Sparrows for Sacrifice

[Can’t preach on Sunday. But if I could, I would say this…]

Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. (Matthew 10:29) [Spanish]

Our forefathers of the Old Covenant waited for the Messiah. They didn’t know what His name would be. They didn’t know what He would look like, or exactly what He would do. But they believed in the coming Christ.

After all, God had formed an alliance with them. He had promised good things. The ancient Israelites knew God would fulfill His promises. History would make sense. Life would have meaning. Our desire for justice and truth, for real happiness in an upright, honest life—God Himself would fulfill all those desires. Somehow. God knew how, and He would do it.

In other words, the ancient Israelites believed in Divine Providence. They had no doubt that God would send His Christ to make everything right. And God did send His Christ.

Through Adam sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all… But the gift is not like the transgression. For if, by the transgression of the one, many died, how much more did the grace of God, and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ, overflow. (Romans 5:12,15)

Before He came, the ancient Israelites waited, trusting. And now we Christians know beyond a shadow of a doubt: God loves us. He loves us with the love of a kind Father. Christ crucified reveals the full extent of the Providence of God. The Father loves us this much; He loves us with the “amount” of love evident on the cross. And that amount = infinity.

I think most of us have this in common. Loving Jesus from earliest childhood. Believing in Him as the Savior, as the One Who has atoned for sin, Who has revealed the Father’s love. We know that God loves us, because of Jesus.

Meanwhile: the cross teaches us another important thing, too. If I might, maybe I’ll get a little personal here.

I have vivid memories of how my vocation as a Catholic, and as a priest, began. Thirty years ago, the Lord helped me see not just the infinite love of the Father when I gazed at the crucifix. He also helped me see: the total trust of the Son, the absolute trust of the incarnate Son in His heavenly Father.

Jesus gave Himself over into the Father’s hands, trusting so absolutely that He died fearlessly, even serenely, on Mt. Calvary. The Lord helped me see how this trust of Christ on the cross could be a whole way of life—a way of life for all of us, and especially for us priests.

God will provide. I have nothing to fear. I myself may be obtuse and difficult; I may have a weak nature, prone to selfishness. And there are plenty of other people in this world who have the same problems. So we run up against each other in conflicts sometimes.

But I can still dive headfirst into the great pool of love that is Christ’s Church, without holding anything back. Because I have no evil to fear. Jesus trusted—unto death. And the heavenly Father took care of Him, lifting Him up from the grave, to immortal, heavenly glory. So the Father will take care of me, too.

Right now, our parishes suffer confusion and dismay. I suffer confusion and dismay. A terrible storm has engulfed us, and there’s really not much any of us can do about it. So let’s focus on this:

God sent His Christ. He provided everything necessary for us to get to heaven. And it didn’t happen without wounds.

The two sparrows which got sold for a small coin, which the Lord Jesus said our heavenly Father had His eye on—they didn’t sell those sparrows, in the Temple courtyard, for pets. They sold them for… sacrifice.

The workings of Divine Providence don’t involve some happy-happy-joy-joy merry-go-round ride. No. God’s entire plan revolves around one precise center point: Mount Calvary. We have an altar at church for a reason: so that we can offer ourselves in sacrifice, along with the Body, Blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus.

For our parishes, these are terribly painful months. It is a moment of sacrifice, genuinely wounding sacrifice. But we trust. God provides. Jesus said: Do not be afraid!

So why should I feel discouraged, or why should the shadows come?

Why should my heart be lonely, away from heaven and home?

When Jesus is my portion; my constant friend is He.

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

—

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Unassuming and Evangelical

Be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves… the Spirit of your father will speak through you. (Matthew 10:16, 20)

In Martinsville, Virginia, we have a flowering little inter-faith dialogue underway. A week from Sunday we will meet in the afternoon to discuss the question: Do Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God?

On the one hand, the short answer is certainly Yes. There’s only one God, after all. On that point, we Jews, Muslims, and Christians all agree.

