The Need for Friction

Today the Church celebrates one step in the unfolding of the command to teach all nations. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out and the people from all parts of the known world each heard the apostles speaking their language. And yet, Christianity remained a form of Judaism. Not until the preaching of St. Paul did the Church take shape as a distinct faith. 

It was St. Paul who began the process of defining a question with which Christians struggle even today: How much of the Old Testament Law must we observe?

It has never been a simple process.  One only has to read the Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians to see clearly conflicting versions of the relationship between St. Paul and the Apostles in Jerusalem. And this is not bad. 

We make a mistake when we believe that peace is the absence of conflict. Friction is an essential part of human existence. Getting out of bed, bathing, eating, brushing your teeth all require friction. And on the other side, most of us have faced the terrifying nearly frictionless experience of tires on ice. It is not a peaceful moment..

Yes, St. Peter was chosen by God to lead the Church. But it was the friction between St. Peter and St. Paul that propelled the Church forward in her mission to all peoples. It was a friction rooted in faith, a friction rooted in love and respect.  

The Church is facing enormous challenges in the 21st Century and the answers are not simple. Can we with the same love and respect challenge one another in the Church and in the challenge and response hear and heed the voice of the Holy Spirit. 

We have the ability

Besides morning prayer and evening prayer there is also in the Liturgy of the Hours the Office of Readings. At its heart there is a scripture reading and also a reading from some key document of the Church or some saint.  This morning it is a reading from St. Basil the Great. 

He reminds us of the power that God has given each of us. 

Since we received a command to love God, we possess from the first moment of our existence an innate power and ability to love. 

It is true. All we have to do is look at the example of an infant and we see that innate desire to love and be loved. 

So how do we get from that to the angry hating voices we hear screaming around us? And more importantly, how do we find our way back? 

As that loving infant grows, we see the transformation. At some point fear enters in. Suddenly the toddler is afraid of anyone it perceives to be a stranger. Or, occasionally, you have the child who fears no one.  In this case the parent becomes afraid and teaches the child “stranger danger.” And so the battle begins. Whom do I trust? Whom do I fear?

But St. John tells us, “There is no fear in love.” And “perfect love drives out fear.” (1 Jn 4)

So if St. Basil is right, and we have the innate power and ability to love, then we also have the ability and power to not be afraid. We have the power to choose. 

But strikes me that it is also a dietary issue. Which will we consume today? Will I spend my day consuming that which draws me closer to God who is love? Or will I nurture myself on a steady diet of fear?

It is easy to distinguish.  As we read , as we watch, as we listen, which is stirred up inside us: fear or love? If it stirs up fear, turn it off.It really is that simple. Replace it with something that brings peace, joy, contentment and ultimately love of God and of other. 

We have the power and ability. Let us use it. 

The Beginning of the Ministry

Today we we begin the days of Ordinary Time, our Gospel is the beginning of Jesus’s ministry as described by St. Mark.

We could also refer to this as the Gospel according to St. Peter in this sense. St. Peter the first one called to lead the Church never put down in writing the events of the life of Jesus. Perhaps like many of the first disciples he believed there was no need because he thought the second coming would be immediate. 

It is his associate St. Mark who is later inspired by God to tell the story. We can only imagine the hours Mark spent listening to Peter tell the stories of all that had happened. And so while it is the Gospel according to Mark, we can also hear the voice of St. Peter. 

After his sojourn in the desert, it is according to Mark the arrest of John that signals the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. 

What Jesus proclaims is simple. The time of fulfillment and the Kingdom of God have drawn near. 

And the response is simple as well Repent and Believe. Metanoia and Faith can be the only appropriate response. 

Then St. Mark recounts what he must have heard Peter tell thousands of time, the story of the moment when they were calls by Jesus.

What was it that Peter and the others saw or at least sensed in Jesus that made them abandon everything and follow? Complete metanoia.

Perhaps today is a time for each of us to pause and recall the time in our own life when we first felt the pull of Jesus. 

Often in childhood our faith is something that feels imposed by our parents. And often, we childishly push against it for that very reason. But in the life of each of us there is, if we search our memory, a time when when were able to perceive that loving call of Jesus. 

Today let us return to that place, return to that call, and lose ourselves in the wonder of call and response.  

Baptism and Behavior

Today we are at one of the inflection points in our calendar. We end the celebration of the Christmas season by celebrating the Baptism of the Lord. We also prepare to transition tomorrow to the season of Ordinary Time.

