The Future and Free Will

Today the Church celebrates the Passion of John the Baptist. Personally I like the new English title for the day because it parallels the way we speak of the death of Jesus, The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is appropriate because much of what is written about today focuses on the parallels and how John is the Precursor. 

In this instance precursor does not simply mean the one who comes before, nor does it mean that Jesus copied John. It means that God’s whose plan they both carried out already knew the outcome. The problem we Christians have always wrestled with is if God knows the future, does He make it happen or do we really have free will.

The Christian answer is that we absolutely have free will. We choose what we will do. We choose whether we will cooperate with God’s plan or go our own way.  That’s what makes our wrong choices sin. For something to be a sin we must freely choose to act contrary to God’s law.

Does God know what we are going to choose, yes.  He knows because he knows us, each one of us. He knows us perfectly. But his knowing what we will choose does not mean we do not do the choosing. 

This month marks my 20th year as a tribunal judge. Many of us have worked together for all or most of that 20 year.  Can they predict with almost perfect accuracy how I would respond to most questions? Absolutely.  We often know what each other is going to say. I suspect you have family or friends like that.  They know how we will react because they know us, not because they control us. Now expand that to the perfect knowledge of God.

For me,nowadays, it give me peace. I know that God already knows how and when this will end. He already knows what the “new normal” will look like in every country in the world. My job is to stay calm, and seek to do God’s Will today. God has already taken all of our craziness into account in His plan. 

The hard parts

Before getting to the core of today’s first reading I do want to point out again a common Catholic error. I still hear Catholics saying “We don’t know the Bible.”  They imagine that their Protestant brothers and sisters have whole sections of the Bible memorized. Having lived on both sides of the street I can assure you that is no more a reality than the large Italian family. [In Italy these days there is perhaps one child per family].  Most Catholic have internalized more Bible verses than they realize. 

The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Like almost all of mass it is a Bible verse, (2 Thessalonians 3:18), one every Catholic knows. 

Now to the hard part. 

St. Paul in this letter does give a clear and harsh instruction:

We instruct you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to shun any brother who walks in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us.

Some Christians take shunning very literally. Once a person is shunned, they are cut off from the community. 

For us, the most severe penalty we have, excommunication does not separate the person from the community. As the catechism says, it  “ impedes the reception of the sacraments and the exercise of certain ecclesiastical acts.” The excommunicated person is still Catholic. They are still a member of the Church. They are still a member of their parish. They still have, not only the right, but obligation to attend mass. They are still your brother or sister in Christ.  They cannot receive sacraments and cannot exercise certain other offices. 

In the Catholic Church, we follow the instruction of Mt. 18 and so the penalty is only imposed after every other method of bringing about conversion is tried. It cannot be imposed or declared by your local priest but only by the bishop as a last resort and the goal is always conversion, bringing back the lost sheep. 

This verse from St. Paul is a perfect example of why we must read each verse in the context of the whole Bible, in particular the gospels. Taken by itself, it would seem to encourage the individual Christian to judge the behavior of another and penalize the person they don’t think is living the Christian life. Taken in context we know that we as individuals have no such right. 

Nathaniel or Not

While most of the tradition holds that Nathaniel and Bartholomew are the same person, there are some who doubt it. It does make sense. Bartholomew is after all what is called a “patronymic.” A patronymic is a device used in many cultures to identify the father. In Russia, a person’s second name is traditionally a patronymic (ex. Ivanovich, son of Ivan).  In Scandinavia the suffix son is used, the son of Peter is Peterson. In Iceland, the patronymic is used as the last name. And so it would be perfectly sensible if he we Nathaniel Bartholomew, the son of Tolomei.

He is throughout the scriptures the one who travels with Philip. He is the one in whom there is no duplicity (or guile).Most famously he is said to have died by being flayed, and in artwork is often depicted holding him own skin which has been peeled off and sometimes holding the knife. Perhaps the most famous depiction is in The Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. There he holds his skin in his left hand and the knife in his right.  The face on the skin is Michelangelo himself. St. Bartholomew is not suffering, but strong and vigorous. 

