Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Love of enemies

Reading I          Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18 (various rules of conduct)

Reading II         1 Corinthians 3:16-23 (the work of God’s ministers)

Gospel                                Matthew 5:38-48 (new law of retaliation; love of enemies)

Key Passage    Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  (Matthew 5:43–44a)

Adult:  What is the point of “turning the other cheek” in an argument, and why is it so hard to do?

Child:   Who are the people you find it most difficult to forgive?

6th Sunday Ordinary Time

Matthew 5:17-37

February 16, 2014

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In the moral life, we can think of commandments in at least a couple of ways.

One way to think of a commandment is as a rule by which we can evaluate the rightness or wrongness of a given action.

We might think of a commandment like, “thou shalt not bear false witness” as a rule against the deliberate telling of untruths.

The moral task then will be to decide whether telling our spouses that “we love” their new neon green and brown plaid blazer breaks the rule against lying or not.

A second way to think of a commandment sees it as a guide and exhortation in the formation of our moral character.

Taken this way, the command against bearing false witness is not just about following the rule, but it is also about the formation of an honest character. The rule is followed not just for the sake of following it, but because by repeated attempts to follow the rule in our ever-changing circumstances, we become people who are disposed to act honestly.

Jesus thinks of commandments in the second way.

Our gospel lesson for today comes from a section of the Sermon on that Mount that traditionally has been called “Antitheses,” because Jesus’ teaching is presented in the following pattern:

First, Jesus says, “you have heard that it was said ”; then Jesus follows with his own magisterial statement, “but I say to you”.

The problem with calling these teachings “Antitheses” is that it suggests that Jesus is contradicting the earlier statement.

But this is not so.

Rather, what Jesus is doing is intensifying the particular law’s claims and thereby clarifying its true meaning.

In the so-called “Antitheses,” Jesus is showing what he meant earlier in the Sermon on the Mount when he said he came “not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it,” and to teach a greater righteousness:

“If your righteousness does not surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”

The commandments are not just rules to be followed, they are given so that by following them we might become formed in a greater righteousness.

Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said to those in ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’

But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.”

Jesus isn’t contradicting the commandment against murder, he is intensifying it.

He knows that even if we keep the commandment not to kill, we can still hate and despise others.

We can follow the rule and still kill relationships, still treat people as if they were dead to us.

Jesus shows us that the fulfillment of the commandment not to kill is the formation of our hearts and minds so that we look at others not with anger, but rather with love.

The greater righteousness is to love others as we would have them love us, even when they are our enemies.

The commandment is given not just so that we won’t kill each other, but so that we will be the type of people who will seek out someone who has wronged us and work to be reconciled with them.

Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Again, Jesus isn’t contradicting the commandment against committing adultery, he is intensifying it. He knows that even if we keep the commandment not to commit adultery, we can still demean and belittle others. The lustful glance, the undressing with the eye, treats others as objects and takes what doesn’t belong to us, even if it keeps its distance. Jesus shows us that the fulfillment of the commandment not to commit adultery is a faithful heart that cherishes our spouses and respects our neighbors.

L. Gregory Jones, in an essay entitled “The Grace of Daily Obligation: Shaping Christian Life,” reflects on how we become grace-filled people through the daily and disciplined practice of Christian obligations.

He writes:

“Isn’t it interesting that when we are talking about a ballet dancer, or, if you prefer, a Michael Jordan on the basketball court … we describe them as being graceful – full of grace.

Yet anybody who has ever undertaken the craft of ballet or piano or basketball knows how much work day by day by day goes into the cultivation of that gracefulness.

In this sense, gracefulness is not simply a process of sitting back and waiting.

Rather, through the activity of daily habits people are prepared to move gracefully, in a way that transcends the day-to-day preparation.

It becomes so natural that the graceful performer doesn’t have to think it through. …

The gracefulness develops over time so that eventually the steps come together in a powerfully new way, a performance.

That happens only through daily obligation.”

Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus came to call and form disciples in a community devoted to the higher righteousness.

