The Bachelorette

Seeing marriage as life-long, monogamous and heterosexual

11/23/2019

Luke 20:27-40 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone's brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her." Jesus said to them, "The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.

Probably on no one issue does our culture and our Christianity clash over more than on marriage. And I am afraid that clash will get louder and cause more casualties, especially for Christianity as more Christians choose their culture over their faith. Modern culture has put Christian marriage in its cross-hairs and taken dead aim at life-long, monogamous, heterosexual marriage. This culture clash started all the way back in the 1960’s with the free-love movement, where we chanted, “Make love not war.” It has crescendoed in the same-sex marriage movement, which became legal on June 26, 2015 by the Supreme Court decision Obergefell versus Hodges. Any religion that revolts against this cultural tidal wave will be seen as reactionary and regressive and ultimately irrelevant.

But we don’t have to look outside the Church to find the clash between culture and Christianity. It is raging right in our own hearts and in our homes. How do we usually feel about human love, even enshrined in life-long, monogamous, heterosexual marriage? Most Christians would say marriage lasts forever, even in heaven we will be married to our spouse. But that’s not entirely accurate. Our faith teaches that marriage is for earth, not for heaven; it is life-long, meaning for this life, not for the next life; it is a sacrament but a sacrament of service while we walk in this world, not when we step foot into paradise.

Think about it for a moment. The Church does not hesitate to allow widows and widowers to marry. So, when that person – the widow who remarried – enters heaven, will they have two spouses in heaven? Or, maybe she will see which was was the nicer one and keep that one and discard the other? Can you see how even honest, faithful, Church-going Catholics can fall prey to this culture clash? The culture wars are not waged very far from our own hearts and our own homes.

In the gospel today, Jesus weighs in on this culture war regarding marriage. The Sadducees present a predicament of a woman who married seven brothers and finally they all die. Then they ask: “Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” That question would have stumped modern American Catholics who feel marriage goes on into heaven. So we might answer that the woman gets to pick the best husband of the seven brothers, like in the television show “The Bachelorette.” That seems to us like only fair way to handle the situation. And perhaps the other six brothers can go be on the show “The Bachelor” and try to find a beautiful woman in heaven.

But is that what Jesus answers to this cultural conundrum? Our Lord’s reply is simple, straight-forward, and also startling. He states like a thunderclap echoing down the centuries: “The children of this age (earth) marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age (heaven) and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry not are given in marriage.” In other words, marriage is for earth not for heaven. When the Church defines marriage as life-long, monogamous, and heterosexual, most Catholics get the monogamous and heterosexual parts: between one man and one woman. But like the Sadducees, we are stumped with the life-long part. We would like marriage to continue into eternity. But Jesus says in heaven there will only be bachelors and bachelorettes. Indeed, Our Lord insists: “They are, like the angels.”

My friends, probably nowhere else do we invest more of our time, talent and treasure than into our families and our marriages. And that’s a good thing. But we should also be careful to recalibrate our expectations for marriage and family according to Christian values instead of cultural values. Sometimes very innocently and unwares, we stand on the side of our culture over and against our Christianity, especially when it comes to matters of marriage. Pray for the gift to see marriage and family life through the eyes of faith, and then read Luke 20 again. And keep reading that passage of scripture until it makes perfect sense.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

The Palisades

Perceiving the power of the words of the Word

11/22/2019

Luke 19:41-44 As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

The dictionary defines the word “logophile” as a lover of words. And next to the word logophile is a picture of me! Not really, but I do love words, almost to the point of obsession. I feel such a strange and sublime pleasure in finding just the right word to express my thoughts. And if I cannot find just the right word, I sit there like an idiot with a blank stare on my face until I do stumble upon the right word. My deepest delight in discovering the right word comes from seeing how love for all words leads you to love for the original Word, the Word of God, the Word made Flesh (John 1:14), that is, Jesus Christ. In its deepest and most profound sense, a logophile is another word for a Christian, someone who loves all words because all words ultimately point us to the one true and eternal Word, Jesus Christ.

Today, let me help you fall in love with the word “palisade” which we find in both the first reading from 1 Maccabees and the gospel of Luke 19. If you ever visit New York City and drive over the Hudson River on the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan to New Jersey, you will see a striking geological wonder called “The Palisades.” Have you ever seen those or heard of them? The Palisades are a stretch of steep cliffs that roughly resemble stakes that form a fence line for 20 miles. The word “palisades” comes from the Latin word “palus” meaning “stake.” In effect, a palisade is a wall or fence made up of stakes for the purpose of defense against enemy attack.