He is revered for having taken the gospel to modern-day Armenia and India. Beyond this little is known of his life. 

Today the Church prays that we may cling to Christ with the same sincerity of heart as St. Bartholomew who was privileged to be one of the 12..

Being His Church

I can hardly believe that it has been 20 years since I moved back from Rome. While there I never ceased to be filled with awe every time I walked into St. Peter’s Basílica —the beauty and the detail, the history, the thought of how many millions of people have prayed in that place over the centuries.  And as you look up into the dome, inscribed in Latin in one direction, Greek in the other are the words of today’s gospel:

 you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

Twenty years later I look around at the Church, and I would be a fool not to be concerned. Entire generations have abandoned the faith. In many of our parishes in the U.S., if it weren’t for the Hispanic immigrants, there would be no children at all.

Some have gone to other churches. Many have simply abandoned church all together. To call them atheists it to presume too much. An atheist has thought about the question and decided there is no God. Many today don’t even give religion that much thought. 

In side the Church, we are seeing the same tribalism that has infected the political sphere. The right and the left declare incessantly that the other isn’t really Catholic. 

As for leaders, many of our bishops are so focused on the abuse scandal and money concerns, they have forgotten that their primary role it to teach, to evangelize. Instead of leading, they are proud of the fact that they are following the “best practices” of the business world. They have become, not shepherds, but  CEO’s. 

On the local level, what pastor doesn’t feel over-stretched...And then there’s COVID.

Where is the hope? Where is the light?

It is found in a single word in today’s Gospel — my.        

...Upon this rock I will build MY church...

The Church is not ours; It is His. The Church is His possession, totally. The Church is His body. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot pass away. It is eternal.  So, it cannot be destroyed.  As St. Paul tells us in vs. 36, Jesus is the origin the path, and the goal of it all.

It can however become practically invisible.  We, each of us, much choose to make it visible.  We make it visible when we show Christ to the world. We make it visible when we show our unity. We make the Church visible when we demonstrate our ability to be different from the world around us, when we build up rather than tear down, when we discuss rather than argue, when we love rather than label.

All one has to do is look at the plethora of websites, movies and programs dedicated to the subject and realize there is a hunger for the spiritual. Every human in the depths of their being knows there is something more than the physical world. We must feed to real human hunger, and then we will be the shining city on the hill, His Church.

Completing the Picture

Today the Church celebrates the queenship of Mary and we are offered a chance to reflect on why we need Marian devotion now.  

From the beginning the scriptures tell us that God created humanity in His image, male and female. Without the female the male is incomplete. Humanity  is composed of feminine and masculine and we need both aspects. 

Yes, it is true that if we look solely at the New Testament in terms of numbers of verses, we see an almost exclusive focus on God the Father and Jesus the only begotten Son.  But we Catholics have never looked at our faith this way. We have always looked at scripture as a unity of Old and New Testament. And beyond the Bible new have looked at how the faith has been lived and understood. 

There we find that from the earliest record Christians understood the unique place of Mary. Yes, it is true that when God became incarnate he chose a male body. But it is also true that while he could have simply appeared full grown he did not. God chose to become incarnate inside a female, to be nurtured by a female. 

While the number of verses dedicated to Mary are few, from the earliest day the Church has recognized her unique role, not only for Jesus but for us. 

Men and women would do well to turn to our mother in prayer, and to imitate her way of being, her form of discipleship. In every corner of our world today, we Christians need to let her “Mary, Queen of Peace” to reign in our hearts. 

Tangible Unity

Today the Church celebrates St. Pius X. Let us in the Diocese of Richmond pray for our brothers and sisters in Norfolk celebrating their parish feast day. 

In 1909 Pope Pius X established what remains the premier Catholic institution for the study of Sacred Scripture, the Pontifical Biblical Institute, known as the Biblicum.  Those who graduate can proudly use the initials SSL or SSD after their name. It means that they have spent years of their lives immersed in the world of the Bible, the languages and the cultures.

