Journeying Into Mystery

Every presidential election cycle, we encounter the USCCB (United States Council of  Catholic Bishops) voter guide. Most often, it is a useless guide provided by a great number of bishops who are obsessed about everything regarding sex, e.g. gay marriage, abortion, contraception etc, and resembles much of the same that one can find in the Heritage Foundation’s  “Project 2025.” I have found that the misogyny that plagues the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, extremely tiresome and sinful (sexism is one of the great sins of the Catholic hierarchy), and, any teaching authority on issues of sexuality and gender undermined by decades, if not centuries, of bishops covering up the criminal sexual activity of clergy and church personnel.

We will also find all sorts of political literature by groups like MCCL (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life) and other National “Right to Life” lobbies, most of whom are only pro-birth and refuse to do anything about supporting the lives of babies that are born. Most of these groups are political entities that lack, in my opinion, any moral authority.

Pope Francis I was correct in pointing out that neither the Democrats or Republicans own the title of being pro-life; the Democrats support for abortion and the Republican refusal to support life after a baby is born. Pope Francis advises that we vote for the better of two evils. So how are we to determine which candidates represent the “better of two evils?”

Between now and the first Tuesday of November, we have much to discern.

So, for the past 44 years I have developed my own voting guide that I take into the voting booth as I cast my votes for those running for public offices. My conscience is well formed when I cast my votes, and the values of the Founders of our nation and the Constitution of the United States always in the forefront. Note: The Founders were clear that the United States was created as a “secular” nation in which the practice of ALL religions are welcome, but that no one religion and its doctrines and practices dominate or are imposed on the citizens of the United States.

For my voting guide, I turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31 to 46.

The Judgment of the Nations. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations  will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.  Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25, 31-46, Authors, Various. New American Bible Revised Edition)

I vote for the candidate that best represents the values and mandates that Jesus emphasizes here, and in his commandment to love as he loved.

Note, that in no place in the scripture above, that Jesus says there are any exceptions for whom we are responsible. In other words, Jesus does not exclude those who are “woke”, those who are transgender, those who are LGBTQ+, those who are Haitian or immigrants from other trump labeled “shithole nations,” those who are homeless, mentally ill, unemployed, those who disabled physically or developmentally, those of other world cultures or religions, those who are not of white, European heritage. No, Jesus’ requires us to be all inclusive in our care for others. Even though Jesus was a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew, living in an occupied nation by the Imperial Roman Army and ruled by Roman authorities, Jesus also included these foreign occupiers in those for whom his disciples must care and love, and demonstrated such by curing the servant of a Roman centurion (Luke 7:1-10), and the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24–30 and Matthew 15:21–28) and emphasized in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

And, if one needs a Hebrew Testament passage to back up what Jesus is mandating here, I refer to the following from the first chapter of Isaiah:

What do I care for the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the blood of calves, lambs, and goats I find no pleasure. When you come to appear before me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! To bring offerings is useless; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath, calling assemblies— festive convocations with wickedness— these I cannot bear. Your new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When you spread out your hands, I will close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool. If you are willing, and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land; But if you refuse and resist, you shall be eaten by the sword: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken! (Isaiah 1:11-20, Authors, Various. New American Bible Revised Edition)

How does all of this line up with the rhetoric from the USCCB voter guide, or the MCCL voting guide, right wing religious groups, and/or organizations the Heritage Foundation, and other Fascist ideologies, vigilantes, and racists groups?

Listen to the hate-filled rhetoric of trump, vance, and all their republican surrogates nationally and in the State of Minnesota. Their vitriol makes it very clear to me as to how I will determine who is the worse of two evils and how my vote will be cast.

It is an odd juxtaposition that the Feast of the Transfiguration and the annihilation of Hiroshima occur on the same day, August 6^th. For those of us who pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day, I find it difficult to pray the psalms, readings, and intercessions of the feast while holding within myself the memory of those who died, many of them innocent Japanese men, women, and children, and Korean prisoners of war in that atomic blast. I end up praying the morning prayer of the feast of the Transfiguration and evening prayer for martyrs to honor those whose lives were incinerated in the blast of the atomic bomb.

The Transfiguration of Jesus not only supports the theological fact that Jesus is the Son of God, but that Jesus, as the Logos, the Word of God, is the mouthpiece of God “par excellence.” The command for the three apostles who accompanied Jesus up that mountain was to “LISTEN TO HIM.” Initially, in the early Church, disciples of Jesus did do exactly that, not only listening to the Christ, but living those words. When Christianity had the misfortune of becoming the “religion” of the Roman Empire under Constantine, Christians listened less to Christ and more to Imperial Rome. With the exception of a few Christians, many of those who call themselves Christian completely ignore the Divine command to listen to Christ.

At the Transfiguration, God exalted Jesus above all power in creation, however, the way many Christians live their lives, we prefer to exalt power, wealth, weapons, position over that of Christ. The bombing of Hiroshima and the obliteration of life in the time of a second is an example of humanity, many of whom are Christians, completely ignoring God’s voice to listen to Christ.

I have heard all the arguments justifying the bombing of Hiroshima. While it is true that the Japanese were guilty of war crimes and mass deaths, still what gives us the moral permission to do the same? Do two wrongs make a right? The last I was taught, the answer is a resounding, “NO!” It is calculated that 80,000 lives were instantly vaporized in the blast, consumed in a massive fire storm. The shadows of those souls forever impeded in the few remaining structures that survived the blast. It is calculated that radiation sickness brought on by the blast raised that death toll to 135,000 people. Add, the death total from Nagasaki, we arrive at 350,000 human souls obliterated by the two atomic bombs.

I remember as a high school student reading John Hershey’s book, Hiroshima. It was required reading at my Catholic high school (I am sure it has been banned in Florida and many other Bible Belt states these days). Hershey was an American correspondent who wrote about the dropping of the atomic bomb and the aftereffects of that bombing. He described women and children with skin hanging from their bodies in shreds. He wrote of the severe destruction of human life following the dropping of that bomb. Even as an “American gung-ho” teenager, I was shocked by what I read and questioned whether the argument that so many American lives were saved by this utter destruction of Japanese men, women and children was a valid argument. This argument was seen by me as morally askewed and twisted.

On this day that we honor the Transfiguration of Jesus, the United States ushered in the horror of nuclear holocaust and the complete obliteration of humankind and all life, with the exception of cockroaches and rats (we conducted atomic blast experimentation on Bikini Beach. Cockroaches and rats survived the blasts.). We ushered in the madness in which we continue to live, balancing life on the edge of a razor using the policy of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. The day will come when some despot in some nation will say, “What the Hell!” and usher in the age of final human extinction.