Do we Christians worship the same God as the Jews? Well, we worship Jesus as Son of God. The God of Whom Jesus is the Son: that’s Yahweh, Adonai, the God of the ancient Israelites. Jesus is Jewish. We Christians worship the Jewish Messiah.

Do we worship the same God as the Muslims? Muslims worship Allah. So do we. The Scriptures and Missal of Arab-speaking Catholics use the word “Allah” for God. Catholics pray to Allah countless times every day in Asia. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council explicitly taught that we worship the same God as the Muslims.

All that said, on the other hand: Two sides of the same coin both say that we do not worship the same God.

Jews and Muslims think that we Christians are wrong—that we are crazy—when we say things like: Mary is the Mother of God. God died on the cross. The one, eternal, unknowable God certainly is three distinct divine Persons, One of Whom united Himself Personally to the human race. By a union so intimate that we have only one available metaphor for it: marriage.

Meanwhile, our side of that coin: The Spirit of our Father speaks in us when we declare that God’s Kingdom has come in His only-begotten Christ. That God revealed His eternal, unchanging Law one place, and one place only: the cross. That the gentle rabbi of Nazareth sits at the right hand of the Father and will come again as the world’s merciful Judge. No one comes to the Father—except through the Son.

Shrewd as serpents; innocent as doves. May God keep us both humble and zealous, both open-minded and unswervingly faithful, both unassuming and evangelical.

Card. Ratzinger on New-Evangelization Method

Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves…do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matthew 10:16,19-20)

The New Evangelization. Our mission. St. Kateri beheld her mission and gave herself over to it, here in this land, almost four centuries ago. Now it’s our turn.

But how? How do we participate in the New Evangelization? Here’s how Cardinal Ratzinger put it, back in the Jubilee Year 2000, before he was chosen Pope Benedict XVI.

New evangelization must surrender to the mystery of the grain of mustard seed and not be pretentious… Instead we must accept the mystery that the Church is at the same time a large tree and a very small grain…..

Of course we must use the modern methods of making ourselves heard in a reasonable way—or better yet: of making the voice of the Lord accessible and comprehensible… We are not looking for listening for ourselves—we do not want to increase the power and the spreading of our institutions, but we wish to serve for the good of humanity, giving room to He who is Life.

This expropriation of one’s person, offering it to Christ for the salvation of men, is the fundamental condition of the true commitment for the Gospel. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive, says the Lord (John 5:43). The mark of the Antichrist is the fact that he speaks in his own name.

The sign of the Son is his communion with the Father. The Son introduces us into the Trinitarian communion, into the circle of eternal love, whose persons are  pure acts of giving oneself and of welcome. The Trinitarian plan—visible in the Son, who does not speak in his name—shows the form of life of the true evangelizer—rather, evangelizing is not merely a way of speaking, but a form of living: living in the listening and giving voice to the Father. He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, says the Lord about the Holy Spirit (John 16:13).

The Virtue of Cosmopolitanism

Baciccio’s “Joseph Recognized by His Brothers”

Lord Jesus sent His apostles on their mission. It began with the nation of Israel, then it extended to all the nations of the earth.

The nation of Israel itself had a cosmopolitan heritage. We read at Holy Mass today from Genesis: an episode in which Joseph, the son of Israel, used both his family’s language and the language of the Egyptians. Joseph knew both his own “culture” and the culture of Egypt.

In ensuing generations, after they returned to the Holy Land from slavery in Egypt, the ancient Jews believed that their city of Jerusalem offered to all the nations of the earth a Temple in which to worship the one, true God.

Lord Jesus of course knew all the languages of the world in His divine mind. Over the course of His human pilgrimage, He used a number of them—certainly Aramaic and Hebrew, and perhaps Greek and Latin as well.

In other words, as a human pilgrim and a Jew, God incarnate exercised the virtue of cosmopolitanism. The word cosmopolitan has all but fallen out of use, as the name of a virtue. But isn’t it a sign of human excellence when someone can communicate using more than one language? These days we tend to emphasize the idea of autonomous cultures, distinct “identities.” But the People of God have always lived as citizens of the world. We love all people as sisters and brothers, because we know we share a common Father, our heavenly Father.