By allowing himself to be baptized by John, Jesus sanctify the waters of the Jordan and established the Sacrament of Baptism. Today’s feast offers us an opportunity to pause and reflect on how deeply we understand the gift of our own baptism. Here, as with an all sacraments, we Catholics and our Orthodox brothers and sisters stand in a different place from many other Christians.

For some of our Christian brothers and sisters what we call sacraments are at best symbolic. The bread and wine of the Eucharist remain merely bread and wine. They are unchanged. So also the human being after being baptized remains unchanged.

This is not our theology.

For us, baptism brings about a transformation, we are reborn in baptism. The catechism of the Catholic Church says it most clearly:

1265    Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,” member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Do we believe this?

I’m afraid that all too often the answer is no. We do not believe that we are different from the unbaptized, and that is the reason why we don’t behave any differently than the unbaptized.

Are we sinners? Yes. But we are also saints, made holy by the grace of God.  Hundreds of times each day we choose which side of ourselves we will put forward. Every time we speak or act we choose either to act as sinners or as saints. Some people think it’s impossible for us to be sent. My response is simple, “with God all things are possible” (Mt. 19:26).

Christ did not establish a symbol; he established a sacrament, with real power. 

Today let us choose to unleash that power and show ourselves to be sons and daughters of God. 

Recovering our Mission

Today the Church in the United States celebrates the founder of our parochial school system in America, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Inspired by the work of St. Vincent de Paul her community dedicated themselves to the education of the poor. The provided the children of the needy, often immigrants, with the human and spiritual formation they needed to lift their families from poverty. 

Sadly, in many places today, Catholics schools have lost sight of this  mission. They have become simply one more place for those who can afford them to hide their children away from the harsh reality of poverty in America,  with scholarships that allow a token number of poorer brown and black children to attend. 

The Catholic schools run by those original Daughters of Charity were places where Catholic children, often surrounded by anti-Catholic sentiment, could be nurtured, steeped in their Catholic culture. Today there are “Catholic” schools where less than half of faculty and/or students are practicing Catholics.  How Catholic can that culture be? It is said that they “are tools of evangelization.” If so, where is the data to show how many are embracing the Catholic faith because they went to a Catholic school?

On this feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, through her intercession, may we, and especially the bishops of our nation, have the courage and wisdom to acknowledge where schools have failed and redirect our limited resources to that original mission of Catholic schools in America. 

Bearer of God

The Church begins each year with the celebration of Mary, Mother of God. Like all Marian feasts, however, it’s not about Mary. In the Church, as in the Bible, Mary always points us to her Son, Jesus. Today’s Solemnly is about the divinity of the Child she bears. 

We have become so accustomed to saying the words, “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God” that we don’t even think how insanely blasphemous  that sounded to the People of Israel.  And today, once more, there are many people who will accept the idea that Jesus was one of many wise men throughout human history, but not God. Even some Christians will say “son of God” but not embrace the idea that He was God incarnate. And yet, that is our faith. Mary carried within her the God “through whom all things were made.”

But let’s not think this is about abstract theology. It is also about us. It is the ultimate statement of our potential. In the words of St. John, “ But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God”. We too have the ability to share in the Divinity of God. Like Mary, we are called to be bearers of Christ, not symbolically but truly.

As we begin the year 2121, perhaps it would be good for us to who call ourselves Christians to pause and think of who we are, children of God, bearers of Christ. And each day behave like it. 

Hearing voices

Most of us are aware, to one degree or another, of the isolation created by the pandemic. But, in truth, the pandemic didn’t create the isolation. It only accelerated us down a path we have been on for the first two decades of the 21st century. More and more our technology that we thought was going to bring us together has enabled us to each live in our own little world.  

In the previous century, when there were only three (perhaps four) networks to choose from, on any evening at any hour, chances were high that you and your neighbors were watching the same TV show and the next day everyone would be talking about it. In any area there would be perhaps one radio station for each music genre. Remember the world before earbuds, when people spoke to each other as they walked by. There was a time when we had common points of reference. 

Long before  COVID-19, we made a choice. We chose to use the technology not to communicate but to isolate. We chose the familiar. We chose sameness. 

In the first reading today we hear: 

Woe to the city, rebellious and polluted, to the tyrannical city! She hears no voice, accepts no correction

It raises the question: how many of us have chosen to move into the tyrannical city, where we hear no voice that corrects, because we are not wrong? THEY ( the people who think differently) are wrong? They need to change. We hear no voice but our own, and the people who share and echo our voice, our opinions. 