Jesus Christ commanded us to love one another as he loved us. On this feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, if we call ourselves disciples of Christ, let us renew our efforts to serve not destroy, and to love one another as Christ loved us! And to always devote ourselves to peace for all humankind.

I was shocked to see a news report Saturday night of the murder of a priest I have known since 1979. According to what was reported in the news story, Father Larry Johnson, a retired priest of the Archdiocese, was strangled to death by a man who was having a psychotic episode. Father Larry was driving the man to Regions Hospital to receive a mental health evaluation when the attack occurred on I-94. Father Larry was 76 years old.

I got to know Father Larry well when he was assigned to St Wenceslaus Parish in New Prague in the late 1970’s. The pastor at that time, was Father Ray Zweber, a very traditionalist, strict old priest. Larry Johnson and Ray Zweber got along like water and oil, with Larry moving out of the rectory within a couple of months and living in a rented apartment in New Prague. Within 6 months, Ray asked the Archbishop to be reassigned to a different parish and left St Wenceslaus shortly after Christmas. We had an interim priest as parochial administrator until Fr Bill Paron arrived as pastor approximately six months later.

It wasn’t too long after the appointment of Fr Paron, that Larry requested a new assignment and was moved by the Archbishop. Larry had a number of parish assignments as pastor until his retirement from active ministry.

In the time I ministered with Larry, I thought he was a bit like a “bull in a china shop.” Larry was a mixed bag, with some liking him greatly, and others, similarly, disliking him. He could be a hard guy with whom to work and minister. Larry was bright idealist with an enormous ego. He often clashed with those who were not in agreement with him on issues of ministry and leadership. He had very questionable boundaries, especially with teens. Those questionable boundaries got him in trouble, and, for a while, he was under investigation for sexual misconduct. However, all complaints filed against him ended up either unfounded or unsubstantiated.  

All of us who are in ministry are driven with a desire to be of service to those who are in need. As in all human institutions, within the Catholic Church, I have known priests and bishops who are driven to climb the “corporate ladder.” I believe that Father Larry Johnson was not one of those who sought advancement in the hierarchy. Rather, like most of us, he had that drive to serve others.

According to police reports released thus far, Father Larry knew this troubled individual, electing to have lunch with him once a month to check in on how the man was doing. After the two celebrated Mass at Father Larry’s home that morning, Father Larry thought it important to get the man to a safe place to be evaluated. It was on that drive to Regions Hospital that Father Larry was murdered by the man.

It matters not whether one is a lay minister or ordained, when we are in active ministry, our lives are consumed by that ministry. Fifty to sixty hour weeks are common. When one retires from active ministry, the sudden stop of insane busyness is off-putting. When I first retired, well, I found myself having four surgeries to repair a broken ankle, so a whole year was consumed with that. However, following all those surgeries, I first had to heal some anger. To some degree, all in ministry have that feeling, like that of the prophet Jeremiah, that God “duped us and we allowed ourselves to be duped.” Once healed from that, the next question we have is that of discerning “What does God want me to do now?” Amazingly, it doesn’t take long for the Holy Spirit to answer that question, at least, in my experience. The ministry continues in a varied amount of ways, only, it is not at the insane, manic pace it had been prior to retirement.

On August 1^st, Father Larry Johnson saw a man who was in great need of medical, mental health healing. And, that was ultimately the cause of his untimely death. He ended giving up his life in attempting to get the man to the hospital. Jesus states in the Last Supper discourse of John’s Gospel, “There is no greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for a friend.” Father Larry Johnson did that on August 1^st. May Father Larry Johnson rest in the peace and the love of God.

NOTE: This is a continuing education I have created for my local Secular Franciscan fraternity. While its discussion of the Eucharist is decidedly Roman Catholic, I believe it has some merit for all Christian denominations who celebrate the Eucharist. For those from more Evangelical traditions, e.g. Baptists, Assembly of God, Free Church, that believe that the full presence of God is found only in sacred scripture, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is merely just a symbolic ritual that is played out every now and again, this article will probably have little to contribute to their faith life, aside from being informative.

For Roman Catholics, this article is meant to expand their understanding of Eucharist from a “Gaze That Saves” mentality in which Eucharist is only isolated to an action done by a priest in a stuffy old church building, or paraded around in a heavily golden, bejeweled reliquary (monstrance) under a gold cloth canopy amidst a cloud of incense by a bunch of clerics.

“The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed: at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons (and daughters) of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice and to eat the Lord’s supper.

“The liturgy in its turn moves the faithful, filled with “the paschal sacraments,” to be “one in holiness”; it prays that “they may hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by their faith”; the renewal in the Eucharist of the covenant between the Lord and man draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them on fire. From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the sanctification of men (and women) in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed as toward their end, is achieved in the in the most efficacious possible way.” (#10.Sacrosanctum Concilium, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Vatican II, December 4, 1963)

The celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, is the most central action in the lives of all Catholics. It is indeed the summit toward which all our activity is directed but at the same time the font from which all power and grace flows into our lives and into the world.

St. Francis himself concentrates our attention on this great Sacrament: “As He revealed Himself to the holy apostles in true flesh, so He reveals Himself to us now in sacred bread. And as they saw only His flesh by an insight of their flesh, yet believed that He was God as they contemplated Him with their spiritual eyes, let us, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, see and firmly believe that they are His most holy Body and Blood living and true. And in this way the Lord is always with His faithful, as He Himself says: Behold I am with you until the end of the age.”’ (from “Keeping our Focus on Francis, Topic 3 – The Eucharist)

The Gospels through much of August are devoted to the Eucharistic discourse of John 6. The Eucharist in John’s Gospel is celebrated in the feeding of the five thousand. Note: the Passover Meal of Mark, Matthew, and Luke’s Gospel is not found in John’s Gospel on Holy Thursday. John’s Last Supper is a Berakah, in which the significant action is that of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. The Passover in John’s Gospel is on Holy Saturday (they had to get all the bodies off the crosses on Good Friday because the next day was the Passover).

We heard in the Gospel today, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Whoever eats* my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” (John 6:51,54-57, NAB)

Jesus is telling us that in eating his body and drinking his blood we are united to him on a molecular level; his body and blood is, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “Oned” to our body and blood. In the eating of his body and the drinking of his blood in the Eucharist we become the living body and blood of Christ in our world today. Our bodies become “living tabernacles” of Christ’s body and blood. Many years ago, the sacramental theologian and liturgist, Fr Joseph Gelineau wrote that the greatest sign of the Body of Christ in the world was the parking lot of a Catholic Church. It showed that the living Body of Christ of the baptized was gathered inside the Church celebrating the Eucharist.

