The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Jeremiah 23:1-6  +  Ephesians 2:13-18  +  Mark 6:30-34

A few weeks ago, on June 25, I drove from my former parish to Eureka in order to drop off boxes of my belongings.  At the Copper Kettle in Eureka, three of us had lunch together:  the then-current, the newly appointed, and a previous pastor of Greenwood County:  namely, Father Nic, myself, and Father Mike Klag.  Some of the folks in the Copper Kettle might have called us the Three Amigos.  Some might have called us the Three Stooges.  But in fact, we were and are three brothers, like the brothers in today’s Gospel passage.

If you open your Bible to Mark Chapter 6, you’ll find this Sunday’s Gospel passage right after last Sunday’s.  They’re two parts of the same narrative.  They describe the Twelve Apostles:  first, being sent by Jesus to do His work; and later, returning to the Lord Jesus after completing their work, in order to rest.  However, Chapter 6 is fairly early on in St. Mark’s account of the Gospel, long before the events of Holy Week.  Jesus here is not sending the apostles out to preach the Good News of His Death and Resurrection, because His Death and Resurrection have not yet happened.  So for what purpose is Jesus sending the apostles out in today’s Gospel passage?

In any given part of the world, the Church is led there by the local bishop.  Each bishop is a successor of the Apostles.  Each bishop is sent to a given part of the world by the Pope, who is the successor of St. Peter.  Just as Jesus appointed Peter to act in His Name after Jesus ascended to Heaven, so also the Pope at any given time acts of behalf of Jesus.  One job of the Pope, then, is to send out bishops, just as Jesus sent the Twelve Apostles.

However, the world is a large place.  So the Sacrament of Holy Orders, which Jesus instituted at the Last Supper, includes not just the role of bishop, but also the role of priest.  Priests, as the Catechism describes them, are the bishop’s “co-workers” [CCC 1595].

When a young man enters the seminary in order to find out if God is calling him to be a priest, that young man has to be sponsored by a bishop, and the bishop sends him to a seminary of the bishop’s choosing.  If the young man perseveres in the seminary, he’s ordained by that bishop for that bishop’s diocese, and can be assigned by that bishop to serve anywhere in his diocese.

Yet as important as a priest’s relationship with his bishop is, his relationships with his brother priests is just as important.  In seminary they had a saying:  “The priest who rides like the Lone Ranger doesn’t make it far down the trail.”  In other words, a priest needs the support of his brothers.

Religious order priests, such as Benedictines and Franciscans, have built-in fraternity since they usually reside in community, pray together several times a day, take their meals together in the refectory, and carry out their labor alongside each other.  By contrast, secular priests—sometimes called diocesan priests—have to work harder at fostering priestly fraternity, and often have to travel long distances to do so.

That’s part of what Father Nic, Father Mike Klag, and I were up to on June 25.  I got to know Father Klag when he followed me as the pastor of St. Martin of Tours Parish in Caldwell.  After he moved there, he would call me at least once a month to visit about his new parish, and if he made a trip to Wichita we would have lunch, and visit not only about his new parish, but also about his carpentry and his gardening.  When he learned that I’d been appointed pastor in Greenwood County, he generously offered the use of his trailer to move my belongings, and said that he’d like to see the renovated rectory.

On June 25, during the lunch that the three of us had at the Copper Kettle, Father Klag did most of the talking, the majority of our conversation being about the parishes and parishioners of Greenwood County.  Father Nic would often chime in to confirm an observation that Father Mike made.  For my part, I mostly kept quiet, listening to my brothers and learning from them.

So why did Jesus send out the Twelve Apostles as we heard in last Sunday’s and today’s Gospel Readings?  The most obvious answer is to preach repentance, drive out demons, and anoint and cure the sick.  However, at the same time, we can see another purpose.

At the start of last Sunday’s Gospel Reading from Mark 6, the evangelist noted that Jesus sent them out two by two.  Jesus sent the Apostles two by two to learn to rely not only on God’s grace, but also on a brother’s shoulder.

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Practically speaking, where does this connect to your life?  It might be interesting to hear about the life of a priest, or for that matter, about the Twelve Apostles.  But does any of that relate practically to the daily life of a lay person?

It does, because no Christian—whether layperson, consecrated religious, or priest—is meant to be a Lone Ranger.  Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto to help him out of a jam.  By God’s express design, the Christian disciple is meant to depend on his or her fellow Christians. This is part of what in the Apostles’ Creed we call the “Communion of Saints”.

The Romans, when they crucified Jesus, could not have known that the instrument of torture and death that they utilized to shame and eliminate their enemies would become the Sign by which God would offer salvation to man.  The Sign of the Cross is part and parcel of our Catholic Faith for many reasons.

One reason is that the two arms of the Cross—the vertical arm and the horizontal arm—symbolize what Jesus taught us about God’s commands to His disciples.  All the commands of God’s Law are summed up in two commands:  love your God, and love your neighbor.  Loving our God is symbolized by the vertical arm of the Cross, which is grounded in the earth, but rises up to Heaven.  Loving our neighbor is symbolized by the horizontal arm of the Cross, which stretches from left to right, bad to good, unlovable to lovable, reminding us to love our neighbor not because they are or are not like us, but because they were created in God’s Image and likeness.