We follow the commandments not simply because they are rules; we follow the commandments so that we might become the type of people Christ wants us to be, people formed and fashioned for life in the kingdom of God.

We become these types of people not by forsaking the law; rather, we become these types of people by following the law with true intention.

God gave the commandments not so that we would become moral rule keepers;

rather, God gave us the commandments as guides and exhortations for the formation of our character, so that we might become people who are pure in heart,

so that we might love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and that we might love our neighbor as ourselves.

Creed: Crucified, Died, Risen

When Jesus "came down from heaven" it was not simply to be born in Bethlehem. He came further and further down, to poverty, rejection, pain, betrayal, death, and finally to the depths of the grave through crucifixion, the very worst form of death that hell ever invented. There is no abyss he has not seen, no depth he has not plumbed.

The first movement of that descent begins in a bureaucracy. Pilate had a long resume of accomplishments in the Roman bureaucracy and, though known for cruelty; had led a life of distinguished public service. A Barbara Walters interview with him would have ended with the normal faux humility we expect from "public servants": "I'm not perfect. But I'm sure I'll be remembered for doing the best darn job I know how."

And so he is remembered, every day, in every language of the world: "crucified under Pontius Pilate." There are only two mortals mentioned in the Creed: Mary and Pilate. They image the only two destinies we mortals ultimately can choose.

John reminds us that by God's mysterious providence, Jesus is calling the shots in his Passion. Jesus tells his disciples he has power to lay down his life and power to take it up again. He offers judgments of his judge Pontius Pilate. He is clothed in royal purple and a crown of thorns by people who have no idea he is really and truly entering on his reign by these tokens of his Passion.

The Passion itself is more than simply Christ's expiration. It involves not simply the stopping of Jesus' heart, but the breaking of it. For his own unfathomable reasons, our Lord willed that he suffer, not simply die in his bed at a ripe old age. We shall never be able to really comprehend this: we can only receive it. Yet, "by his stripes we were healed" (Is 53:5).

And when the moment comes for his death, it comes not because of some accident of myocardial rupture, but because Jesus chose that moment to give up his spirit On 19:30). In that willed and chosen act, Jesus gives up his Spirit to the Father for us, making us sharers in his Spirit.

The seal on this promise of the Spirit is the

Resurrection. Many people complain of the Resurrection as a crass, crude, physical ending to the Gospels. Such people prefer a Jesus who rose spiritually and lives on in the hearts of nice people everywhere—which is to say they prefer him dead. The thing is, as philosophy professor Peter Kreeft, PhD, has noted, resurrection is a crass, crude, physical thing because death is a crass, crude, physical thing. That's why Jesus was buried and did not fade into mist. The world thought it was burying a corpse. God knew we were burying a seed that would sprout on the third day.

Why the third day? Jesus hints at a possible explanation when he calls his resurrection a fulfillment of "the sign of the prophet Jonah." Jonah's three-day adventure in the belly of the great fish was a sign to the hard of heart that they were hard of heart. The inference about our fallen race is not a flattering one.

When people speak of Jesus "fulfilling" the Scripture, they often have in mind the notion that the Old Testament has a series of Nostradamus-like "messianic predictions." According to this scenario, all the attentive first-century Jew had to do was follow Jesus around with his messianic prophecy checklist and say, "According to the checklist, his mother will be a virgin, he'll heal the sick, cleanse the Temple, and die and rise from the dead."

Of course, nobody was expecting anything of the sort. And the reason is simple: people didn't see Jesus fulfilling the Scripture until after he did so. With a great collective apostolic forehead smack, the early Church looked at the life of Christ and only realized after it was all over that he was hidden in plain view in the Old Testament. That was why the Risen Christ had to practically rub the disciples' noses in their own Bibles on the Emmaus Road (Lk 24:27).

The Resurrection is both a wonder we never expected and yet also something the prophets foretold for centuries. As St. Augustine says, the New Testament is hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is only fully revealed in the New.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time    Implications of the new law

Reading I        Sirach 15:15-20 (our free will)      

Reading II       1 Corinthians 2:6-10 (true wisdom)

Gospel              Matthew 5:17-37 (the old Law and the new)

Key Passage   Jesus said, “So when you are offering your gift at the altar,  if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23–24)

Adult:  

How do you reconcile with those who have offended or hurt you?

