At some point or other, we have heard the proverb: Never send a boy to do a man’s job. Unlike some proverbs, this one does not date back hundreds of years. In fact, its first known usage in print is traceable to only the last century.

The meaning of this proverb is plain enough. When a task is difficult, we don’t assign an amateur, someone who lacks strength, experience or qualifications to complete the work.

Although a proverb is a wise saying, it is not the last word on wisdom. The last word on wisdom belongs to God Whose Incarnate Son came among us as a baby.

We are all babies at the beginning. There are no exceptions to this rule. And thus the Incarnation tells us something about God’s life in space and time, and also something about our own prospects outside this world. The Incarnation is quite obviously a start to something; it also foreshadows an end, too. We would deceive ourselves if we set limits prematurely for the Incarnation. What the Incarnation does, of course, is open for us the whole drama of our salvation in Christ.

Writing to the Christians of Galatia, Saint Paul uses these words for the Incarnation: “[W]hen the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman.” (Gal 4:4) Saint Luke, the evangelist, provides the details of the birth. In his gospel, Luke tells us the birth took place during the reign of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. (cf. Lk 2:1-2)

While Mary and Joseph are in Bethlehem to be enrolled for the census, Saint Luke continues, Mary “gave birth to her first-born son.” (Lk 2:7)

The virginal conception of Jesus does not mean that He could bypass a normal development and just leap forward to His public ministry. No, Jesus would advance in wisdom, age and grace before God and man. (cf. Lk 2:52) There are no shortcuts when it comes to our redemption.

The boyhood of Jesus, to which the scriptures attest during the Christmas season, sends us signals which we cannot misinterpret. The swaddling clothes which are wrapped around the body of the Infant Jesus (cf. Lk 2:7) are strips which are carried for burial in the event death occurs en route to a destination. Nor can we mistake the myrrh brought by the Magi. (cf. Matt 2:11) It prefigures the anointing of Jesus’ body after it is taken down from the Cross.

It is at the Cross that doubt about Jesus’ identity comes to a halt. A centurion confesses there, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” (Mk 15:39) How fascinating a confession for the centurion to make! For Jesus, on the Cross, has no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. (cf. Is 53:2) Yet, it is the hour of His glory.

In the manger, the glory of the Lord is easier to imagine – except we don’t have to imagine it. Saint Luke records how shepherds in the fields are watching over their flock (cf. Lk 2:8) and the glory of the Lord shines around them. (cf. Lk 2:9) This is indeed a glory we can all accept. The glory of divine life is new and fresh and makes us young again.

In the Lord’s Nativity, heaven comes to earth as the angel proclaims the gospel of great joy. (cf. Lk 2:10) But short-lived this joy would be. In Salvifici Doloris, Pope John Paul II’s 1984 apostolic letter, the Holy Father refers to Jesus as the Man of Sorrows (17). Our Lord is called this because He takes upon Himself the sins of us all. (cf. Is 53:5)

When we sin, we willfully go our own way. To paraphrase the prophet Isaiah, we are like sheep who go astray, each following his own way. (cf. Is 53:6)

How providential it is then that shepherds are there when the Christ Child is born in Bethlehem. They are minding their sheep, careful that none is lost. They are the first witnesses to the one truly Good Shepherd.

Our joy tonight is in the birth of the One Who binds up our wounds, the wounds of our sins, of course. The Lord does this, we know, by laying down His life for us. (cf. Jn 10:15) The meaning of Christmas is found in laying down our lives too – generously and sacrificially.

Christmas is an invitation to all of us to lay claim once again to the redemption brought by the Christ Child. The renewal we so urgently long for begins at the manger in Bethlehem. Let us go there now if only spiritually.

The fields of Bethlehem give way, in time, to the fields of the entire world. The Lord Who never left Palestine in His earthly ministry covers the whole world as the Shepherd of our souls. He guards us from all danger, especially the danger of sin. Him we adore resting His head on the wood of the manger or writhing in pain on the wood of the Cross.

Come, let us worship!

Merry Christmas!

Msgr Robert Batule

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(1 Cor. 15:1-11; Lk 7:36-50)

Baseball is regarded as our national pastime. An indication of its status in our culture is found in the fact that the sport is played on many different levels – from t ball to major league ball. At the little league level of the game, there is something known as the mercy rule. The mercy rule says that when a team goes up by 10 runs, the game is brought to a halt.

Baseball became our national pastime because youngsters who played the game at the age of 12 grew up, had kids of their own and these kids in turn played too. When games are fun and competitive, a kind of love affair with baseball develops generationally. There is delight in the sound of the bat meeting the ball; in the sight of a perfectly manicured diamond; in the symmetry of 3 strikes and 3 outs. But the delight evaporates and can turn to dread when your team is defeated again and again, beaten back relentlessly and humiliated to no end. Memories of humiliation are hard to shake.

The other day, on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, Msgr. Henning pointed out for us the difference between humility and humiliation. He explained that humiliation is a denial of honor and dignity. Things were done to Our Lord, he said, including the most glorious thing of all: He was raised. (cf. 1 Cor. 15:4)

We must indeed surrender; we must truly submit. Otherwise, we cannot share in the Lord’s glory. We would be too “puffed up” were we not to yield before the Lord’s grace.

In truth, there is about humility a real strength, a genuine respect. Paradoxically, this strength and respect are experienced inwardly by the one who loses, who is overcome. They are also experienced by the one who prevails, the one who knows victory.

