Keynotes for November 2007

November 1, 2007
Solemnity of All Saints

Revelations 7:2-4,9-14
1 John3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12a

One of the editors in a previous lector's workbook opines that Jesus "was the most joyful man who ever lived." Perhaps Jesus was upliftedwith an inner preview of the vision described in John's Revelation, of that "great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue" enmassed before the throne of the Lamb.When we speculate as to what that final assembly of saints might be like, we can also imagine -- however remotely -- what joy there will be with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. During his sojourn on earth Jesus himself practiced all the qualifications for sainthood; that is, he showed himself to be merciful, lowly, sorrowful, and a peacemaker; but also one hungry for social justice/righteousness, someone persecuted-slandered-insulted, a person poor in spirit and yet purest of heart. But "we [who] are God's children now," to use John's phrase, what assurance do we have that we are following in our Master's footsteps? How are we to go about practicing these same virtues? And with what reasons, for what purposes? What are our chances of being included in that glorious, white robed throng? The harder we try to conform our behavior to the beatitudes, the more these criteria seem to evade us, the more elusive salvation seems to become.

Perhaps if we were to regroup the beatitudes in some sort of "ladder" fashion, to show how each is, hypothetically, a step we must climb, it might make sainthood seem slightly more concievable and approachable. Counting from the bottom upward, I would place the meek (8), the mourners (7), the merciful (6), and the peacemakers (5) on the lower rungs because the rewards promised for each of these spiritual qualities, while extendable into the hereafter, are fully attainable during our earthly life. For these, it is said,we shall inherit the land, be comforted in time of trouble, be shown mercy, and even be recognized as God's children, just as the aging John testified. On the upper rungs would be the seekers of justice (4), those persecuted for the sake of the same (3), the poor in spirit (2) and at the top, the clean of heart (1).The rewards for these latter four will be granted predominately in eternal life, because only there shall we humans be sufficiently fortified to sustain the fullness of righteousness, to twice possess the kingdom of heaven, and to actually see God. "What we shall be has not yet been revealed," cautions John. But that our reward will culminate in admission to the Beatific Vision. Of this he seems most certain, when he says:

We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope
based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.

Throughout our growth in holiness each of us with our different gifts might
begin to see ourselves at various times on various "rungs" of the ladder. Yet these positions, for whatever their "ascending" order might be, should also be regarded as free from our having to be perfected in, or even experience, any of the rungs "below" or "above" The beatitudes that Jesus displayed and preached are for his drawing of ourselves upwards, his saints-in-the-making, so that we do indeed turn out to be the fruits of his labors and the victory of his cross. Therefore as was said earlier, if Jesus was the most joyful man who ever spent his life on this planet, then we would do well to brace ourselves at the final gathering of his elect for an immense explosion of joy. For we shall then witness from visible evidence the vast proliferation of all the beatific seeds that he the sower did sow while living among us.

November 4, 2007
Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom11:22-12:2
2Thessalonians1:11-22
Luke19:1-10

Today's opening remark from the Book of Wisdom:

Before the Lord the whole universe is as a grain from a balance
or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth,

would remind us again that God can very well get along without creation (which He can), and really does not need us humans (which He does not). On the other hand, we have statements from saints like Irenaeus of Lyons declaring "The glory of God is man fully alive." Which to me raises the question: Of what avail would the glory of God be if there were no humans to reflect it, and reflect upon it? To what end would His resplendence redound if not bounced off mankind? (Kind of like: If a tree crashes in a forest where no one heard it, was there a sound?). The writer of Wisdom does come to grips with this question, I think, when he turns to the Lord and asks:

And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it;
or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?

In His one Act of calling forth lies our continuous preservation, despite all our contrariness, sinfulness and wickedness, for God loathes nothing He has made, nor hates anything He has fashioned. (The fallen angels being a case in point).

So today we might turn to the Lord and ask:
Which reveals Your greater glory:
Your call to us, or our response to You?

Paul gives this question a thorough going over when he adverts to human potential and human value along with human responsibility. In a second letter to the Thessalonians he prays

that our God may make you worthy of his calling
and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose
and every effort of faith. . .

Suggesting that we all still have plenty of opportunity for change and growth
and development despite our many failures and ongoing weaknesses. Paul also wishes that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you
and you in him.