The mission of the Church indeed requires that we cultivate the virtue of cosmopolitanism, since the Lord has sent us to proclaim His kingdom of all nations. And, without resting on our laurels, we can congratulate ourselves that our local Catholic parishes rank among the most genuinely cosmopolitan institutions of southwest Virginia. In our parishes, people who speak different languages make friends sharing the Christian life together. And these parts don’t boast too many other bi-lingual or tri-lingual institutions.

Christ is the Light of the Nations. Therefore, He is the Light of the American nation. I think we need to meditate on this somewhat deeply, the fact that our beautiful and beloved American “culture” rests on the virtue of Christian cosmopolitanism.

So I’m fixing to give a talk on this subject on the feastday of the Transfiguration (three weeks from Sunday), at 4pm, with solemn Vespers and Benediction, at St. Joseph’s in Martinsville. Mark your calendars!

Saved How?

Christ was “moved with pity” for us. So He saved us.

Christ has saved us. We believe that—we utterly, completely believe that, since it’s the Christian faith.

But what exactly does it mean? What exactly does it mean to say that Jesus of Nazareth is our Savior? Thoughts?

Part One

Seems to me that we must first answer that Christ has saved us from condemnation after death.

We read that Christ took pity on us because we are “troubled and abandoned.” Troubled first and foremost by not knowing the meaning of life and the fate that awaits us after we die.

Without Christ’s offering of Himself on our behalf, we would have no hope of happiness in the life to come. We could only seek satisfaction in this life. And even the most genuinely satisfying joys we know of endure only so long.

Christ has saved us by turning the ultimate horizon of life into something luminous, rather than dark. We need not fear nor dread death; death no longer holds an enemy’s power over us.

Instead, we serenely acknowledge that life on earth is short. And we hope for a better life, a better realm in which to live, a place of true peace, with joy that doesn’t pass away.

But Jesus Christ saves us not just for the life to come. He also saves us here and now. He is alive and at work, using His infinite powers. He helps us directly, all the time. He gives holy inspirations and interior strength; He softens our hearts and clarifies our minds; He loves—with divine love—in us and through us. By virtue of that divine love, the heavenly life that we hope for begins even now.

Christ our Savior governs us from within. Because we believe, we can participate in the working of His perfect wisdom, simply by obeying Him. He took pity on us because we were like “sheep without a shepherd.”

Sheep can and will thrive and live happy lives, but never as rugged individualists. Sheep don’t do well when they try to stand out from the crowd. To the contrary, they relax and enjoy life precisely when their knowledgeable shepherd tells them where to go and when. They don’t resent him for it; they rejoice in his patient but firm guidance.

Christ saves us by giving us His law to obey. Moral free-lancing does not suit us. Nor does blind conformity to the ways of our neighbors. No, we need the interior law of Christ. To have Christ in charge of us is itself salvation.

Part Two

How does Christ save us?

First and foremost, He saves us by giving us eternal life in heaven. We have no hope of such grandeur without Him. But He offers it to us freely.

But that’s not all. Christ also saves us here and now by healing our wounded souls by His grace and gathering us into His flock.

It’s hard to imagine anything more improbable than the catholic and apostolic Church. None of the principles of successful business or government have ever been followed. The Church makes no appeal to the worldly interests of mankind. To the contrary, She insistently demands that mankind cast away its worldly interests.

And yet this little band of spiritualists—which began with a pair of brother fishermen, a tax collector, and some revolutionaries—this little band has extended its weird, improbable tentacles to this place and this time. Using the same ceremonies and customs in force for almost two full millennia, Christ Himself gathers us and forms us into His obedient flock. Through the ongoing life of His Church, He infuses Himself into our lives, saving us from ten million foibles that we might not even know we would have, were it not for Him.

We need to be saved both from our own self-destructive individualism and from mindless conformity with the Joneses. We find that salvation in Christ’s Church.