In today’s gospel, the evangelist records how a sinful woman bathed the feet of Jesus with her tears. (cf. Lk 7:38) She then dries Jesus’ feet with her hair and proceeds to kiss them and anoint them. (cf. Lk 7:38) This action is found by Jesus’ host, a certain Pharisee, to be offensive. (cf. Lk 7:39) To this, Jesus proposes a parable. The parable concerns two people in debt to a creditor. (cf. Lk 7:41) The creditor magnanimously cancels what is owed to him from both. (cf. Lk 7:42) The question arises: Who will love the creditor more? (cf. Lk 7:42) The answer of course is: The one whose debt is larger. (cf. Lk 7:43)

Jesus follows the parable with an explanation and an announcement which is even more shocking. “[H]er many sins [are] forgiven,’ he says. (Lk 7:47) This is on account of her great love. (cf. Lk 7:47)

Repeatedly in his ministry, Jesus forgives sinners. After reading and hearing of this so frequently, we might be inured to the source and origin of the pardon. The scandal might long ago have dissipated for us.

When we forgive in imitation of Christ, it obviously binds us more closely to the One Who has first loved us and there is credit in that for us. Leaving that aside for the moment, though, what great mystery do we share in?

Thirty years ago, at the beginning of his pontificate, John Paul II published Dives in Misericordia (1980). Commenting on the parable of the prodigal son (cf. Lk 15:11-32), the Holy Father argues that the richness of God’s mercy is evident precisely in what it accomplishes. It restores the dignity which we lose by our sin, which we willfully reject and throw away by our pride and self-assertion.

The paschal victory of Christ has been achieved by grace. But it is not a cheap grace – to borrow a phrase from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It is a costly grace. And as Msgr. Henning reminded us on Tuesday, the Lord’s triumph is a bloody one.

Some of our losses are mere dings. Others, though, leave scars which are painful even to see, dredging up memories of being humiliated.

Humiliation brings us so low that we are almost not able to detect a humanity: ours and perhaps our opponent’s. It is definitely not kenotic as wherein Jesus voluntarily surrenders his glory all the while he retains his nature as God.

Mercy is not a name for a word or act which seeks permanently to hold it over the one who is brought low. Mercy is relief. It makes us free again. It reverses the alienation we have set in motion by our sin.

This past Sunday, we listened to a selection from Saint Paul’s First Letter to Saint Timothy. In it, the Apostle to the Gentiles refers to his former life as a blasphemer, a persecutor and arrogant. (cf. 1 Tim 1:13) Twice in this passage, Paul states that he was mercifully treated. (cf. 1 Tim 13,16)

We too are mercifully treated. The Holy Eucharist does not let us forget this grace at work in our lives. Here, the humility of Our Savior, which brought Him low, raises us above humiliation. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commends the disciples to be merciful that mercy might be shown to them. (cf. Matt 5:7) It is the Lord’s judgment to which we are all subject. The measure with which we measure will be measured out to us. (cf. Matt 7:2)

(This homily is reprinted by permission)

Msgr Robert Batule

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Tuesday of the Fifth Week

Gn 1:20-2:4; Mk 7:1-13

February 8, 2011

The creation account from Genesis we have heard today reminds us of the order that belongs to the Lord’s design. The sacred author describes first the water teeming with fish and the air filled with all kinds of winged birds. (cf. Gn 1:21) Next, he indicates that wild animals inhabit the land portion of the earth. (cf. Gn 1:24) Then, finally, the Lord creates in a very different way. Man is made in God’s image. (cf. Gn 1:27)

As we are made in God’s image and thus constitute the pinnacle of creation, the sacred author is ready to bring his story to a close. He is not finished of course until he relates that God rests on the seventh day. (cf. Gn 2:2) The rest is taken for all the work the Lord does. (cf. Gn 2:3)

We recognize right away the anthropomorphism in the biblical text. God is thought to rest because we need rest from our labors. In something of a reversal then, what is good for us is by application good for God.

God is not following our lead, though; we are following His. After sending the Twelve out two by two to heal the sick, Jesus welcomes the apostles back with these words: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” (Mk 6:31) The Lord anticipates our need for rest before we can even articulate it.

Hearing the story of creation in Genesis today is a reminder that we are at work creating something ourselves. Conscious of our role or not, we are up to our eyeballs building and forming a culture. Through the songs we write, the movies we make, the plays we produce and so much more, we are giving expression to what we value and disvalue.

Despite attempts to deny it, the cultures we create can be judged and evaluated. Pope John Paul II makes this clear in Evangelium Vitae (1995) when he decries the culture of death and calls upon us to re-build the culture of life. (95)

Even when it is not a question of life and death, we must still submit culture to an appraisal. In 1987, while visiting the United States for the second time, the same Holy Father posed these questions in an address: “[H]ow is the American culture evolving today? Is this evolution being influenced by the Gospel? Does it clearly reflect Christian inspiration? Your music, your poetry and art, your drama, your painting and sculpture, the literature that you are producing – are all those things which reflect the soul of a nation being influenced by the spirit of Christ for the perfection of humanity?” (Address to Bishops, September 16)

Nearly sixty years ago, Josef Pieper published his volume entitled Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1952). In the Preface of his work, Pieper writes these words: “Culture depends for its very existence on leisure, and leisure, in its turn, is not possible unless it has a durable and consequently living link with a church community and with divine worship.”

The liturgy with its vestments, candles, incense and bells does not, as some people think, cut us off from our culture. In its other-worldly intimations, we find in the liturgy a time to rest and contemplate what we make – whether we are making with our hands or minds or both. In the liturgy, the true meaning and purpose of work is unveiled before us: it is a different form or manner of expression for our adoration.