In the gospel, however, Jesus uses the term “palisade” not to describe how Jerusalem will defend itself but how it will be attacked by the Roman armies. We read Jesus’ words, “For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you, they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.” Our Lord goes on: “They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” And what happened? Almost exactly 40 years after Jesus uttered those prophetic and powerful words, they were fulfilled to the letter by the Roman armies that leveled Jerusalem in 70 A.D. forming a “palisade” or siege around the holy city, which had become an unholy city. When we carefully examine the word palisade we perceive the power of Jesus, the Word of God, who never wields his words carelessly.

We have to dig a little deeper to find the word “palisade” in the first reading from Maccabees. We hear about a heroic man named Mattathias, who killed a Jew committing idolatry. Listen carefully: “When Mattathias saw him, he was filled with zeal…he sprang forward and killed him upon the altar.” But then we hear how Mattathias’ zeal is compared to that of Phinehas, who in Numbers 25, also killed two people committing idolatry, engaging in sexual immorality, by using a palisade, a spear, to pin them both to the ground. In other words, a palisade is a weapon not only to erect a wall of defense, but also to wield in attack against enemies who deny or distort the worship of God by committing idolatry, false worship.

Mattathias may not have picked up a palisade like Phinehas, but both men were filled with a fiery zeal for true worship of God which is related in the Word of God in the Old Testament books of Numbers and Maccabees. That zeal for true worship is exactly what the people lacked in Jesus’ day and therefore “palisades” would be used against the Jews by their enemies because now it was the Jews who were guilty of idolatry, false worship. In other words, if the Jews had studied the history of the word “palisade” in their bible, they would learn how they had failed to offer God true worship, and therefore, they “did not recognize the time of their visitation,” the time of their destruction.

By the way, here’s a random thought. Do you know how to kill Dracula? Of course you do: you have to drive a wooden stake through his heart. You have to drive a palisade through his heart to kill him. Why? Because Dracula does not offer God true worship, rather he is an idolater, he worships false gods. Have you noticed what Catholics do at the beginning of every Mass when we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness? We strike our breasts three times as we ask for mercy and forgiveness. Symbolically, it is as if we are driving a palisade through our hearts for all the times we have loved others things – other false gods, like money, sex and power – more than the true God, for the times we have committed idolatry. A palisade is a great weapon against enemies, and our greatest enemy is within.

And that’s how loving a little word, like palisade, can help you love the Big Word, Jesus Christ. And that's why all good Christians are logophiles.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

My Little Friend

Overcoming stigma of not being Bible Christians

11/19/2019

Luke 19:1-10 At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

Catholics often carry the stigma of being called Christians who don’t read the scriptures. When we hear the phrase “Bible Christians” do you usually think of Fr. John or Dc. Greg? Probably not. After all, we don’t usually have a Bible on our desk that is well-worn, with dog-earned pages, underlined passages, and maybe even coffee stains. Sometimes I have to ask several people in the church office where a Bible is, and they really have to search to find one. A Bible is not sitting on every staff person’s desk, and maybe it should be. So, there is some legitimacy to the criticism that Catholics are not “Bible Christians.”

Today, however, I want to give you some reasons to refute and even reverse that complaint. That is, I believe Catholics are more Bible Christians than more Protestants. And now, like Al Pacino said in the movie “Scarface,” “Let me introduce you to my little friend!” My little friend is not a machine gun like in the movie, but rather a book called the Lectionary. Have you ever heard of the Lectionary? That is the big read book containing scripture passages that the lector reads from at daily Mass and Sunday Mass. Two years ago I gave my parents a Christmas present of a book called the Daily Roman Missal that has both Sunday and daily readings for Mass. My dad does not like to use the phone for scripture readings because he thinks the phone is from the devil. And it probably is. The name Lectionary comes from the Latin word “lectio” which means “reading.” So a Lectionary is the Catholic collection of readings from the bible we use at Mass. Let me share a few thoughts about the Lectionary to remove the unwarranted stigma that Catholics are not Bible Christians.

