Msgr. Robert Batule is a priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y. He is on the faculty of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, N.Y., where he teaches systematic theology.
About Msgr. Robert Batule
Msgr. Robert Batule is a priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y. He is on the faculty of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, N.Y., where he teaches systematic theology.
Moving the Stone
Late last month, I brought my car to a Chevy dealership for some routine servicing. As I got out of the car, I was greeted by an employee who said he had a question for me. 
He wanted to know how the stone was moved away from the tomb. His reference of course was to Jesus’ tomb. I told him that the moved stone signaled the Resurrection had occurred.
In today’s gospel, Saint John describes for us how Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning – while it was still dark. (cf. Jn 20:1) Despite the darkness, she saw that the stone was removed from the tomb. (cf. Jn 20:1)
The moved stone is not insignificant, I contend. It is interesting to note, for example, that when the Risen Lord appears to the apostles in the upper room, He passes right through the locked doors. (cf. Jn 20:19) He obviously could have done the same with the stone at His burial place – pass right through it. Nevertheless, our text says only that the stone was removed.
We can figure on two reasons for the stone in front of the sepulcher. One is given by the Pharisees and chief priests: “that the grave be secured . . . lest his disciples come and steal him.” (Matt 27:64) The other reason of course has to do with health. Like Lazarus who had been dead for four days, there would be a stench. (cf. Jn 11:39)
We have no way of knowing the precise dimensions of the stone at Jesus’ tomb. Nevertheless, we can presume it was very large and that it would require a team of men, perhaps even having to use an animal with ropes to re-locate the stone.
A very large stone imposes restrictions, it inhibits you from moving about freely and functions just as bars do in a prison. You are confined to a prescribed place and there you remain until someone removes the impediment.
A very large stone at the entrance to Jesus’ tomb was put there by men – sinful men, you and me. And there is only One who can move it and that is God. The scribes and Pharisees were right: “[O]nly God can forgive sins.” (Mk 2:7) But they were wrong about Jesus: He is not a blasphemer. (cf. Mk 14:64)
The Son not only forgives our sins, He has also conquered death. When Jesus first said that He has overcome death, many of His listeners did not accept it and they walked away in protest. (cf. Jn 6:66) The apostles, though, remained with the Lord on this occasion because they knew Jesus had the words of eternal life. (cf. Jn 6:68)
Jesus has the words of eternal life because He is eternal life. (cf. Jn 11:25) If anyone eats the Lord’s flesh and drinks His blood, the Lord will raise him up. (cf. Jn 6:54) The Eucharist is thus the gateway to eternal life, and no stone – however large – can keep the forgiven sons and daughters of God from delighting in the risen life of Christ.
He who knew no sin was made sin for us, says Saint Paul in the New Testament. (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21) With this expression, the apostle describes what Jesus does to make us righteous before God. (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21) Making use of a similar irony and paradox, Saint Peter proclaims in a post-Resurrection confession of faith. “He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.” (Acts 4:11)
We have built for death and we have used stones of mortality by our sinning. Jesus has reversed this pattern by His Resurrection. In Him, the destroyed temple (cf. Jn 2:19) has been astonishingly re-made. Our bodies, in imitation of His, can be gloriously transformed. (cf. Phil 3:21) In the Risen Lord, we have become temples of the Holy Spirit.
This Easter, Christ comes to us, a living stone. (cf. 1 Pt 2:4) Here, at this Eucharist, like at our Baptism, we are being built into a spiritual house. (cf. 1 Pt 2:5) In the household of God (cf. Eph 2:19), all that we are and all that we do is inexorably related to the Holy Eucharist. It is the Lord’s sacramental presence which forms and shapes us inwardly, ratifying our identity as the sons and daughters of our heavenly Father before any other allegiance.
“In my Father’s house,” Jesus tells the apostles at the First Eucharist, “there are many dwelling places.” (Jn 14:2) Even if we bristle under the Father’s headship and throw off the easy yoke of our dwelling with God (cf. Matt 11:30), our status as sons and daughters remains intact because of what Jesus accomplished through the sacrifice of His life upon the altar of the Cross. He has reconciled us with the Father, sealing the covenant in His blood. It is the memorial of the Lord’s passion and Resurrection, the Holy Eucharist, which guarantees our access to the richness of the Father’s mercy. (cf. Eph 2:4)
Who, then, would ever want to stay away from such a splendid thing as the Eucharist? We could stay away if we prefer isolation and withdrawal over union and intimacy and fear and loneliness over trust and solitude. The Risen Lord, though, has conferred a matchless power on union, intimacy, trust and solitude and defeated the enemies of isolation, withdrawal, fear and loneliness. This great movement in history began when the stone was moved out of the way on that first Easter Sunday.
Praised be the Risen Christ!
Solemnity of the Resurrection
Acts 10:34a,37-43; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9
April 8, 2012
The Power of the Passion
Stripped down to its barest essentials, power is the ability to put an idea into practice. To be sure, how we exercise power is an important matter, but first we must know what it is before we wield it.
In the ancient world, there was no better concrete expression of power than the Roman Empire. The Romans had the best schools and the most learned teachers. Their armies, which marched all over the known world at the time, scored victory after victory and subdued every foe. Roman engineering feats – bridges, great buildings and the like – were the envy of those seeking some permanent reminder of achievement. All of these things testified to Rome’s power, but perhaps nothing was more emblematic of Roman power than the law.