While the priest presides over the prayer at the Eucharistic celebration, the entire Body of Christ, the baptized, celebrate the Eucharist. We are active, not passive participants in the celebration. All our prayer is directed to God our Father, through Jesus. The priest, in the Epiclesis of the Eucharistic prayer, calls upon the Holy Spirit to come down and transform the bread and the wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. “Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit graciously make holy these gifts we have brought to you for consecration, that they may become the Body and + Blood of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ at whose command we celebrate these mysteries.” (Epiclesis of the Third Eucharistic Prayer) As the Body of Christ gathered, not only is the consecrated bread and wine offered up to the Father, but, as the living Body of Christ, our lives are offered up in praise, too. The priest prays this following the anamnesis (Memorial Acclamation). “May he make of us an eternal offering to you, so that we may obtain an inheritance with your elect …” (Third Eucharistic Prayer)

It is in St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, written thirty years before Mark, the first Gospel, that we encounter a passage from the first Eucharistic prayer. St Paul, addressing the divisions in the Corinthian community writes about the essence of the Eucharistic celebration.

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. (1 Cor 11: 23b-26, NAB)

The great Pauline scholar Father Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O.P., wrote in his commentary on this passage: “The relationship between authentic ‘remembrance’ and mission is clearly spelled out in the commentary that Paul appends to the liturgical formula. The ‘proclamation’ that he has in mind is neither the symbolic declaration of the death of Jesus in the broken loaf and the outpoured wine, nor the retelling of the Passion during the liturgical celebration, The ‘proclamation’ takes place in and through the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup. The material gesture of eating and drinking is not sufficient, The attitude of the participants is crucial. If their imitation of Christ is non-existent or seriously defective, then no matter how carefully the ritual gestures are performed, ‘it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat’ (1 Cor 11:20) Only if the participants have truly put on Christ, which is equivalent to putting on love, is there effective ‘proclamation’ of the death of Christ in the eucharist. The death of Christ affected the salvation of believers because of the power-laden love it embodied. That same love must continue to be enfleshed in a pattern of behavior if the death of Christ is to have a permanent saving value. That obligation, which believers assume by becoming members of the Body of Christ, will cease only when it is rendered unnecessary by the physical return of Christ to this world, ‘until he comes’(verse 26).

(pp. 112-113, 1 Corinthians, Rev. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O.P., Michael Glazier, Inc, Wilmington, Delaware, 1979)

Then, St Paul points out how the division among those in the Corinthian community is “killing” the Body of Christ (the baptized):

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment* on himself. (1 Cor 11:20-23,27-29,NAB)

In his commentary on this passage, Fr. Murphy-O’Connor, writes: Having established the authentic “remembrance’ which is demanded of Christians, Paul turns back to the Corinthians and spells out what actually happens when they celebrate the eucharist. “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’. ‘To be guilty of the blood of someone’ is most naturally understood as meaning to be responsible for the death of someone’. The unworthy participant is classed among those who killed Jesus. Ideally, participation in the eucharist should be a proclamation of the death of the Lord which prolongs its saving love, but the attitude of the participants can make it an act of murder.

Love gave substance to the eucharistic words, and only love can continue to do so. (Ibid)

What St Paul is telling us today is that when we come forward to receive Holy Communion, and hear from the Eucharistic Minister the words, “The Body of Christ”, we are not only saying, “Amen,” to the real presence of Jesus in the consecrated host and consecrated wine, but we are saying, “Amen” to the real presence of Jesus in the people gathered as the Body of Christ at Mass with us. St Paul tells us that in order to receive the Eucharist, we must be at peace with the Body of Christ in our faith community.

In our Secular Franciscan Rule (#5), we acknowledge the great importance of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, in our lives as Franciscans, and, equally the importance of seeing Christ in the presence of our Franciscan brothers and sisters, in our faith communities, and in our greater communities.

5. Secular Franciscans, therefore, should seek to encounter the living and active person of Christ in their brothers and sisters, in Sacred Scripture, in the Church, and in liturgical activity. The faith of St. Francis, who often said, “I see nothing bodily of the Most High Son of God in this world except His most holy body and blood,” should be the inspiration and pattern of their Eucharistic life.

In our “Oneing” with the body and blood of Christ, we see, as did St Francis, the presence of Christ in all people and all of nature. St Francis expressed this so beautifully in his Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon. At the turn of the 20^th century, the Irish poet, Joseph Mary Plunkett expressed this so succinctly in this poem.

“I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.”

At the beginning of Mark’s account of the feeding of the five thousand, we hear:

When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already very late. Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” He said to them in reply, “Give them some food yourselves.” (Mark 6: 34-37, NAB)

The Eucharist is not merely a noun, but it is a verb. To celebrate and receive the Eucharist must compel us to action, to love as Jesus loved until it is no longer necessary when he comes again in glory. Because of this, the Eucharist cannot be isolated inside a church building. As living tabernacles of the Body and Blood of Christ, we must bring his presence within us out the church doors and into the everyday life of our homes, our communities, and our places of work. This is stated so very well in Rule #6 of our Secular Franciscan Rule.

6. They have been made living members of the Church by being buried and raised with Christ in baptism; they have been united more intimately with the Church by profession. Therefore, they should go forth as witnesses and instruments of her mission among all

people, proclaiming Christ by their life and words. (Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order)

Or in the words of St Teresa of Avila”

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. In what way have I experienced the power and the grace present in the celebration of the Eucharist?
2. In what way(s) is my life an offering of praise and love to God the Father?
3. Do I feel my being “Oned” with Christ in the Eucharist? What does it feel like?
4. When the Eucharistic Minister says, “The Body of Christ,” to what am I saying “Amen.” The real presence of Jesus in Holy Communion? The Body of Christ in all the baptized gathered with me at Mass? Both?
5. In what way do I feel compelled to action in celebrating the Eucharist?
6. In what way has my celebration of the Eucharist opened my eyes to see the presence of Christ in other people and in all of nature?

I am a professed secular Franciscan. At our last fraternity meeting, we studied the following scripture passage from Mark’s Gospel.

³⁴ He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸ Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father. (Mark 8:34-38 NRSV)

During a rather long discussion about whether one could substitute the word “soul” for the word “life” in the Gospel passage (sigh), I focused on the opening remark of Jesus on one’s taking up their cross and following him.

As a kid in the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church, we were taught that the amount of one’s suffering in life was a badge of honor. We were making up in our own suffering that which was lacking in Christ’s suffering, a notion I found even then, utterly ridiculous. “Offer your suffering up for the poor souls in Purgatory,” the nuns used to instruct us. This glorification of suffering is reflected somewhat in a non-official world religion theology paper we passed around in one of the graduate school theology classes I had while working on my Masters in Pastoral Studies at the St Paul Seminary. The sheet used the crass phrase, “Shit happens!” and applied it to the world religions, e.g. for Zen Buddhism, the phrase was altered to “What is the sound of shit happening.” Catholicism’s version of the phrase was, “Shit happens! And we deserve it!” Of course, Vatican II altered a lot of what I was taught by the nuns prior to the Second Vatican Council, though, there are quite a few priests and bishops ordained over the past 25 years who love all that pre-Vatican II garbage.

