility of their testimony.  So when they went out and preached the Good News it was reasonable for their listeners to have faith in their testimony, to come to know Jesus through their testimony.  It has been through this method of knowledge that we have come to know Jesus — by faith, that gives us “a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Something else struck me by this Gospel passage; namely the context of the encounter with the Risen Christ.  Both appearance occurred on Sunday.  The Lord welcomes them by saying, “Peace be with you,” a phrase we hear during Mass.  Jesus speaks to them, as He does to us through the Scriptures, and He shows the Apostles His body, as He shows us His body and blood in the Eucharist.  Our communal celebration of Mass on Sunday is a participation in this experience of the Resurrection of the Lord.  It is a direct experience of Jesus’ presence that requires Faith, and builds up the Faith.

This experience of Jesus places a demand on us.  Pope Benedict XVI recently commented that Faith is both instructive and performative.  By instructive, the Holy Father means that by Faith we learn about Jesus and His teachings so that we may have life to the full, so we even learn more about ourselves.  However, this knowledge must bear fruit in our lives.  This is what he means when he says that Faith is performative; our Christian faith should change the way we live life, for we have been given new life.  We should give what we have received, so as we have received the gift of Faith through the testimony of witnesses, we are called to be witnesses of Christ’s resurrection.  The resurrection of Jesus should touch our lives, so that we live differently.  Even when we are tested by suffering through various trials, our Faith in Jesus should cause us to “rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,” as St. Peter says in today’s second reading.  Be witnesses to Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

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[”The Women at the Tomb” by Fra Angelico]

Have you ever wondered where the phrase, “black balled,” came from?  I believe it started in the monasteries; when the solemnly professed monks gathered for a meeting to make a decision, each would have a white ball and a black ball, and they would cast their vote by dropping one of the balls into a basket — a white ball for “Yes” and a black ball for “No.”  So when a proposal was defeated, it had been “black balled,” it had received more black balls than white balls when the vote was taken.

I heard a story once that when Pope John XXIII meet with his closest advisors about planning the Second Vatican Council, many of the cardinals were opposed to the idea of having an Ecumenical council of the Church.  At the very least they would need more time to plan it.  When the Holy Father called for them to vote on the issue, they started to pass a bowl so that the cardinal-advisors could drop in either a white ball or a black one.  When bowl finally came to the the Holy Father, it clearly had more black balls in it than white balls.  Then the Holy Father took off his white skull cap, placed it on top of the bowl, and said, “See, they are all white!”

While this amusing story reminds us that the Church on earth is not a democracy, I think it can remind us of an even more important truth, an Easter truth.  When human beings say “No,” God says “Yes.”  Isn’t that the real meaning of Easter?  On Good Friday we human beings said “No.”  We said no to the love and freedom and redemption that Jesus offers all of us.  On Easter, God overruled this “no” with His triumphant “YES” of the Resurrection.

We only need to watch the news on television or read the newspapers to see all the evil and suffering in the world, to see all the injustice.  Faced with all that bad news, many want to say that there is no hope, that there is no meaning to life.  These are the prophets and witnesses of despair — of doom and gloom.  They tell us that there is no point to holding on to ideals, in trying to live for the best and the highest we know.  They ridicule the idea of self-sacrifice, saying that it will always be defeated.  They are the voices that continuously say, “No, No, No” and continually nail Jesus to the Cross.

But that is OK, because God has shown that the defeat of Jesus Christ on Good Friday is just an illusion.  God says that there IS a hope.  He triumphantly declares that He is the hope, that He is stronger that suffering and evil.  On Easter morning the empty tomb proclaims that there IS a future for us, and God Himself is that future.  Pope Benedict XVI recently said, “Faith in the resurrection of Jesus says that there is a future for every human being; the cry for unending life which is part of the person is indeed answered.”  To the continuous “no, no, no” of Good Friday, God continuously says, “Yes, Yes, Yes.”  He turns all the black balls white.

All of us can at times be tempted to listen more to the voices of this world that say “no” than to the Word of God which says “yes.”  Too often we want to rely on ourselves, others, and science only to see that none of these can give us the answers.