Today’s Gospel passage, though, reminds us about another point that’s symbolized by the Sign of the Cross.  That’s the point that Jesus wanted His Twelve Apostles to learn when He sent them out two-by-two in order to carry out God’s work.  The vertical arm of the Cross reminds us that it’s by God’s grace that we—like the Apostles—accomplish any good works that we carry out for the sake of our families, our parish, or our community.

The horizontal arm of the Cross reminds us that, by God’s design and desire, each of us carries out his or her work alongside, and relying upon, our neighbors.  To give a specific example:  in marriage, husband and wife have to work together, and to teach their children how to be part of the team that is the family, also called the domestic church.  Likewise, God designs a parish family, and a local community, with different individuals with individual gifts who learn to work together for the good of others and the glory of God.

Having said that about our needs to rely on others, a heads-up about our Gospel passages for the next five Sundays.  This Sunday Jesus wants us to understand our need to depend on those around us.  Over the next five Sundays, the Gospel passage at Sunday Mass will come from John 6, helping us to appreciate better the gift of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ—who is true God and true man, who is the God and the neighbor whom we are to love—gives us His very self to depend upon:  Jesus, our Good Shepherd, who makes us to rest in green pasture, and to be nourished at His sacred banquet.

The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Amos 7:12-15  +  Ephesians 1:3-14  +  Mark 6:7-13

“So they went off and preached repentance.”

Sometimes it’s better to step back and consider Scripture in general, and sometimes it’s better to focus on one of the day’s Scripture passages.  Sometimes, it’s best to do both.  One of the saints of our Church can help us do so.

Saint Thomas More, who lived in England in the 1500s, was a husband and father, lawyer and statesman.  St. Thomas was also devoted to learning more about his Catholic Faith.  He was chosen by the King of England for the position of Lord Chancellor, the second-most powerful position in the kingdom, second only to the king.

However, St. Thomas, unlike many who wield worldly power, was clear-sighted.  One day he said to his son-in-law, “If my head could win the king a castle in France, it would not fail to go.”  Those were prophetic words.  St. Thomas More was martyred by the King of England because St. Thomas refused to call the king the head of the Church within England.  The feast day of St. Thomas More is June 22^nd.

St. Thomas emphasized the need to read Sacred Scripture in the light of faith, with the early Fathers of the Church as guides.  About Sacred Scripture, St. Thomas wrote:  “Holy Scripture is the highest and best learning that any man can have, if one takes the right way in the learning.  It is [like a river] so marvellously well tempered that a mouse can wade therein and an elephant be drowned therein.”

This point about the elephant and the mouse is important to stop and consider.  Sometimes Christians think that they have to be an elephant when it comes to approaching Scripture.  That is to say, they think that if they’re going to approach Sacred Scripture, they have to tackle the entire Bible, and become a master of every book, chapter, and verse.  Frankly, that makes about as much sense as wanting to begin a walking regimen, and starting by walking to the top of Mount Everest.  Instead, it’s better to be a mouse.

When someone asks for counsel about reading, or studying, or reflecting upon Scripture more deeply, there are two points I make in reply.  The first is to start with one of the four Gospel accounts:  not “in the beginning” with the Book of Genesis, and not with the letters of St. Paul, as rich as they are, but instead with one of the four Gospel accounts.

The second point leads into today’s Scripture passages.  The second point to keep in mind when starting to read, study, or reflect upon Scripture more deeply is to be that mouse that St. Thomas More wrote about.  Specifically, when you turn to any chapter or paragraph of the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit to direct your mind and heart to one particular verse, or sentence, or even just a phrase.  That’s all you need.  That small creek of Scripture is enough to immerse yourself in the Word of God.  You don’t need to swim in the Mississippi.  You only need one verse, sentence, or phrase.

But then, once the Holy Spirit has helped you to select a specific verse, sentence, or phrase, ask Jesus, who is the Word of God made Flesh, to give you insight into the meaning of that verse, sentence, or phrase.

This past week, in preparing for this Sunday’s homily, the sentence that came to the forefront is the next-to-last sentence of today’s Gospel Reading.  “So they went off and preached repentance.”  What does Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, wants us to understand through these words?  We cannot exhaust their meaning, but we can ask the Lord Jesus to apply these words to our lives in the here and now.

Each one of us, by virtue of his or her baptism, is called by God to holiness.  There is no holiness for the sinner except by means of repentance.  Repentance, accepted through the virtue of humility, is the first step.

In turn, those who are called to shepherd others, have the responsibility to preach repentance to those entrusted to their care.  They may not do so from a pulpit, but they do so in the ordinary course of life.  Parents, for example, have to preach the need for repentance when their teenager, who has a curfew of midnight, comes home at 2:00 am.  In our civil society, citizens have to preach the need for repentance when laws fail to protect the lives of unborn children.