Ask yourself: when was the last time you truly allowed yourself to be corrected, heard information different from your current opinion and changed your mind (metanoia)?

The scriptures remind us that life should be a constant process of hearing, and allowing the voices we hear to correct us. This, of course, requires us to admit that we may be wrong.  

Today, can we hear the other voices, can we open ourselves up to the possibility that we are wrong, can we be corrected?

Day 16 St. John of the Cross

We are now on our 16th day of this new year. How are we doing at taking on a new way of being.

Yesterday was Gaudete Sunday. St Paul gave us three commands:

- Rejoice Always

- Pray without ceasing

-Give thanks in every circumstance 

How hard would it be to simply walk through this day maintaining a cheerful disposition, staying mindful and listening to the Holy Sprit, and focusing on the things for which we are thankful?

Today the Church celebrates St. John of the Cross who provides us with a wonderful metaphor, not Christ as shepherd or physician, but Jesus as a mine with many veins of gold. 

We must dig deeply into Christ. And “ however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.”

To be truly happy, we must lose ourselves in the mine, digging more deeply each day. Perhaps, in this sense, the pandemic can be good for us. It forces us to slow down,  It limits the running around we can do.  Sitting, at times feeling trapped in our homes, there is nothing to stop us from journeying down into the mine. Or are we afraid of what we will find? 

If so, remember, Christ is not only the mine, He is the light. 

Today, remember St. John of the Cross, and spend some quiet time mining. 

Opening Our Eyes

 In the Gospel of Matthew today we read, 

he touched their eyes and said, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.”  And their eyes were opened. 

St. Matthew doesn't focus on healing, but on the opening of their eyes which in some ways may be more difficult.

None of us wants to think of ourselves as the one who needs to open their eyes. Often when we talk about someone needing to open their eyes what we really mean is, if their eyes were open, they would see thinks my way.

The gospel states it in passive voice: not "they opened their eyes" but "their eyes were opened' (by someone else). They can't open their own eyes, perhaps because they don't know their eyes are closed. If you were born blind, how would you know what it means to see? Blind is all you know unless someone explains the idea of sight. You wouldn't even realize you had something that needed healing.

The paradox of the 21st century is that the means of communication we have, the more isolated we have become.

As we come to the end of this first week of Advent, this first week of the new year, perhaps now is a good time for us to pray that God and those around us will help us to identify those areas of our lives in which we are "blind". And having the humility to admit that we are blind, then we pray as the men in the Gospel "Son of David, have pity on us!" 

Then through faith our eyes can be opened and we can see clearly how to imitate Christ more fully each day. 

To truly know someone

On this third day of Advent, we have one of the thornier gospels in the Bible,

No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” 

Some Christians have interpreted this to mean that only Christians can know God. This is a misunderstanding of what it means to know.  Of the various languages that I have studied over the years, English is the only one that only has one word for knowing. Many distinguish between knowing in an absolute way, “I know your phone number” and knowing partially  “I know you.” I think we all realize that there are different meanings to the word “know.” I have been blessed to meet and spend time with some very well-known people.  I would not say I know them 

How do we humans know anything? — Through our senses. We see.; we hear; we touch; we taste;  we smell.  We read. We listen. We watch. So how can anyone know God?

By virtue of the fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God, every human has some experience of God. But it would be overstating to say that we therefore know God. What we truly know of God is what God reveals. 

What Jesus says in the gospel today is absolutely true. Only Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, can truly know God in the fullest sense.  Jesus is God incarnate, the fullest revelation of the presence of God. Therefore, any revelation of God, like all creation, is through him.

On this third day of advent, this Gospel challenges each of us to look inside ourselves and ask “how well do I know God?“ As we begin this new year, now is the time for each of us to re-dedicate some part of each day to knowing God better. God has given us the tools. The two most important tools we have are the Bible ( the word of God) and the Eucharist in which Christ gives himself to us. Let us use these tools. 

May each of us know God more fully each day and share that knowledge with others. 

LY 2021 Day 2

This year, more than ever, I am ready to focus on this being the beginning of Liturgical  Year 2021.  And on this second day we celebrate St. Andrew.

When we think of the apostles, we often say “they left everything to follow Jesus,” which is true. But St. Matthew in his gospel describes it differently. 

About Peter and Andrew he says, 

At once they left their nets and followed him.

Regarding James and John, he writes,

Immediate they left their boat and father and followed him. 