Marie Curie learned this lesson in her life.  She and her husband Pierre were two of the most brilliant scientific minds in the world during the early modern period.  In 1903 they received the Nobel Prize in physics for their groundbreaking work on radioactivity.  Pierre died in 1906, and Marie was despondent with grief, yet she did not give in to despair.  Every day she wrote in her diary a message to Pierre, and on the day of his funeral she wrote:

“Your coffin was closed and I could see you no more…. We saw you go down into the deep hole…. They filled the grave and put flowers on it.  Everything is over.  Pierre is sleeping in his last sleep beneath the earth.  It is the end of everything, everything, everything!  No, science, as such, does not have the answer.  The answer must come from the other side, God’s side.  It comes from the life and lips of the Man of Galilee.  Into the darkness of death He brings light.  Into the midst of our doubts He comes with His voice of promise, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.’”

In a world that says “No, there is nothing after death,” God says, “Yes!  There is life beyond death.  This life is our preparation for that life.”

In today’s first reading St. Peter says, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.  This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”  In this passage from the Acts of the Apostles, the fact of the resurrection of Christ from the dead is not only proclaimed.  We also are given a commission.  We are to make the “Yes” of God known to all the world.

We ARE His witnesses.  The Eucharist that we receive at Mass is the eating and drinking with Him that St. Peter mentions.  In our worthy reception of Holy Communion we are saying “Yes” to God, we are saying yes to the redemption that Jesus won for us not only by His death on the Cross, but by is resurrection from the dead.  It is this “Yes” — God’s Yes — that we need to take into the entire world.

The same Second Vatican Council, which was held because Pope John XXIII did not listen to the nay-sayers, re-affirmed this commission given to all of Christ’s disciples.  While the bishops, priests and deacons, through the special grace that they received through their ordination are entrusted the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments, the Council made it clear that the spreading of the Good News — God’s Yes — is not their responsibility alone.  It is the responsibility of all the baptized to be witnesses to the Good News of Jesus Christ.  In fact, it is to the laity that this witnessing to the Christ’s resurrection in the workplace, public square and marketplace is especially entrusted.

Are you a “Yes-person”?  Do you witness to the joy of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead to all those around you?  Or do you just do the minimum, maybe an hour on Sunday saying Yes with God, and then the rest of the week part of the world’s chorus of “No”?  It is never too late to accept God’s Yes into your life.  Commit yourselves anew to being witnesses of Jesus’ Good News.  Spread the joy and triumphant of Easter throughout your part of the world.  Invite others to join you in saying “Yes, Lord Jesus, You are Risen!  Yes, Lord Jesus, You are truly alive!  Yes, I want Your mercy to heal me, and forgive me from my sins.  Yes, Lord, I want Your Love and Your Grace!  Yes, Lord, yes!  YES!”

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[A fresco of  the Lord’s Passion by Fra Angelico]

I am sure that most of you know who the actor Sir Alec Guinness is.  For those who are more on the young side, he played Obi-wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope).

In one of his earlier movies, even though he was not Catholic, he played a Catholic priest.  They were filming in a lovely old village in France, and one day, after many hours of filming, Sir Alec was walking back to his hotel through the village streets while still dressed in his priest’s costume.  Suddenly a little girl ran up alongside him.  Apparently she was on her way home after running an errand.  Seeing the actor and thinking that he was a real priest, she skipped right up beside him, took his hand, and started walking along with him.  She started chattering away to him as if she had known him all her life.  The actor didn’t know French, so he didn’t know what she was saying, and he couldn’t say anything in response, but it didn’t seem to matter.  The little girl chattered happily on for a couple of blocks, until she had to turn off to another street.  Then she let go of his hand, waved goodbye, and skipped on home.

Sir Alec Guinness just stood there for a moment utterly amazed.  He was intrigued by a religion that inspired so much confidence and joy.  The little girl had mistaken him for a priest, and although she must have known that she had never met him before, she treated him as a life-long friend just because he was dressed as a priest.  This experience not only affected how Sir Alec played his role in the rest of the movie, but it also was the first step on a path that eventually led him into the Catholic Church (I found this story on www.epriest.com, “Homily Pack for Good Friday”).