So what did Jesus mean when he said that we must take up our cross and follow him? What follows is my reflection on that statement of Jesus.

 To be disciples of Jesus, to serve others as Jesus had, requires us to live lives of inconvenience. We must be willing to stop everything we are doing to assist someone who is in need. It can be something as simple as talking to someone on the phone, or taking time out of one’s day to drive someone to a doctor’s appointment and wait to drive that person back home again. Or, it may mean that we give up a part of our lives to be present to people who are in crises and do it without any hesitation, like getting being present to someone as they lay dying. The most extreme example of this was the recent death of the Minneapolis police officer who was coming to the aid of a person he thought had been shot, only to find that the man was the shooter. The Jesus in John’s Gospel would say, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13, NRSV)

 Each Gospel has a different Christology. Mark’s Jesus is far more human, than that of Matthew’s who portrays Jesus as the “New Moses”. Luke’s Jesus portrays him as the “Compassion of God” (Monica Helwig’s title), and, John’s Gospel, in which Jesus is the Logos of God, “Jesus Christ Superstar”, to borrow a reference from popular culture. Scripture scholars account for this difference in Christology to the fact that each Gospel was written for a different Christan community in the early Church. The Gospels are not historical records but the understanding of a particular community of disciples of who the Christ is. This also leads to the question of when did Jesus become self-aware of who he was. We really do not know for certain. The Gospels indicate different times. Luke’s Gospel suggests at the age of 12 years old, when he stayed behind in the Temple. John’s Gospel would suggest that as the Logos of God, he knew who he was from the very beginning, And then, we get to Mark’s Gospel.

 Mark’s Gospel has no infancy narratives. Whether the biblical exegesis supports it or not, I have always thought that in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan reawakens within him his true identity and the mission he was incarnated to do. He goes to the desert to figure out who he really is, and gradually learns as he begins his ministry, e.g. his dialogue with the Syrophoenician woman who pushes back against his Jewish prejudice toward Gentiles. This difference Jesus discovers in himself is not really accepted by Mary, his mother, nor his family, who come to bring him home, proverbially in a straight-jacket, because they think he is crazy and is an embarrassment to the family. “Then he went home; ²⁰ and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹ When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”(Mark 3: 19b-21, NRSV)

 The quote from Fr Pierre Teilhard de Chardin came to my mind when reading this, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” In my understanding of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is a spiritual being having a human experience. Only in the case of Jesus, he was the Divine One, the Logos or Word of God. His baptism in the Jordan and the exclamation of the Father of who Jesus was, jolted Jesus out of a kind of spiritual amnesia. Jesus the Christ in Mark’s Gospel suddenly knows who he is, what he is to do, and rushes to fulfill his earthly mission.

 I fully believe Chardin is correct in writing that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but rather spiritual beings having a human experience. As the psalmist in Psalm 139 writes, we are formed as spiritual beings by God and placed in the womb of our mothers. “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. ¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Ps 139:13-17, NRSV)

Unlike Jesus, whose divinity was well established as the Christ, we are not fully mature spiritual beings, but spend our human existence discovering what it means to be and live as spiritual beings. We spend an entire lifetime learning who we are as spiritual beings, and seeking to know the name God gave us at our creation. Near Death experiencers speak of the same thing, though instead of the word soul, they will use the word spirit.

I have ruminated on the vast mystery of Psalm 139 from the days when I first sang a setting of it in the 1970”s (Yahweh, I Know You Are Near, St Louis Jesuits, NALR). Formed by and in the image of God, how am I to know the name God gave me when I was created by God? How am I to discern, like Jesus in Mark’s Gospel, the mission I was created to fulfill in my lifetime? It is a discernment that does not end, but continues up to our last breath. Jesus speaks of being willing to take up one’s cross and follow him. In other words, suffering is one of those pathways in which we begin to discern who we are as God knows us, and what our purpose or mission is in life.

Suffering is a part of our lives in this world. As much as we wish to escape suffering, suffering still finds us in one form or another. To suffer just for the sake of suffering is ridiculous and sinfully masochistic. However, using the suffering that befalls us helps us to form a bond of understanding with others who are suffering and that assists in our discerning who we really are as spiritual beings. We understand our own powerlessness in our suffering and the suffering of others. We can’t kiss it and make it better. Smugly uttering pious platitudes in an attempt to alleviate the suffering of another person is an anathema to the one suffering; it is tantamount to cursing them. When one can’t “let go and let God” because their pain threshold is a “10” and the mere touching the sheet that rests on an infected leg is agony beyond agony, the phrase, “to let go and let God,” instead of placating the suffering person, accuses the person’s lack of faith to “let go and let God” as the cause for the extreme pain being experienced. The only thing we can do is to acknowledge our own powerlessness and just be present to the one who is suffering.

 I have experienced a lot of suffering in my own life. What I discovered in all of it was who I am as a spiritual being. After the head-on collision is 2002, I spent a couple of weeks in the trauma center of North Memorial Hospital following the surgery on my left leg. The pastor for whom I worked at the time, Fr Steve Ulrick, visited me. I was laying there all hooked up to tubes and leads. He didn’t ask me how I was doing, nor offer any words of comfort and sympathy. Rather, he said, “So where’s the grace in this!” I was incredibly pissed off at him asking me that because I was hurting like hell. I replied to him, “Ten years ago, I would find a way to punch you in the nose, Steve! But I know where you are going with your question and I don’t know where the hell the grace is in all of this! It will be something revealed to me later.” Those ended up being prophetic words. 

When one experiences great suffering, the spiritual being awakens within us. I believe that we begin to see our suffering connecting us to the suffering of those around us. In knowing suffering, we established an empathetic link to others, and though the suffering of others might vary from our own, a common understanding or bond is established with them.

When I was able to get around on crutches and begin to drive again, I started to make pastoral visits again. I visited a parishioner, Mike, who was a quadriplegic. Mike had been a quadriplegic since a diving accident when he was 23 years old. What a lovely man, so full of love and acceptance, when he could be so incredibly bitter and angry. After I gave Mike, communion, I blessed him and he responded, “I love you.” As I got into my vehicle, I thought of the common bond I shared with Mike, the significant difference being that while one day I would be able to walk again, Mike would never be able to walk, ever. However, for a brief eight weeks when I was confined to bed and to a chair, I experienced the day-to-day life Mike lived. It was then that I began to understand Steve Ulrick’s question, but I altered it from “Where is the grace?” to “What am I supposed to learn from this?”