After the Second Vatican Council, the Church updated the Lectionary by expanding the variety and number of scripture passages we hear at Mass. Basically, we hear two sets of cycles depending on whether you attend Sunday Mass or daily Mass. Sunday Mass readings are organized around a three-year cycle based on the three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and then the cycle repeats. Matthew is Year A, Mark is Year B, and Luke is Year C. We just heard from the gospel of Luke, so which Year are we current in? You guessed it: Year C. And that’s why priests only prepare three years’ worth of homilies because we can recycle old homilies every three years when the same readings come up at Mass. And the people sleep through our sermons anyway, so you don’t even notice when we do.

The weekday readings of the Lectionary are structured differently, that is, on a two year cycle, called Year 1 and Year 2. Year 1 corresponds to odd numbered years of the calendar, while Year 2 corresponds to even numbered years. If we are currently in the year 2019, an odd numbered year, and therefore which two year cycle are we in? Correct: Year 1. My main point is that if you attend every weekday and Sunday Mass for three years straight – someone like Gene Bruick would – you would hear more of the Bible than most so-called Bible Christians do. Indeed, after Vatican II updated and expanded the Lectionary of the Mass, guess what many Protestant denominations did? They used the Catholic Lectionary as the basis of their own readings of scriptures in their Sunday services. In other words, the Catholics are teaching the Protestants how to read and reflect on and revere the Sacred Scriptures. Now who are the real Bible Christians?

But let me not overstate my case about my little friend, the Lectionary. Catholics do not hear the whole Bible in the course of three years, even if you attended Mass every day. In fact, we will hear only about 40 percent of the Old Testament and about 70 percent of the New Testament in three years. Three books of the Old Testament are entirely omitted from the Lectionary: Judith, 1 Chronicles, and Obadiah. Your homework for today is to read those three Old Testament books before bed!

Even though Catholics have the Lectionary, we still have a long way to go to overcome the stigma of not being Bible Christians. The only way to finally overcome it, of course, is to have a bible on every Catholic’s desk, and actually to read it.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Odd of God

Overcoming three oddities in the Old Testament

11/18/2019

Luke 18:35-43 As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening. They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." He shouted, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!" The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he kept calling out all the more, "Son of David, have pity on me!" Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?" He replied, "Lord, please let me see." Jesus told him, "Have sight; your faith has saved you." He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.

The Old Testament is riddled with oddities. The Old Testament is odd. That oddity underscores the old adage: “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” In spite of their oddities, however, God chose the Jewish people as his Chosen People. That divine election should give hope to all the rest of us who are pretty odd, too. And yet we cannot just ignore the Old Testament and relegate ourselves to reading only the New Testament. Why? St. Augustine taught in the 5th century that the New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. They mutually shed light on the other; they are mutually illuminating. May I shed a little light on our reading of the Old Testament so that it might in turn shed better light on our reading of the New Testament? Basically, I would like to change the bulb of the Old Testament and replace it with a new LED light that’s brighter and more environmentally friendly.

If you break open the bible to the Old Testament three oddities will become immediately obvious. First the books of the Old Testament are organized in different ways. Some versions list 1 and 2 Maccabees as the last Old Testament books while other version will list Malachi as the last book of the Old Testament. The 46 books of the Old Testament do not have a standard format for their order. The second oddity is the numbering of the Psalms. Everyone agrees there are 150 Psalms, but starting with Psalm 10, the Psalm start using two different enumerations or numbering systems. Have you ever noticed that? Today we repeated Psalm 119, but sometimes it is listed as Psalm 118. No wonder Catholics cannot quote the bible – we don’t know what number the psalm is! And third, have you read the book of Esther lately? Not only does some of its chapters have numbers, but some are indicated by letters. So, Esther includes chapters A, B, C, D, E and F. Check it out next time you have your bible in hand.

All these odd differences can be traced back to the “competing canons” I preached about last week. There was a Hebrew canon (official list) of the Old Testament and a Greek canon (official list) of the Old Testament. Both were written by Jewish rabbis and scholars before the coming of Christ. Why did they do that? I don’t know! Let me say it again: how odd of God to choose the Jews, especially since they themselves could not choose which canon of scripture to follow. And yet God did choose them, and so must we, in the sense that we must study the Old Testament and try to overcome its oddities. And let me repeat: there was unquestioned consensus in the Church for 1,500 years – before Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation – that the Greek version was the official list for the Old Testament.