We don’t just adore on our knees – although that’s not a bad first posture when it comes to the Lord of heaven and earth. We adore sitting and standing too – whenever and wherever these are the postures of men and women who labor not just for themselves but for the Lord. Work is a real part of what Saint Irenaeus (d. 202) calls being fully alive. We don’t just cheat ourselves when we slack off; we refuse God His glory also.

The liturgy checks our tendency to work only within what Saint Paul calls the horizon limited to this world. (cf. 1 Cor. 15: 19) The Risen Lord transcends this world and so does our work. Our work provides us with a living of course, but we live off the Lord’s word too. (cf. Matt 4:4)

The well-being of man cannot be considered satisfactorily unless and until we account for the deep hunger there is in us to hear the Lord’s word. This is the special province of every priest – to preach the Lord’s word. It is a work also, and it cannot be undertaken without diligence and effort.

In my view, a rather remarkable shift has occurred culturally. Historically, culture was something we preserved and held on to as a way of instructing ourselves over and over concerning our origins. Today, culture is just as often seen as something we consume. The Church’s liturgy is a counterweight against the consumerist mentality so widespread now. It reflects back to us the original meaning of creation which has been covered over by layers of production and efficiency in an economic system.

Many of the parables Jesus tells happen to refer to workers – workers in the vineyard, workers in the field, wherever the master assigns them. Their work eventually comes to an end, though. The Church’s liturgy reminds us that our dignity as workers is only surpassed by our dignity as sons and daughters of God. The older son in the Prodigal Son story, even in his resentment against his brother, cannot be faulted for working at his father’s side “all these years.” (Lk 15:29) The father, who forgives his younger son and his older son, is our model for reconciling shiftlessness with earnestness through love.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Msgr Robert Batule

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Friday of the Thirty-second Week

2 Jn:4-9; Lk 17:26-37

Church music surely has its period pieces. I nominate the following song as a period piece for the 1970s in Latin Rite parishes: “And They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” I recall hearing it four decades ago, but I don’t recall hearing it much after that. In keeping with the spirit of the 1970s, the song was evocative but not very deep. The song’s last verse, though, is significant. It repeats the counsel Jesus gives to the apostles at the Last Supper: “This I command you: love one another.” (Jn 15:17)

For two days, today and tomorrow, we listen to readings from very short New Testament books – Second John and Third John. Because these two Letters belong to the Johannine tradition, we recognize in them an affinity with the Fourth Gospel.

In today’s first reading, the sacred author is clear that he is not conveying a new commandment. It is one from the beginning (cf. 2 Jn:5), he says. We are urged then to walk in the commandment of love. (cf. 2 Jn:6) Abide in love, yes; but we’re also bid to take steps in it, to advance in it.

But we must be careful. Taking steps and advancing is not the same as being “progressive.” When we take steps outside of what Christ teaches, we no longer have God according to the sacred author. (cf. 2 Jn:9)

Walking is far from inconsequential in today’s text. At the beginning of the passage, Saint John commends those who are walking in the truth. (cf. 2 Jn:4) This walking – in truth, that is – has an authority too. It has been commanded by Our Father in heaven. (cf. 2 Jn:4)

As we come to the end of the liturgical year, it is right to take stock, to consider how well we have loved and how truthful we have been. But we cannot engage in this examination as if truth and love are independent of each other. The fact is they are integrally related. We cannot abide in one and not the other, we cannot walk in one and not the other.

In Saint John’s Gospel, the evangelist depicts how Jesus washes the feet of the apostles. (cf. Jn 13:1-20) After the washing, Jesus says to the apostles, “You call me teacher . . . and rightly so, for indeed I am.” (Jn 13:13) For Jesus, there is no disjunction between what He says as teacher and how He acts as servant. The two are not opposed to each other.

We have come to call Jesus’ washing the feet of the apostles the mandatum. Loving service is mandatory for the Lord’s disciples. Yet the same holds for our service to the truth. It is incumbent upon us to search for the truth, and having found it to teach it to others.

De-coupling love and truth, pulling them apart, is a hazard not always avoided. It shows up, for instance, in the media. On one page of the newspaper, you have an editorial praising the Church’s care of AIDS patients; on the op-ed page, you have a piece attacking the Church for her teaching that “safe sex” is morally impermissible.

That’s the media, though. What about ourselves? Are there fault lines in us over love and truth?

Well, obviously there are lines. We see and recognize them in the distinctions we draw. But are we at fault for the breaches which occur, when the seamlessness between love and truth disappears?

I would like to return to the upper room and the mandatum if I may. As Jesus explains what He is about to do, Peter’s impetuousness is evident. He objects, “You will never wash my feet.” (Jn 13:8) Jesus answers him: “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” (Jn 13:8)

Peter has been walking with the Lord literally and figuratively over the course of the public ministry. And still he needs help to understand Jesus’ design. Help comes to Peter in the form of love. Peter is loved to the end as are all of us. (cf. Jn 13:1)

The Lord entrusts to Peter the ministry by which he presides in love. And there is no other way to understand presiding in love without simultaneously including in it the work of teaching. The feeding that Peter is charged with after the Lord’s Resurrection pertains not just to giving the flock the Eucharist. (cf. Jn 21:15-19) Christ’s pure bread extends to doctrine as well.

The saint whom we honor in the liturgy today – Saint Josaphat – bears eloquent witness to the complementarity of love and truth. In his ministry as a bishop, he gave himself completely to the point of shedding his blood. It was his love for the truth, in particular, the primacy of the Petrine ministry, which brought him suffering in this world but happiness in the next.