However, no Christian can preach to others unless he first examines his own conscience and seeks out what forgiveness he needs to accept from God or others.  Every night, during his prayers before falling asleep, the Christian disciple needs to make an examination of conscience, and pray the Confiteor or Act of Contrition.  Every month, the Christian disciple who wants to grow in holiness will accept Jesus’ gift of Divine Mercy through the Sacrament of Confession.

Growth in the Christian life begins with the virtue of humility, and repentance for one’s sins.  In other words, Christian growth is founded upon two basic truths of our Catholic Faith:  (1) that there is sin, and (2) that I am a sinner.

By contrast, we live in a world that professes two claims that contradict our Faith:  (1) that there is no objective truth, and therefore no such thing as sin, and (2) that instead, those who believe contrary to each other can only at best tolerate each other, or perhaps simply ignore each other, or at worst fight against each other.  However, if there is truth – and Jesus proclaims “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life” – then we are able to reason with others, even when we disagree with them, and even when there’s a need for repentance, whether on our part or on theirs.

Nonetheless, repentance is only the first step.  Because where there is human sin, there also is Christ willing to carry that sin on His shoulders to Calvary.  And where there is sin, there is Christ Jesus offering His grace.

The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Wisdom 1:13-15;2:23-24  +  2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15  +  Mark 5:21-43 [or Mark 5:21-24, 35-43]

There are certain seasons of the Church Year, and certain times of that year, when we expect that certain beliefs of our Faith will come to the forefront.  For example, during Lent, and even more so the closer we draw to Good Friday, we expect to hear about—and to be challenged to reflect upon—the sacred Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Likewise, in the last Sundays of the Church Year, during the month of November, the Scriptures at Mass draw our attention to what Holy Mother Church calls the “Four Last Things”.  One of those four Last Things is death, and of course November—as nature all around us becomes colder and more barren, with fields and lawns turning yellow—is a fitting time to reflect upon death.

But this Sunday?  We’re in the heart of summer.  The days are filled with light and heat.  Fields and lawns are lush and green.  Why do our Scriptures today focus upon the harsh reality of human death?

Maybe it’s to remind us that death is often not predictable.  Reflecting upon death during Lent and November is fitting and timely.  But death often strikes unexpectedly, at a time that seems altogether unfitting.  Maybe that’s why on this Summer morning Holy Mother Church wants us to reflect upon death through the light of the Gospel.

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In today’s First Reading, from the Old Testament Book of Wisdom, the author states:  “God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living.”

But if God did not make death, then who did?  The answer is:  man made death; or at least, man made death into what we know it as.

“In the beginning”, when God created man—male and female He created them—He did not design man to experience death as we know it.  Certainly, God never intended man to live forever upon the earth.  But God did not design man to end his earthly days by means of what we know as death.

“In the beginning”, God created man so that an individual human person, upon reaching his or her final day on earth, would rise to Heaven both in body and soul, as the Blessed Virgin Mary did at the end of her days on earth.  As God originally designed man, the end of earthly life would not have resulted in the division of a man’s body from his soul.  The human body and soul were meant always to be united to each other:  both on earth and in Heaven.

But when Adam and Eve brought sin into human life, death as we know it resulted.  Human sin is the reason that the body and soul are separated from each other at the moment of death.  They remain separated, of course, until the end of time.  St. Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, writes that at the end of time “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible” [1 Corinthians 15:52].  Those in Heaven will finally have their bodies joined again to their souls.

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Death divides.  Life unites.

There are many ways in which death divides.  One way is that death divides the soul from the body.  But an even deeper division is the death caused by sin during life on earth.  Everyone experiences division within oneself, and on many different levels, some more important than others.  To give a less important, though difficult, example:  regarding something as simple as a diet, human persons are torn in two.  We “know” that we need to eat a more healthful diet, but we “want” to eat what’s satisfying.  That’s why the diet industry earns billions of dollars every year:  because human beings are divided inside, and their diets don’t address that fault line within the human person.

The same is true when we face decisions about spending time:  for example, whether to sleep in on a Saturday morning, or to tackle a needed chore.  Inside us, a tug-of-war goes on, and more often then not, the lower side—the baser side—wins.

St. Paul in his New Testament letters often writes about division within his own life.  But he doesn’t write about diets or chores.  He speaks about division in the very heart of man’s soul, and about sin as the cause of this division.  In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul tackles this conflict head on.  He writes:

“I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  ….  So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.  …. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  ….   Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  [Romans 7:15,17, 18-19, 24-25].

There is only one way strong enough to overcome division.  That way is Jesus Christ.  This truth was proclaimed in the Alleluia Verse before today’s Gospel Reading:  “Our Savior Jesus Christ destroyed death / and brought life to light through the Gospel” [see 2 Timothy 1:10].

Jesus has brought “life to light”.  What is this life?  This is the life of grace.

The life of grace—which is life in Christ—strengthens us not to give in to division in any form.  Finally, the life of grace strengthens us against the deepest temptation to division:  that is, the temptation to divide death from life.

This is really two opposite temptations.  You can divide death from life in two different ways.  Both ways lead away from Christ, or rather, away from the Way of Christ.