Has my being, my very existence as an individual, ever glorified someone else's name? Has yours? Yes, many of us are named after family members, ancestors, saints, world figures. But do our achievements, or characters, or even our simple behaviors throw any reflections on that person? Here Paul elevates us along with his contemporary audience to the honor of glorifying the very One who made us. If we give so little thought to glorifying the names of others, then how can we even begin to cope with the mandate for glorifying the name of Jesus? And yet, that's what we are here for!! THAT'S WHY WE WERE MADE in the first place.

Luke tells us that Jesus called Zacchaeus down from the sycamore tree for the explicit purpose that "today I must stay at your house." Zacchaeus knew that his fellow Jews despised him because he collected taxes for the Romans, but that did not stop him. He felt himself justified because he repayed in excess when he collected too much, and he did right by the poor. His only obstacle to seeing Jesus was that he was a little guy, and this he quickly overcame by perching himself on a limb. Jesus knew the Jews would grumble if he went to "the house of a sinner," but that didn't stop him either. No sooner was the self-invitation uttered than Zacchaeus "came down quickly and received him with joy." Encapsuled in this vignette is that one Act of being called forth that each of us receives. And does our response glorify the caller? Its our inhibitions, our stubborn rebelliousness, our failures to recognize our own worth and potentials that so often hold us back. How many times throughout our lives do we react like the fallen angels? (who got only one chance, remember). How often do we, like the subversives who plot against Paul, go about with oral statement or letter, alarming and spooking and shaking the minds of our fellow Christians? Rather than simply thinking of how we might mirror a beam of glory from Jesus' name back to him? When will we start to become men fully alive? Yes, the Lord does rebuke us offenders, little by little. He never tires of warning us, or reminding us of the sins we commit. He comes at us relentlessly, with a hope that we will abandon our evil tendencies and believe in Him. Someday by His grace He will raise our awareness to the level of a Saint Benedict, who also knew where he stood when asking:

What is more delightful than this voice of the Lord calling to us?
See how the Lord in his love shows us the way of life.

Is this a delight that you and I are mostly missing out on? Maybe we need to exercise, energize, enlarge our understanding of how glory works.

(Quotes from Saints Irenaeus and Benedict taken from Magnificat, Oct. '07, pp.11 & 13)

November 11, 2007
Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14
2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5
Luke 20:27-38

Every human being has a singular relationship with God, but that relationship is filtered through a dense thicket of human relationships, many of which tend to foster, strengthen and develope the lone, thin beam of connection, but some of which are of a bent that thwarts, cancels and destroys. Glaring examples of the refractory ties were King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his hencemen, who tortured and executed the seven Maccabee brothers, in an attempt to force them to denounce God and violate His laws. Serially, each of the brothers in his last words anticipates with steadfast conviction his resurrection into eternal life. That conviction--the belief that we shall be raised from the dead--is at the very core of our extraordinary link to God. That conviction galvanized Jesus' apostles into action. As one proselytizing pamphlet puts it: "Christ's resurrection became the recurring theme of the Apostle's preaching in the face of persecution and death; refusal to give up this message made martyrs of them all." And today that conviction should influence our every decision, as we choose how we shall relate to other persons. This Sunday's liturgy displays the whole spectrum.

The persecutors of the Maccabees scoffed at belief in a resurrection. But the defiance from each of the brothers must surely have given them pause. The job of putting another person to death, in and of itself, has to test every ounce of an executioner's nerve. But what if your victim looked you in the eyes in his final moments and said

It is my choice to die at the hand of men
with the hope God gives of being raised up by him;
but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.

With the ax in your hands, could you withstand the tremors of doubt that such a shocking disclosure shoots through you? At that point does every fiber of your being still tell you that you are doing the right thing? If only for an instant, the intrusion of God's purpose must pierce the henchman's resolve.

Paul encourages the Thessalonians with a prayer "that you may be delivered
from perverse and wicked people." The persecution of the early Christians is about to begin; they see it coming. But Paul preaches a conviction that Jesus' resurrection will enable all of them to be raised from the dead.When he says,

"the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one,"
he is steeling them for those future moments when they will have to deal with those who, despite being God's children in like potential, are nonetheless deadly adversaries in reality.

The Sadducees tried to trivialize the afterlife, as though, if it were to happen at all, it would be nothing more than earthly life resumed and extended for a while. It would not surprise us to catch them snickering at what they thought was a clever question. But Jesus, who cared about them as much as he cares for you and me, took them seriously. By describing "those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead," he defines a set of people who try to see all human relationships as supportive of their relationship with God.