Long after Roman schools had passed out of existence, long after Roman armies had stopped conquering enemies and long after their buildings had been reduced to rubble, the power of Rome was still being felt through the law. The Romans had been notable for developing a system of law that sought justice over caprice, and planted the concept of giving each person his due everywhere they went. History shows that material and physical accomplishments can be leveled to dust quickly, but not so the longing and passion we have for justice.
Early in the passion account of Saint John, Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate, the personification of Roman law, to 
answer the charge that He is a king. (cf. Jn 18:33-38). Jesus links kingship with the truth in His reply to Pilate, acknowledging that the reason He came into the world is to testify to the truth. (cf. Jn 18:37) Pilate is mystified, however. “What is truth?” he muses. (cf. Jn 18:38) It is not enough for the Roman authority in Palestine to be cavalier in his attitude about the truth, he even says in reference to Jesus: “I find no guilt in him.” (Jn 18:38) Not finding guilt in Jesus, Pilate still – amazingly – does not treat Jesus justly. Instead, he acts on the Jewish custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover, allowing the guilty Barabbas to be spared over the innocent Jesus. (cf. Jn 18:39)
In Christ, One Who is innocent and blameless in every way is condemned to death. (cf. Jn 19:16) What then can we say of power in the case of Jesus? It has been grossly misused against Him. It has been utterly debased, placed at the service of falsehood and compromise. Honor and integrity have been sacrificed in favor of cowardice and pusillanimity.
Holy Week always brings into sharp focus the central mysteries of our Christian faith. From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, the Church invites us to witness to and share in the rites by which we claim salvation in Christ. It would be a mistake, however, if through our witness and participation we did not stop to consider this week what is the true meaning of power in our lives.
For some of us, power is found in always getting our own way. We unfailingly manipulate situations so that we always come out on top – we won’t tolerate any other outcome at home, at work, or wherever we may find ourselves. We relish the feeling of having it “one up” on those around us. For others among us, power is in calculating how to make the most number of people dependent on us, thereby satisfying our need to be needed. There is enormous ego pleasure in knowing we are indispensible to others. For still others, power is in being above the fray, detached, and untainted by the vicissitudes of life.
Holy Week shows us a beaten and dejected Savior. Bearing our infirmities and laying upon Himself our guilt (cf. Is 53:4,6), He challenges us to shake off our false notions of power – whatever they may be and in whatever form they may take. Power is not in what I cling to and what I hold on to; it is in how I empty myself, as Saint Paul indicates for us in today’s second reading. (cf. Phil 2:6-7) The Lord’s obedience unto death (cf. Phil 2:8) is the real power at work in His life and in our lives too – if only we allow it to be so.
Let us be alert to the Lord’s power here at this Eucharist. May it cleanse us of our sins and make us the new creations promised by the Resurrection!
Palm Sunday Homily
April 1, 2012
The Deeper Meaning of Wealth
On a cool autumn night more than thirty years ago, the words of today’s gospel rang out in Yankee Stadium. They were proclaimed in the House that Ruth built as Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass. Commenting on this passage from Saint Luke, the Holy Father said then:
“We cannot stand idly by, enjoying our own riches and freedom, if, in any place, the Lazarus of the twentieth century stands at our doors. In the light of the parable . . . riches and freedom mean a special responsibility. Riches and freedom mean a special obligation.” (Homily at Yankee Stadium)
The appropriateness of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus for proclamation during the pontiff’s first pastoral visit to our country could scarcely be questioned. The United States was then and continues now to be the most affluent nation in the history of the world. Millions and millions of people have become materially rich in America. Even more people have known an unparalleled political freedom here.
In the view of some, the pilgrim Pope had come to the shores of America to afflict the comfortable. To others, he was preaching the Gospel of a preferential option for the poor. To those who accept Michael Harrington’s analysis, the Pope was exposing the other America.
The other America, of course, is poverty, the other side of wealth. There is no getting away from the fact that there are two sides. In today’s gospel, Our Lord indicates that following death, both the rich man and Lazarus are separated by a great chasm. (cf. Lk 16:26) It prevents anyone from crossing from one side to the other. (cf. Lk 16:26)
It is clear from the text that one side is heaven and the other is hell. One side is in the bosom of Abraham (cf. Lk 16:22) and the other is a place of torment. (cf. Lk 16:28) The rich man has brought this judgment upon himself because he failed to attend to the needs of the poor man Lazarus lying at his door. (cf. Lk 16:20) He preferred during his earthly life to dine sumptuously every day. (cf. Lk 16:19)
Jesus teaches that the judgment of the nations will be based on the corporal works of mercy. “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.” (Matt 25:42-43) It is the Lord whom we disregard when we neglect the least ones. (cf. Matt 25:45)
In his homily of thirty years ago, the Pope also said that the Church cannot limit herself to the social fruitfulness of the Gospel. “Along the road that leads the Church to man,” he stated, “she does not offer . . . only the earthly fruits of the Gospel; she brings to man – to every human person – his very source: Jesus Christ.” (Homily at Yankee Stadium)
We all recognize Lent as the season of re-committing ourselves to a care of the poor among us. And certainly we must bear in mind the very serious words of Our Lord that our judgment and salvation hinge on assisting those who are materially deprived. Let us not forget, though, the words of the Pope. The Church is to bring us to Jesus Christ. This is why we evangelize; this is why we catechize; this is why we form men and women in discipleship; this is why we share in the sacramental life.