And the communion of Christ’s obedient flock is not just a matter of the laity obeying the clergy. We clergy need to be saved from ourselves, too; we, too, must obey.

We all live in the peace enjoyed by Christ’s true sheep when we submit ourselves to the beautiful, motley reality that is the Church. The Church that got founded when Jesus said to the Twelve, “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Back to the Future, Cluster Edition

—

Anyone ever see “Back to the Future?” Seems to me like I have presided at Sunday Mass as the brand-new pastor of the Rocky Mount-Martinsville cluster before. I guess I must have gotten into a DeLorean… [click HERE por espanish.]

But let’s listen to our Lord. Whoever loves his life will lose it. Whoever loves his life in Roanoke will lose it. Or his life in Beverly Hills, or gay Paris, or anywhere else on earth, for that matter; whoever loves a settled, complacent existence–he will lose it.

How about “Groundhog Day?” That movie resonated pretty deeply with real life, because things can get rather repetitive. Bill Murray got stuck on February 2. Seems like I have gotten stuck on July first: July 1, 2017, seems disturbingly like July 1, 2011.

But didn’t Jesus demand precisely this? As we know from St. Luke’s gospel, the Lord didn’t just say: “take up your cross.” He said: “Take up your cross daily.” Today, take it up. Tomorrow: repeat. Our day-to-day life, repetitive as it may appear, is exactly where we meet our opportunities to follow Christ.

At first Bill Murray found it cruelly, intolerably boring to be stuck on the same day. But, after a while, he learned how to live that one day well, He saw the same people, in the exact same situation as he had seen them before, over and over again. By repeating the process, he eventually learned that each encounter with another human being presented him an opportunity–an opportunity to be kind.

His character had lived a selfish, arrogant life. But, by virtue of repeating the same day over and over again, he grew into a soft-hearted, generous gentleman. So maybe there’s hope for me yet.

Have things changed since I last saw you, dear Rocky Mounters and Martinsvillians? This isn’t a movie after all; two years of real history have elapsed. Some of our parish family members have died. And we have new members, too: new arrivals from other places, and new babies sent by God.

God gives growth. When I left, the bushes around St. Francis, outside the front door of the church in Rocky Mount, did not rise so close to his head as they do now. And the pine saplings they planted along the Dick and Willie bike trail in Martinsville, while I was stationed here before: those trees now stand almost twenty feet tall. God gives growth.

But, for us, spiritual growth requires taking up a cross. Over these past two years, I don’t think it has gotten any easier to follow the Lord faithfully in this world. The world has not grown more hospitable for the Christian life. I don’t think any of us have turned on the tv, or checked our facebook, over the past two years and thought: Oh look! There’s less temptation to pride–and self-indulgence, and despair–there’s less evil in this world than there was before!

Don’t think so. So we need to stick together, now more than ever. We need each other. We, the mystical Body, who have been baptized into Christ’s death, so that we might live His newness of life. And, as St. Paul put it: Christ’s life is “for God.” “He lives for God.”

To live for God is our duty, our business, our common undertaking together. Bishop DiLorenzo has given me the honor of serving as pastor of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joseph. When he first gave me that honor, six years ago, I wrote a little sonnet about it. I managed to dig the poem up.

How do I love the cluster?  Let me count
the ways, like Will Shakespeare of old would do.
The first:  a five-speed, four-wheel steed to mount
and burn the road between the parishes two.

The second?  These two fine towns to explore:
Both Piedmont villes, of character diverse.
In one, lake and farm folk both shop the stores.
The other is the NASCAR hero’s nurse.

Throughout the rolling counties, I descry
fertile fields for the sewing of the seed,
and a band of eager discipulae,
attentive to our Church’s every need.

O Lord, how great You are in every act!
May we, like You, great many souls attract.