As we wind down the liturgical year and ready ourselves for a new year of grace, we recall that in the Farewell Discourse Jesus petitions that the love He has for the Father be in the apostles (cf. Jn 17:26) and that the apostles be consecrated in the truth. (cf. Jn 17:19) This prayer issues forth from the lips of Jesus as He sends the apostles into the world. (cf. Jn 17:18) Love and truth are borne by the same messengers.

A commitment to orthodoxy and to orthopraxis* finds expression in doxology. For it is through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor are yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever. Amen.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

[* Orthopraxis emphasizes conduct, and refers to the correctness of religious practice, including: traditions, offerings, cultural integrity, issues of purity, and more, whereas Orthodoxy refers to correctness of belief.]

Msgr Robert Batule

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Tuesday of the Twenty-Eighth Week

Gal 5: 1-6; Lk 11:37-41

Born in a small town in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania in 1904, Walter Ciszek knew by the 8th grade that he wanted to be a priest and later joined the Jesuits. Following his ordination in 1937 in Rome, Fr. Ciszek first went to Poland and from there sought a way into Russia so that he could minister there. After slipping into Russia, he was arrested, accused of being a spy and spent the next 23 years in prison camps in Siberia.

He tells his story in a volume entitled With God in Russia, first published in 1964. Nearly ten years later, he published a second book with the title He Leadeth Me (1973). In that second work, Fr. Ciszek revisits his harrowing ordeal and puts together an account of how he survived the grueling isolation and confinement. He has this to say about freedom:

It is in choosing to serve God, to do his will, that man achieves his

highest and fullest freedom. It may seem paradoxical to say our

highest and fullest freedom comes when we follow to the least

detail the will of another, but it is true nonetheless when that other

is God.

For more than a week now at daily mass, we have been listening to passages from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. The apostle has been treating issues like the origin of the Gospel, his travels as an evangelist, his relationship with Peter, the role of the Holy Spirit and the place of the law in relation to faith. And we can’t help but notice that yesterday’s first reading ends with the same verse that begins today’s first reading. “For freedom Christ has set us free.” (Gal 5:1)

Tomorrow, the apostle will take up what happens when we misuse our freedom. Today, however, Paul emphasizes the source of our freedom. It is Christ, he says, who is the source of it; we have not given freedom to ourselves. We would only be deceiving ourselves if we thought that we train the light of freedom on ourselves. We surely don’t; we do, however, enter into darkness on our own as when we separate ourselves from Christ. (cf. Gal 5:4) But liberation comes through the work of Another.

Christ is not just the cause of our freedom. He also is the state of freedom. What, though, does this freedom look like? Is there a way we can distinguish it from counterfeit claims?

Before her death from an illegal drug overdose in 1970, Janis Joplin sang a song called “Me and Bobby McGee.” A lyric in that song goes as follows: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” It was misconstrued by many who heard it, though. Some thought they heard: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing else to do.”

It is not my aim here to rehabilitate the reputation of Janis Joplin. But she may have gotten something right in her lyrics. She is wrong in suggesting that freedom is a default position. That is, it’s what you have when everything else is exhausted and used up. But she is right in suggesting that freedom entails loss.

In His public ministry, Jesus stipulates, “[W]hoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Lk 9:24) Renunciation is an integral part of our discipleship. We can’t follow the Lord if we aren’t ready to give up things we cherish.

We would not be reading the Martha and Mary story in an entirely correct way if we see it merely as a matter of Mary having more of something. She must give up helping her sister to have the better part of conversing with the Lord. (cf. Lk 10:38-42)

That we give up things which are bad for us is one thing. However, we remain unfree until we give up some things which are good for us. This could mean having to sacrifice doing things in the company of others, things that are enjoyable in order to concentrate on the one thing that really matters.

During the course of our lives, we make countless decisions – all of them constituting our freedom. In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993), Pope John Paul II warns against “[preferring] to choose finite, limited and ephemeral goods.” (86) He says further: “Contemplation of Jesus Crucified is . . . the high road which the Church must [take] every day if she wishes to understand the full meaning of freedom: the gift of self in service to God and [others].” (87)

Deprivation has a way of training us to choose goods which are absolute and transcendent. And thus it passes without elaboration now that self-denial is a constitutive element in the formation of future priests. We cannot dispense ourselves from what Jesus Himself says is essential for following Him. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mk 8:34)

It is not that Fr. Ciszek grew to like his captivity; no, in every moment of the detention against his will, he yearned to be set free. The experience of physical confinement did convince him, though, that God’s will can be sought in every circumstance no matter how foreboding.

Before us now and always is the example of Jesus Who states at the outset of His public ministry: “I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (Jn 5:30) Late in His ministry, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is undeterred: “[N]ot my will but yours be done.” (Lk 22:42)

In the Holy Eucharist we celebrate together, we find a school for freedom. It cannot be any other way. The Lord sets us free here. No other freedom compares with the freedom from sin and death He gives us by hanging on the tree of life. This is our high road. Let us not cease taking it.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Msgr Robert Batule

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Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

April 5, 2011

Num 21:4-9; Jn 8:21-30

The liturgies for the Fifth Week of Lent offer us some rich biblical stories. Yesterday, it was the story of Susanna who is falsely accused and is saved by Daniel. Tomorrow, it will be the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three servants who refuse to violate their consciences in service to King Nebuchadnezzar.

With readings like these, we see how the liturgy is preparing us for the drama of Holy Week. Jesus’ passion and death are made poignant, in part, because He is falsely accused and He will not subject His kingship to Pilate’s temporal authority.