Child:  

When have you taken the first step to make up with someone who has hurt you or whom you have offended?

Fifth Sunday Ordinary Time

Matthew 5:13-16

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Modern visitors to Israel who travel the road north from Jerusalem toward Shechem notice clay-ovens next to some houses along the roadside.

Many prefer to cook in these out-door ovens rather than on their electric or propane gas stoves.

Ovens like these have been around since ancient times. In the biblical period each village had a common oven. Since villagers were often members of a very large, extended family, these common ovens were family ovens.

The common fuel for the oven was something that was more plentiful than wood: camel or donkey dung.

One of the duties each young girl had to learn was to collect the dung, mix salt in it, and mold it into patties to be left in the sun to dry.

In the Middle East and many Third World countries, such dung patties are still used as fuel today.

A slab of salt was placed at the base of the oven and upon it the salted dung patty.

Salt has catalytic properties which cause the dung to burn.

Eventually the salt slab loses its catalytic ability and becomes useless.

Or as Jesus says, "It is good for nothing but to be thrown outside where it can still pro-vide a sure footing in a muddy road?'

This is the Mediterranean cultural imagery Jesus has in mind when he says: "You, my disciples, are the salt, that is, catalyst for the earth-oven."

(In the Aramaic and Hebrew languages which Jesus spoke, one and the same word means “earth” and “clay oven.”

To be salt for the “earth -oven” is to start fires and make them burn.

If Jesus’ disciples do this, they will also become “light of the earth.”

Catholics in the United States have become afraid of “starting fires.”

We have achieved a certain status in wealth and possessions, and we like the status quo.

Let’s not rock any boats.

Too many of us want to come to church and hear a nice homily that will let us return to our comparatively comfortable lives for the rest of the week.

We really don’t want to hear our pastor and our church tell us how evil and uncivilized is the war that’s going on.

We really don’t want to hear our pastor and our church talk to us about money and immigration reform, homeless and food stamps.

But the fact is that Jesus started fires and created light.

Back then some saw and understood.

Others got burnt and put to death.

Today some see and understand that disciples must be people who start fires and create light.

Others today don’t get burnt and put to death, but they suffer the fate of those whom Jesus called “hypocrites.”

In Jesus’s time the word meant “actor.”

These people today, like those in Jesus’s time, take their lines from scripture, but it is hardly the script by which they live.

They are people afraid to start fires,

and thus, people who create no light in our world.

Presentation of the Lord

Luke 2:22-40

February 2, 2014

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A scholar was conducting a study of an Amish village. The Amish are a branch of the Mennonite church who live in traditional rural villages far from industrialization and technology: no computers, televisions, refrigerators and telephones. In his study of the Amish village school, the researcher noticed that Amish children never screamed or yelled. That surprised him. So he decided to check it out with the schoolteacher. He told the teacher that he had not once heard an Amish child yell, and asked him why that was so. The teacher replied, “Well, have you ever heard an Amish parent yell?” The inference is clear: Like the parents, so the children!

We are all familiar with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day which we celebrate every year. Why is there not a Parents’ Day where we celebrate father and mother together as a couple? Today should be a good day to focus on both parents together, as we see both parents of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, together make the long journey to Jerusalem to present their firstborn child in the Temple as the law of God required. In the image of Joseph and Mary presenting Jesus in the Temple, we have a wonderful model of husband and wife united in practicing the faith and in raising their child in the faith.

We read that “When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord” (2:22) There is a confusion of detail here because, according to Jewish law, purification was for the mother alone while presentation was for the child. The story appears to be speaking of the two ceremonies as if they were one. Luke stresses the fact that they are doing it “as it is written in the law of the Lord” (verse 23). Joseph and Mary are presented as people who keep God’s laws. Moreover, they are presented as doing it together. It is easier to walk in the ways of God when husband and wife walk it together and encourage each other along the way. The author of Ecclesiastes had something like this in mind when he wrote: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). Husband and wife are companions in the journey of life, especially in the journey to our ultimate destination. We see this as we contemplate Joseph and Mary together in the Temple in obedience to God’s law.