First, you can focus on death to the exclusion of life.  When you do this, you become not just weak and pessimistic, but self-centered, because your self-pity prevents you from seeing outside your misery.  You will neither allow others to give you a hand, or God to give you His grace.

Second, you can focus on life to the exclusion of death.  When you do this, you become what’s called a “Pollyanna”, believing in a false form of life, a phony optimism.  This false hope ignores the power and presence of sin and death, and so eventually has no need for either repentance or grace.

In Rome I wrote my thesis on the greatest work of the convert and apologist G. K. Chesterton, titled The Everlasting Man.  In the last chapter of that work, Chesterton wrote:  “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”  What Chesterton states about Christianity is true of each authentic disciple of Jesus Christ.  Each Christian falls because of his own sins and because of the sins of those around him.  But each Christian can rise through the grace offered by Christ’s sacraments.  The Christian life takes seriously both sin and grace, death and life, yet never doubts that in that stupendous battle between death and life, life in Christ will always be victorious.

references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 548-549, 646, 994: Jesus raises the dead
CCC 1009-1014: death transformed by Christ
CCC 1042-1050: hope for a new heaven and a new earth

Christ Raising Jairus’s Daughter by William Blake (1757–1827)

The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Job 38:1,8-11   +   2 Corinthians 5:14-17   +   Mark 4:35-41

The Book of Job is 42 chapters long, and today’s First Reading is from Chapter 38, so it’s clearly part of the end of the story of Job.  Nonetheless, to reflect meaningfully upon the First Reading, and to contrast it with today’s Gospel Reading, you have to know the entire story of Job.

 In Western culture, you’ll hear the phrase “the patience of Job”.  Some might think the chief point of the Book of Job to be his example of patience.

Certainly Job had many reasons not to be patient.  At the start of the Book of Job, the devil strikes Job by having his livestock raided and killed, and all of his children killed.  The devil is trying to get Job to curse God because of his suffering, but Job refuses to do so.  Then the devil strikes Job with boils from his feet to his head.  Job still will not curse God, though he does question why he was ever born.

Job has three friends who try to console him by trying to convince him that his suffering is a punishment for Job’s wrongdoing.  But Job rejects his friends’ claims.  Instead, he challenges God to explain the reason for his suffering.

That’s where today’s First Reading is set.  The passage only offers four verses of God speaking to Job “out of the storm”.  Did you notice that phrase in today’s First Reading, and how it connects to today’s Gospel Reading, where Jesus sleeps in the boat in the middle of a storm?

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Before reflecting specifically on the First Reading and Gospel passage, stop to consider two different ways to reflect upon Scripture in general.

The first way to reflect upon Scripture is to apply the scriptures to your own life.  Maybe that’s easy where today’s scriptures are concerned, because maybe your life—right now—resembles a storm or even a whirlwind.

But what if your life right now is very peaceful?  What if this current year of your life on earth is one of the best years you’ve ever had:  no illness, no money problems, and no problems with work?  In that case, how do you listen to today’s scriptures?  Or do you just ignore them?

If a given day’s Scriptures don’t seem to “apply” to your life today, they might describe your life at sometime in the past, or in the future.  If they describe your life in the past, then reflecting on the day’s Scriptures might help you deal with past difficulties that are still unresolved or unaccepted.  After all, your past can bear a great weight upon your present self.

On the other hand, since you don’t know today whether in your future you will face what’s described in the day’s Scriptures, it’s good to reflect upon them to prepare yourself for something that might well be coming down the pike.

The second way to reflect upon Scripture is for the sake of another person:  someone around you.  While you might well be having one of the best years of your life, someone around you might be having the worst.  Maybe you have a clearer frame of mind, and can help that someone see things more clearly.  We can do this in part by taking the scriptures, reflecting upon them, and relating them to what that someone is dealing with.

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So given all that, consider today’s First Reading and Gospel Reading.

Out of the whirlwind, God responds to Job’s question about suffering.  God responds, but He does not answer Job’s question in the way that Job was hoping.  God does not explain where suffering comes from, or even if there’s a deeper meaning to it.

God’s response to Job is much like Jesus’ response to the disciples in the boat.  The disciples’ cry is perfectly understandable.  Their cry is like the prayers that you and I might offer when we’re in distress.  “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  The disciples’ cry is perfectly natural.  Yet how does Jesus respond?  His response is not perfectly natural.  It’s perfectly supernatural.  Jesus calls us to be more like Him, and less like our own fearful selves.

Jesus calls us to rest in Him, even in the midst of suffering and distress.  That’s the first point, but not the key point.  The key point is that Jesus is with us—present—in the midst of our suffering and distress.

Two of the four evangelists stress this point when they start their Gospel accounts.  St. Matthew, in the first chapter of his Gospel account, speaks about the birth of Jesus by quoting the prophet Isaiah:  “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’” [Mt 1:23].  St. John, in the first chapter of his Gospel account, speaks about God the Son becoming man in this way:  “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”; “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” [Jn 1:14,12].