Today’s first reading may not be as riveting as Susanna’s story or as gripping as the story of the three principled servants of God. However, the passage from the Book of Numbers today is getting us ready to wrestle with one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith.

The text recalls for us the trials and tribulations of the Israelites in the desert. The sacred author describes a situation in which the Chosen People are now questioning those who delivered them from slavery in Egypt: God and Moses. The dissatisfaction is pointed and direct: “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” (Num 21:5)

After being bitten by seraph serpents, the Israelites realize their sin in complaining against the Lord and Moses. (cf. Num 21:7) As He did in the Exodus, the Lord once more takes action on behalf of His people. This time, He instructs Moses to mount a seraph on a pole so that those who are bitten may look at it and be healed. (cf. Num 21:8) The Lord’s fix works. Death is no more.

It’s clear that we should see in this passage a foreshadowing of the Cross. For our reflection today, I would like to try an approach suggested by the gospel of this past Sunday. When the woman caught in adultery comes face to face with Jesus, she receives from the Lord what was denied her by the crowd: a justice and a mercy. Christ does not apply the Mosaic law which calls for her death by stoning. Instead, He says to the woman, “Go and from now on do not sin anymore.” (Jn 8:11)

Jesus does not gloss over or soft-pedal the woman’s sin. He expressly warns her to refrain from this kind of conduct in the future. In his encyclical Dives in Misericordia (1980), Pope John Paul II puts it this way: Christ suffers on the Cross because of the sins of humanity. This constitutes a superabundance of justice, the pontiff asserts. (7) Jesus also refuses to condemn the adulterous woman. He extends to her a mercy which completes justice. The Pope in his encyclical characterizes the Cross as the radical revelation of mercy. (8)

The value of the Cross impacts all of history; we should be very clear about that. It is but a single day in Jesus’ earthly ministry, however. As we see in Christ’s encounter with the adulterous woman, the meanings of the Cross – justice and mercy – are at work all the time. So, too, is forgiveness at work all the time. Whether it’s in the parables He tells or in the miracles He works, forgiveness is all over Jesus’ ministry. We can’t disassociate Jesus from forgiveness. And neither can we disassociate the Cross from forgiveness.

To say “I accept the Cross” means that I accept the two sidedness of forgiveness – its justice and its mercy. The first is usually not in question. I say to myself and to others who would care to listen: I’m sure that I have been offended, that I have been wronged, and that my rights have been violated. My adversary needs to make this up to me, too. And I will not rest until he does. The second doesn’t come as easily. Again, I say to myself and those who would care to listen: Why should I have to exhibit a clemency and leniency? Can’t he see the trouble this has caused me? Give me justice, I say. But heaven forbid I should exercise mercy!

Twice this Lent, the liturgy has been the occasion for hearing the story of the prodigal son in Saint Luke’s Gospel. As you know, it is often referred to as the parable of the merciful father. While the son is still at a distance, the father runs to him, embraces him and kisses him. (cf. Lk 15:20) And not only does the father do this for the younger son, he also does it for the older son. When the older son refuses to enter the father’s house during the welcome home party, the father comes out and pleads with him. (cf. Lk 15:28) Mercy is dispensed liberally and to all who need it.

Divine mercy is showered upon us in the Sacrament of Penance. As we have been treated this way by Christ, so must we endeavor to bear this virtue in our interactions with others. The Son Who is lifted high upon the Cross lifts our burden of sin. Can we not mercifully untie someone else’s yoke in gratitude for the gift we have received?

In both the Benedictus and the Magnificat, we invoke the Lord’s promise of mercy to our fathers today. At this Eucharist now, may the prayer on our lips be that the Lord’s grace come mercifully to us all.

Msgr Robert Batule

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Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

March 24, 2011

Jer 7: 23-28; Lk 11:14-23

Among the contingent principles for a just war, we find this one: the probability of success. To wage war justly, it is necessary among other conditions that there be a chance to prevail over the enemy. Lacking this condition, it would not just be foolish but it would be morally dubious to engage an aggressor on the field of battle.

Having a chance at success is not only applicable to armed conflict, it’s something that a lot of us employ in life generally. How often we are counseled to devise “win-win” situations – whether it’s in business deals or in social networking. Coming out on top is deeply ingrained in our psyches and it’s hard to disown this mentality.

Personal success is not what you are thinking if you are the prophet Jeremiah. In today’s first reading, the Lord’s prophet presents the covenant God has entered into with His people: “I will be your God and you shall be my people.” (Jer 7:23) Israel will have no truck with this, however.

God instructs Jeremiah further: “[T]hey obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.” (Jer 7:24) The Lord goes on: “They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.”( Jer 7:24)

Against an unrelenting history of stubbornness and intransigence, the Lord does not sweeten His advice to Jeremiah. “When you speak [your] words to them, they will not listen to you either.” (Jer 7:27)

This might sound to some like Jeremiah is being set up for failure. “This [after all] is the nation that does not listen . . . [it does not] take correction.” (Jer 7:28) How, then, could Jeremiah ever think that he might succeed where all of his predecessors fared so badly?

Jeremiah prophesies for the Lord: “Faithfulness has disappeared; the word itself is banished from their speech.” (Jer 7:28) This is true of Israel but it’s surely not true of the prophet sent to the Israelites.

Jeremiah is not the only one in service to the Lord who disavows success. So did Mother Teresa, the Albanian- born nun who won a Nobel Prize for her work with the poorest of the poor. As accomplished as she was, she is known for this remark: “I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.”