When we investigate the Old Testament, and do not ignore it, we can appreciate the New Testament so much more. Indeed, we will read it in a whole new light, with LED light! Today’s gospel is a perfect example. Jesus heals a blind man as he approaches Jericho. If you study the Old Testament, you recall Jericho was where Joshua – which is a variant of the name of Jesus – brought down the walls of Jericho and brought the light of God into the darkness of pagan Canaan. So too, Jesus, the new Joshua, bring light into the life of a man who is in the darkness of blindness by healing him. Jesus brought down the walls of his blindness. And we might also say that studying the New Testament in the light of the Old Testament brings down the walls of our own darkness and ignorance and blindness so we begin the see who Jesus is better. He is the new Joshua. We see with eyes of faith illuminated by both the Old and the New Testaments.

In a sense, the Old and New Testaments are the corrective lenses of faith. Just like we have two eyes that enable us to discern depth perception - we cannot see depth with one eye - so too the lenses of the two Testaments help us to see with eyes of faith and discern the depths of the mysteries of God. St. Paul makes precisely this point in Ephesians 3:18: “That we may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” That light is so bright, some of you have your eyes closed.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Thy Kingdom Come

Praying and preparing for the Parousia

11/17/2019

Luke 21:5-19 While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, "All that you see here-- the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down." Then they asked him, "Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?" He answered, "See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he,' and 'The time has come.' Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.

One day God was looking down from heaven and he was deeply disappointed with what he saw on earth: the sin, the vanity, the politics, the corruption. He decided it was time for the end of the world. He called together all the heads of state and informed them he would destroy the world in 24 hours. He added: “I leave to you the responsibility of announcing this to your respective people.”

President Barack Obama said: “My fellow Americans, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that God exists, and he has spoken to me. The bad news is that our great nation, and the American dream, will disappear in 24 hours. This is the will of God.” Fidel Castro gathered all the Cubans and solemnly said: “Compatriots, my fellow Communists, I have two pieces of bad news. The first bad news is that God exists and he has spoken to me.” (God’s exists is bad news for Communists.) “The second bad news is that our world Marxist revolution will end in 24 hours. It is God’s will.”

Later that evening, Nicolas Sarkosy interrupted the evening news on French television and declared with a smile: “Today is a very special day for all of us! Why? I have two pieces of good news to announce. The first is that I am the messenger of God. The second good news is that within 24 hours, the problem of unemployment, the financial crisis, removals at the border, corruption, violence, tax increases will all be solved. I keep my campaign promises!” Only politicians try to score political points with the Parousia, the end of the world. Some people see the end of the world as “bad news” and others see it as “good news.” How would you react to the end of the world?

In the gospel today, Jesus is pretty deeply disappointed in the Jewish people of his day and announces the end of their world. Our Lord declares: “all that you see here (pointing to the Temple) – the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” Jesus was referring to the massive stones of the Jerusalem Temple that, 40 years’ later, would lie in ruins, when the Roman armies would when the level Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. The Temple represented for the Jews the White House, Capitol Hill, Supreme Court, Library of Congress, Pentagon, and Fort Knox all rolled into one. The end of the Temple was effectively the end of their way of life.

Politicians in Jesus’ day would also try to score political points with the Parousia. Therefore Jesus adds: “See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them.” In other words, do not let people preempt the Parousia for personal profit, rather, keep your eyes on Jesus, and all will be well, indeed, all will be good news. How so? The Jews saw the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as “bad news” because it was the end of their world, the world of the Old Testament. But Christians would see the same phenomenon as “good news,” as the dawn of a new world, the world of the New Testament and the birth pangs of the Church. That’s the good news of the Parousia: the end of one world is the beginning of another world, a better world.

My friends, may I suggest three ways we can prepare for the Parousia, the end of the world? First of all, pray for the Parousia. Did you know that every time we recite the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer, that is exactly what we do? One of the seven petitions of the Lord Prayer is: “Thy kingdom come.” What does that mean? We beg Jesus to come back in his glory at the end of time. And the sooner the better! When we pray the Our Father, we pray for the Parousia; we pray for the end of the world.

Secondly, train your thoughts and harness your hearts to see the Parousia as good news rather than bad news. I love the aphorism: “Don’t let the good become the enemy of the best.” In other words, do not become so attached to the good things of this world that you lose your taste for the best things of heaven. Have you ever stuffed yourself on the appetizers before a meal that you didn’t really want to eat the main course? Sometimes we stuff ourselves with this world and don’t have much of an appetite for the “marriage supper of the Lamb,” the gourmet meal of glory described in Rev. 19:9. By the way, that’s why Catholics are required to fast for an hour before Mass. Why? So that the good does not becomes the enemy of the best. Chips and salsa do not become the enemy of carne asada nor the enemy of Holy Communion.