Each pair is described as leaving something different.

Perhaps now, on this second day of the new year, each of us needs to ask ourselves, “What do I need to leave so that I can follow Jesus more fully this year?”

The two commands

When I was a child, I could never understand my mother’s ability to doze off while watching TV, even while watching something in which she was really interested. I have now become my mother. 

. In St. Mark’s gospel we are repeatedly given two commands.

Γρηγορείτε and βλέπετε 

The first of these words refers precisely to not letting ourselves doze off, to staying wake. The older we are, the harder this becomes, the more effort required. We sit still and we doze off, not just physically but spiritually. 

When we are younger we are filled with hopes and ambitions that drive us forward. We have a sense of becoming. We are occupied with questions like “who will I become?” and “what will I do with my life?”  

As we turn the corner of middle age those questions fall away and we can, unfortunately, start to settle into who we are. We lose interest in changing. We doze off into spiritual complacency. We stop striving to be better. We drift on the current of our lives. 

Today’s gospel demands that we wake up. Until the last day of our earthly lives, we are called to be active, to choose, to strive toward holiness. 

The second command is “to watch”, “to look at”. It is not simply about having something passively in front of our eyes.  We are called to really look, to examine, to study. What are we looking for? — the signs of the Kingdom of God. 

As we begin this Advent Season, can we open our eyes to see the signs of the presence of God? Can we see them in our brothers and sisters? Can we see them in the beauty and majesty of God’s creation? Can we see the presence of Christ offered to us in the Eucharist?

Wake up and look! And if we look we will see Emmanuel, God with us. 

The Under-appreciated Church

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. John Lateran, Lateran being the name of the hill on which it is located in the city of Rome. It is, and has been for most of two millennia, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.  (Not St. Peter’s ). 

It’s actual name is Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran. Inside are 12 enormous and magnificent statues of the 12 apostles, who form the foundation on which Christ builds His Church. 

Over the doors is inscribed SACROS LATERAN ECCLES OMNIUM VRBIS ET ORBIS ECCLESIARVM MATER ET CAPUT" ("Most Holy Lateran Church, mother and head of all the churches in the city and the world"). 

We need these magnificent, historic buildings. They soar to the sky and remind us, not of who we are, but who we are called to be. 

Today the Office of Readings gives us chapter 2 of the First Letter of St. Peter,

Strip away everything vicious, everything deceitful; pretenses, jealousies, and disparaging remarks of any kind. 

Could any words be more apt for the moment in which we are living?

Today, as we celebrate this feast, let us focus our hearts on those original 12 called to proclaim the gospel to the world. And should there be a moment when we are tempted to think ill of another, let us recall the command of St. Peter, our first Pope. 

Why we care about 787?

As the Church celebrates The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, once called Triumph of the Cross, it gives us an opportunity to look at a wider subject. What is the proper place of objects in Christian worship. 

From as far back as history can take us humans have held on to objects as a way of remaining connected to the past, particularly people who have past from this earthly life. The simple act of holding something that belonged to the person can reconnect us in a way that memory alone cannot. Portraiture as an art form developed and a next generation could connect to a person they had never met. 

It seems, therefore, not surprising that the early Christians held on their loved ones, the holy ones through keepsakes, relics.  The word relic means literally “to leave behind.” And with time came iconography - communicating with pictures, instead of words. 

To our modern sensibilities, the keeping of bones and other body parts mays seem strange.  It’s not what we would do, but it is how people in an earlier time held onto loved ones. 

In around 327, the Emperor Constantine ordered excavations around Jerusalem to ascertain the location of the place of the crucifixion of Jesus.  Church were then erected at Mt. Calvert and the Holy Sepulchre .   The recovered remains of the cross were divided. Part remained in Jerusalem and part was sent to Rome. 

As with all things, people have a tendency to go to far and so for a time all veneration of sacred relics and icons was outlawed. 

Then in 787 at the Second Council of Nicea, the Church defined clearly the distinction between “respect and veneration” and “true worship.”

Worship belongs only to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

The most we can give to any created things or persons is “respect and veneration.”

Today the. Church venerates the cross on which Jesus have his life for the salvation of the world. That simple, rough piece of wood was transformed by the blood of Jesus. That place was forever marked by his death. What Christian has visited the sites and not been moved ? 

There and in so many other holy places, we find ourselves speechless. That is the essence of respect and veneration. 

Today let each of us take a moment to look at a crucifix or a cross and mediate upon its meaning. 

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.