Author: DVO

Some of us were brought into the Christian community as newborn children through baptism. That childhood faith planted a seed that grows into the mature Christian through the accompaniment and teaching of other mature Christians who came before us. While we do not precisely know who first began to describe the disciples as “Christians,” the fact that they were given a name shows that everyone recognized them as an identifiable group. St Athanasius said: “Although the holy apostles were our teachers and have given us the Gospel of the Savior, it is not from them that we have taken our name. We are Christians through Christ, and it is for him that we are called in this way.” What differentiates Christians from every other tribal definition humans carry is our daily choice to place the will of God and the grace of Jesus before our own selfish and self-centered desires. We can often fall into complacency around the word Christian and neglect its deeper intention to bring about genuine change. To be Christian is more than membership in a church. Our obligation in carrying that title is to connect all aspects of our life to the very essence and purpose of what Jesus taught. Faith is not a thing to be grasped but a life to be lived.

We are in the part of readings from the Acts of the Apostles where we witness a leadership transition from Peter to Paul. This leadership transition mirrors the transition from a Jewish church to a Jewish-Gentile church. Transitions in our lives can be challenging for us, as they were for the two apostles. Our ability to move effectively through these transitions is often a result of our inability to remain open to God’s direction in our lives. One of the transitions we face in our faith lives is moving from our childhood years of being a “babe” in our understanding of what God has given us to become a mature person of faith. That maturity is generally related to our spiritual growth. Fr. Ron Rolheiser says our growth is often hindered by three main things: narcissism, pragmatism, and unbridled restlessness. Fr. Rolheiser defines narcissism as excessive self-preoccupation; pragmatism as excessive focus on work, achievement, and the practical concerns for life; and restlessness as referring to an excessive greed for experience, an over-eating, not in terms of food but in terms of trying to drink in too much of life. One of the main aspects that hinder our growth is not seeking out the desires of our hearts, which can only be filled through God. We must listen to His voice, not the world’s, just as Peter did.     

The parable of the Good Shepherd in today’s Gospel from John brings into view the power of the voices we listen to in our lives as it presents the reality that Christianity is not a set of ideas; it’s not a philosophy or an ideology; it’s a relationship with someone who has a voice. If we go back to the very beginning of our story to the Garden of Eden, the entirety of the temptation story is one of voices. Eve first heard her doubts and anxieties and then listened to the serpent’s voice, which kept amplifying those feelings. Adam listened to the voice of his own discontent when Eve had risked the forbidden and then listened to her voice, inviting him to join her. What happened in the Garden of Eden still happens today. We listen to the voice of our doubts, fears, and discontent, and the Evil One amplifies that voice and adds his voice of lies and deception. We know that the Evil One tempted Jesus in the desert. He sought to leverage the weakness of Jesus – food for a hungry body, a test to make God prove Himself, and finally, a shortcut to get what He was here to accomplish on earth. But Jesus did not listen to the voice inside Him crying out for the easy path. He did not hear or heed the voice of desire. Instead, Jesus was listening to another voice, the voice of the Father. Sin speaks the voice of the moment, the voice of desire, the voice of want. The Spirit speaks the voice of truth, faith, and righteousness. Jesus tells us whom we should listen to by listening to the voice of the Spirit, who speaks to us through Sacred Scripture. That is what makes us strong. What enables us to resist temptation is not that we are better than others but a matter of whose voice we choose to listen to. Let us listen to the voice of Jesus, who will lead us to a renewed and transformational life with God.