God is with us.  He’s in the boat beaten by the waves.  First, He’s with us to help us make the changes needed amidst the suffering that we’ve inflicted upon ourselves.  Second, He’s also with us to help bear the suffering imposed upon us by others, and to pursue justice when that’s needed.  Third, He’s with us against the suffering that arises from natural causes in this world that’s full of sickness and storms.  He’s with us in all things, and wants to strengthen us in the midst of our suffering.

We are the children of God.  Yet that truth does not exempt us from suffering.  After all, how did the life of Jesus, the Father’s only-begotten Son, end if not in the suffering of His Passion and Crucifixion?  God’s love does not exempt us from suffering, but it does assure us of His Presence in its midst.

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references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 423, 464-469: Jesus, true God and true Man
CCC 1814-1816: faith as gift of God, and human response
CCC 671-672: maintaining faith in adversity

The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Ezekiel 17:22-24  +  2 Corinthians 5:6-10  +  Mark 4:26-34

Most Christians would say that Christians are supposed to carry out the will of God. Whatever God wants in any given situation is what the Christian disciple ought to do, and when the Christian does carry out the will of God, that disciple grows to be more like God by virtue of carrying out that action.

However, here’s an important question. To what extent does God take an interest in what we do? Is God just interested in the general outline of our lives, or is He a micro-manager? Does God only care about each of us finding our vocation in life, and then leave the rest to us, or does He have a check-list for us each morning, which we need to complete by nightfall? How a Christian answers that question has a lot to do with his or her potential for spiritual growth.

Regarding God’s will, and how the Christian is meant to carry it out, one of the monkey wrenches that often gets thrown into Christians’ minds is the idea that if we simply lead a basically decent life, we will—in any given situation—understand what is good and what is bad when choices are set before us.

Unfortunately, this is false. The world, and the moral choices that we have to make in this world, are not that simple. From the beginning, from the example of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis, we see that the Devil is more devious than we give him credit for.

The fact is that the willpower of fallen man is weak. The willpower of fallen man is “damaged goods”, so to speak. The human will of each of us was deformed by Original Sin. Even though Baptism restores grace to our souls, Baptism does not make the human soul as strong as it was “in the beginning”, before sin entered our world.

Given all this, the Christian has at least three different ways to think about Christian morality. These are three different ways of considering what a Christian is and is not to do in this world.

The first way of thinking about Christian morality is to think that the goal of Christian morality is to avoid sin, especially mortal sin. This is based on the distinction between good and evil, which is the foundation of Christian morality. However, while this first way of thinking about Christian morality is the foundation, we have to build upon the foundation. That’s where the second way comes in.

The second way of thinking about Christian morality is to think that the goal of Christian morality is to do as much good as possible. While the first way of thinking focuses on avoiding sin, the second focuses on doing good. Yet by itself, this second way is incomplete. If our lives as Christians were only about doing good, then it would be enough to choose simply what is “more or less” good, as long as it’s not evil. But that’s not the final goal of the Christian moral life.

In other words, God intends that you yourself, in any given situation, would choose the most loving choice: not just avoiding evil choices, and not just choosing any of several good choices, but instead, choosing the best choice—the most loving choice—among many possible good choices. This distinction—this third way of thinking about Christian morality—is what makes the difference between a lukewarm Catholic and a living saint.

God intends something particular for each of us in every action of every day of our lives, and if we are not sacrificing what is necessary to make those choices, we are not living up to our baptismal promises.

Now we have to be honest: some Christians might find this truth overwhelming. They might ask: “How can a Christian constantly be focused upon figuring out what God’s will is, much less calling upon the inner strength to carry it out?”

The simple answer is that the further away you are from God, the harder it is. Yet the closer you draw to God, the easier it becomes. Not only does it become easier: it becomes “second nature”. Consider a simple analogy from ordinary life.

Maybe when you were a teenager, you learned to drive in a vehicle with an automatic transmission. My parents wanted my sisters and brother and me to first learn how to drive a vehicle by driving a stick-shift. Of course, this made the learning process much more challenging. During my first efforts on the dirt roads west of town, as much as I wanted to be able to drive, more than once I wanted to give up because of the difficulty in coordinating everything, especially the clutch, the gear shift, and the foot feed. Of course, after a person spends many years driving, coordinating all the tasks involved becomes second-nature. You don’t even have to coordinate them consciously, so easily can you do them at the same time.

Something similar is true of the Catholic moral life. The more often we make good and strong moral and spiritual choices, the easier it becomes.

Of course, we cannot act in a Christ-like manner through human will power alone. We have to allow God to strengthen our will by means of His grace. We do this by leading a sacramental life. Most blessed among the seven sacraments, of course, is the Eucharist, and the way in which we prepare ourselves to devoutly receive this sacrament says a lot about our dedication to the Christian moral life and sacramental life.

Another part of the moral life to consider is how much of a role penance plays in our life. Now when I say the word “penance”, the first thing that comes to your mind might be the Sacrament of Penance: that is, Confession. For others, the first thing they think of when they hear the word “penance” is those actions that they carry out (or give up) during the season of Lent: that is, acts of self-denial.