Cheri Register, in her book, Living with Chronic Illness, writes that as one who suffers from a chronic illness, she hates the saying, “There by the grace of God, go I.” She finds the phrase demeaning of others who are suffering. She wrote that instead, the phrase must be, “Here, by the grace of God, I am.” One would have looked at the life of Mike with pity and be aghast at how cruelly life treated him. Yet for the remaining years of Mike’s life, he was so immensely loved by his wife, and by all his neighbors. He could exude love because he received so much love from others. No one who knew Mike knew him as a pitiful quadriplegic stuck in a motorized wheelchair. They knew Mike as a tremendous human being who worked like everyone else did, only remotely at home, who just happened to be quadriplegic. When Mike died, I preached at his funeral Mass. The Church of St Hubert, which seats 1100 people, was filled to the brim.

 Were I merely a human being having a spiritual experience, I would be bitter and angry at that that snotnosed 16-year-old kid, with no car insurance, who plowed head-on into my car that March 7^th night in 2002. He not only nearly killed me that night, but the result of that accident almost killed me nine years later when I needed more corrective surgery from the initial injury suffered in that car accident which brought on a MRSA infection that sent me into renal failure and very, very near death. I was on medical leave from June 2011 to March 2012, with no left hip as the infectious disease doctors sought to find an antibiotic or combination of antibiotics that would kill the MRSA and not kill me (I am deadly allergic to most of the antibiotics used to kill MRSA). I could be bitter and angry at all the repeated surgeries and the extreme pain I experienced during that time to drain the infection from my what had been my left hip. I could be bitter and angry that the impact of that kid’s car slamming into mine injured my right hand so severely that two hand surgeries could never return full function to my right hand, thus ending my career as a professional musician. My wife, Ruth, could be bitterly angry at the inattentive shit who backed over her with his pickup truck as she walked home from church on October 18^th, 2018, irreparably injuring her back so severely that her career and her ministry as a registered nurse was ended permanently.

 However, we are spiritual beings having a human experience and in carrying our crosses as they come into our lives, we learn how to connect our suffering to the suffering of others, just as the Jesus in Mark’s Gospel learned human suffering in connecting his suffering to that of the rest of humanity. In our own suffering we learn compassion and love, pain and powerlessness, and solidarity with all who are suffering. Julian of Norwich, the English anchoress, in her writings, Revelations, calls this our “Oneing” with one another and with Christ.

In the Last Supper discourse of John’s Gospel, Jesus knows the extreme suffering that awaits him in the Kidron Valley. This discourse is his last lesson to the disciples. In his counsel to them, he lays it on the line to them. The world will not be receptive to their message. They will experience suffering and death because of it. However, he reassures them that though he may not walk in the midst, he will never leave them abandoned. Then Jesus tells them two things that will assure them eternal happiness. Jesus instructs the disciples to “remain in me.” Then, following that, he says, to “remain in my love.” Jesus assures us that if we do this, then his joy will be in us and our joy will be complete. He concludes, “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:1-12) Or as Julian of Norwich wrote in her Revelations, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

In the world of the Roman Catholic Church, the second Sunday following Pentecost is, what was once known in Latin as Corpus Christi Sunday or in today’s parlance, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. It was a feast suggested by Thomas Acquinas in the 13^th century and later cemented into the Roman calendar by Pius V in the 16^th century. It is a feast that focuses on the importance of the Eucharist as understood by the Roman Catholic Church, namely, the full presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of bread and wine. One of the first documents of liturgical reform from Vatican II, “The Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, stated that the celebration of the Eucharist is the source and the summit of all activity of the Catholic Church, grace flowing to and from the Eucharistic liturgy. It is only right to celebrate the power that the Eucharist plays in the lives of Roman Catholics.

On this Sunday in the past, priests would often carry a ciborium (a covered chalice containing consecrated hosts) into the countryside to bless the fields of farmers, asking God to bless the farmers in planting the crops, favorable weather for growing, and for a bountiful harvest of crops in the Fall. I served in a Franciscan parish (St Hubert, Chanhassen before it became an affluent suburb of Minneapolis) in which, on this feast, Mass was celebrated outside, and after holy communion, the priest with the ciborium of hosts would bless the north, the south, the east, and west with the Blessed Sacrament, a continuance of the old custom.

In the days of the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church, there were serious disagreements as to what Eucharist is, Catholic, Anglicans, Orthodox Churches still retaining that the consecrated elements were transformed permanently into the Body and Blood of Christ; the Lutheran Church arguing that the elements were only consecrated during the celebration of the liturgy and returned to its original elements of bread and wine, and the Calvinist tradition stating that nothing happened, bread and wine being merely a symbol and nothing more. At this dark time in the Christian churches when Protestants and Catholics were slaughtering each other in the name of Jesus, the “Prince of Peace” (the irony is so painful), the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ became more an ostentatious public display, with Roman Catholic priests adorned in golden vestments under golden canopies, holding a bejeweled, heavy golden monstrance (essentially a sarcophagus) in which was placed a consecrated host, followed by numerous black and white clad altar boys, and parishioners singing Latin Eucharistic hymns and choking on the cloud of pungent incense pouring out from thurifiers. Especially when they paraded through Protestant neighborhoods, it was a kind of an ‘in your face” defiance toward those Protestants and non-Christians who did not hold the same beliefs as Catholics. It came off less as an act of humility, adoration, and respecting the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and more an act of self-aggrandizement.

The liturgical reforms of Vatican II were a refreshing change from the ostentatious symbology of the Tridentine Latin Rite of the Counter-Reformation. The sacred vessels were now not composed of precious metals encrusted with jewels, but were more made from the earth, earthen vessels comprised of clay or more common metal like pewter. The Eucharist was no longer celebrated in a dead language that not even doctors and pharmacists used anymore, but celebrated in the native language of those present in ALL languages. The assembly were no longer spectators separated from the Eucharist by a wall with a gate from the sanctuary (communion rail) but invited into the sanctuary to celebrate Mass with the celebrant. The assembly was invited to participate FULLY in the sacred meal of the Mass, joining in the prayers and the singing of the Mass. Newer churches had the pews surrounding the altar and were built so that everyone could see and hear and participate in the action of the liturgy, not just seated and silent light years away from the sanctuary.

John Paul II put an end to these liturgical reforms and many of those following him, including many priests ordained since, are trying to bring back the Eucharistic liturgy to the Dark Ages of Trent and the Latin Rite. Gone are the earthen vessels holding the Body and Blood of Christ, and back are the bejeweled chalices and ciboriums of the Dark Ages. The liturgy becoming more and more not a celebration of the gathered community of the baptized, but returning to something done by an isolated male caste system.