Christianity calls the human creature to be something it desires at its deepest levels: love of oneself and others. But this effort appears throughout human history to be the most challenging to practice carrying out because of our inability to be obedient to that call, that desire. We “try” to obtain that virtue through unvirtuous behaviors. The one human (and divine) being who taught and showed us how to achieve our deepest desire was Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. Jesus was the consummate example of being an example of love to the core of what we are created to be. As the Son of God, he could have certainly been the most dominant leader the world had ever seen by wielding his divine power to bring us all in line with the ways of God. But he chose to wield his power and authority through forgiving and healing, always appealing to our free will and never forcing himself on anyone. That defines being a servant leader, and this, in my experience, is the hardest saying we have difficulty dealing with. And because we have difficulty with this teaching and therefore fail to provide others with a model of this kind of “lived love,” many baptized Christians have turned to what the world models as the “way to live” and turn their back on anything related to what they believe is a failed way to live life. The most earth-shaking thing I think any faithful follower of Jesus can hear from people is, “God has no place in my life. He is not relevant.” When the author of life is no longer relevant, our response should be to double down on being his light and love because light dispels the darkness of this thought process, and seeing love lived out concurs all. People will come to love’s light when they see its impact on how we live our lives as his disciples, obedient to love’s calling of fostering a servant’s heart.

Christianity is the earthiest of all religions. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that Christianity doesn’t call you out of the physical, out of the body, or out of the world. Instead, Christ enters the physical, becomes one with it, blesses it, redeems it, and tells us there is no reason to escape it. Something in that statement goes against the grain. Christ’s relationship to the physical, his language of eating him, was perceived as cannibalism that literally scandalized his contemporaries. It is still hard for us to accept today. But it’s also a wonderful part of Christianity. In the Eucharist, our skin gets touched. Given all our tensions, we need that touch, frequently, daily even. The late essayist and novelist Andre Dubus once wrote an excellent little apologia about why he went to Eucharist regularly, “This morning I received the sacrament I still believe in. The priest elevated the host, then the chalice, and spoke the words of the ritual, and the bread became flesh, the wine became blood, and minutes later, I placed on my tongue the taste of forgiveness and love that affirmed, perhaps celebrated, my being alive, my being mortal. This has nothing to do with immortality, with eternity. Although I believe in that life, I love the earth too much to contemplate life apart from it. No, this has to do with mortality and the touch of flesh, and my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking, the silent touch affirms all that and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality.” Skin heals when touched. It’s why Jesus gave us the Eucharist.

What is the provenance of this distinctively Catholic conviction that Jesus is “really, truly, and substantially present” under the Eucharistic signs of bread and wine? Bishop Robert Barron would suggest that we begin with the breathtaking discourse of the Lord, found in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. Astounded by the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes, the crowds come to Jesus, and he tells them not to search for perishable bread but rather for the bread that “endures to eternal life.”  He then specifies, “I am the living bread come down from heaven…the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The central claim of the New Testament is that Jesus is not simply one teacher among many, one more in a long line of prophets, but rather “the word made flesh,” the incarnation of the divine word which made and sustains the world. At the consecration at every Mass, the priest takes bread and wine and pronounces over them, not his own words, but Christ’s. He acts not in his own person but in persona Christi, and hence he affects the transformation that Catholics call “transubstantiation,” the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. And this is why, in the presence of those transformed elements, the only proper action is to fall down in worship.

A continuing challenge for most Christians, including yours truly, is consistently doing the will of the Father. Thomas Merton, the great American Trappist monk, reflecting on the topic of God’s will, said: “The will of God is not a ‘fate’ to which we submit, but a creative act in our life producing something absolutely new, something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation in seeking the Kingdom of God by doing His will first consists not solely in conforming to laws but in opening our wills out to this creative act which must be retrieved in and by us.” The difficulty, in part, comes from our daily focus. When I am consistently in daily prayer, seeking the grace of the holy spirit to be attentive and humble to his direction, I find the peace needed to hear him and an attitude that opens me to obey His will in love. Being his vessel of love for others determines the quality of our faith. Fr. Rolheiser writes that a mature disciple doesn’t calculate or make distinctions as to whether God is inside of a particular situation or not, whether a person seems worth it or not, whether a person is a Christian or not, or whether a person appears to be a good person or not, before reaching out in service. A mature disciple serves whoever is in need, independent of those considerations. That is the will of the Father, to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not for me but for others.