One of the troubling tendencies pastorally is the widespread acceptance that religion now is just helping people. There is a growing horizontalism which considers prayer and the interior life irrelevant before the main task we have of improving the conditions of the planet. I don’t think this is unrelated to the indifference there is to religious and spiritual doctrine in the midst of the world’s diversity and pluralism. Since there are so many competing ideas about God and there is a reluctance to say which ones are right, it is best to stick with just helping people and the rest will take care of itself.
Pope John Paul II’s successor, Benedict XVI has visited the United States, too, and even before his visit nearly four years ago, he spoke to this problem in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (2005). He wrote then that “it is time to re-affirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularization of many Christians engaged in charitable work. Clearly, the Christian who prays does not claim to be able to change God’s plans or correct what he has foreseen. Rather, he seeks an encounter with the Father of Jesus Christ.” (DCE, 37)
To encounter the Father of Jesus Christ is the purpose of priestly formation now. As seminarians, you ought to be engaged in the very serious work now of developing capacities and aptitudes for knowing God in the often subtle ways He touches our hearts. For this is what you will be helping others to do later on in your priestly ministries.
We all need to listen to Moses and the prophets. (cf. Lk 16:31) Even more than that, we all need to listen to the One who has risen from the dead. (cf. Lk 16:31) The Eucharist is the bridge connecting one side to the other. It connects the rich and the free with the poor and obedient Christ. We rise here with Him, having found the deeper meaning of wealth under the easy yoke of the Cross. Our trust, the prophet Jeremiah reminds us today, is not in human beings. (Jer 17:5) It is in the Lord, he says. (cf. Jer 17:7) So, too, is our hope. (cf. Jer 17:7)
Praised be Jesus Christ!
Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
Jer 17:5-10; Lk 16:19-31
(Homily to seminarians, presented on March 8, 2012)
Faithful Unto the Madness of the Cross
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Growing up, we get advice all the time and from many different quarters, too. Some of the advice is good, and some of it is, well, not so good. A piece of good advice is to defer a decision until the emotion of the moment has passed. If we postpone a decision from the time when emotions are running high until later when we are calm, it increases the likelihood of a better quality of decision and a more favorable outcome for us.
I am thinking of two examples which support the eminently trustworthy advice of holding off a decision until after the emotion has passed. The first concerns an athlete, one who has not played for several consecutive games – he’s not left the bench, he’s not left the dugout. In a fit of frustration, he takes himself to the coach or manager’s office and announces that he is quitting. After he has handed in his uniform and is away from the team, a few of his former teammates go down with injuries. The opportunity to get off the bench or out of the dugout had finally come, but it is missed. A hasty, imprudent decision had seen to that missed opportunity. The second concerns an employee who has been trying for a promotion. After not getting it, he informs his boss that he is resigning his position. Weeks later – on the sidelines and without a regular paycheck – the unemployed man learns that another position had opened up in the company, a job more attractive than the last one and one for which he is even better qualified. It too was a missed opportunity. And, once again, a hasty, imprudent decision was responsible.
We ought not to let our emotions get the better of us. But, obviously, they sometimes do. We usually regard these situations in life – when our emotions are running high – as not having much potential for placing us in communion with the Lord or deepening our communion with Him. But perhaps then we underestimate them.
God is able to use the immediacy of events in our lives to elicit from us a commitment of heroic proportions. The immediacy of our lives includes upheaval and turmoil, conditions created by events in which we are caught up to one degree or another. The immediacy of our lives includes conflict and anxiety, antithetical to the serenity and peace we normally associate with right dispositions for prayer.
The first reading at mass today comes from the Book of Esther, an Old Testament book which we are not accustomed to hearing from with any regularity at the liturgy. It concerns, not surprisingly, a certain Queen Esther. She is a genuinely remarkable figure, having succeeded with her uncle Mordecai in staving off Jewish destruction at the hands of Israel’s enemies. Queen Esther is thus rightly praised as a deliverer of the Chosen People. Yet, despite her exalted status as a queen, she still exhibits a very common touch in her reaction to things.
The sacred author describes her as being “seized with mortal anguish.” (Est C:12) We might liken this reaction of hers to being at our wit’s end, utterly distressed and distraught. Given this interior state, we are amazed that she still “has recourse to the Lord.” (Est C:12) We are told further that she lays prostrate with her handmaids all day long and prays to God. (cf. Est C:14) She begs the Lord for assistance as she laments being left all alone. (cf. Est C:14) She knows of course that the Lord will not leave her an orphan. (cf. Est C:23) And Yahweh does indeed vindicate Queen Esther’s faith with a victory over Israel’s enemies, resulting in the Feast of Purim which continues to be observed in our own time by pious Jews.
We started our Lenten journey this year as we do every year with an invitation to pray. (cf. Matt 6:6-8) Accompanying the injunctions to fast and to give alms, our prayer this holy season is to strengthen our communion with Christ and fortify us for the scandal of the Cross. When it comes to prayer, we acknowledge that certain interior dispositions are properly salutary. Who doesn’t want to be recollected in advance? Who doesn’t want to be serene in the Lord’s presence? But do these conditions always prevail in our hearts and minds? Most assuredly, they do not.
