Amazing Catechists

Teaching and learning the faith together

The Crucible of Choosing

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[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

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               “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

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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

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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

Starting Small in Bethlehem

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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

Humbled, Not Humiliated

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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

Come Away and Rest

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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

Walking in Truth and Love

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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

A School For Freedom

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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