So, what is it about our Catholic Faith that inspired so much confidence and joy in that little girl, and so intrigued Alec Guinness that it eventually lead him to enter the Catholic Church?  I think the answer is that God — the Creator of the entire universe — wants to be so close to us that He took on our human nature and experienced the absolute depths of human misery.  Is there any way, after contemplating Jesus’ Passion and Death, that we can doubt this?  As we heard in our first reading, the Prophet Isaiah did not doubt it, “He was spurned and avoided . . . a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom people hide their faces. . . .”

Haven’t we all felt like that at times?  Since we live in a fallen world we have all been sick, betrayed, and hurt.  And we have all caused pain in other people.  Like the ripples in the waters, the effects of evil and sin have reached out and touched each one of us.

Jesus did not save us by eliminating suffering, rather He suffered WITH us and FOR us.  Jesus came down to our level, and stepped into the middle of our pain and sorrow.  Again Isaiah testifies to this, “It was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings he endured.”  By doing so, Jesus gives us an example of how we too are called to trust and love God, even in the midst of suffering.

You might be wondering how would all this lead to the confidence and joy that the little girl demonstrated with Alec Guinness, but if we really think about it, we will realize what this amazing truth of the Lord’s Passion and Death means.  It means that we do not need to be perfect BEFORE we can be friends of God.  It means that in Christ Jesus we can go right into God’s presence with all our sins and wounds and confusions and miseries.  We can enter God’s presence just as we are — in, with and through Jesus Christ.  Jesus did not stretch out His arms on the Cross to embrace just those who have never sinned, those who are already saints.  No, He stretched out His arms on the Cross to embrace US!  This is why St. Paul says in his letter to the Hebrews, “So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”

Although we are rightfully saddened by the pain our Lord had to experience in order to save us from our sins, at the same time our hearts are also glad because we know that we are not alone in our suffering, and we will never be alone.  Jesus is always near to us.  His throne of grace is just a simple prayer away, and His heart is open to pour grace upon grace upon us.

It would be unjust to leave this church today without thanking God for this great gift.  As we come up to the cross today to kiss it, let us do so with a smile of gratitude in our hearts.

But that is not enough.  We need to remember that there are still many people who have still not received this gift.  Just look around; as crowded as the church might be, there are still many people who are not here today.  There are still many who have not heard the Good News; who do not know that they can confidently approach the throne of grace, and are suffering alone.  Maybe we know someone like that.  Maybe we know someone who is afraid to come to Christ.  There is no better way to please our Lord and be His faithful disciple than by bring this Good News to that person.

From today until Easter all the tabernacles of the world will be empty, and all the altars will be bare.  Where will these suffering men and women go to find the comfort of Christ’s love?  If they have no place to go, we will have to GO to THEM.  We will have to being living tabernacles and our hearts will have to be the altars where Jesus’ love comes down to earth, by loving our neighbors as Christ has loved us.  Like that little girl, we must share the confidence and joy of our Faith with all those around us.  Maybe like Sir Alec Giunness, that will begin their journey to Christ Jesus.

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[A Mosaic from the Chora Church in Istanbul Turkey]

If you read much of the writings of the early Church Fathers, or some of the classics of Christian spirituality, one of the phrases that you often run across is “memento mori,” which means, “remember death.”  While it might not seem very cheerful, that brief saying is meant to remind all of us that we do not know the hour or the minute that we will die, so we should live all the moments of our lives for God.  We should not plan to live a less that Christian life for most of our lives, and then just go to Confession before we die to make things right with God.

However, I am sure that all of us have experienced people who seem to take “memento mori” as their own personal motto.  These are the Eeyores we encounter who always see the glass as half empty, and are always recounting all the woe in their lives.  I think if we are really honest with ourselves, we can all acknowledge times when we are “remembering death” in an unhealthy way.

