Halt the Descension

Some months ago I read a long quote about the current generation.

It lamented that the current generation isn’t as respectful, or responsible 

As the ones before it.

It said that the current generation was losing the values 

And the spirit of its predecessors.

It spoke of political, social and economic decline.

And of the erosion of morality and spirituality.

Reading along, it was easy to think of examples of failings in all those areas.

It seemed to be a pessimistic, but arguably accurate, 

Assessment of our current world.

Look at the loss of civility.

The gross economic inequalities.

Look at the wars and terrorism.

Look at the spread of fear and hate.

The willingness to refuse help to those in need.

Then the article noted that the quote was actually from the 1700’s.

And mentioned a very similar quote that was attributed to Socrates,

In 400 BC.

The real message was that the human condition 

Hasn’t changed that much over time.

The same complaints and criticisms that were valid thousands of years ago 

Are still valid today.

All generations, like all people, have their strengths and weaknesses.

Their good and their bad.

In the Reading from the Acts of the Apostles,

Peter exhorted his listeners:

Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. 

The corrupt generation that had just crucified Jesus.

Of course, that corrupt generation also included Peter himself.

And Mary Magadalene, and the other Apostles and many other saints-to-be.

In fact, thousands listening to Peter were cut to the heart 

At the realization of what they’d done.

And they leapt at the opportunity for forgiveness 

And to receive the Holy Spirit.

To claim what he called the promise made to you and to your children 

And to all those far off.

They were converted and baptized that very day.

Now, here we are, 6,000 miles and 2,000 years 

From that generation in Jerusalem.

We’re clearly among those who Peter referred to as far off.

And, as he realized, we too have received the promise and the Spirit.

And we too still need the timeless exhortation 

That he spoke to that Pentecost crowd.

Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. 

But, having ourselves already received the Holy Spirit, 

We’re called to go a step further.

We’re called to pick up the work of Peter himself.

The work of Jesus himself.

The added call to us is:

Devote yourselves to saving this corrupt generation.

Tuesday Octave of Easter

Jn 20:11-18   Acts 2:36-41     Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Glorified

When [Judas] had left, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified,

And God is glorified in him. 

If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself,

And he will glorify him at once.

That sounds pretty complex and confusing.

But those two verses actually sum up a major portion of Jesus’ mission.

I had to resort to the commentaries to get a better grip on these verses.

And I found the Protestant bible scholar, William Barclay, most helpful.

He said these verses address the “fourfold glory”.

1       Jesus glorifies himself by his sacrifice.

2      Jesus glorifies God by his obedience to God.

3      God glorifies Himself by participating, through Jesus, in this sacrifice.

4      God will very soon glorify Jesus in his resurrection and ascension.

And will later glorify him even further in his second coming as king.

Glory is a fairly common term, but what does it mean, precisely?

One good definition is –  Worshipful praise, honor and thanksgiving.

Jesus and God “earned” that glory by what they did.

Not that they had to earn anything – everything is already theirs.

But to use that term for convenience,

They “earned” mutual praise and honor and thanksgiving from each other.

And they “earned” worshipful praise and honor and thanksgiving from us.

We already owed all that to God.

Just due to the fact that he created us, and everything else.

But Jesus’ mission and his revelations make our debt all the more clear.

The revelation of the unity of God and Jesus—and of the Trinity.

The revelation of God’s relationship to man—

His willingness to become one of us.

His allowing us to call him Father.

His willingness to suffer and die to save us and teach us.

Teach us what’s truly important in this life.

We didn’t know all these things until Jesus revealed them.

If we weren’t already offering our praise and honor and thanksgiving,

Surely we’d start upon learning any one of those newly revealed truths.

Lent has been a time of prayer and preparation.

A time of attempted improvement.

So we might have been focusing heavily on our faults and on repentance.

Now as we move through Holy Week,

Let’s be sure to include a proper dose of praise and honor and thanksgiving.

Our Mass gives us great help in that.

The Mass itself is a thanksgiving celebration.

And it includes many expressions of worshipful praise and honor.

During Lent we drop the Alleluia and instead introduce the Gospel with:

Praise and honor to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pay special attention to expressions like that today and tomorrow.

During these final two Masses of Lent.

Tuesday of Holy Week

Jn 13:21-28     Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Universal Patron

The Bible doesn’t devote a lot of ink to St Joseph.

There’s a lot we don’t know about him.

How old he was when Mary was betrothed to him.

His life before then.

When or how he died.

But the Bible does tell us, directly and indirectly, all we need to know.

It tells us Joseph was of the House of David, from Bethlehem.

More importantly, it tells us that he was a righteous man.

A man who followed the law of God and Moses.

It shows us that he was humble, compassionate and merciful.

What a shock when he found that his young wife-to-be was pregnant.

What hurt, what anger.

What an insult to his dignity.

And yet he showed his humility, his compassion and his mercy.

