Two Olive Martini

Finding the cross in our Christianity

08/29/2023

Mk 6:17-29 Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. John had said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." Herodias harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias' own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, "Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you." He even swore many things to her, "I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom." She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" She replied, "The head of John the Baptist." The girl hurried back to the king's presence and made her request, "I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist." The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her. So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head. He went off and beheaded him in the prison. He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl. The girl in turn gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

I just want to say a word about St. John the Baptist this morning, and the example that he holds out for us, as followers of Christ. Obviously, reading and hearing about his great martyrdom, his willingness to suffer for the Lord, even to being beheaded, is amazing, heroic, and beyond our reach. I mean which one of us could do that?

And yet, we are invited to carry our cross. There has to be some kind of cross in our Christianity. If there is not some sense of suffering, or difficulty, or pain, or sacrifice in our Christianity, we are not doing it right. There has to be a cross in our Christianity. It is not the smooth, easy road, but the narrow, rocky road that we have chosen to walk behind the Lord.

When I had first finished my degree in canon law in the year 2,000, I came back to Little Rock, and started working in the Chancery Office. And Bishop Sartain, who is now an archbishop, asked me to write a letter in which he was going to promulgate a change in the Mass stipends. I don’t know how many of you remember this.

Before the year 2,000, if you wanted to have a Mass offered, you gave $5. But then the bishops of our province decided it is time to increase that amount, so they increased it to $10. So, they made that decision and they were going to promulgate it as a new rule: a Mass would “cost” $10. That is what we call a Mass stipend. I was the one who wrote that letter as a ghostwriter, and the bishop signed it.

I wondered: how do you explain a Mass stipend, what are we giving the $10 for, what is the point of that? We are certainly not adding anything to the sacrifice of Christ. His sacrifice on the Cross is all-sufficient. That is what saves us, nothing whatsoever that we do saves us. It is only insofar as we participate, share, and embrace, the Lord’s cross that our crosses and sufferings have any value.

And so I wrote this. There is really nothing we can do to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as if we could offer something in addition to the Cross of Christ, but we might look at this $10 stipends as picking up a splinter of the Cross that Christ carried. Jesus carried the huge cross of salvation, and we carry little symbolic splinter of the cross, as we give our $10 stipends.

And we have to look at our Christianity in the same light: we have to find that splinter, where we have to carry some little bit of the cross. There are various ideas the Church offers us through the year and even daily in which we can do little sacrifices. For example, we should fast for an hour before we receive Holy Communion. I sometimes see people chewing on something as they are walking into Mass. They are not carrying that splinter, just an hour of fasting.

Every Friday, not just the Fridays of Lent, we are supposed to give up something. It used to be very easy to figure that out because we didn’t eat meat on all the Fridays of the year. But we changed that to say, okay, just don’t eat meat on the Fridays of Lent, but every Friday give up something. But sometimes I get to the end of a Friday and I think, well, what did I not eat today, and that will be my sacrifice. But that is not the spirit of carrying the splinter.

Sometimes you can do very small and unnoticed sacrifices. When you go out to eat at a restaurant, don’t put any dressing on your salad, eat it dry. Or, if you’re going to have French Fries, don’t have any ketchup, just eat the fries without them. That splinter is not going to kill you but it will hurt a little. When I order my martini, I only put two olives in it instead of three. We all have to make the sacrifices we are capable of.

Today as we thank God for the example of the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, let us try to carry our little splinters the best we can.

Praised be Jesus Christ!