The words of God, spoken through the prophet Isaiah (Chapter 1:12b-17) come to mind:

“Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (NRSV)

St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians admonishes and condemns the Corinthian community’s celebration of the Eucharist. “For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it.  Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you! (1 Cor. 11:18-22, NRSV)”

St Paul continues: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body (the Body of Christ of the Baptized), eat and drink judgment against themselves (eat and drink their own damnation).” (1 Cor 11:27-29, NRSV)

The preeminent Catholic Pauline scholar, Fr Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, in his commentary on 1^st Corinthians stated that because of the divisive behavior of the rich of the Corinthian community toward the poor in the community, robbed the words of the Eucharist, the consecration, of its authenticity. The “priest” of the community may have spoken the words of consecration, but the behavior of the community nullified those words and the consecration never happened. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor explained that it was love (Christ’s sacrificial self-giving love) that gave power to the words of consecration and it can only be love (the sacrificial self-giving love of the ENTIRE Body of Christ, the Baptized) that will continue to give power to the words of consecration. And, ALL of the Baptized, not just priests, are to do this until it is no longer necessary when Jesus Christ comes again in glory: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Cor 11:26, NRSV)

On this most Holy Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, If we really want to increase devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the reception of Holy Communion must compel us to serve those most in need; to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to give shelter to the homeless, to welcome the stranger and the immigrant, to provide healthcare to those who are sick, provide comfort to those who are dying, to visit those imprisoned, to care for our environment. If we don’t do these things, then all the smells and bells, all the incense and golden vestments, all the golden mostrances and chalices, and all the processions are meaningless displays of self-aggrandizement. We will be guilty of the same sin of the religious authorities during the time of Isaiah and the Corinthian community.

Here it is, another Trinity Sunday. I bet you are thinking, “Oh great, another Trinity Sunday homily, what else could I be doing far more enjoyable right now? Fishing? Barbecuing? Drinking Beer, maybe a Margarita, or a Tom Collins, a frozen Daiquiri?”

It was probably this time in 2018. Fr Kevin was on sabbatical, and Fr George Grafsky was celebrating Masses on Trinity Sunday at St Wenceslaus. As it gets at St Wenc, in the summer weather the church building bakes everyone inside. If you would put bread dough on the altar, in two hours it would have been baked into a loaf of bread. Because Fr Kevin was away, I wrote the bulletin article for that week. Trinity Sunday in notoriously the most heretical of all Sundays for homilists for the simple reason that the doctrine exceeds human intelligence and our feeble understanding cannot grasp that which, frankly, makes absolutely no sense in our lived experience.

So, here I was suppose to write an article on Trinity Sunday about the Trinity, something that no one can wrap their heads around. Good ol’ St Patrick’s shamrock metaphor still does not do it justice. I went back to scripture, studied, and reflected on scripture and wrote what I wrote as succinctly as I could hoping that it was not too heretical. This is what I wrote for the church bulletin:

“Trinity Sunday, a day when many homilies border on heresy. We know more about the atmosphere on a faraway planet, like Mars or Jupiter, than that which we know about the Trinitarian nature of God.

In my grad school days at the St Paul Seminary, I had a number of classes taught by theologians. When they would speak, it was as if their minds were able to draw knowledge from spiritual dimensions in otherworldly planes of existence not generally accessible to most of us day to day people. I would ask them a question, and there would be a pause as they searched these other dimensions of knowledge before answering. I remember attempting to read the great Catholic theologian, Fr Karl Rahner’s definition on the “Economic Trinity.” Rahner was a German theologian and he wrote in the German language. It is true that what is expressed in one language is not always directly translatable in another. Case in point, what Rahner wrote in German about the Economic Trinity was very difficult to understand in English. I attempted many times to understand his definition of the Economic Trinity (Note: the Economic Trinity is not a Walmart special, 3 natures of God for the price of one) but to no avail.

So here is my, hopefully, non-heretical, non-understanding of the Trinitarian nature of God. In the Hebrew Testament, we hear about a one, powerful God who breathes upon the waters of the abyss and life was created. The Hebrew Testament writers call the breath of God, Ruah, that is, the Spirit of God. God’s voice speaks to and through the prophets to the people of Israel. The writers of the Hebrew Testament call God’s voice, the Logos or God’s Word. In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the Word of God is identified as Jesus, God incarnate. Just as in our human body, our breath and our voice are inseparable and one with our body, so the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, and Jesus, the Word of God, are inseparable and one in God. The bottom line is this. Jesus taught that God is a Trinity, one God and three natures: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If that is good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for us.”

Because Ruthie, at that time, worked full-time night shifts as an RN, she would go to the Saturday 5 pm Mass. That night of Trinity Sunday back in 2018 was blistering hot at St Wenceslaus. When it came time for the homily, Fr George looked over all the folks melting in the heat of the church building and simply said, “Deacon Bob wrote the most succinct homily on the Trinity. Take a bulletin with you tonight and read it.” Let’s stand for the creed.

I wasn’t at that Mass, I was sweltering at one of the other two rural churches that had been merged with St Wenceslaus in 2011. When Ruthie got up from her brief slumber on Sunday, she told me what Fr George had said. Admittedly, my ego was stroked. It’s not very often that deacons receive a whole lot of affirmation (though Fr Kevin was always affirming of me). I thought, “Well, while I am not Karl Rahner, I guess I am not that stupid.” So if you are thinking, “Oh great, another Trinity Sunday homily, what else could I be doing right now? Fishing? Barbecuing? Beer, Margarita, Tom Collins …. (in desperation) Anything but sitting in this church listening to this homily?” I give you this brief blog. Read it and then go fishing, and then open a cold beer or some other cold refreshment and reflect on the mystery of the Trinity.

Back in 1986, I composed a hymn for Pentecost entitled, “Come, Holy Spirit.” Not necessarily a creative name for a Pentecost hymn, but very few Pentecost hymns are named very creatively. I composed it as a gift for my then, 5 year old daughter, Meg.

This was during the time when there was a great Renaissance of Catholic Liturgical music. This was the time of the St Louis Jesuits, Mike Joncas, Marty Haugen, David Haas, Tom Conry, to name a few of the great liturgical composers that created amazing music. Of course, I, along with many others, created music for our choirs to sing. This song was created to be sung as the Sequence for Pentecost (Veni Creator Spiritus was the old Latin chant for the sequence).

Over time, working on a graduate degree at the St Paul Seminary, along with working 7 days a week in parishes, and, later, being ordained and immersed in parish ministry, this song got lost along with a lot of music I had composed while I was a director of liturgy and music. However, I kept all that music in a tote in my bedroom at home. During a recovery from another orthopedic surgery in 2016, I decided to begin taking all my handwritten music scores and transcribing into digital music files.