It would be a mistake to minimize how much influence a results-oriented approach has on our pastoral planning and evaluation. We have to make decisions all the time on what projects to begin, continue and end. We cannot make these decisions cut off from such practical concerns as what works and what doesn’t, how many showed up and how many stayed away. Not to take these considerations into account is unwise in the extreme and suggests an unflattering naivete about the apostolate and ministry.

A preoccupation with success as it is defined by the marketplace or popular approval makes us little better than spiritual hucksters, intent on purveying a gospel of prosperity – if not financial than social anyway. We’re always getting better on our own, we think. There isn’t any need for reform. This is the kind of mentality which turns every Lent into a kind of athletic endurance contest, completely devoid of facing up to our own sinfulness.

The faithfulness urged in today’s first reading brings us face to face with the Crucified Christ. From one vantage point, the Jesus Whom we follow to Golgotha is a failed messiah. His ministry is not a success as some might judge it – otherwise why is He handed over, mocked, beaten and, finally, nailed to a cross which He Himself dragged and under which He fell three times?

In Saint John’s Gospel, the evangelist records these words of Jesus: “I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (Jn 5:30) This is early in Our Lord’s public ministry. The end is not any different, though. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the prayer on Jesus’ lips then is “not my will but yours be done.” (Lk 22:42)

Jesus is the example par excellence of fidelity. We cannot banish faithfulness from our vocabulary unless we banish Him.

The crucible of our fidelity is suffering. And that’s because we just might have to give up cherished ideas, promising futures and other notable signs of success to be faithful. If we don’t ponder this during Lent, when do we take it up in any serious way?

Just this past Sunday, Jesus in the gospel tells a parable about the owner of an orchard. The owner is frustrated that after three years he has not seen any fruit on his fig tree. The gardener counsels: “[L]eave the tree [up] for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it.” (Lk 13:8) The word of God, Isaiah told us more than two weeks ago at Mass, goes forth from God’s mouth. “It shall not return to [the Lord] void, but shall do [God’s] will, achieving the end for which [it] was sent.” (Is 55:11) Over the remainder of Lent, let us endeavor to cultivate that word in the soil of our hearts, fertilizing it with a generous portion of prayer and recollection. This is something worthy of our best effort under God’s inspiration. Then we will have achieved something – then we will have been successful. Then we will be ready for “the nation that does not listen.” (Jer 7: 28)

Msgr Robert Batule

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Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Dt 30:15-20; Lk 9:22-25

March 10, 2011

He who controls the terms of the debate usually wins the debate. By using certain phrases and words, we are able to influence how people around us think about issues and ultimately decide their positions.

A good illustration of this phenomenon is abortion. By framing the matter exclusively as choice, many people then focus on having it or being deprived of it. I think we can all agree that having choice wins all the time.

For a long time, Bernard Nathanson was a servant of choice. His death last month reminds us that the object of our choosing matters too. Fifteen years before he died, the medical doctor made the following admission in print: “Having looked at ultrasound, I could no longer go on as before. . . . It dawned on me, finally, that the pre-natal nine months are . . . another band in the spectrum of life. . . . To disrupt or abort a life at this point is intolerable.” ( The Hand of God, pp. 128,130)

After choosing death for such a long time and personally performing 5000 abortions and presiding over some 60,000 of them, Dr. Nathanson underwent a profound conversion and began choosing life. And for the last thirty years of his life, he dedicated himself to exposing the lies of the pro choice movement he once championed.

In today’s first reading, Moses speaks on behalf of the Lord to the people he has been called to lead. Moses in his speech adverts to a momentous choice in front of God’s people. It is a choice between life and prosperity on the one hand and death and doom on the other. (cf. Dt 30:15) This choice, we learn in the passage from the Book of Deuteronomy, is related to obedience and disobedience. When there is obedience to the Lord’s commandments, it yields life. When there is disobedience, it yields death. (cf. Dt 30:16-17)

After laying out the covenant in just these terms, Moses then exhorts the people to choose life. (Dt 30:19) Their choice, by the way, redounds not just to their own safety, but it will also benefit those who come after them, their descendants. (Dt 30: 19) Moreover, a choice in favor of life brings length of life. It is a long life dwelling on the Lord’s land (cf. Dt 30:20) which follows in the aftermath of choosing correctly.

The choice of Lent is vividly depicted for us in the temptations put to Jesus by Satan. In Saint Matthew’s account of these temptations which we will hear this coming Sunday, Jesus chooses three times in favor of life – the life He has in communion with the Father and the Spirit. Three times, Jesus rejects the deadly compromises dangled in front of Him by the father of lies. (cf. Matt 4:1-11)

To make life-affirming choices is what we aim and strive to do. Our choices, then, may take the form of positive action. An example of this kind of choosing is the corporal works of mercy, practices with their origin in the eschatological judgment of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. “For I was hungry, you gave me food, I was thirsty you gave me drink. . . .” (Matt 25:35) Giving food and drink, indubitably a way of giving alms, enhances life by providing what is necessary for its maintenance and flourishing.

But not every good choice we make augments or increases life. Some of our choices actually have the effect of diminishing us or reducing us. Today’s gospel gives indication of that second type of choice, the one that reduces us and brings us low – what we might call a via negativa.