The doctrine we espouse is one of a resurrection promised to all men, so we must treat everyone accordingly. Jesus did not rebuke the Sadducees nor run them off. By teaching them that the God of their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, "is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive, " Jesus showed, indeed, a higher esteem for the Sadducees than they were showing to themselves. Believing that we shall be raised from the dead to a life eternal does transform us into a different people, and does cause us to treat our fellow man differently. These are the very beliefs that can help us to make some sense out of the most disturbingly radical of all of Jesus' teachings: "Love thy enemies."(Luke 6:27) Yes, even our enemies are resurrectable, unless by knowingly resorting to persecutions they persist in their defiance. The Sadducees had it backwards. They regarded marriage as refractory of one's relationship with God. Jesus showed them how human relationships in general are meant to bolster--but never jeopardize--a person's potential for immortality. For "he is not God of the dead, but of the living."

November 18, 2007
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Malachi 3:19-20a
2 Thessalonians 3:7-12
Luke 21:5-19

Televangelism is, I believe, proving itself a worthwhile contributor to the spread of Christianity. Here's why. The more centuries of cumulative experience the world acquires, the more resistance it mounts against the human soul's struggle to attain the perfection required for eternal life. But from televangelism comes the hope that so many millions more of these tiny souls will be caressed with a first touch of God's loving care. Today's barnstorming preachers can create a kind of spiritual nursery which the neophytes pass through, an incubator of grace, if you will. If this is the case, then televangelism could mollify the harsh demands that the ideals set forth in today's liturgy impose on all Christians.

As followers of Christ, are we obliged to become models for others to imitate? This is exactly the premise that Paul has the nerve to advance. He reprimands the Thessalonians. He expresses his indignation "that some are conducting themselves among you in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others." Out of a staunch conviction that Christians everywhere must always imitate their Master, Paul tells them in a very straightforward and frank manner that "we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you, so that you might imitate us." And while he uses the plural "we", you and I know that Paul is assigning leadership to himself. He is upset by the freeloaders in that congregation who poke their noses where they don't belong, who disdain to work, but who are nonetheless the first ones to fill their bellies at the communal tables. Their kind still lurks among us today. Even if they are bombarded with warnings, their yen to alleviate boredom keeps such miscreants nervously grasping at whatever enticement comes along. Paul takes direct aim at the sponges, medlers and troublemakers; he jolts them to attention with: "If anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat." To Paul the model Christian is the one who heeds instruction, works diligently, carries his share of the
burden, and quietly prepares for the Lord's return. Fearlessly Paul puts himself at the forefront of his flock.

His stance is unequivocal. We must be either a model or a parasite; we cannot have it both ways. There is no fence to straddle. Compromise is not an option.

"When faced with the question of God," says Pope Benedict XVI, "we are not allowed neutrality." It is the same either/or ultimatum handed down by the
prophet Malachi in the first reading. When the blazing sun of justice returns to cauterize the earth, its rays will either incinerate us or heal us. Malachi envisions the proud evildoers being laid waste like stubble scorched in the fields, while the sunlight of justice restores to health those who fear the Lord's name. Kindergarteners and the spiritually immature are not ready to cope with ideals of this intensity.

And it is the holy name of Jesus that will cast the die. In the gospel Jesus is
again taking charge, preparing us for the end times of both our personal lives and of the world at large. He warns us that his name born by us will be a lightning rod for our persecutions. We will be assailed by imposters and hated by many. To withstand such experiences we must learn to imitate him and model our behavior on his so as to build within ourselves an uncompromising resistance. The bold proclamation of his name will confer an undaunted allegiance that will get us through. When anti-Christs appear, he says, "do not follow them." Terrors from wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines and plagues will paralyze us with fear, yet we need not feel defenseless. When we are dragged into hostile court rooms, we have his promise that "I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute." When we are threatened with vicious hatreds, family betrayals, or even execution itself, we shall at that time be reinforced for having anticipated the severity in his forecasts, and we shall be held intact by his assurances.

You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a
hair of your head will be destroyed.

As he takes us into his confidence this way, Jesus makes us feel that when these times do come, we shall be given the nerve, the adrenelin, and the virtue of fortitude to withstand the most horrid evils the world can devise. We have all heard the warning from Revelation:

But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,
I am about to vomit thee out of my mouth (Rev3:16).

In today's context that cryptic remark becomes a patent instruction. When the times that try men's souls do arrive, our Lord will no longer brook vascillation. The decree of Jesus the judge will ring out: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters"(Luke 11:23)

If the whole span of our lives is going to be a proving ground for tests of this sort, then reassurances have to begin somewhere. Everyone must learn to
walk before he can run. Perhaps from the preachers on TV the child-in-spirit
will start to look for models to imitate. Perhaps from some early touches of God's tender mercies, he and she will grow up to realize that they themselves are being called forth to model Christ and be causes for others to imitate him.