Both the Sacrament of Penance and our own personal acts of penance are ways to strengthen our weak human wills: to restore those damaged goods to their proper shape. God’s grace in Confession, of course, is far more powerful than our personal acts of self-sacrifice. But God never treats us like a puppet. He always wills that each of us should share with Him in the work of our spiritual growth, even if we are only spiritual infants, and He is our divine Father.

We could spend all our days in prayer discerning God’s will for our lives, but once we found out God’s Will, what good would that knowledge do if we weren’t strong enough to carry it out? By ourselves, we are like the tiny mustard seed. But by means of our simple acts of self-sacrifice, and the powerful grace of God’s sacraments, God can providentially—in His own good time, we know not how—bear an abundant spiritual harvest within our souls.

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references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 543-546: announcing the Kingdom of God
CCC 2653-2654, 2660, 2716: the Kingdom grows by hearing the Word

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Homily for the feast of St. John, Apostle & Evangelist
December 27, 2023

Holy Mother Church privileges St. John’s Gospel account.  At the Sacred Liturgy, she reserves the proclamation of John for the more important times of the Church year.  While the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke share many passages in common, much of St. John’s Gospel account is found only in John.  In case you’re considering a New Year’s resolution of reading more Sacred Scripture in the new year, and in case you’re trying to decide which book of the Bible to start with, let me give you three reasons for giving your attention and reflection to the Gospel according to John.

The first is the start of St. John’s Gospel account, sometimes called the “prologue” of John.  It’s the first eighteen verses of John 1.  If you’re old enough to remember the Latin Mass celebrated before Vatican II, you might recall that this prologue of St. John’s Gospel account was read at the end of every celebration of Holy Mass.  The high point of the prologue is verse 14, which is both profoundly incarnational and Eucharistic: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” You can read this brief prologue of just eighteen verses in a few minutes, yet you can meditate upon the meaning of these verses for many, many hours.

A second unique feature of St. John’s Gospel account is the sixth chapter of John.  The entire chapter is 71 verses long, but the heart of the chapter is what’s usually called “The Bread of Life Sermon”.  In this sermon, not found in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, Jesus gives us His most profound teaching about His Real Presence in the Eucharist.  Reading through this chapter in private devotion is usually best done with a commentary from a solid Catholic scholar (such as the Ignatius Study Bible).  Nonetheless, every hour spent meditating upon John 6 allows one to grow deeper in devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament.

A third unique feature of St. John’s Gospel account is John’s account of the Last Supper.  St. Matthew records his account of the Last Supper in eleven verses; St. Mark, in ten verses; St. Luke, in 25 verses.  But St. John’s account of the Last Supper is found in five entire chapters, consisting of 155 verses.  Put another way:  St. John’s Gospel account consists of 21 chapters, and five of these 21 chapters are devoted to John’s account of the Last Supper.

All three of these features of St. John’s Gospel account show how deeply Eucharistic the fourth Gospel is.  If you want to grow in your understanding of and devotion to Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, then the Gospel according to St. John is the place to start.

With prayers today on his feast day for the repose of the soul of my father, John Riley Hoisington.

It’s easy to see how today’s Gospel passage can cause confusion.  This passage describes the sacred event of the Annunciation:  the First Joyful Mystery of the Rosary.  We see St. Gabriel the Archangel and the Blessed Virgin Mary in this scene.  St. Gabriel announces to Mary what God the Father wants to bring about through Mary.  For her part, Mary gives her consent, declaring, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.”  Those beautiful words, spoken by the most beautiful woman to walk this earth, are the heart of today’s Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

However, the confusion that some people have about the Immaculate Conception is that they think that the conception being celebrated today is the conception of Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  It’s hard to blame them.  There are at least three reasons for this confusion.

First, the Gospel passage proclaimed on the Holy Day of the Immaculate Conception describes the sacred event of Mary conceiving Jesus.  Second, this Holy Day falls near the start of the Season of Advent, and it makes perfect sense to prepare for the celebration of Christ’s birth by meditating upon His conception nine months earlier.

Nonetheless, in spite of the reasons for thinking that the Immaculate Conception refers to Jesus being conceived by Mary, the Immaculate Conception is in fact the mystery of Mary being conceived by her mother, St. Anne.  What is the heart of this mystery?

The third reason for confusion is that some people think that the word “Immaculate” in the phrase “Immaculate Conception” is a synonym for “virginal”, because—as we heard in today’s Gospel passage—Mary conceived Jesus while still a virgin.

But that’s not what the word “Immaculate” means in terms of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.  The conception of Mary within her mother St. Anne occurred through a natural act of married love between Mary’s parents, St. Anne and St. Joachim.  The word “Immaculate” in the phrase “Immaculate Conception” refers to the fact that when Mary was conceived within St. Anne, God the Father made certain that Mary did not contract Original Sin.