And thirdly, practice for the Parousia. How do you do that? Well, what did the Greek word “Parousia” originally mean? Instead of “the end of the world,” the original meaning of “Parousia” was “presence” especially that of a conquering hero returning home. Do you recall how a couple of years ago the Cubs returned home to Chicago after winning the World Series in Cleveland in 2016? Their presence in Chi-town after that great victory and the cheers and praises of the crowds gives you a glimpse of the Parousia. And I don’t even like the Cubs! Folks, when does Jesus, the conquering Hero return to his people to shouts of joy and celebration? He does that not only at the end of time, but also at every Mass. Every Mass is a mini-Parousia, when the king returns in glory and we should sing hymns of praise, a lot more than we cheer for our favorite sports team. At every Mass, we practice the Parousia.

When will the world end? I certainly don’t know when it will, but I certainly know that it will. But I also know that, if we pray for the Parousia in the Our Father, if we fast for the Parousia from the good things of earth, and if we practice the Parousia at every Mass, then, the end of the world will feel a lot more like good news and a lot less like bad news.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Strange and Suspicious

Loving without limits like Jesus

11/13/2019

Luke 17:11-19 As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."

The Samaritans are arguably some of the strangest and even suspicious people in Scripture. The Samaritans were spurned by the Jews and yet Jesus had a soft spot in his heart for Samaritans. You remember how lovingly he treated the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, suggesting that he himself was her real husband (Jn. 4:18). Jesus tells the surprising story of the “Good Samaritan” in Luke 10, where the Samaritan is the hero of the parable, not the priest nor the Levite. And today in Luke 17, Jesus heals 10 people of leprosy and the only one who returns to say “thanks” was the Samaritan, “a foreigner.” Who are these strange and suspicious Samaritans? Let me say three things about them so you get to know them, and more importantly, so you get to know the limitless love of our Lord for them and for us.

First, try to imagine a mental map of the Holy Land. The distance from Galilee in the north to Jerusalem in the south is about 100 miles, and roughly the distance between Bella Vista and Barling. This area can be divided into three distinct zones: Galilee in the north (with Nazareth and Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee), Samaria in the middle (with Mt. Gerizim) and Judah in the south (with Jerusalem and the Dead Sea). So, if you compare the Holy Land with Northwest Arkansas, Galilee would be the area of Fayetteville/Springdale, Jerusalem the Holy City would be Fort Smith (of course!), and in the middle would be Samaria, basically Mountainburg. The people of Mountainburg would be the strange and suspicious Samaritans. That’s the geography and location of the Samaritans.

What was their ethnic make-up, their gene pool? The Samaritans were half-Jews and half-Babylonians, that is, their pedigree was not pure. That’s why Jesus called the Samaritan in the Luke 17, “a foreigner.” Think of someone from Mountainburg marrying an Okie from Oklahoma – a foreign state! Clearly his or her credentials as a card-carrying Razorback would be called into question. Loyalties would be divided between rival family backgrounds. Indeed, the Jews and Samaritans belonged to countries that were at war with each other. When the Hogs go to war with the Sooners, who do you root for?

A third difference between Jews and Samaritans was religion. Samaritans believed the holy mountain to worship God was Mt. Gerizim. Jews, on the other hand, insisted God’s holy mountain was in Jerusalem. Again, think of people from Mountainburg saying Catholics should only go to Mass in Winslow, in the Boston Mountains, at Our Lady of the Ozarks. Meanwhile, we in the River Valley, insist people should worship here in Fort Smith, at God’s temple of Immaculate Conception. We alone offer God fitting and faithful praise. Every time you hear Jesus traveling from Galilee in the north through strange and suspicious Samaria, down south to Jerusalem, picture our Lord trodding the turf between Fayetteville and Fort Smith, and you’ll have a rough estimate of his route and the people he passed along the way.

The larger message, however, is the message of love (that’s always the larger message), namely, the Jesus’ love has no limits. Even though Jesus’ target audience is the Jewish people headquartered in Jerusalem, his salvation will encompass everyone. Our Lord’s love will break through barriers of location and land and nationality. He doesn’t care if you live on a mountain or in the valley or on the moon or on mars. His love overcome ethnic hatreds and histories by inviting everyone to become part of the family of God born again by baptism. Abandon your ethnic family of birth to be adopted into the eternal family by baptism. And our Lord does not care where you worship, as long as you worship “in Spirit and truth,” as he shared with the Samaritan woman, not Mt. Gerizim, not Mt. Jerusalem, not Mt. Gaylor. Indeed, wherever God’s family gathers to celebrate the Eucharist, there the heavenly Father finds those who “worship him in spirit and in truth.”

