The overseer

In the first reading today we hear the qualifications for the role of episkopos, literally the overseer. The word has made its way into English as bishop. The things that are connected to the bishop we describe the the adjective, episcopal. St. Paul provides quite a length list of qualifications.

a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money.

Of all these, it is perhaps the last one that provides the greatest challenge. 

On the one hand, a Church must have money to operate. As so, every bishop, like every other minister, must engage in fund-raising. We continue to come up with new euphemisms for it. We call it “development” or “advancement”, but at the end of the day it is about convincing people to give money. 

And for a good cause. 

On the other hand, the money must never become the thing to which we are attached. How far will we go to obtain the money? How far will we go to protect the money?

How many Christian Churches have over the years sold the best seats to those who give the most money? How many priests were in the old system named Monsignor, not because of the holiness of their lives, but because they could raise money? Sadly, our churches are covered with the names of wealthy patrons. Where are the names of the poor but holy, those who worked hard and gave good example, but had no money to donate?

Worse by far, were the crimes covered up by bishops in order to protect the money. And today, how many dead innocent priests have had their reputations ruined, because of an accusation that had no proof? We used to believe in the presumption of innocence. We used to believe in due process. We used to believe that a person had a right to face their accuser. Now we seem willing to throw it all aside to protect the money, to avoid a potential lawsuit. 

The lure of money is seductive and on a practical level we all need it to survive. But St. Paul reminds us today that we should never place protecting money over the protection of people. As individuals and as a Church, caring our brother and sisters must always come first, especially the most vulnerable, and the most broken among us. 

Choosing Leaders

We tend to act as if the first 12 Jesus called were the Apostles. In fact, today’s gospel would suggest something a more complex.

What Jesus has word disciples, students apprentices. And the according to St. Luke.,

Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles

How many disciples there were by this point in Jesus’s ministry? We have no idea.  What we are told, in the very same reading, is that after the selection of the 12 he gathered with a “great crowd of disciples”.  Do we ever stop to think about the ones who were no chosen? How much grumbling and jealousy was going on in that crowd as they saw who got chosen? We humans are fragile creatures; our insecurities easily provoked. And certainly by this time there were other disciples who could name all the defects in the 12 that were chosen. 

That fact that Jesus spent all night praying over the decision says that it was not an easy one.  When was the last time any of us stayed up all night praying over a decision?

In the last few years we have gone from anger over abusive priests to anger over, not only abusive bishops, but bishops who knew about and participated in the cover up of abuse by others. Even now there appears to be a great inequality in the way cases are handled. A priest is accused and instantly suspended. A Bishop is accused and he cuts back on his public appearances. 

Some people seek facile solutions. Do any of us think elections would guarantee better candidates? Just look at our top politicians. 

But perhaps today’s gospel is a call for prayerful discernment by the entire body of Christ, a time for us to pray with the intensity that Jesus prayed that He will pour out on the Church a Spirit of Wisdom so that we might know how we can transform our present system into one that will produce, not perfect, but better leadership. Presently, bishops are nominated by bishops and so the system itself all but guarantees more of the same.  

We will never know precisely what criteria Jesus used in choosing His twelve. St. Paul provides us with his thoughts but they are pretty basic. What we do know is that the process cannot simply be a step by step climbing of the ladder. Pope Francis has for quite some time decried that system. It must include prolonged prayer. 

Let us pray for a system that will provide the leadership that God knows will be best for the Church in the 21st century. 

Embracing Mystery

Today in our reading we arrive what may be one of the most perplexing statements in all of St. Paul.

I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his Body, which is the Church.

It would seem like heresy to say that the suffering of Christ was somehow “lacking”. And yet, St. Paul says it in know uncertain terms. But what does he mean?

As Christians, we believe that Christ suffered and died for the salvation of all. But the salvation of each of us is a two step process. We must be incorporated into the Passion, Death and Ressurection of Jesus Christ. This is achieved sacramenally through baptism but in the mystery of God human suffering also unites us to Christ.

On the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1984, St. John Paul issued an encyclical on the meaning of human suffering called Salvifici Dolores 

Salvifici Dolores . In it he addresses the challenges we face when confronted with the experience of suffering and how we can reconcile the existence of suffering with our belief in a God who is Love.

In a world where we want all through to come in less than 2 minutes, the letter can seem long. But complex questions require thoughtful responses.  The words of St. John Paul are made even more powerful because as they say, he not only talked the talk but he walked the walk. He showed any of us who have ever had to deals with chronic pain how to unite it to the suffering of Christ and transform it into a source of strength and a font of God’s grace.  When he wrote these words in 1984, no one would have imagined that the athletic pope would become the pope who struggled to raise his head or speak. And yet, he continued the work of Jesus. 

Both his words and example should give us the courage to repeat the words of St. Paul when we are confronted with suffering in any of its forms. 

Theological Virtue

Today we begin our reading of the letter of St. Paul to the church in Colossae. After greeting the people. He says

We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the holy ones because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

If we look carefully we see St Paul beginning with what we call the three theological virtues: faith, love, and hope. 

The term “theological virtues” can sound daunting but it is a simple idea. 

A virtue is a habit. Athletes and others train by repetition. They  do something over and over and over again to develop what is called “muscle memory” so that, when needed,  the person repeats the action almost as a reflex. That way when they are in a stressful situation they don’t have to stop and think, they can act. 

Virtue is that good behavior that has become moral muscle memory, behavior that we have practiced until it become our way of being, our immediate response.  If it is bad habitual behavior we call it vice. 

Some virtues we can develop on our own simply my practice. If we practice moderation enough we will over time develop the virtue called termperance. 

There are however three virtues that you cannot achieve by your own power. They require God’s intervention. They require grace. Those are faith, hope, and love. You may be thinking as you read this that people who are not religious love others. The Christian response is simple. Any real love that any of us has, we have becaus it was poured into our hearts by God, whether we know it or not. 

Faith, hope and love are gifts from God. But they are like seeds. They must be carefully tended on a daily basis, if they are to grow and bear fruit.