He decided not to expose her to shame.

Or even worse—to the punishment of the law.

Last Sunday we heard the story of what Jesus did

When the Pharisees brought him a woman caught in adultery.

The law allowed stoning, but he showed her compassion and mercy.

Today we see Joseph, 30 years earlier, likewise guided by the Spirit.

And Joseph was a man of great faith.

When he heard God’s messages he accepted them and acted on them.

He took Mary as his wife despite her pregnancy.

He protected Mary and Jesus by taking them into exile in Egypt.

He brought them back when it was safe.

He provided for them.

Joseph taught Jesus as a father teaches his son.

And Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge.

Years later, Jesus came back to teach in Nazareth.

The people were impressed with his words and his deeds.

But then they said, Where does he get all this?

Isn’t this the son of Joseph the carpenter?

Their comments were meant to be demeaning.

But truly, Jesus had gotten a lot

From being the son of that humble carpenter.

In 1868 some German folks who had settled here in DC

Decided to form a new parish.

In choosing a patron for their parish they decided upon St Joseph.

A righteous, humble, merciful, compassionate, strong, man of faith.

They were somewhat prescient in their choice.

Just two years later, Pope Pius IX proclaimed Joseph

Patron of the entire Universal Church.

He was already the patron of thousands of other groups and causes. Countries, cities, parishes, schools and hospitals.

Patron of workers and patron of a happy death.

In the secular realm we have cities named St Joseph and San Jose.

St Joseph is honored with two Feast Days.

Primarily March 19, today, as St Joseph, Husband of Mary.

But also May 1, as St Joseph the Worker.

And he’s also honored on the Feast of the Holy Family,

The Sunday after Christmas.

Here we are on St Joseph’s Day, in that parish founded in 1868.

This year is also the 125^th Anniversary of this church building.

With its statues and paintings honoring Joseph’s unique service.

This mural with him knocking on the door of the inn in Bethlehem.

That large painting in the vestibule.

Showing Mary and Jesus comforting him in that happy death.

And so it’s a special day of celebration for us.

We once had St Joseph’s School, standing just North of the rectory.

That building was torn down in 1959.

But some of the alumni from that school are here with us today. Joining us in celebrating and honoring our patron—our model.

The Bible makes it clear that other saints had their faults.

Peter, James, John—all the apostles—certainly St Paul.

Joseph must have had faults too, but none are mentioned.

Other than his wife, what more perfect patron could we choose.

And what more powerful intercessor could we choose.

The man who God Himself chose to be the foster father of Jesus.

The man who loved and protected Mary and Jesus.

The man who Jesus honored and obeyed.

Who guided Jesus every day.

Throughout his childhood and into adulthood.

For somewhere between twelve and thirty years.

What a bond they must have created between them.

Surely Joseph holds a very special place in the heart of Jesus.

And it’s most fitting that he hold a special place in our hearts too.

Feast of St Joseph

Mt 1:16-24     Read this Scripture @usccb.org

I AM

Chart Taken from Pew Research

Some people say that Jesus was a good man.

But he was not God.

Kind of a middle of the road position.

A view taken by many, including 1.6 billion Muslims.

Yeah, he was a good teacher, said a lot of good things, healed people,

Held children on his lap, even gave his life for the cause.

Most of that’s easy enough to believe.

But was he God? 

That’s a little harder to believe.

And yet, if he wasn’t God—

Then he also wasn’t a particularly good man.

He’d have been either a liar or a lunatic.

Because he clearly claimed that he was God—

Many times in many ways.

Our Gospel today recounts one of those times.

Here, Jesus states that he is God.

Maybe not the clearest imaginable language for us today.

But clear enough.

And to his Jewish audience at that time,

His claim was even more clear.

Clear enough to call it blasphemy.

When you lift up the Son of Man,

Then you will realize that I AM.

The Bible version we use at here at Mass stresses those words, I AM.

It shows them in all caps—I AM—

The name God gave Himself when Moses asked Him who He was.

Some of those who want to stay in the middle of the road,

Holding on to the idea that Jesus was a good man but not God,

Contend that Jesus didn’t actually make those claims of divinity.

It was just his followers and the Scripture writers who made them.

But if the Scripture writers were that dishonest or that mistaken,

Why should we trust that Scripture at all?

Why should we believe that Jesus was a good man?

Or that he ever existed at all.

Accepting that Jesus did in fact say

When you lift up the Son of Man,

Then you will realize that I AM.

It appears that his prediction was accurate.

It’s been 2000 years now, since he was lifted up.

Lifted up on the Cross and lifted up in the Resurrection.

And over 2 billion Christians today realize that he is God.

Not to mention the billions of others

Who have lived and died during those 2000 years.

But Jesus’ statement hasn’t yet been completely fulfilled.

Perhaps it won’t be – until the end of time.