…I am honored and humbled to serve. Thank you, dear old friends, for welcoming me back so kindly. As you may remember, we had the privilege of celebrating together both the beatification and the canonization of Pope St. John Paul II–in 2011 and 2014, respectively. I think everyone knows that he is my hero. He was born exactly fifty years and six weeks before me. And he was created a cardinal exactly fifty years ago this week.

In other words, at the same age: he became a cardinal, and I become pastor of Rocky Mount and Martinsville again. I don’t envy him; I think I have the better place.

Eye on the Sparrow

—

Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. (Matthew 10:29)

Our forefathers of the Old Covenant awaited the coming of the Messiah. They didn’t know what His name would be. They didn’t know what He would look like, or exactly what He would do.

Nonetheless, they believed in the coming Christ, because they knew that God would provide everything necessary for their nation to enjoy true blessedness. He had formed an alliance with them, and He had promised good things; they knew He would fulfill His promises. History would make sense. Life would have meaning. Our natural human desires for justice and truth, for real happiness in an upright, honest life—all these desires would be fulfilled. Somehow.

The ancient Israelites did not know how everything would get resolved. But they believed in the good God, Who knows all and governs all. In other words, they believed in Divine Providence. So they had no doubt in their minds that God would send His Christ to make everything right.

And the Father did send His Christ.

Through Adam sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all… But the gift is not like the transgression. For if, by the transgression of the one, many died, how much more did the grace of God, and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ, overflow. (Romans 5:12,15)

The ancient Israelites awaited the loving fulfillment of the divine plan. And now we Christians know beyond a shadow of a doubt: God loves us with the love of a kind Father.

Christ crucified has revealed it: our heavenly Father has counted all our hairs, with the same kind of tenderness with which a mother would stroke the peach fuzz on her baby’s head. Christ crucified reveals the full extent of the Providence of God. The Father loves us this much; He loves us with the “amount” of love evident on the cross. And that amount = infinity.

Meanwhile: the cross also teaches us another important thing. If I might, maybe I’ll get a little personal here. I have vivid memories of how my vocation as a Catholic, and as a priest, began. Twenty-five years ago, the Lord helped me see something else in the crucifix: not just the love of the Father, but also the total trust that the incarnate Son had in His Father.

Ever since earliest childhood, I had loved Jesus and believed in Him as the Savior, as the One Who has atoned for sin, Who has revealed the fullness of the Father’s love for mankind. Then, when I was reaching adulthood, the Lord gave me this other gift. I saw how Jesus gave Himself over into the Father’s hands, trusting so absolutely that He died fearlessly, even serenely, on Mt. Calvary. The Lord helped me see how this trust of Christ on the cross could be a way of life—a way of life for all of us, and especially for us men called to be priests and to live a celibate life.

God will provide. I have nothing to fear. I myself may be obtuse and difficult; I may be weak-natured and prone to selfishness. And there are plenty of other people in this world who have the same problems, so we run up against each other in conflicts sometimes. But I can still dive headfirst into the great pool of love that is Christ’s Church, without holding anything back, because I have no evil to fear. Jesus trusted—unto death. And the heavenly Father took care of Him, lifting Him up from the grave, to immortal, heavenly glory. So the Father will take care of me, too.

—

…Now, when Bilbo Baggins prepared to leave the Shire on his 111^th birthday, he declared to his neighbors, “A hundred eleven years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits!”

Two years is too short a time to serve in Roanoke among the excellent and admirable Catholics of St. Andrews and St. Gerard’s. I wish I could have 111 more years, so Catholic Roanoke could really get good and sick of me.

Seriously though, I think we have to exercise a little patience with ourselves, as we gradually try to get over the shock of this pastoral transition. Maybe I could even say: we have to exercise patience with ourselves as we recover from the wound of this mysterious pastoral transition.

God sent His Christ, thus providing everything necessary for us to get to heaven. But it didn’t happen without wounds. As we meditate on God’s fatherly Providence, let’s remember: the two sparrows which got sold for a small coin, which the Lord said our heavenly Father had His eye on—they didn’t sell those sparrows, in the Temple courtyard, for pets. They sold them for… sacrifice.