Today’s First Reading reminds us of the commission of the Original Sin by Adam and Eve.  From Adam and Eve, through every century of human history, from generation to generation, each human person, at the moment when she or he was conceived, inherited Original Sin.  Original Sin is simply part and parcel of human nature:  not as God created man “in the beginning”, but as man chose for himself when man—male and female—chose to commit the Original Sin.

From the first moment of human life—at conception—the human soul is weak and wounded.  The human soul needs a Savior.  The human person needs a Savior.

In fact, Mary needed a Savior.  This is important to recall when reflecting upon the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, because some of our separated brethren within the Body of Christ make a false claim about Mary.  They state that belief in Mary’s being preserved from Original Sin means that the salvation that Jesus won for fallen man was not universal:  in other words, that Mary had no need for Jesus.

However, on the contrary, we have Mary’s own testimony in the Bible.  At the scene of the Visitation—recorded in the first chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel account—Mary sings the hymn called the Magnificat, which starts with Mary declaring:  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.”[1]

Mary speaks of her “Savior”, because Mary was saved by God from sin.  But she was not saved from sin like you and I, through the grace of Baptism and Confession.

Consider an example of what it means to be saved.  Imagine this:  imagine that you’re standing at the edge of a very large lake.  In front of you is a pier that extends a long way into the lake.  At the end of the pier, the water is fifty feet deep.

Now imagine that two friends are with you.  These persons are both blind, and unable to swim.  Now you’re setting up your campsite, when suddenly you hear a splash:  one of your friends walked all the way to the end of the pier and fell into the water.  Naturally, you run to the end of the pier, dive in, and drag the friend to safety.  You have saved your first friend from drowning.

The next day, you’re scavenging near the campsite for firewood.  At one point you pause, and look up.  Your other friend has walked down the pier, and is close to its end.  You make a mad dash for the pier, and you reach its end just as your friend is about to step off and fall into the fifty-foot deep water.  You grab your friend by the back of his shirt and pull him back to safety before he can fall in.  You have saved your second friend from drowning.

That second friend is like the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was saved by preventing her from ever falling into sin.  The rest of the human race is offered salvation in the first way, by being pulled out of sin after having already fallen into it.  Mary was never stained by sin, but she was saved from it.

Nonetheless, while it’s important to understand how God saved Mary, especially in order to dialogue with our separated brethren, it’s far more important to understand why God saved Mary in this unique way.

Why did God give Mary the gift of an immaculate conception?  Why did God want Mary to be “full of grace”, as St. Gabriel describes Our Lady when he addresses her?  We need first to reflect upon this salutation.

St. Gabriel says, “Hail, full of grace!  The Lord is with you.”  In modern English, we don’t use the word “hail” very much, except in regard to precipitation.  As a form of greeting, the word “hail” is not just old fashioned, but antique.  In modern English, we would never address someone by saying, “Hail, Joe”, or “Hail, Mary”.  Instead, we would say, “Hey, Joe”, or “Hello, Mary”.  The first word catches the other’s attention, and the second addresses the other by name.

However, St. Gabriel does not use the name of Mary to address her.  We might overlook this, because we so often pray the prayer called the “Hail, Mary”.  This prayer adds the name of Mary to St. Gabriel’s salutation.  The prayer begins:  “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.”  But in the biblical account, as we just heard in today’s Gospel Reading, St. Gabriel does not use the name of Mary to address her.  Instead, he simply says, “Hail, full of grace!  The Lord is with you.”

At first hearing, this might seem odd.  The phrase “full of grace” certainly describes Mary accurately.  But we don’t go around addressing people by saying, “Hey, six-foot-two”, or “Hello, 120 pounds.”  Rather, we address people by name, saying, “Hey, Joe”, or “Hello, Mary”.  So why does St. Gabriel address Our Lady with the words “Hail, full of grace!”?

It’s almost as if St. Gabriel is using this phrase “full of grace” as Mary’s name.  It’s almost as if this phrase “full of grace” identifies Mary.  It’s almost as if this phrase “full of grace” is the reason why Mary was born, and conceived, immaculately.  Mary is “full of grace” for this moment that we witness in today’s Gospel Reading.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived, and filled by God with grace, for the moment of the Annunciation.  We might want to say that Mary was “full of grace” for the sake of her entire vocation, which began at the moment of the Annunciation, and then extended throughout her earthly life, and continued (and continues) after the end of her earthly life and her assumption into Heaven.

However, the rest of her vocation—the Visitation, the Nativity of her Son, the Sorrows of Jesus’ infancy and public ministry, her intercession at the wedding at Cana, her fidelity at Calvary, and her maternal care and prayer for the Church starting on the day of Pentecost—was entirely dependent upon this moment of the Annunciation.  This moment was for Mary what the decision in the Garden was for Eve.  But Mary’s choice was the opposite of Eve’s.  Through Eve’s choice, sin entered the world, while through Mary’s choice, the Word of God became Flesh and dwelt among us.

This is why throughout history, the Church has addressed Our Lady as the New Eve.  Mary is our Mother, but she is also our model.  She is “full of grace”, and the first of those graces was the grace of her Immaculate Conception.  By means of God’s graces, Mary models for us the way of discipleship, the way to accept Christ into our lives.  The first step upon that way is for us to say at the start of each day:  “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.”