This week at the liturgy, we have already listened to a few texts pertaining to the prayer of Christ’s disciples. On Tuesday, the gospel revealed Jesus teaching the disciples to pray, going so far as to indicate words that please God. We ought, He said, to address God as “Our Father.” (cf. Matt 6:9) As the Lord forgives us our trespasses, Jesus instructed, so must we forgive those who have trespassed against us. (cf. Matt 6:12) And we cannot overlook the gospel of this mass when Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matt 7:7) While we realize that petition is certainly not the only kind of prayer there is, it remains an esteemed part of our patrimony of prayer. Why else would we approach the God of fullness if not to request from Him the good things that He surely wants to give us? (cf. Matt 7:11)
As important as these passages are, by far the most effective teaching that Jesus gives on prayer is the example of His own prayer. On the eve of His passion, while in the Garden of Gethsemane, Saint Luke records how Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me.” (cf. Lk 22:42) There is no mistaking that this moment is full of emotion for Jesus – heart-wrenching emotion, for sure. And, clearly, Jesus cannot put off a decision on His mission to a more serene time, a less dispassionate moment. Yet, in the turbulence and turmoil of His passion, Jesus still prays, “not my will but yours be done.” (Lk 22:42)
In conflict and upheaval, Jesus’ communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit is not undercut. This is the challenge presented to us: In the conflict and upheaval of our lives, will our communion with the Lord be weakened or severed? Or, will the immediacy of heavily emotional moments find us being faithful unto the madness of the Cross on the model of the Master?
Thursday of the First Week of Lent
Esther C: 12; 14-16; 23-25; Matt 7:7-12
March 1, 2012
The Crucible of Choosing
[This exquisite homily was written before Lent began, but with Msgr. Batule's kind permission, we share it with you here.]
Tuesday of the Sixth Week
Jam 1:12-18; Mk 8:14-21
February 14, 2012
Memorial of Saints Cyril and Methodius
The Crucible of Choosing
In a little bit more than a week, Lent will be here for us. It’s a stark season for sure, but one that’s very vivid at the same time. Its vividness is tied to the fact that many of us give things up as a penitential discipline. In most cases, though, the “giving up” is temporary. We return to regular eating patterns, viewing patterns and other such things just as soon as we mark Christ’s victory over sin and death at Easter.
Along with giving things up, there is of course the struggle to do just that. We wage an internal battle, fending off urges and impulses to use what we pledged not to use on Ash Wednesday. How fitting then is the gospel for the First Sunday of Lent we hear no matter the year on the calendar! The Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – pretty much convey the same material concerning the temptation of Jesus at the start of His public ministry. This year, being Cycle B, we will listen to Saint Mark’s version. It’s a typically sparse rendering by the evangelist – just three verses in the lectionary and the Bible. (cf. Mk 1: 12-15) And if you take away the fact that the text in question includes Jesus going to Galilee to begin His public ministry (cf. verses 14-15), you’re really only dealing with a two line description of the temptation by Saint Mark. Not long, we would have to concede, but long enough. It’s long enough to incorporate the irreducible basics related to the temptation. We find that Jesus is tempted in the desert, that He is in that locale for forty days and that Satan is the Tempter. (cf. Mk 1:12-13)
The gospel for the First Sunday of Lent gives us specificity and concreteness. It gives us the answers to the questions we would ask if we were analyzing the incident, say, forensically. It satisfies our curiosity involving who, when and where of the case in question. It doesn’t offer us any commentary about the nature of temptation and why temptation is such a powerful force in our lives. The word of God does indeed provide that data for us, but we have to go elsewhere to get it. 
Yesterday, we started reading at daily mass from the Letter of Saint James. We will continue to listen to selections from this New Testament book right on up through Tuesday of next week, the day before Ash Wednesday. In today’s first reading, the sacred author treats temptation in the first part of the passage. He gives us what I would regard as the etiology of temptation, and this neatly complements the specificity and concreteness of the evangelist. The etiology gives us the layers behind what is observable. When we peel back the layers, we’re able to get at the nature of temptation, we’re able to appreciate why it is such a potent force in human endeavors.
Saint James writes that desire conceives and brings forth sin. And sin, when it reaches maturity, gives birth to death. (cf. Jam 1:15) There you have it! Disordered desire is at the very foundation of temptation. And that’s just the beginning. It grows and increases until it reaches a mature stage, comments the sacred author. And in its fullness, the temptation eventually metastasizes and results in death for the one who is tempted. I like to refer to this phenomenon as the trajectory of tragedy. To use another image, there’s an arc to temptation. It rises not to glory but falls to misery and heartache.
Jesus is without sin but He is the Master of choosing. No matter what the condition is, He chooses the Father and the Father’s will. (cf. Jn 5:30) That is how He is triumphant in the desert. That is the secret of His success. And it can be ours too if we let it.
This is a period of transition for many of us here at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception. How do we successfully negotiate this juncture in our lives? Let me suggest for our consideration today someone who might serve as a guide, someone quite adept at following wherever the Lord was leading him. I am referring to Jean Marie Lustiger.
