Sabbath of Sabbaths

Seeing Yom Kippur through Christian eyes

09/19/2018

1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 Brothers and sisters: Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Much of the fruit we bear as Christian trees comes from our Jewish roots. Have you started to notice how many of your personal traits and traditions are thanks to your parents proclivities? Let me tell you about one Catholic custom that comes from our Hebrew heritage. We will treat this coming Friday, September 21, as a Day of Prayer and Penance to atone for the clergy abuse scandal. But we did not invent that idea of prayer and penance out of thin air. Rather, we actually are reaching back into an ancient Jewish tradition called “Yom Kippur” or “Day of Atonement.” And this year, 2018, Yom Kippur is observed today, September 19, and that is why I am mentioning it. Understanding the Jewish faith a little better will help you deepen your Christian faith, just like studying your genealogy helps you know yourself better.

Let me just tell you two things about Yom Kippur, namely, the meaning of the penance and the prayer that are central today. First the penance consists of five practices of self-punishment. (1) No eating or drinking, (2) no wearing leather shoes, (3) no bathing or washing (that should be easy for some of you), (4) no anointing oneself with lotions or perfumes (no Axe body spray for men), (5) no marital relations. If you do not know what “marital relations” are, please ask Mrs. Kay Williams, who teaches health. Don’t ask me, I’m just a priest. These five penances were self-imposed punishments.

Secondly, the prayer consisted of the high priest entering the Holy of Holies and sprinkling the blood of a bull (not a buffalo) before the Ark of the Covenant, and offering incense. The priest killed a bull because the people worshiped a golden bull on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 32. Just like an alcoholic must sacrifice beer and wine because he once worshiped it (he was a slave to it) , so the people sacrifice a bull because they once worshiped it (they were slaves to it). The penance and prayer, therefore, were remedies for disordered love: the Jews had loved God too little, and they had loved the bull too much. In other words, the penance and prayer was to get their love back on track. Yom Kippur was to rehabilitate love, and that same purpose motivates our Day of Prayer and Penance on Friday, because the clergy have loved minors and small children way too little, and so have some bishops who covered up those crimes, and loved other people’s opinions of them too much.

In today’s celebrated passage of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians – a popular pick for weddings – we hear that penance is for the sake of correcting misdirected love. St. Paul writes: “If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” That is, we pray and we do penance so we learn to love better. If our self-imposed punishments this coming Friday did not help us love more, it would be a waste of time.  Learning to love is the point of penance.

Boys and girls, Yom Kippur helped the Jews to recognize when they loved something too little or loved something too much, and it helped them get their love back on track. Our Day of Prayer and Penance is to atone for the lack of love by clergy toward minors. But it should also make all of us ask ourselves: have I ever loved too little, or loved too much?

Some students may love themselves too little. For example, some engaging in cutting themselves, and punishing themselves by wounding themselves on their arms or legs. Other students beat themselves up when they make mistakes in sports or band or cheer or dance. Midterms grades just came out: are your satisfied with your grades, or are you being too hard on yourself even though you gave it your best? Be careful not to love yourself too little.

Other students may love other people’s opinions too much, and only care what others say. Peer pressure is powerful in junior high, but it too is simply love gone wild. Have you ever used snapchat to belittle other students, while trying to make yourself look big? That is loving other people’s opinions too much. Sometimes we have to sacrifice what we worship because we love it too much, like the Jews sacrificed bulls and alcoholics sacrifice beer. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, a day of practicing prayer and penance to learn to love better. That is why we need a Christian Yom Kippur this coming Friday. When we love perfectly, we will no longer need self-imposed punishments.

I tend to compare the Jewish Yom Kippur to our Christian Good Friday because that is our Christian day of suffering and sacrifice and we feel sad. But the Jews did not look at it that way at all; they called Yom Kippur the “Sabbath of Sabbaths,” or as we might say the “Sunday of Sundays” - a day of celebration and rejoicing. Why? Well, we read in the Jewish Talmud: “This holiday is happy because it brings about reconciliation with God and with other people. Thus, if they have observed it properly, many people feel a deep sense of serenity by the end of the fast.” In other words, the purpose of prayer and penance is happiness and peace. Christians can learn a lot about themselves by looking at our Jewish genealogy.

Praised be Jesus Christ!