If parents are supposed to provide their children with the basic necessities of life, what is more basic than one’s faith in God. No parents would think of allowing their children to decide whether they want to go to school or not, whether they want to learn the common language or not, whether they want to be a citizen of their country or not. We make these decisions for them, knowing fully well that when they grow up, they may decide to continue with what we gave them or abandon it. But only a foolish parent would refuse to send a child to school or teach a child their language and tradition in the name of respecting the child’s freedom to choose. Similarly parents have a responsibility to initiate their children into their faith traditions. This is what we see today in the feast of presentation as Joseph and Mary present Baby Jesus in the Jewish Temple.

As parents, we have the duty and privilege of raising our children in such a way that they grow up to become good and responsible citizens as well as committed children of God. The example of Joseph and Mary, and the example of the Amish community, show us that the best way to achieve this is not just by talking and shouting at them but by leading the way and showing them by the example of our own lives.

Should Laity Have Role In Choosing Their Bishop?

Pope Francis says that he wants a special kind of bishop for our church—he wants “shepherds who smell of their sheep.” Let us take our Holy Father at his word: Who knows how the sheep smell better than the sheep themselves? No one. So then why not let the sheep make a modest proposal and ask that we laypeople have a significant say in the choice of our bishops.

This proposal is not as radical as it may seem. Once the office of bishop was clearly established in the early church, that office was filled by the choice of the local people and priests, and ratified by the neighboring bishops as a sign of the unity of the church. Even unbaptized persons were eligible to be chosen for bishop, as we know from the story of St. Ambrose, who was acclaimed by the clergy and people as bishop of Milan while he was still a catechumen. And the very first bishop in the United States, John Carroll, was elected by the priests of Maryland and confirmed by the pope. Today we are so used to the pope choosing our bishops for us without any input from those whom the bishop will serve that we forget it was not always that way. In fact the right of the pope to choose bishops was only finally settled by the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which clearly allocated that power to the holder of the papal office.

The way bishops are chosen today arguably does have some limited lay input. When a priest is being considered for appointment as bishop, the apostolic nuncio, the pope’s representative to the United States, sends out what are called apostolic letters. These letters go to select laypeople from the diocese, asking their knowledge of the candidate’s position on some very specific issues, such as birth control, abortion, married priests, female priests, the remarriage of divorced Catholics, and same-sex marriage. These questions reveal the slant of the Vatican that has given us so many culture warrior bishops, although perhaps the questions will change under Pope Francis. Maybe the apostolic letters will begin to ask new questions: Does this man have a concern for the poor? Does he dress in the best clothes, drive a fancy car, and enjoy fine food and drink? Does he spend more time with rich people than with poor people? Even better, the letters might possibly go to different people. Right now, the only folks who get those letters tend to be wealthy donors; the poor people of a diocese never get apostolic letters from the papal nuncio. Besides the limited input of such apostolic letters, however, there really is no lay participation regarding which men are chosen to be our bishops.

So then how do bishops come to be chosen today? Dioceses in the United States are divided into what are known as “ecclesiastical provinces,” e.g. every diocese in the state of Illinois is in the province of Chicago, every diocese in the state of Pennsylvania is in the province of Philadelphia , etc. Each of these provinces has a list of potential candidates for bishop, compiled from suggestions of priests favored by the bishops of that province, which they update every so often. No laypeople are given the chance to contribute any names to that list.

Supposedly, when there is a need for a diocesan bishop in the province, the papal nuncio begins the hunt by looking at the candidates on that list. And even more importantly, the papal nuncio is not bound by the list; it is only a starting point. He may place other priests’ names from around the country on the list of candidates that he prepares.