Born in 1926 into a Jewish family in France, Jean Marie at the age of 13 decided to seek Baptism. He was baptized a Catholic in 1940. Eventually discerning a vocation to the priesthood, Jean Marie was ordained in 1954. He later was made a bishop, having served first at Orleans and then transferred from there to be the Archbishop of Paris. In 1983, Pope John Paul II created him a cardinal. With family members killed by the Nazis in concentration camps and having a father who once tried to get his son’s baptism annulled, Jean Marie’s life was filled with surprises and great drama. In a volume titled Choosing God, Chosen By God, Lustiger told the story of his own life in a series of interviews. His keen sense that the Lord had chosen him began with Israel’s election, he confessed. But he believed Christ to be the Messiah, the hope of man’s redemption.
Surrounded by uncertainty and not knowing where we should go next, the Lord calls out to each one of us. We can let go and trust because of the example of the apostles who took up with Jesus, believing as Andrew did, that he had found the Messiah. (cf. Jn 1:41) We choose God because He has first chosen us. His choice of us as servants builds confidence that we can choose the Lord ahead of disordered affection, before uneducated desire. Temptation affords us the opportunity to be firm and resolute in where we are going in life. When we choose the Lord and His Kingdom, it sets us not on the trajectory of tragedy but on the road to Jerusalem. In our own crucible of choosing, we are renewed and emboldened by Jesus’ desire there “not my will but yours be done.” (Lk 22:42)
“Someone” Beautiful for God
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Monday of the Fifth Week
1 Kgs 8:1-7; 9-13; Mk 6: 53-56
February 6, 2012
Memorial of Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs
Malcolm Muggeridge was an English controversialist and journalist whose life spanned just about the entirety of the twentieth century – he was born in 1903 and died in 1990. He was first an agnostic and then later on became a Catholic – a deeply committed Roman Catholic at that. His conversion was hastened along by the witness of an Albanian-born nun by the name of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who even before her death in 1997 was regarded as a living saint. Muggeridge was so moved by the founder of the Missionaries of Charity that he decided to make a film about her in the late 1960s so the rest of the world could come to know what he had discovered in this very holy woman.
After he finished making the film, Muggeridge was at a loss as to the title he would give it. While reading through a piece of correspondence from Mother Teresa, he found the right words to capture the vision he had brought to the big screen. Mother Teresa had written: Let us do something beautiful for God. There it was – Something Beautiful for God – that’s what he would call his film.
In my view, he could just as easily have titled his film Someone Beautiful for God – although Mother Teresa would not have liked it. She was much too modest to accept this kind of designation about herself. Her focus was always on the work she was doing for God; it was never on herself. In fact, she would have regarded the personal attention as a betrayal of her service to the poor, as something not in keeping with the humility we should have about ourselves in imitation of Christ.
Nonetheless, there is a sense in which someone beautiful for God is an apt description for Mother Teresa. I’m referring to the sense of every man, every woman. Every man, every woman is someone beautiful for God. Certainly that’s what Mother Teresa believed – every dying person she and her Sisters pick up from the streets of Calcutta is someone beautiful for God. Each dying person, treated with the utmost dignity and respect by Mother Teresa and her Sisters, has wounds bandaged because the Lord has already bound up the wounds of our sins. By His dying on the Cross, He has healed us by His stripes. (cf. Is 53:5)
In today’s first reading, the sacred author describes for us the solemn dedication and consecration of the temple in Jerusalem. We hear in the text how the ark of the covenant is carried forward in procession by the priests and Levites. (cf. 1 Kgs 8:4) We can just imagine the precision and exactness it required on the part of the Lord’s ministers. In this dedication and consecration, a column of smoke fills the temple, indicating the presence of the Lord’s glory. (cf. 1 Kgs 8:10) How majestic a sight this must have been to set your eyes on! It’s no wonder that Solomon, addressing the Lord of glory, cries out, “I have truly built you a princely house.” (1 Kgs 8:13) Solomon was no doubt wise, but modest he was not!
The temple was something beautiful for God with all its gold, silver and precious metals. But was it the most beautiful thing of all?
Early on in Jesus’ public ministry, Saint John the evangelist has Jesus in the holy city of Jerusalem, in its temple area where he finds moneychangers and drives them out of His Father’s house. (cf. Jn 2:14-15) Overturning their tables in an act of righteous indignation, Jesus boldly proclaims at the same time, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” (Jn 2:19) The evangelist informs us just two lines later that Jesus “was speaking about the temple of his body.” (Jn 2:21)
In today’s gospel, the evangelist records how Jesus ministered to the sick. Wherever Our Lord visits – whether villages, towns or the countryside – the sick on mats are brought to Him. (cf. Mk 6:56) All they want to do is touch the tassel of His cloak; and Jesus of course obliges their request. (cf. Mk 6:56) These sick people are unable to walk; their legs and presumably other parts of their bodies are severely compromised. Saint Mark indicates very simply at the end of the text that these sick men and women are healed of their infirmities. (cf. Mk 6:56)
There is a story told about Saint Lawrence the Martyr, the third century deacon in Rome and it goes like this: Lawrence, the servant of the Lord and His people, is instructed to produce the most coveted and most valuable possessions belonging to the fledgling and persecuted Christian community in the Eternal City. Instead of bringing forward the most precious sacred vessels used at the liturgy, the deacon presents the lame, the crippled, those whose bodies are racked with pain. These are the ones who are beautiful for God!