The Gospel of Mark lets us conclude that every human experience, if given a chance, can speak to us of God. The commission to evangelize requires us to be poets or interpreters of everyday experiences. We help others see life as touched by God. We do that by looking at life in the light of faith. Evangelizing involves looking more deeply into the ordinary to see the Extraordinary and naming the divine graciousness sustaining us. Evangelization is about naming grace. Evangelists in every age do not make God present but name God’s presence. If you have good news, it’s natural to want to share it. We have a kind word at the ready, a hand to lend, and a shoulder to share burdens or catch tears. We tell the truth with love. We have peace at our core, and we share it. We work on our own growth, which leaves little time for gossip or judging. Most of all, we love people with the love we have received and forgive with the mercy we have been shown. The apostles did more than preach about Jesus; they shared the personal stories of their own development of a love relationship with Christ. Love became a golden thread that bound them to their listeners and captivated their hearts. That is why they became such astonishing convert makers. They used the most irresistible force ever invented to change people’s minds by changing people’s hearts first. That is why Easter time always seems as close to paradise as we get on earth and puts the fire and enthusiasm into evangelization.  

So many good people spend most of their lives working to put food on the table to nourish themselves and their families. Fr. Roger J. Landry writes that we all know how important that is, but Jesus is saying that as hard as we work to fulfill that duty of love, we must work much harder for the food that He will give us, the food of eternal life. What is that food that God puts on the table? What is that nourishment of eternal life? If most people spend forty hours a week or more, sometimes working two or three jobs for perishables, what is the imperishable nutrition for which Jesus tells us we should labor even more strenuously? But the main point for us is not simply to know what is the imperishable nourishment for which we should be striving but actually to live for it, to labor for it. Many Catholics, just like the first-century Jews, spend more of their time hungering and working for hamburgers and french fries, for pancakes and sausages, for salads and sweets, than we do for Jesus’ Word, will, and flesh and blood – these are the truly imperishable things. We encounter all of these attributes at Mass. We begin with God’s Word, we make an act of faith with regard to it, we unite ourselves with God’s will and “do this in memory of [Him]” and then have the incredible privilege of receiving the Word made Flesh, God’s daily spiritual manna, in the Eucharist. Becoming one body with Christ in the Eucharist is meant to help us become one with his will and faithfully accomplish it in the world, as we, united with Christ our head, become his hands, feet, heart, and his mouth in the world. That is what the risen life of a Christian in union with Risen Jesus is all about.

Bishop Robert Barron writes that today’s Gospel is one of the greatest stories ever told of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. It is a story of the Church and its mission; therefore, it speaks to us all. On the day of the “new creation,” they are walking in precisely the wrong direction, away from Jerusalem. St. Josemaría Escrivá writes that in the course of their conversation with Jesus, the disciples’ mood changes from sadness to joy. The disciples didn’t get it at first. They didn’t get the Secret. The Mystery. The key. The pattern. And what was that? God’s self-emptying love, yes, even unto death. God’s act of taking upon himself the sins of the world in order to take them away, the Mystery of redemption through suffering. St. Gregory the Great said because those whom Truth was walking couldn’t be alien to charity, they invited him, a stranger, to be their guest. They set the table, brought food, and recognized in the breaking of the bread the God they did not know as he explained the sacred scriptures. The Lord was not recognized when he was speaking, but he deigned to be recognized as he was being fed. Jesus, at first, explains his mission with reference to the prophets, but then, he makes it as vividly present to them as he can; “He took the bread, pronounced the blessing, then broke the bread and began to distribute it to them.” And that’s when it all fell into place, and the puzzle was solved. The Eucharist made present this love unto death, which is more powerful than sin and death. The Eucharist was and is the key. This is the great Eucharistic action of the Church: Jesus offering his very self to us, presenting the drama of his death and resurrection sacramentally.