The nuncio narrows the candidates down to a final list of three names (called a “terna”) which is sent to the Congregation for Bishops in Rome. The list is vetted, perhaps rewritten with different names, and then sent on to the pope. The pope can pick any name from the list of three that the Congregation for Bishops gives him, or he can go off-list and pick someone completely different. John Paul II, who was well-traveled both before and after becoming pope, supposedly went off-list a number of times to name as diocesan bishops men whom he knew personally.

This current system can result in bishops being parachuted into dioceses by headquarters in Rome, without any knowledge of the diocese, its priests, or its people. Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Some bishops from outside are quick studies, and genuinely get to know their priests and people before they begin making major decisions. Others arrive thinking that they already know all they need to know and proceed from one disastrous decision to another. Usually this system gives us bishops whose only loyalty is upward—to their patrons in Rome or to the national hierarchy who campaigned for them—and not to their own priests and people.

I think that this one fact alone—the way they were chosen as bishops to begin with—helps to explain a lot about the way the American bishops mishandled the clergy child sexual abuse crisis. Recall that the national bishops conference dithered for years, looking for a solution from Rome. Being afraid to act without one, they did nothing while the situation deteriorated in the United States. Bishops who were more accountable to their people would not have acted that way.

What would it look like if laypeople had a real role in the choice of our bishops?  In the normal course of events, before a diocese is about to fall vacant—and this is not a surprise date, since bishops must retire when they turn 75, which is right after the year they turn 74—the papal nuncio or someone from his staff should actually travel to the diocese and talk to the laypeople directly. In any given year, there are less than a dozen dioceses that become open, so this will not require a lot of travel. The nuncio’s staff should visit parishes and ask people to stay after Mass to talk about potential bishop candidates; that way you will get those Catholics who actually participate in the life of the church (anywhere from 27 to 35 percent in most dioceses) to give their opinion.

The nuncio or his staff should then hold a convocation in the diocese where folks chosen by the people of each parish, not by the pastor, would be asked to attend and discuss suitable candidates. The people know who the good priests are. They are the men who Pope Francis described in his recent talk to the episcopal conferences of Latin America (CELAM), as “pastors, close to people, fathers and brothers, and gentle, patient and merciful.” They must be simple men, devoted to poverty, and not driven by ambition. They must be “men who do not think and behave like princes,” Francis said, but “men capable of watching over the flock entrusted to them and protecting everything that keeps it together: guarding their people out of concern for the dangers which could threaten them, but above all instilling hope: so that light will shine in people’s hearts. Men capable of supporting with love and patience God’s dealings with his people.”  

Let the people tell the nuncio or his staff  in a convocation who these kinds of priests are. They know. And having heard the people of the diocese, the nuncio can then compose his list for Rome, which should be a public list, so that they people will know whether they were heard or not.

Some will say this leaves the episcopal office open to campaigning among the laity, and priests should not be able to campaign to be bishop—it is unseemly. Reality alert: Priests already do campaign to become bishops; the laity just do not know about it. Priests campaign with their bishop friends to get on the provincial list. They campaign with the papal nuncio to get on the list of three names sent to Rome, usually with the help of affluent donors who have direct access to the nuncio. There are even stories of the head of a wealthy Catholic fraternal organization carrying the names of priest friends to Rome for advancement.

And it does not stop there. Cardinal Gantin, who was the head of the Congregation of Bishops from 1984-1998, said after leaving office that he was amazed at the bishops who, having just been named to a diocese, would travel to Rome to lobby him for a bigger diocese. This practice gave rise to the phrase “starter diocese” among some wags in Rome.

So campaigning for bishop by priests does occur. Wouldn’t it better if this were all out in the open—if laypeople knew about it and participated in the process?  Indeed, the laity seeing a priest desperate to become a bishop might just consider such ambition, as would Pope Francis, a disqualifying factor. But the sheep do know who the right men are for the job, and the church

- See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/choosingbishops?utm_source=February+4%2C+2014&utm_campaign=ebulletin+February+4%2C+2014&utm_medium=email#sthash.qs0PAybm.dpuf