We are still a few weeks away from the beginning of Lent and we have an even longer distance to cover liturgically before we get to Holy Week. Still, I do not think it imprudent to invoke an image from that penitential season now. Jesus is the Suffering Servant. He is the One of whom Isaiah prophesied long ago: “There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him . . . . One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned.” (Is 53:2-3) There was no beauty there, or so it seemed.
Father Richard John Neuhaus, the founding editor of the journal First Things, once preached the Seven Last Words of Christ devotion in New York City and turned his reflections on that occasion into a volume entitled Death on a Friday Afternoon. He referred to Jesus’ death there as a dreadful beauty – something physically repugnant yet spiritually and morally splendiferous at the same time. In going to the Cross obediently, Jesus did something beautiful for God. Through His humility, He showed Himself as Someone Beautiful for God. So might we turn our own lives into something beautiful for God, and thereby become someone beautiful for God by choosing not the way of self-fulfillment but self-abandonment.
The Good Shepherd Revealed at Bethlehem
“I live over the store.” We are not accustomed to hearing that expression much anymore. I suspect that is so for two reasons. The first might be termed a sociological explanation. With increased prosperity, it is no longer necessary for people to live where they work. The suburbs sprang up, in part, because people could afford to live more comfortably apart from where they engaged in commerce. The second explanation is clearly more psychological in nature. People fare better when they are able to put some distance or separation between their working “selves” and their living “selves.” People enjoy better mental health and endure less stress when they can work in one place and live in another.
Being able to separate working and living has not eliminated every problem, however. What about when there is a police emergency? When there is one, you the proprietor are called. What if a water main breaks and there is a flood? You the owner are called.
On balance though, most people prefer having their work in one domain and their living in a different sphere. That having been said, could we still allow that “living above the store” has more than just a nostalgic appeal? Yes, I think we can.
In today’s gospel, the evangelist describes the Infant’s birth as having taken place in Bethlehem. (cf. Lk 2:4) After the birth, the Virgin wraps the Christ Child in swaddling clothes and lays him in a manger. (cf. Lk 2:7) Apart from the Holy Family, the only persons present for this blessed event are the shepherds. (cf. Lk 2:8) They are, as the text indicates, astonished at what has occurred and the angels announce to them a message of great joy: “For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.” (Lk 2:11)
It is not just the wonder and awe of the shepherds which should catch our attention. For the gospel says of them that they are living in the fields, keeping the night watch over their flock. (cf. Lk 2:8) The shepherds are completely devoted to the work at hand. The fields constitute both their work and living space at the same time. For the shepherds, there is no time away, no distance or separation. Work and living are not neatly compartmentalized, each with its own distinct allotments and priorities. In a manner of speaking, the shepherds do indeed live over the sheep, their work.
For their dedication and commitment, the shepherds are deserving of commendation and praise. What word then is fitting for them? Surely, we cannot call them “fair” or “mediocre”; no, they are much better than these assessments. Let us call them good then. On second thought, let us call them not good enough.
In the course of His public ministry, Jesus is asked what good must be done to gain eternal life. (cf. Matt 19:16; Mk 10: 17; Lk 18:18) To attain eternal life, Jesus answers, one must keep the commandments. (cf. Matt 19:17; Mk 10:19; Lk 18:20) But there is more to this encounter between Jesus and the rich young man. Jesus adds in the accounts rendered by Saint Mark and Saint Luke that no one is good but God alone. (cf. Mk 10:18; Lk 18:19) Explaining this remark of Jesus, Pope John Paul II writes in Veritatis Splendor (1993) that “[o]nly God can answer the question about what is good, because he is the Good itself.” (9)
There is no denying that the Incarnation is a very big mystery. It has to be – creation is correspondingly very big. However, the restoration of creation begins very small. It begins with a Baby. And in the manger, that Baby is a Shepherd even if He is yet to identify Himself as such.
Christmas reveals the radical incompleteness of earthly things. The gospel tells us that magi from the east (cf. Matt 2:1) came to Bethlehem and offered the Infant gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. (cf. Matt 2:11) One interpretation of Little Christmas is that the magi were kings. If so, their kingship now becomes forever subordinate to Christ’s eternal kingship. As committed and faithful as the shepherds are living in the fields, they are seeing for the first time in the birth of Christ what it means to be a good shepherd.
Jesus proclaims Himself to be the Good Shepherd in Saint John’s Gospel. (Jn 10:10) He guides and directs even from the manger. He can do this because the wood of the manger is like the wood of the Cross. The Cross is the gate to which Jesus refers in the tenth chapter of the Fourth Gospel. (cf. Jn:10:9) Whoever enters through the gate of the Cross finds life, an abundance of it. (cf. Jn 10:10)
All shepherding, then, remains unfulfilled until it can promise eternal life. In the One who lies in the Bethlehem manger, the promise of eternal life has indeed been actualized. To share in it ourselves, we must follow wherever the Lord leads, careful to hear His voice above the cacophony of other voices, and making His word the very center of our lives – not just on Christmas of course but every day.
The shepherds living in the fields, through their encounter with divine goodness, have started to become good themselves. And they have made known the message about the Christ Child by telling others, according to the evangelist’s description. (Lk 2:17) That is how our goodness grows and deepens – by taking up in a most serious way the demands of the new evangelization. We who are baptized and confirmed, we who share in the Holy Eucharist have a responsibility to imitate the heralding of the shepherds even if we do not live in the fields as they did. Whether we “live above the store” or not, there is an urgent summons to know the goodness of Christ and the incomparable gift of everlasting life He offers us now. The goodness of the Christ Child in Bethlehem was announced by a multitude of the heavenly host. (cf. Lk 2:13) May we sing out with them: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Lk 2:14)
Merry Christmas!
Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle
Rom 10:9-18; Matt 4:18-22
November 30, 2010
Last week, my dentist told me that he is bringing a hygienist to his practice. He explained that he would no longer be doing oral x-rays and teeth cleanings from this point forward in his practice.
Decisions like this one reflect the phenomenon of specialization. A field will be divided and sub-divided to accommodate increasing rates of knowledge, complexity and time management.
Specialization is found all over now. Years ago, relievers were a specialty within the larger set of baseball pitchers. It has since sub-divided into “closers” and “set up men.” Baseball is not the only sport with special players. Football has them too – placekickers and punters and returners who perform on special teams.
Even when it comes to Church work or ministry, specialization is evident. Recall here how Saint Paul instructs the Corinthian Christians, “I planted, Apollos watered [and] God caused the growth.” (1 Cor. 3:6) When it comes to roles then, there is a definite Pauline acknowledgement of specialization.
As with all things diverse and pluralistic, there is the chance we lose the sense of what binds us together. Our unity can become a casualty if all we do is fall head over heels for the differences among us. There is a unity to the Lord’s work in the Church, and it cannot be lost or buried under all the variations on the pastoral landscape – as good as they are.
Advent brings us to the beginning of another Church year and the feast of Saint Andrew brings us to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. At the beginning, Jesus calls the apostles to His side, preparing them for a ministry which the Lord assigns and cannot be taken up without a differentiated consciousness.
In today’s text, the evangelist describes how Jesus chooses two sets of brothers that they might share deeply in the work of Our Savior – seeing what others do not see and hearing what others do not hear. The first set of brothers, Simon and Andrew, are casting a net into the sea when they are called. (cf. Matt 4:18) The second set, James and John, are mending their nets when they are called. (cf. Matt 4:21)
Fishing is how the apostles made their living, and when they are called by Jesus to the ministry, they already know something about how to catch men. (cf. Matt 4:19) Casting a net is an evangelical orientation. It is an outlook shaped decisively by my own encounter with Christ in prayer, the sacraments and the apostolate. I then want others to experience, to abide in what I have found in knowing the Lord. Mending the nets is an outlook too. It is an honest admission that I fail at living the Christian life and I need to be forgiven of my sins. I’m not the only one who needs to be reconciled; others need it as much as I do.
We would be foolish to think that casting a net is only about devising programs to reach the unchurched and the unchatecized. More fundamentally, it is about a poverty in all of us which cannot be alleviated until we allow the Lord’s word to change us inwardly. As Saint Paul indicates in today’s first reading, that change does not occur, though, until we hear. (cf. Rom 10:17)
Andrew hears in today’s gospel. What he hears of course is the Lord’s invitation: “Come after me.” (Matt 4:19) Not only does Andrew leave his nets at once (cf. Matt 4:20), he will soon enough become aware that the evangelical net he is casting now is going to be resisted.
Fish instinctively resist being taken from the water, their natural habitat. Every fisherman who has ever cast a rod or a net knows the flailing about which inevitably results when creatures of the sea are removed from their watery environment. Fish, though, are not the only ones who put up a fight.
Accustomed to our natural habitats and not wanting to break from them, we can put up a good fight ourselves. Our resistance can indeed be so fierce at times that we break things, including ourselves. What’s more, we can break relationships, we can sever bonds of friendship. We need someone then who is going to help us undo the damage we have caused by our sins.
Let me suggest that what we have in today’s gospel, a casting and a mending, represent aspects of the priestly vocation which cannot be divided and sub-divided and delegated to others. Evangelizing and reconciling belong to the substance of the priestly vocation. To be sure, they are works which are carried out in harmony with other ministries and apostolates in the Church. Still, announcing the Gospel and absolving sin are quintessentially priestly works, and they demand of us priests our greatest attention.
For seminarians in formation, casting and mending are nautical images for the vocation to which you aspire. Allow me to continue in this vein by quoting now from a section of a little volume entitled Ministers of Your Joy (1989) by then-cardinal Ratzinger. He writes:
To be a disciple means to let oneself be caught by Jesus, by the mysterious fish who has descended into the water of the world, the water of death; who has turned into a fish himself so that he can first of all be caught by us, so that he can become the bread of life for us. He lets himself be caught so that we shall be caught by him and find the courage to let ourselves be drawn with him out of the waters of what we are used to and find comfortable.
Jesus became a fisher of men by taking on himself the night of the sea and descending into the suffering of the depths. One can only become a fisher of men if like him one surrenders to this. . . A vocation is no private matter . . . . Its context is the entire Church, which can only exist in fellowship with Peter and thus with the apostles of Jesus Christ. (p. 110)
Among these apostles of course is Saint Andrew whom we honor today in the liturgy. In both Saint Matthew and Saint John, these two gospels, Andrew has the privilege of being “first called.” In these opening days of Advent, may we be among the first to respond to the Lord’s bidding, imitating as we do the bold and daring faith of St. Andrew.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
Msgr Robert Batule
A Radiant Light
With the exception of Midnight Mass in Bethlehem, there is no better place to celebrate the Lord’s Nativity than in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome with the Pope. As you approach Saint Peter’s in darkness, you find this magnificent house of the Lord beautifully illumined. This has caused some to remark that the Eternal City is even more spectacular at night. If this is so externally and visually, is there any way that it could be true internally?