The two days before Ash Wednesday, this year, I was feeling very much like Eeyore; I was not only remembering death, I was even making a list of all the bad things that were happening in my and my family’s life over the past couple of years.  Fortunately God did not allow me to slip into despair, for He graced me in a special way.  Before the latest family crises hit, I had made my Lenten plans to read a book a friend gave me.  Actually the friend who gave it to me, Michael Dubruiel, is also the author of the book, which is entitled, The Power of the Cross:  Applying the Passion of Christ to Your Life.  It is a wonderful book, and it has helped me learn more about how to carry the cross that Jesus has given me in my life, and to trust in Him — to have total confidence that He will never give me more than I can handle.

In this book, Michael tells a story about a man named John who was a fixture at the school Michael was doing graduate studies at.  John had been a “big success,” at least in terms that the secular world measures success.  He had started a business that made him a lot of money.  He had the nice car, the nice big house, and all the gadgets of luxury.  Then things started to change for John.  First his wife left him for a younger man, then his partner embezzled money from their company and John lost everything.  The house, the car, and all the money was gone.  John was living in poverty, alone, and he turned to the bottle for help.  After a few years of alcoholism, John finally hit bottom, through the grace of God known as Alcoholic Anonymous, John started to put his life back together.

You did not need to know John for long to learn all about the woe of his life.  One day, John was sitting behind Michael at Mass, and the Sign of Peace Michael noticed that John wore a bracelet with the phrase “memento viva” — “remember life” — on it.  After Mass Michael asked John about the bracelet, and John told him that it was a gift from his brother who told him one, “All you think about is death.  You’ve got to think about life!” (Dubruiel,  The Power of the Cross:  Applying the Passion of Christ to Your Life, Huntington, IN:  Our Sunday Visitor, Inc, 2004, pp. 163-164).

As followers of Jesus we do need to be people who “memento viva” — REMEMBER LIFE!  Though it is not this life that we are called to focus on.  Rather we are to set our eyes on eternal life.  This is what St. Paul means, when he tells the Romans in today’s second reading, “But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus brings this message to Martha and Mary who are in grief after the death of their brother Lazarus.  Some commentators have wondered if Martha is mildly chastising Jesus for not coming sooner when she says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  However, at the same time she expresses her faith in Jesus; that God will give Him whatever He asks for.  Jesus tells Martha, in assuring her that her brother will rise, that He is “the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  Then Jesus asks her, and us, “Do you believe this?”

It is easy to say we believe in the resurrection, that we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but Jesus asks for more than just an affirmation with our minds and our lips.  He demands an affirmation with our lives.  How do we live our faith in Christ Jesus?  Do we just fulfill the minimum duties of our Faith, or do we see everything — every person, every situation — with the eyes of Faith?  Do we recognize Jesus’ presence in all the situations of our lives?  Do we recognize Jesus present among us right now?  Jesus does not just speak about the resurrection to Martha; He says that He is the resurrection and the LIFE!  At baptism we were given the new life of Christ Jesus and we are called to live that new LIFE in Christ, so that with St. Paul we can cry out “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.”  We need to “memento viva” — remember life, the new life of Christ.

What keeps us from remembering life?  From living the new life of Christ?  In a word, SIN.  Sin damages the life of grace within us, and mortal sin actually kills the life of grace within us.  We need to remember death, that sin kills, so that we can remember life.  In today’s Gospel reading, after Jesus tells those with Him to unbind Lazarus who is still wrapped in the clothes of death.  We too need to be unbound from the clothes of death which bind us.  Jesus left us the sacrament of Reconciliation just for that purpose.  While the Confessional may seem dark, it is so that when we have allowed Christ Jesus to unburden us from our sins we can step into the light, into our new Life.  The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a sacrament of LIFE, it is remembering the life that Jesus gives us through His redemption.  This Tuesday we will have the opportunity to be unbound from our sins.  We will be having our area Penance Service on Tuesday at St. Gregory’s Church at 7 p.m.  There will be a number of priests available to celebrate the sacrament of God’s mercy with.  I strongly encourage all of you to avail yourselves of this opportunity to remember life, life in Christ Jesus.

“Remember life, keep Jesus in mind, unbind whatever else is there, and let it go” (Dubruiel,  The Power of the Cross:  Applying the Passion of Christ to Your Life, Huntington, IN:  Our Sunday Visitor, Inc, 2004, p. 166).

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