It was during the lockdown of the pandemic that I decided to revisit many of the choral settings I composed in the 80’s and 90’s, and recompose them as instrumental piano music. I released much of that music in a collection of music called “A Paschal Journey”. Mixed in with these up to date piano songs, was some newly composed music, too. I recorded the music and published it through CD Baby (It can be found on Amazon Music and iTunes under the name Robert Charles Wagner. It can also be found on YouTube and other streaming services).

Here is the music reconfigured for just piano.

Mystagogy – Pentecost by Robert Charles Wagner (c) 2020. All right reserved.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 1986. Meggie, now 43 years old, is a mother of two girls, and is an RN working at the State Veteran’s Home in Minneapolis, just like her mother, Ruth.

I think the music still stands up for today.

As this Octave of Christmas begins to wind down (In the Roman Catholic Church, Christmas Day is celebrated over eight days, hence the word octave), I have reflected on how Christmas carols have been such a great influence in my life. I have found an “other wordly” quality within the melodies and texts, many of which are not part of the usual standard Christmas carol fare we hear in churches.

I know that this is quite contrary to the experience of many people I know. One of the most common complaints I hear from people during the commercial Christmas Season (from the Friday following Thanksgiving Day to Christmas Day), is the incessant noise pollution of Christmas songs being blared over the sound systems of retail stores of all types, radio and television commercials, and on radio and television programming. Indeed, the most irritating and annoying commercial this year was one by AT&T, with mock carolers adapting the Carol of the Bells in an attempt to tempt people to buy the newest incarnation of the iPhone.

The majority of commercial Christmas songs bear such names as “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree”, “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire”, and their like; all largely forgettable sound dribble which instead of fighting the depression that accompanies the shorter days and long nights, only increases that depression. I am very grateful that American commerce has not appropriated any of my most beloved Christmas carols to appeal to the avarice of the public.

This blessed time following the commercial Christmas season is now free of all that sound clutter, and beginning with Christmas and the days following, at least to the feast of the Epiphany, traditionally, January 6^th, we are able to finally focus on the birth of the Messiah. Liturgically, this is the time to sing and to listen to all those beloved carols that have touched and shaped our lives.

Now in my seventies, I reflect fondly on the carols of the Christmas Season. My two years in singing with the Chorale of the College of St Catherine’s (at the time, my alma mater, College of St Thomas had not become coed), under the direction of Dr. Maurice A Jones (not to be confused with the other infamous Dr. Jones aka Indiana Jones). The first Christmas concert, sung in the beautiful acoustics of the College chapel, was utterly magical for me. Maurie Jones introduced me to the beautiful Christmas motets of French composer Francois Poulenc, French carols, like Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella, Masters in this Hall, plainchant, and so much more. All sung a capella, our voices played off the walls, ceiling, and floors of the chapel.

Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella is a simple little French carol. Yet, within its simple melody and childlike lyrics, it has a great power to move the human heart to the wonder, the amazement, and the unbelievable joy of Christ incarnated in a little baby.

Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella!
Bring a torch to the stable call!
Christ is born, tell the folk of the village
Jesus is born, and Mary’s calling.
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is the Mother.
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is her Son!

It is wrong when the Child is sleeping,
It is wrong to talk so loud.
Silence, now, as you gather around,
Lest your noise should waken Jesus.
Hush! Hush! See how He slumbers;
Hush! Hush! See how fast He sleeps!

Softly now unto the stable,
Softly for a moment come!
Look and see how charming is Jesus,
Look at Him there, His cheeks are rosy!
Hush! Hush! See how the Child is sleeping;
Hush! Hush! See how He smiles in His dreams!

The main choral work that night in the Chapel at St Catherine’s was Francois Poulenc’s set of four Christmas motets. In contrast to the simplicity of Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella, the choral settings of Poulenc were very challenging harmonically to sing. He engaged all sorts of vocal qualities, vocal textures, consonance and dissonance to nuance the Latin text upon which all four motets were based. There is a transcendence in the music that is very beautiful.

Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël

O magnum mysterium
et admirabile sacramentum
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum
jacentem in praesepio.
Beata Virgo cujus viscera
meruerunt portare Dominum Christum
(English Translations)
O great mystery
and wondrous sacrament
that animals might see the newborn Lord
lying in a manger.

Quem vidistis pastores dicite:
annuntiate pro nobis in terris quis apparuit.
Natum vidimus,
et choros Angelorum collaudantes Dominum.
Dicite quidnam vidistis,
et annuntiate Christi nativitatem.
(English translation)
Whom did you see, shepherds, speak,
tell us: on earth, who has appeared?
The newborn child we saw,
and choirs of Angels praising the Lord.
Tell of what you saw,
and announce Christ’s nativity.

Videntes stellam Magi
gavisi sunt gaudio magno:
et intrantes domum
obtulerunt Domino aurum,
thus et myrrham.
(English translation)
Upon seeing the star, the Magi
rejoiced in great joy:
and entering the house
they offered gold,
frankincense and myrrh.

Hodie Christus natus est
Hodie Salvator apparuit,
Hodie in terra canunt angeli
Laetantur archangeli,
Hodie exultant justi, dicentes:
Gloria in excelsis Deo,
[Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
(English translation)
Today Christ is born.
Today the Savior appears.
Today angels sing to the earth,
Archangels rejoices.
Today the just rejoice, saying:
Gloria in the highest to God,
And on earth, peace to people of goodwill.
Alleluia.

I remember all the wonderful choral concerts played on Minnesota Public Radio. My favorite was always Dale Warland’s Singers, Echoes of Christmas Concert performed live, followed by the Lessons and Carols from King’s College in England. As a director of liturgy and music, I tried to schedule my rehearsals so that I would be free to listen to these concerts. When I could, I would try to record them on my cassette tape/radio player so I could listen to them again and again. When my kids got older, if I unable to reschedule a rehearsal to listen to the concert, I would ask one of my kids to record it for me. On the rare occasion, they would do it.

My all time favorite Christmas carol is a 16th century carol entitle, “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.” It is a carol that tells the story of the Jesus from the incarnation, through his passion and death, and ending with his resurrection. The Dale Warland Singers had a marvelous arrangement of the carol which focused only on the the story of the incarnation. Needless to say, when I directed music, I always worked this carol into the songs sung by the choir during the Christmas season.

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance;

Chorus (sung after each verse)
Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.

Then was I born of a virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance
Thus was I knit to man’s nature
To call my true love to my dance.

In a manger laid, and wrapped I was
So very poor, this was my chance
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass
To call my true love to my dance.

The music of all these Christmas carols were never the standard carols pounded to death in churches. Whenever some of the standard carols were sung, it was usually with the skilled choral arrangements composed by John Rutter, Stephen Paulus and other outstanding choral composers.