Saint Luke recalls Jesus in His public ministry instructing the disciples to deny themselves and take up their crosses. (cf. Lk 9:23) Those who want to save their lives are going to have to lose them. (Lk 9:24) But if their losing is for the Lord’s sake, it is really a gain then. (cf. Lk 9:24) And losing for the Lord is worth more than gaining the whole world. (Lk 9:25)

Self-denial is not the counsel we are likely to accept when a contract needs to be re-negotiated. Losing some or all of what we have is not the advice we are likely to take when a settlement in or out of court needs to be enacted. Choosing self-denial and choosing to lose in these instances would be manifest signs of weakness, raising the white flag of surrender before our opponents.

Self-denial and losing are, however, conditions for true discipleship. They are what Jesus Himself prescribes. And His word on this can be trusted because of His own perfect obedience. Even though we will not hear the text proclaimed aloud at the liturgy until Palm Sunday, we still pray, live and work the spirituality of the kenosis all during the Lenten season. Jesus’ self-emptying unto death (cf. Phil 2:7-8) is incontrovertibly a choice. It is not as if Jesus somehow places Himself on auto pilot during His public ministry, thereby suspending His freedom to choose. No, it is a conscious “Yes” on our behalf that He makes, allowing us to know the power and the glory of the Redemption. We indeed have been bought at a price (cf. 1 Cor. 6:20) and this purchase is possible because Jesus chooses it.

The great challenge every Lent is to see in Christ’s “Yes” to death a warrant to say “Yes” to death ourselves. There is a challenge also in accepting that greatest of Christian paradoxes, namely, that an abundance of life awaits those who submit to death. And thus our hearts are gladdened by that assurance of new life in today’s gospel when Jesus refers to being raised on the third day. (cf. Lk 9: 22) But before the glory of the Resurrection there is the long shadow cast by the Cross in our lives. May these forty days we embarked upon yesterday help us to choose death on the model of Christ’s death. And may we rise like Him in glory too.

Praised be the Crucified Christ!

Msgr Robert Batule

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Easter is first and foremost an event centered on Jesus of Nazareth. He is raised in glory from the dead, we believe. Death has no power over Him. But what about the apostles? How did the Resurrection affect them? Let’s consider two of them – Peter and John.

At the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus calls to Himself the Twelve. The Gospels indicate clearly enough that these men are called by name. Interestingly, though, just one has his name changed – Simon whom the Lord names Peter. (cf. Mk 3:16) With his name change, Peter takes on a mission that is unique. He is the rock upon whom Christ will build His church. (cf. Matt 16:18) This charge to Peter comes after he has correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God. (cf. Matt 16:16) Peter is the only apostle to have identified Jesus this way.

Peter is a wise man despite his impetuosity. He gets to things quicker than the others. He is the one who realizes that the apostles cannot just walk away from Jesus as some do when Jesus proclaims Himself to be the Bread of Life. (cf. Jn 6:66) Jesus has the words of eternal life (cf. Jn 6:68), Peter realizes before the others. There is no one else to whom they can go. (cf. Jn 6:68) But even Peter fails to stay with the Lord. He denies even knowing Jesus (cf. Jn 18:25-27) at one point in the Lord’s Passion. Still, even with his cowardice, Peter’s wisdom is not in question.

Tradition has it that John is the youngest of the apostles. His youthfulness, though, does not work against him when he is invited along with Peter and James to the top of Mount Tabor to witness the Transfiguration. (cf. Mk 9:2) However, the special stature John enjoys among Christians is not traceable to his youth, nor is it owing to the fact that he is just one of three apostles to see the transfigured Lord. The esteem we have for him is tied to his position as the Beloved Disciple (cf. Jn 13:23) To the Beloved Disciple, a dying Jesus commends His mother. (cf. Jn 19:26) Continuing his love for the Lord, John takes Mary into his home. (cf. Jn 19:27)

In the gospel for Easter Sunday, the evangelist reports that Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb first. (cf. Jn 20:1) Astonished at what she sees, she runs off to tell Peter and John. (cf. Jn 20:2) With great haste, Peter and John make their way to the empty tomb. (cf. Jn 20:4) The evangelist indicates here that the younger apostle arrives first. (Jn 20:4) Peter, although he arrives on the scene after John, is the first to enter the tomb and sees the burial cloths there. (cf. Jn 20:6) After Peter sees the burial cloth for the head in a different place than the other cloths (Jn 20:7), John then enters. (cf. Jn 20:8) The evangelist writes next: He saw and believed. (cf. Jn 20:8)

Obviously, Peter and John see the same thing. What they see is not at all in dispute. Yet, all the account indicates is that John believes. Why is that?

Love claims an affinity for believing. It makes the apostle John ready to accept immediately what he sees. He is not duped, nor is he substituting his own version of reality for what has actually happened.

Love is definitely not blind. It sees with an uncanny accuracy. It tells the difference between what is and what is not. This seeing into things, this insight we might say, is how we distinguish between true love and what only seems like love. A false pretender like infatuation never yields insight – until it is too late, of course.

Saint Paul says in his First Letter to the Corinthians that knowledge passes away. (cf. 1 Cor. 13:8) Not so with love. Love remains. (cf. 1 Cor. 13:13) It is the more excellent way (1 Cor. 12:31), Paul insists.

To show our love for others, we have meals together. We celebrate birthdays with lunches or dinners. We do the same for weddings and retirements. Over food and drink, we reminisce and rue; we laugh and we cry. With food and drink, we hold others close if even for a short while as we savor accomplishments or confront the uncertainty of the future. When the eating and drinking are finished, we often go our separate ways. Later on, we may remember the words, but what we miss most of all is the presence.