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[1] Luke 1:46-48.  See Acts 4:12.

The Annunciation by Masolino da Panicale (c. 1383 – c. 1447)

In southwestern France, alongside the Pyrenees mountains, rests a small town called Lourdes.  In the year 1858, a fourteen year old girl named Bernadette started to see apparitions of a “small young lady” holding a rosary.  It wasn’t until the sixteenth apparition that Bernadette learned the name of the lady, who told Bernadette:  “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Years after the final apparition, once the local bishop and civil authorities accepted Bernadette’s claims, the decision was made to create a statue of the Immaculate Conception.  It stands today in the center of the main square in front of the basilicas in Lourdes.  Preparations took a long time because Bernadette insisted that every detail of the statue correspond to what she had seen.  The artist grew rather exasperated, but Bernadette was insistent.

Among the many details that Bernadette pointed out, one concerned the rosary that the Immaculate Conception held.  Bernadette had to correct the artist because he initially portrayed the Immaculate Conception holding a five-decade rosary.  Bernadette explained to the artist that when the Immaculate Conception appeared to her, she was holding a six-decade rosary, which is called a Carmelite Rosary.

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Many Catholics are unaware that there is such a thing as a six-decade rosary, or that it’s been prayed by Catholics for centuries, although the even-older five-decade rosary, called the Dominican rosary, is the form of the Rosary most often prayed.

The point is that there’s not a single form for the Rosary.  The form of the Rosary is not regulated by the Church as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is.  If someone wants to pray the six-decade Carmelite rosary instead of the five-decade Dominican rosary, that person is free to do so.  Likewise, if someone wishes to read a verse or verses of Scripture at the start of each decade, that person is free to do so.  Likewise, if a person wishes on Thursdays to pray the Luminous Mysteries that St. John Paul proposed, that person is free to do so.  The form by which the Rosary is prayed is not essential.  What is essential is to pray the Rosary.

So since I’ve mentioned the Carmelite Rosary, let me say a little about the sixth mystery of each set of mysteries.  Within the Joyful Mysteries, the additional mystery is added at the start, as the First Joyful Mystery.  The First Joyful Mystery of the Carmelite Rosary is the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary by her mother, St. Anne.  Then the customary Joyful Mysteries follow, with the Annunciation being the Second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation being the Third Joyful Mystery, and so on.

Within the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Carmelite Rosary, the additional mystery is added at the end.  So the sixth Sorrowful Mystery is the scene of the Thirteenth Station of the Cross:  the Deposition of the Body of Christ into the arms of His Sorrowful Mother.

Within the Glorious Mysteries of the Carmelite Rosary, the additional mystery is also added at the end.  So the sixth Glorious Mystery is The Patronage of Mary, Queen and Beauty of Carmel (“Carmel” being the name for the entire family of those friars, nuns, and laypersons who have dedicated their lives to Christ under the patronage of Our Lady of Mount Carmel).

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During this month of October, the Church calls all Christians to go out of their way to grow in their devotion to Our Blessed Mother through the prayer of the Rosary.  Our Lady’s side altar is beautifully decorated during this month:  a reminder of this call to the Rosary.

Consider a suggestion about one way to do this.  While there are a lot of both pros and cons to the modern media, one of the pros that’s helped many Catholics grow in their Faith are Catholic apps available for smartphones or tablets.  While there are surely several good apps that can help you grow in your Catholic Faith, I’d recommend the app called “Hallow”.  There are both a free version and a paid version.  Recently I gave my mother her first Christmas gift, a year’s subscription to Hallow.  This app offers, in addition to audio recordings of the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and the entire Bible, reflections on Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Catholic Faith.  These features make it easy to use time travelling in your vehicle in a spiritually profitable way.

Venerable Sister Lucia, one of the visionaries of Fatima, said late in her life that “All people of good will can, and must say the Rosary every day.”  By contrast, she continued by pointing out that “if God, through Our Lady, had asked us to go to Mass and receive Holy Communion every day, there would undoubtedly have been a great many people who would have said, quite rightly, that this was not possible.  Some, on account of the distance separating them from the nearest Church where Mass was celebrated; others on account of the circumstances of their lives, their state in life, their job, the state of their health, etc.”

“On the other hand to pray the Rosary is something everybody can do, rich and poor, wise and ignorant, great and small.”  It is “a prayer which is within our reach…”.  The “Rosary … can be recited either in common or in private, either in church in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament or at home, either when traveling or while walking quietly in the fields.”  “A mother of a family can say the Rosary while she rocks her baby’s cradle or does the house work.”

Venerable Sister Lucia continues by noting that “God, who is our Father and understands better than we do the needs of His children, chose to stoop to the simple ordinary level of all of us in asking for the daily recitation of the Rosary, in order to smooth for us the way to Him.”

Statue of Our Lady of Lourdes holding the Carmelite Rosary. The statue is located in the square in front of the main basilicas. In the photo below the same statue is shown from behind.