November 25, 2007
Christ the King

2 Samuel 5:1-3
Colossians 1:12-20
Luke 23:35-43

Let every creature rise and bring
Peculiar honors to our King,

Thus begins the last verse of the Isaac Watts's hymn "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er The Sun." To consider these "peculiar honors," there can be no occasion more fitting in the liturgical cycle than today's triumphant finale. The kingship of Christ is separated so far above all others as to be the only one worthy of honors so special. Peculiar, says the dictionary, means "distinctive," "exclusive," "set apart," "belonging to one person" as in the Latin peculium, meaning "wealth in cattle." This word also suggests that every creature possesses some rare and expensive gift, ability or talent that is distinctively his/her own, the one which he /she should use to pay singular homage to the Lord of the universe. We find in today's readings three very different representations of "peculiar honors." We can classify them by calling them honors from precedent, anti-defamation honors, and the full honors of cosmic creation.

King David held the honor of being Jesus' predecessor. As the Old Testament figure who preceded Jesus in type and shadow, David was sent by the Lord to the ancient Isrealites to test their need for a leader and ruler, just as so many of Jesus' peers were hoping for, and even conspiring to form, a messianic government. The earlier Jews reminded David of the Lord's promise: "You shall shepherd my people Israel and shall be commander of Israel." Upon their converging, behest and insistence, David struck an agreement with them to serve as their king. It turned out to be a contribution that only David could have made, in that the plan of salvation called for Jesus to be born of parents who were of the house and lineage of David. David's precedent was peculiar for its forecast of a political kingship for Jesus that would be commonly understood and accepted by the people.

The strangest and most astonishing acknowledgement of Jesus' kingship came from the criminal on the cross, the one who accepted his own punishment as just, and who defended Jesus as innocent. He could have stopped right there, but he went on to beg Jesus to "remember me when you come into your kingdom." In so doing, he slammed himself against a massive juggernaut of public opinion bent on perpetrating their own view of "justice." Jesus was the victim whose every act had been one of peace, kindness and healing, who had championed the impaired, stood up for human dignity, sought to preach and perform what always was right, fair, fitting and humanly decent, and what in return for this? Thorns were jammed into his skull, he was sneered at by the rulers, jeered by the soldiers, tortured, his robe snatched for a dice game -- he was stripped of his last remnant of self-respect, nailed to a tree and left to writhe in agony until he died. To what purpose? So that mankind could be allowed to perform the consummate assault upon Decency Personified, namely the One
who was source and preserver of its own decency. In opposition to this global collusion of unparalleled offenses, the thief on the other cross shouts out his lone wail of defiance. As one distinct person, he must revolt at their acts of degradation and defamation. Coming after his protest of outrage is an echo of eerie silence. It had the effect of opening the world's imagination to a kingship far greater than any pomp, territory, rule or circumstance known hitherto.

To Paul's genius befell the assignment of proclaiming Jesus the Lord of the universe. Jesus contemporaries while he was on earth could scarcely have comprehended his kingship's cosmic dimensions, let alone articulate them. But Paul with his training from Gamaliel and his exposure to Greek learning was equipped for the task. To proclaim Jesus both "firstborn of all creation" and "firstborn from the dead" has to be the most peculiar of honors ever bestowed upon any king. To assert that "in him all things hold together" is to declare him the cohesive force that binds all beings created of matter and/or spirit. "The kingdom of [God's] beloved Son," first percieved as mundane, then later reviled and rejected, has now evolved into our most fervent aspiration.

Jesus' kingship has an impact on the world to which all the kings of all times combined will never come close. How so? Because his, like no other, is a kingship of ingredient and standard. Thomas Aquinas said it long ago: "O res mirabilis! Manducat dominum pauper servus et humilis." Jesus is the KING
that we peons eat, and by whose nourishment we are transformed into bites of his own goodness. Thomas Cahill makes it sound more civilized when he says, "He is the mysterious ingredient that laces everything we taste, the standard by which all moral actions are finally judged." (Desire of the Everlasting Hills, p.319)

So what peculiar honors can come from you and me? Today we would do well to approach Jesus like the little drummer boy in the Christmas carol. How does the verse go?

I have no gift to bring, pa rumpa pum pum,
To lay before the King, pa rumpa pum pum.
Well, that thing you do, whatever it is, is gift enough.
So to honor him, pa rumpa pum pum.

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