At Midnight Mass all over the world, the words of the prophet Isaiah are proclaimed: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” (Is 9:1) Ever since the summer solstice in June, we have been losing a little bit of light each day. The sun rises later in the morning and sets earlier in the evening. When we set our clocks back in November, this only became more accelerated. Some of us walk out the door in the morning into darkness and then return home in darkness. Our days are framed by darkness and there’s always more of it in the winter.
Our lives are darkened due to sin. With every lie, with every slander, with every false accusation, our lives are darkened a bit more. When we have rationalized enough, we can no longer distinguish the light of grace from the darkness of our sins. So why is it then that a great many of the sins we commit are sins of the tongue?
Speech is God’s way of drawing us into the folds of His love. In former times, the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, God spoke to us in partial and fragmentary ways. (cf. Heb 1:1) Now, in the Incarnation, the Lord has spoken to us through His Son. (cf. Heb 1:2)
The Word became flesh and we saw His glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. (cf. Jn 1:14) This is the way Saint John describes the birth of Christ in his Gospel. No stable, no manger, no shepherds in the field. How do we know then if we are in the presence of something glorious? Well, if you have ever been to Rome, you are alerted to the glorious by fountains, obelisks and the like. It’s glorious that antiquity has been preserved and we can revel in its achievements thousands of years later.
The glory of the Incarnation is revealed to us in the One Who speaks truthfully. Jesus speaks truthfully in His birth. But infants do not emerge from their mothers’ wombs speaking; they usually cry. So we must look elsewhere for Jesus’ word on His birth.
Near the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus stands accused before Pontius Pilate. He is accused of being a king. In His own defense, Jesus says, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” (Jn 18:37)
After hearing Jesus’ testimony, Pilate is satisfied. He orders that the inscription JESUS OF NAZARETH KING OF THE JEWS be placed on top of the Cross. (cf. Jn 19:39) What we have is a King Who suffers and dies for the truth. More to the point, what we have is the embodiment of Truth suffering and dying. To the question then what good is truth if it results in suffering and death, we have this wonderful reply from Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993):
[Christ’s] crucified flesh fully reveals the unbreakable bond between
freedom and truth, just as his Resurrection from the dead is the
supreme exaltation of the fruitfulness and saving power of a freedom
lived out in truth. (87)
All this would seem to be leading us away from the Baby and Bethlehem. Not really, I submit.
Among the first things babies are taught is how to speak. At the beginning, the words are badly formed, mispronounced and unintelligible even. After a while, after some practice, the words come more easily. Our speech improves and some of us become glib and clever wordsmiths. In time, some of us become accomplished at a kind of verbal gymnastics. As with our bodies which we can bend and shape in different ways, we do the same with our words. We stretch them, we pull them and we manipulate them in such a way that their common meanings are no longer recognizable.
Jesus was born and came into the world to teach us how to speak. He doesn’t teach us how to talk our way out of trouble; He doesn’t teach us how to “spin” things; He doesn’t teach us how to dodge and equivocate.
Jesus teaches us that when we speak, we should let our Yes mean Yes and our No mean No. (cf. Matt 5:37) This does not rule out speaking prudently or speaking tactfully or speaking diplomatically. It does mean, however, that we call things by their right names.
The power to name was given to Adam before the Fall. (cf. Gn 2:19) After the Fall, Jesus, the New Adam, restores our capacity to name things properly. Those who revel in the Messiah’s birth cannot fall a second time, deluded into accepting the myth that all language does is veil things and never reveals things as they are.
Usually, adults teach babies how to talk. On Christmas, we permit a Baby to teach adults how to talk. He is the Babe of Bethlehem and upon his shoulder dominion rests. (cf. Is 9:5)
There is a weighty responsibility which comes when we open our mouths and speak. We decide if our words are going to reflect the dominion of truth or not. We decide if our words are going to validate the euphemisms in vogue for denying what the natural law and revelation tell us are good for the just ordering of society.
Christmas can never be separated from a Virgin who assented to God’s plan and brought forth for us the Christ Whose birth, life, death and Resurrection open up for us the prospect of eternal life. Christmas holds words and their meanings together so that we might not rip apart language from reality.
After proclaiming that He is the Bread come down from heaven and seeing some of the disciples return to their former way of life and no longer accompany Him, Jesus asks the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” (Jn 6:66-67) Out of his mouth, come these words of Saint Peter, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn 6:68)
Jesus possesses the words of eternal life because He is the Word, the Word made flesh. (cf. Jn 1:14) The Holy Eucharist is for each one of us where darkness is changed into light, where falsehood gives way to truth and where our words go silent before the only Word that matters: The Word through Whom the universe was made, the Savior sent to redeem us.
On this solemn occasion of the Lord’s Nativity, we re-dedicate ourselves to the Holy Eucharist from which the refulgence of God’s glory (cf. Heb 1:3) emanates brilliantly. May we who listen so attentively today to the Lord’s word be ever more mindful of that word’s transformative power, especially its power to make us children of God (cf. Jn 1:12) unto eternity.
Praised be Jesus Christ Whose birth we herald today!
Merry Christmas!
Msgr Robert Batule