Unlike the music pounded to death in stores and media, these carols had a way of transporting one to a deeper, reflective place, which Martin Buber would call the interior threshold in which one communes face to face with God; the place of origin in which the psalmist in Psalm 139 would say one was created by God. I often would sit in a quiet place, lit by a candle, and listen to the music. I thought of it as a grotto of both transcendence and immanence; transcendent is which it felt other worldly and immanent in that the presence of God was personally felt. This grotto of musical transcendence and immanence was a respite from the busyness of parish ministry.

From this place toward the end of the Octave of Christmas, we live in a world and a nation torn and shredded by war, violence, and violent political rhetoric. I still minister to families torn by divorce, domestic violence, and the deaths of loved ones. Many instead of finding any peace in the Holy Days of Christmas, just want to “get the damn season over with.” In order to cope or to forget, many enter into a modern version of the bacchanalia of the Winter Solstice. Clearly, the pablum of commercial Christmas music and all it represents, cannot treat the malaise that quite a few people feel. And yet, what makes this time of history any different from any other Christmas, including the first Christmas? The same violence, the same brokenness of today has been present through thousands of generations of human beings.

I hope and I pray that as this Octave of Christmas winds down, we may find a reprieve from all that tears our hearts. I pray that we may be able to create that quiet place, that grotto of transcendence and immanence in which we sit in peace with the God who created us. And, if you need a reprieve from the darkness of the world, play the Christmas carols that stir within you joy, peace, and mystery.

In the Catholic Tradition, the end of the liturgical year is marked by the Solemnity of the Lord Jesus Christ, Ruler of the Universe (once called “Christ the King.”). The gospel reading for this past Sunday was Matthew’s account of the end of the world, in which the Christ returns in glory and stands in judgement of humanity. (Matthew 25:31-46). For myself, this gospel reading of the Last Judgement fully illustrates the last command of Jesus to the apostles, prior to his crucifixion, “Love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12).”

Those who are saved and go to heaven are those whose lives are marked with love and compassion for those who are suffering. They feed the hungry. They give water to those who thirst. They provide shelter for the homeless, They clothe the naked. They care for those who are ill. They welcome the stranger (refugee and immigrant). They visit those who are imprisoned. They are told that because they acted out in love and compassion to those who are suffering, they acted out in love and compassion to Christ.

Conversely, those who are not saved and sentence for eternity to hell are those whose lives are marked with self-indulgence, who ignore or refuse to assist those who are suffering. These are people who choose to be devoid of all compassion and warmth toward others. They allow the hungry to starve. They allow those who are thirsty to die of thirst. They allow the homeless no shelter. They allow the naked to freeze to death. They refuse to provide medical care to those who are ill. They abhor and scorn the stranger, the immigrant, and the refugee. They let those who are imprisoned to rot in their prison cells. They are told because they lacked compassion and love for the suffering, they have separated themselves from Christ forever.

OUR SERVING OTHERS MUST BE AUTHENTIC NOT SELF-SERVING

However, there is one qualification in our service to those in need. St. Paul reminds us this service cannot be self-serving. The intention behind our service to others is not to boast of what we are doing, or to advance our standing in our own individual religious and community ghettos. Our service must be sincere and authentic.

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, teaches this point very clearly. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).”

The Last Judgement reading from Matthew’s gospel is probably the most powerful gospel passage in all four gospels. It reminds us that religious observance is not just isolated to a prayer and attending religious services on the weekend. Rather, the degree of people’s faith and religious observance is measured by God in how they work to ease the burdens of others. Those who act in compassion and love to those who are suffering.

BE DOERS OF THE GOSPEL

This message is not isolated to just the gospels. James, in his letter, reminds us that we must be doers of the gospel. “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like (James 1:22-24). James continues in the second chapter, ”What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. (James 2:14-18).”

In the first letter of John, the same message is proclaimed. “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him (1 John 4: 18-19).”

JUST SMELLS AND BELLS ARE NOT ENOUGH TO GET TO HEAVEN

There are those, clergy and laity alike, who pride themselves on their religious rituals attendance and prayer life, what I use to call “smells and bells” Catholics (the use of incense and ringing of bells at Mass), and think that is enough. They try to buy their way into heaven through religious indulgences. Yet, they turn away in disgust from the homeless, ignore the neighbor who lives in domestic violence. They look down upon those who may be different from them, whose religious observance, whose religious practice, whose religion or culture is different from theirs. They condemn those in the LGBTQ+ community and anyone who is “different” from them.

For those who believe that just attending church and saying their prayers is enough, the very first chapter of the prophet Isaiah has an extremely stern warning.

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:11-17)

This requires us to look at others and the all of creation with a different set of eyes.

SEEING IN A NEW WAY CHRIST REVEALED ALL AROUND US

In Richard Rohr’s book, The Universal Christ, he approaches the incarnation of Christ in the manner of St Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi believed and taught that the first incarnation of Christ was in the creation of the world. As the Prologue of John’s gospel tells us, all things created are created through the Logos, the Christ. In other words, the presence of Christ is embedded, imprinted in every rock, water, air, molecule and atom that makes up all of creation. Christ is incarnated first in that which Christ created. The second incarnation of Christ is in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth, whose birth we celebrate on December 25^th. In the life of Jesus, Christ was merged into humanity so that the Christ could fully reveal who God is to humanity. The third incarnation of Christ was into the community of faith that was created on Pentecost, that which we call “the Church”. Obviously, given the behavior of those in the Church over the centuries, this is a work, or incarnation, in progress.

The way in which I make sense of this abstract concept is through the use of abstract concepts in sacramental theology.

In the parlance of Catholic sacramental theology, what happens at the consecration is that the Holy Spirit, through the priest, reveals the real presence of the Christ in the bread and the wine. The real presence of Christ was already there, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, we fully see and experience that real sacramental presence of the Christ, the source of all things created in the universe. It makes sense that this revelation of the real presence does not go away, following the consecration. We often talk about how we cannot “unsee” something we have seen. So it is for me with the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

In the gospel today, Jesus is telling us is to see the real presence of the Christ in the person who is hungry, who is thirsty, who is naked, who is homeless, who is the stranger, the refugee, the immigrant, who is ill, and who is imprisoned. All of us carry within us the real presence of the Christ through whom we were created. The divine DNA of the Christ is embedded in us, is imprinted on every cell of our bodies, and imprinted on our very souls.

When we see, with a new set of eyes, the real presence of the Christ in all people, especially those who are most in need, we can no longer “unsee” that real presence. The Christ imprinted upon our own souls must respond in love to the real presence of Christ in those who are suffering.

Let our prayer for the upcoming new liturgical year be for our eyes to behold the real presence of the Christ in those around us, especially those most in need. When we respond in love to the Christ in all people, we begin to live far more fully the command of Jesus “To love one another as I have loved you.”