Believers have grown from a handful, to a few thousand, to billions.

But they currently make up only one third of the world’s population.

And we can’t really be sure how deeply and confidently they believe.

And actually, I’ve been using my terms a little loosely.

Jesus didn’t say that we’d come to believe he was God.

He said that we’d realize that he is God.

Even if we believe, how real is our understanding?

In these last days of Lent,

Let’s ponder that question that Jesus once posed for us:

But who do you say that I am?

5th Tuesday of Lent

Jn 8:21-30     Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Healing

Come! behold the deeds of the Lord,

The astounding things he has wrought on earth.

The Psalmist tells of those wonders and of the running stream with God in its midst.

Ezekiel tells of his vision.

Water flowing from the temple of God.

Wherever this miraculous water flows, every creature shall live.

Every month the trees on the banks will bear fruit for food and leaves for medicine.

In John’s Gospel we hear of the pool at Bethesda.

Whenever the Spirit stirs the water of the pool,

Someone is miraculously healed by the power of God.

Jesus himself comes to the pool and sees the many sick lying there.

Including the man who’s been ill on his mat for 38 years.

Jesus shows that he can heal just as miraculously as the pool.

The man knows that he’s been cured.

But he doesn’t know who it was that cured him.

Only later does he come to realize that it was Jesus.

It might seem to us that the days of Jesus’ miracles are over.

That the stream of God’s miraculous healing power is no longer flowing freely to us.

We don’t see the direct and clearly miraculous healings that we read about in the Scripture.

We do sometimes hear of a rare, unexplainable miraculous healing.

But even then, many people dismiss the idea of a miracle.

They chalk it up to simple good luck.

But could it be that the flow of healing miracles is actually now heavier than ever?

That the Kingdom of God is expanding ever more rapidly?

And that His agents are working millions of healing miracles?

Consider what God has given us through His agents.

Through His gifts of intelligence and insight to medical researchers.

Through His gifts of knowledge and skill to doctors, nurses and surgeons.

We have our own healing pools of Bethesda.

One just a few miles from us even bears that very name—Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Many of us here today would have died years ago, perhaps in childhood.

Without the “miracles of modern medicine” that we now take for granted.

Vaccines, medicines, surgeries, emergency equipment and treatments.

Yet, we can be even less aware than the man with the mat.

We may not even realize that we’ve been miraculously cured.

Or like that man, we may know we’ve been cured but not realize who actually cured us.

Jesus told the man with the mat, Look, you are well; do not sin anymore.

With us, as with him, Jesus’ physical healing, wondrous as it is,

Is small and temporary in comparison to his miracle of spiritual healing.

In our humble prayers of thanksgiving.

In our Lenten conversations with God.

Let’s not forget to mention these truly astounding things He has wrought on earth.

4th Tuesday of Lent

Jn 5:1-16     Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Seventy Times Seven Times

Our Scripture readings at Mass come from the New American Bible-Revised Edition.

There are other translations that are approved by the Church.

And the wording can vary, usually just slightly,

Today we heard Jesus say, Forgive not seven times but seventy-seven times.

In some versions, Jesus’ words are,

Forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven times.

A few weeks ago I saw a cartoon depicting this Gospel scene.

Jesus uses the seventy times seven language.  

And Peter’s standing there looking frustrated and thinking

All that forgiving will be hard enough—but on top of that, now he wants us to do math ?!

Of course, seven and seventy and seventy-seven are not meant literally.

In the Bible, the number seven symbolizes completeness, fullness, perfection.

And multiples and repetitions of seven just emphasize that point.

In a similar passage in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says,

If your brother sins against you seven times a day and repents seven times,

You must forgive him seven times.

In a week of seven days that would be forty-nine times.

Every week.

Our reading from Daniel today jumps right into the middle of a story.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have been thrown into the fiery furnace.

And we pick it up with the prayer of Azariah (Abednego’s Hebrew name).

In the earlier part of the story the three Jews refuse to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s idol.

He becomes irate at their refusal.

And has the furnace heated to seven times its usual limit.

The flames rise forty-nine cubits high.

Forty-nine, that’s seven times seven if you do the math.

Azariah’s prayer is a mix of praise and petition.

Centered on God’s abundant mercy and forgiveness.

The central theme for today is forgiveness.

God’s generous, abundant, repeated forgiveness for us.

And the forgiveness he expects us to extend to others in return.

Our duty to forgive—repeatedly.

So Peter was wrong in his expectation that forgiving seven times would be exorbitant.

And we see how often, throughout the Bible, the apostles get it wrong.

So we can forgive the cartoonist for having Peter get it wrong yet again.

Thinking Jesus wants us to do the math.

It’s quite the opposite.

Jesus is telling us, 
Don’t tally up the score—just do the forgiving.

3rd Tuesday of Lent

Mt 18:21-35     Read this Scripture @usccb.org