De gustibus...

Matters of taste should not be argued so goes the old Latin adage.

In the gospel today, Jesus reminds us that it is not we who chose him but he who chose us.

So often in our age people shop for a church the way they shop for a house. Do I like the music? Do I like the preaching? Does the church give me and my family what I thing they need?

There is great wisdom in the oft forgotten law of the Catholic Church. You belong to the parish in whose boundaries you live. You are free to attend any Catholic church in the world for mass whenever you like, but there is one pastor and one bishop who the law makes responsible for your pastoral care.
Only in America do we have this invention of registering. We shop then register, as if the church were a gym.
We forget that in Church we are called to be community, not simply with those we like, people who think like us, or the priest who inspires us. We are called to be community with whatever other members of the body of Christ God happens to put in our path.

It is he who chooses us, not we who choose him.
If we love only those who love us...

And all those other passages that remind us how difficult it can be.
But if we think about it we realize that it is only difficult if we keep ourselves at the center of the matter. As we focus on Christ, and forget ourselves, it becomes much easier.

As it was in the beginning

These days there seems to be great debate in the church about change.

Some will look at the upcoming changes in the mass and cry that we are moving backward. It is worth remembering that as much as some may want it, time can neither stand still or move backward; it only moves forward. It not only moves forward but toward an already fixed point, the kingdom of God in it's fullness. Having time stand still, or going back in time is only possible in science fiction movies. Time and the church move forward. Of course. motion is change.

Today's first reading, about how the church rethought how gentile converts were to be treated, shows clearly that change while inevitable, was always difficult.

The saint of today Philip Neri created a completely new way of life, the oratory. Now we hear that word and we think ancient and venerable. At it's time to some it was scandalous, not because of anything they did but because it was new. In fact, however, by the end of his life is work of spreading the gospel in Rome was such that some dubbed him "The Apostle of Rome."

It is true that the pendulum swings left, and the pendulum swings right as the years tick by in the church. But ultimately time and the church are always moving forward. God's ultimate plan for her will be fulfilled.

Who 's what

In today's gospel we hear the famous quote, "I am the vine you are the branches." Whenever I hear this I am taken back my days in seminary when a scripture professor caused me to have one of those moments of sudden realization about this passage.

Until then, like many people I dare say, I had pictured Jesus as the trunk, the large part growing in the center and we were the branches hanging off on the sides. This was halfway correct.

We are indeed the branches but Jesus is not merely the part in the center, he is the whole thing. When he says, "I am the vine." it does not mean he is one part and we are the other. He is the whole thing, and we must be a part of him. He is the whole vine.

This old house

Today's gospel ends with the promise of God making his dwelling with us.

While I would be the first to talk about the importance of church and community, there are also times when we need to remind ourselves that we need not go to a church building, or look for some beautiful locale, or light candles or any if these things to be close to God. From the moment of our baptism we became that dwelling place of God.

As I sit writing this I am in the parish office, listening to the roofers outside putting a new roof on the garage(metal and wood being cut, nails being hammered). The pastor is at a one of his 5 parish council meetings.(And we American priest think we have it rough) There is nothing particularly spiritual about it. Yet I can close my eyes and not simply imagine but know that God is in fact here with me.

It does of course raise the question in what kind of condition is God's dwelling place. When the house is new like my three year old god son, it doesn't take a whole lot of maintenance, but for the rest of, like any old house, there's always something that needs fixing. But as any homeowner knows it's easier if you stay on top it and fix the problems while they're small. A house can't take care of itself.

God had giving us the great gift of letting us be his dwelling, the least we can do is keep the house as nice as possible.

You can't there from here

Today's gospel ends with "no one comes to the Father except through me." For some, this gets interpreted as Christians get to heaven, everyone else burns in hell. The Catholic position is a bit more nuanced.

For us there was the pre-Jesus divide. Humans were human, God was God. Then in the person of Jesus, the two are brought together, and suddenly it is possible for all humans to share the divine life. In this sense, it is only through him, his life, death, and resurrection, that we can be part of the divine life.

If Jesus is God, as we rightly assert, then how can I be part of God, and not part of Jesus.

As an adopted child, I compare it to the issue of my biological parents. Even though I have never seen them, and probably never will, I must acknowledge that it is only through them that I have biological life. Even if I were to claim that I have no interest in knowing them, the fact of their being the source of my physical life would remain. For me to say, they have no part in my life would be irrational.

In the same way, in our Catholic understand it is possible for people who do not know Jesus, but strive to do God's will to participate in salvation/ the divine life, but there is no getting around the fact that Jesus is the source of that divine life, just as my biological parents whom I do not know are the source of my physical life.

Were it not for them I would not have physical life, were it not for Jesus, none of us would share the divine life. God would have remained God, and humans merely human. We do not get physical biological life on our own without parents, and were it not for God's choice to be one with us in Jesus we would not have the divine, spiritual life that we call "salvation."

Where do we start?

As I read today's gospel, I thought back to when I was growing up and how we thought about the idea of being saved. It dawned on me that our default was that a person was not saved until they did something, normally the phrase was, "accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior."

Today's gospel reminds us that saving us is not something we do, but something Jesus did. As we sing, "Lord by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the savior of the world."

In today's gospel Jesus seems to come at the matter from a positive stance, beginning by reminding us that he came into the world to save it, not to condemn it. Then making it clear that those who will be condemned are those who hear the word and reject it, leaving room for the God's grace to work in ways beyond our imagining.

Today's responsorial psalm O Lord, let all the nations praise you reminds us that this is God's goal. In a world divided it is good to keep before us the goal.

Away

I will be trying to keep up the blog as wifi access allows for the next two weeks.


-Fr. Wayne Ball