At the Last Supper, the evangelist, Saint John, describes Jesus as having loved His own in the world to the end. (cf. Jn 13:1) So great is the love that the Lord has for us that He conceives a way to be present to us always. He institutes the Holy Eucharist that not even death can separate us from Him. (cf. Rom 8:38-39)

The Risen Lord Whom we adore and worship on Easter Sunday holds out the prospect of prevailing over death to each one of us. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him on the last day,” Jesus promises (Jn 6:54). Born of love, the Holy Eucharist carries in it a guarantee of death’s defeat.

Those who love under any and all conditions recognize death’s defeat before anyone else. It explains why John sees and believes right away on the first Easter Sunday morning. It also explains why the two disciples on the way to Emmaus don’t recognize the Risen Christ until they break bread with Him. (cf. Lk 24:31)

On this Easter Sunday, the Eucharist is how we are touched by the Lord’s risen life. May we receive this gift with joy, knowing that our love helps to remove the stones of hatred and indifference from our midst.

Happy Easter!

Msgr Robert Batule

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Friday of the Second Week of Easter

May 6, 2011

Acts 5: 34-42; Jn 6: 1-15

A certain exegetical school holds that the miracle in today’s gospel is no miracle at all. Rather than having something miraculous in the text, what we have is an instance of Jesus teaching the disciples to be generous. No multiplication occurs in this incident; what happens instead is that Jesus prevails upon the disciples to share the loaves and fish with one another. Jesus has not done anything extraordinary here; He merely appeals to the better angels of our nature as some would want to put it.

We recognize in this approach to the scriptures a reflex which automatically favors the natural over the supernatural. Natural explanations are the only ones to seek because Christianity essentially does not have a transcendent meaning. Its fulfillment is ultimately in this world, and the only plane which should concern us is the horizontal one.

A naturalistic interpretation of things is not restricted to some contemporary exegetes. Naturalism is suggested too as a possible explanation for the behavior of the apostles in the Acts of the Apostles. In today’s first reading, the sacred author mentions a certain Gamaliel, a respected teacher of the law in the Sanhedrin. (cf. Acts 5:34) Gamaliel gives advice concerning what to do with the apostles. He is cautious and, in the end, counsels dismissal. Let them go, he urges. (cf. Acts 5:38) He argues this way: “[I]f this . . . activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself.” (Acts 5:38) If, on the other hand, God is its source “you may . . . find yourselves fighting against [Him],” Gamaliel maintains. (Acts 5:39)

Today’s two readings suggest for us the attractiveness of naturalism as a way of seeing and ultimately interpreting what happens in the world. Two millennia separate the exegetes and the respected teacher of the law. In each era, though, you find this mentality. If nothing else, naturalism is persistent. It clearly has a long shelf life. It spans the ages, linking the old with the new without ever really becoming new itself.

Fr. Edward O’Connor is the author of a 1992 volume entitled The Catholic Vision. In the Introduction to his work, the Holy Cross priest says that the biggest threat to Catholicism does not come from attacks on the outside or dissent on the inside. Naturalistic humanism he regards as a more harmful threat than the other two – attacks and dissent. According to O’Connor, human life is determined by three factors: nature, grace and sin. Naturalistic humanism, he contends, honors nature but neglects grace and sin.

I’m not going to reflect on sin today. But I will offer a few comments about grace.

During the Easter season, the apostles Peter and John are paired together in the Acts of the Apostles. From Wednesday of the Octave through Monday of this week, their names are spoken – one after the other – in the daily liturgy. How marvelously different they are in conduct after the Lord’s Resurrection! They proclaim boldly, they heal in Christ’s name and they witness courageously in the face of persecution.

Their lives with the Lord do not begin at Easter, though. They are called well before that. Saint Luke tells us that Simon Peter and John were partners in the fishing business (cf. Lk 5:10) when the Lord calls them to apostleship. Early in Jesus’ public ministry, we see the two men are called away from their nets. From now on, the Lord wants them to catch men like themselves. (cf. Lk 5:10)

The work of catching others for the Lord no doubt has a humanistic side to it. Who would want to minimize or under-value the good work for the Kingdom and the Church that can be accomplished in those who are warm and inviting; witty and engaging; affable and bright? These qualities are indispensible for the work of evangelization and we should strive after making them our own if we seem to lack these gifts now.

At the same time, we must resist any attempt to weaken the primacy of grace in promoting the Kingdom and building up the Church. The Kingdom and the Church are gifts which the Lord does not withdraw from us. Because they are gifts of the Lord, He can always use weak vessels and still His will is not going to be thwarted.

Such is the case with Saint Paul, another key figure in the Easter season. He declares himself in the First Letter to the Corinthians to be unfit to be called an apostle for having persecuted the Church of God at one point. (cf. 1 Cor. 15: 9) The Lord, nevertheless, uses him as an instrument of His gracious will with the Gentiles. What Paul attains, he is careful then to attribute to grace. He tells the Corinthian Christians that God’s grace has not been ineffective in him. (cf. 1 Cor. 15:10) Indeed, it has succeeded splendidly!

The Lord desires to use us as He did Saint Paul. With all of our limitations and defects, the Lord works with us that others may know Christ and His surpassing goodness. And He Who brings plenitude out of scarcity in today’s gospel will also bring good things out of us if we admit humbly that our nature needs to be enlightened and transformed by grace.

Christ has redeemed our human nature by His triumph over the grave. Let us not forget that it is the Lord’s victory and we share in it by His design. Here, at this Eucharist, we already taste and see the Lord’s goodness to us. Let us rejoice and be glad – not in nature as much as we do in grace’s renewal of it unto eternity.

Praised be the Risen Christ!

Msgr Robert Batule

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