The question we have to ask ourselves today is simple. Jesus’ love is unlimited by land or nationality, by ethnicity or culture, or even by religious rivalries. But is our love limited in any of these ways: by nationality or ethnicity or religion? The Samaritans were indeed strange and suspicious people but Jesus loved them. We should likewise love those who seem a little strange and suspicious to us.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Competing Canons

Reading the Sacred Scripture at Mass

11/12/2019

Wisdom 2:23–3:9 God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made them. But by the envy of the Devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it. But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself. In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble; They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord shall be their King forever. Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love:Because grace and mercy are with his holy ones, and his care is with his elect.

I have never been a big fan of studying history; it was my least favorite subject in school, right below math. I have discovered, though, that I cannot effectively study the bible without studying history. Think about it: the bible itself covers all human history from Creation to the Second Coming. The bible, however, is concerned with conveying “salvation history” as opposed to the “secular history” we learned about in school. Nonetheless, both salvation history and secular history are two components of human history, your history and my history, indeed, everyone’s history.

Now, here’s the hard part about studying history – both sacred and secular – namely, the farther back you travel in time, the numbers become more nebulous. Dates, names, and places go from being very scientific to being very symbolic, from being hard, to being soft, from being firm facts to being good guesses. Just take one familiar example from the book of Genesis. The seven days of creation are not intended by the inspired author to convey 24-hour periods of time as scientists might suppose. Instead, the number “seven” symbolizes the covenant with God – seven was the number of the covenant – and therefore his creating in seven days meant he created a covenant with us, through our first parents, Adam and Eve. In other words, whenever you study history, especially salvation history, keep in mind that numbers carry a symbolic value and not just a scientific value. These soft numbers give rise to not a little scholarly debate.

Now let me say a word about the evolution, the history, of the bible itself, especially the 46 books of the Old Testament. Did you know that in the three centuries prior to Jesus’ Incarnation, there were two competing canons, or official lists, of the Old Testament? The Jews living in Jerusalem compiled one canon called the “Hebrew Bible” containing 39 books. The Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt, one of the greatest centers of learning in the Ancient World, boasting the impressive Library of Alexandria, compiled another canon containing 46 books written in Greek. Now, you might think: who cares about two competing Jewish canons of scriptures. Why get involved in some intramural squabble of Jewish scholars? That’s their business, not ours. Not so fast.

When we read the New Testament and Jesus and Peter and Paul refer to “the scriptures” which canon do they mean: the list of 39 books or the list of 46 books? There is wide scholarly consensus that Jesus and the apostles, especially St. Paul, were using the Greek Old Testament with 46 books as their “scriptures.” Indeed, there was no debate about using the Greek Old Testament for 1,500 years. Do you know what ecclesiastical earthquake occurred in 1517 that changed the Church’s landscape forever? Martin Luther published the first Protestant bible that used the Hebrew canon of 39 books for the Old Testament and declared the 7 books not in the Hebrew bible uninspired by the Holy Spirit. Luther wrote: “These books are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are good and useful to read.” That would be like saying my last book of homilies called Oh, Lord, Have Mercy is not equal to the scriptures but they’re still good and useful to read. With one stroke of his pen, Martin Luther undid the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiring seven books of the Holy Bible. He declared them uninspired. That’s why we cannot effectively study the bible without also studying history.

Do you know what one of those seven books jettisoned from the Protestant bible is? It was our first reading today, the book of Wisdom. We read these comforting words: “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.” After the lector concluded the reading, she added solemnly: “The Word of the Lord.” The congregation dutifully answered in unison: “Thanks be to God.” But if Martin Luther had been sitting in the pews today, he would have coughed, “No it’s not!” Can you see and feel what is at stake in determining which of these two competing canons comprises the Old Testament scriptures? It is not merely an academic question for spectacled scholars to debate ad nauseum, but it concerns all Christians, and indeed the substance of divine worship.

In sum, should we read Tobit, Wisdom, Judith, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees at Mass as the inspired Word of God, or leave them out of the liturgy? Studying the history of the bible can answer that question better than studying the bible itself can. Why? Because otherwise, how do you know which bible to study?

Praised be Jesus Christ!