But every memorial of a saint who was a pope always brings up the most basic question, do we still need a pope? I would argue that we need him more than ever. 

It was the great petition of Jesus before he went to die 

that they may be one, just as you Father are in me, and I in you...so that the world may believe (Jn 17:21)

Unity among humans has always been an elusive thing. For as much as we are social, we easily fracture. The stain of original sin pulls each of us toward the self. 

Jesus knows that if the Church he  establishes is able to remain one, it will only be by the grace of God, the working of the Holy Spirit. It will also be a compelling sign of God’s power at work in the world. 

But for it to be a compelling, convincing sign, it must be real unity. It cannot be simply mutual toleration, agree to disagree. It must be a oneness of mind and heart. The Church must be a visible reflection of the unity of the Trinity. 

We human beings are, not merely spiritual, but physical creatures.  We need things we can perceive with our senses. 

Inside and outside the Church there are those how would pull us apart, as a Church, as a nation, as a human family. They seek to pull us apart for their own advantage. 

We need a pope. And God has given us Pope Francis at this moment in the history of the Church for a reason.  He as each of his predecessors is called to be the visible sign and instrument of the unity to which we are called. 

We must turn our back on every voice that seeks to divide, even if that voice be a priest, a bishop or a cardinal. Today, we pray for Pope Francis, and we know that Pope Pius X intercedes for him and for the unity of the Body of Christ, the Church, founded on the rock that is Peter. 

How to Love today

Today the Church celebrates the life and ministry of. St. Bernard, a monk who became abbot and a Doctor of the Church.

Usually on the feast days of saints, the church selects for the Office of Readings some writing of the saint. It is short and yet it is intended to be a snapshot of the saints teaching and life. For St. Bernard it is a homily on Love.  

I first glimpse is may seem simplistic for the moment we are living. It may in fact seem naive. And yet, as I read it, it became clear that is the one and only answer to this moment in history.  And we Christians have forgotten how to love. 

All you have to do is glance at Facebook. In an instant, it is clear how many people who call themselves Christians have forgotten the most basic truth of the Christian faith. They post and share hateful half-truths about people they don’t like. We are willing to believe any bad thing said about people we don’t like, no matter how absurd. 

If we are going to survive this moment in our history, we who call ourselves Christians are going to have to be the ones who lead. 

St. Bernard reminds us that love is not and emotion. Love is God. God is Love itself. God pours out Himself and loves us that we might in turn love him back. Our love is and always will be less, because we are less. We are the creatures; God is the Creator. But we can and must give ourselves totally that Love which is God. 

Only by allowing ourselves to be filled with the infinite, perfect love of God, can we then in turn love other people. 

But I tell you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you Mt. 5:44

We forget that we are Church, ekklesia - called apart. And what sets us apart from the rest of the world is precisely this love of those on the other side. 

Today, may the love of God fill us, that we may in turn show love, even to those people with whom we most disagree. 

To whom goes the credit

Today’s first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel opens with a stark image of a newborn, unwashed and thrown on the ground covered in blood. It describes how God came by, pick it up, clothed it and made it grow into a beautiful, finely dressed young woman. But then...

 But you were captivated by your own beauty

The woman become enamored of herself, and so begins the fall.

As I look at our country, I wonder if this isn’t us. 

There are certain things that you should never say of yourself. If others say it about you, that’s fine. But saying it of yourself is merely hubris. 

America is the greatest country in the world. Every time I hear it said by an American, I cringe. 

Not because I don’t believe,  but because of what scripture teaches us about that kind of pride. 

The problem is twofold:

First is the tendency to believe you did it yourself. The so-called “self-made man.” 

   Where is the gratitude to the creator?

 

Secondly, there is no room for improvement. If you truly believe that you are already the greatest, where do you go? Where is the room for improvement? And most importantly, where is your need for God?

The woman in the first reading was truly beautiful. God had made her and provided her with the best of everything. And it would have been fine if everyone who saw her commented on her beauty. The problem began when she began to focus on her beauty. 

Perhaps there is a lesson for us.