The workings of Divine Providence don’t involve some happy-happy-joy-joy merry-go-round ride. No. God’s entire plan revolves around one precise center point: Mount Calvary. We have an altar at church for a reason: so that we can offer ourselves in sacrifice–along with the Body, Blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus.

Certainly the transition of pastors in Roanoke spells relief for many people who find me intolerably tedious—whom I cannot blame at all, since I find myself intolerably tedious, too. But for me anyway, and I daresay for some others, this is a painful moment–me having to say goodbye to some dearly beloved hobbits. It is a moment of sacrifice, genuinely wounding sacrifice. Wounds like this don’t heal overnight.

But we trust. God provides. Jesus said: Do not be afraid!

So why should I feel discouraged, or why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart be lonely, away from heaven and home?
When Jesus is my portion; my constant friend is He.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Precious-Blood-Month Exhortation

Go, make this proclamation, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand.’ (Matthew 10:7)

We rejoice in the cleansing and healing effects of the Precious Blood of Christ. He shed His blood on the cross, at a particular time, in a particular place. But the Blood reaches us, across the globe and through the ages, because our ancestors in the faith, our predecessors in the mission, heeded Christ’s command to go and proclaim the Kingdom of heaven.

The Kingdom of heaven is here and now for anyone whose soul has been cleansed and renewed by the Blood of the Lamb. Evil, sin, death, sorrow, darkness—none of these have the last word. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed, has conquered death, and has applied to us His work of atonement.

We priests have the privilege of ministering the Precious Blood at the altar, and in the Confessional, and at the baptismal font. The Lord Himself has made us dispensers of His Precious Blood—literally, in the Holy Mass, and by its spiritual effects in the other sacraments.

But Christ commanded not just priests, but the whole Church to go and proclaim the Kingdom that has been won by the Precious Blood. We priests will happily stand in church baptizing, confessing, and saying Mass for all the converts that our beloved and enterprising lay people can manage to invite in.

For all of us, priests and people, our mission starts with this fundamental act of faith: We believe that the Precious Blood of Christ washes away sin, conquers death, and gives healing and undying life. We believe that Jesus Christ, slain on the cross to atone for all human evil—we believe that He pours out the grace of His blood from a heavenly fountainhead that will never run dry.

He commands us to believe this, and to love others enough to want to share this life with them.

Stating the Obvious

Lake Philpott and the Blue Ridge

Do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. (Matthew 10:19)

The Lord instructed His Apostles, “Proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

The kingdom of God is at hand. Admittedly, this is a challenging and mysterious thing to proclaim. Mysterious because God altogether transcends our understanding. Challenging because, if the altogether transcendent One is asserting His authority, then we all certainly need to take a long, hard look at what we are doing and clean things up a bit.

Granted, then: The apostolic proclamation of the coming of God’s Kingdom is mysterious and challenging. But can it be called offensive, or even surprising?

Can it surprise any reasonable person to hear that Almighty God reigns? Quite the contrary, it is an obvious fact. Almighty God certainly reigns. If there is any question whatsoever about whether or not Almighty God reigns, all you need to do is drive up to the Philpott Dam overlook at closing time and watch the sun set. Almighty God reigns.

Is it offensive to declare that Almighty God reigns? Apparently it is, because the Lord warns us that we will be handed over to courts and even put to death for stating forthrightly such a simple and obvious fact. Then He tells us not to worry about what to say when the crisis comes.

The Lord Jesus promises that the Spirit of the Father will speak in us.

We can be confident of this because the Holy Spirit can and will inspire whomever He wills to inspire.

And we can be confident, and not worry about our speeches in defense of the Gospel, because, after all, it really is not complicated.

God is God. He is not a little pet or a pile of dirty laundry you can shove in the closet. He makes all that exists exist. His Kingdom is at hand; He reigns. No duh.

It did not take a rocket scientist to explain the meaning of life to the human race.

It just took the meek and humble carpenter Who did not clamor in the streets but went quietly, like a lamb, to His destiny.