Messy Survival

At Holy Mass today, we hear the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

On the Mount, Lord Jesus taught us how to have a relationship with God. Christ spoke with the authority of… God.

A Christian simply obeys. Repent, beg mercy, live in Christ’s love. Not complicated. Obey Christ, live in His Church. She possesses His words, His sacraments, His heavenly graces. She is by no means perfect in every respect. But true friendship with the Creator is possible because: the Church survives through thick and thin, all over the world.

Speaking of the world: World Cup. I would root for the US, but we’re not in it. So I root like mad for our friend and neighbor, the homeland of so many of our fellow parishioners, a nation with whom we share an enormous amount of history and culture, not to mention our Catholic faith.

Sweden slaughtered Mexico yesterday, 3-0. But Mexico survived to the next round anyway. Because South Korea beat Germany and knocked them out of the tournament. South Korea is out, too. South Korea and Germany went down in flames together. But because South Korea won, Mexico survived to play another day. When you survive, there’s hope. So Mexicans around the world are looking for Koreans to befriend.

St. Irenaeus

Anyway: St. John the Apostle gave the mysteries of Jesus Christ to his pupil St. Polycarp. St. Polycarp gave them to his pupil, St. Irenaeus. St. Irenaeus is one of the first bishops who actually grew up Catholic, having been presented for baptism as an infant by Christian parents. St. Irenaeus shepherded his flock, in what is now France, before anyone ever thought of a book called a “Bible,” before anyone ever uttered the phrase “New Testament.”

Don’t get me wrong. The little books of the New Testament had long since been written. You could make a list of them, in fact, based on the writings that St. Irenaeus cited in his preaching and teaching. St. Irenaeus gave us the idea of a “New Testament,” a “Christian Bible”–by quoting from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Acts of the Apostles, and the letters of Sts. Paul, Peter, and John.

Irenaeus cited these writings because they expressed and deepened the teaching and the ceremonies that he had learned from St. Polycarp, which came from St. John, and from Jesus Himself. The Church’s simple Sacred Tradition.

Simple and beautiful. Except that, for St. Irenaeus, it wasn’t so simple or beautiful. It was messy, like Mexico surviving to the Round of 16. At the time in history when St. Irenaeus had souls in his care, plenty of other books circulated, in addition to the New Testament books, purporting to offer Christian, or “spiritual,” teaching. Plenty of other authorities sought to win the adherence of the people, outside the fold of the Church. Kinda like now.

So Irenaeus had to sort it all out. He had to find a way to keep the true, simple faith of the Church alive in his part of the world. By investigating, arguing, and studying the true words of Christ constantly.

Irenaeus did it. It was a messy fight, but he did it. He kept the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church alive in Lyons. For that we rightly regard him as a towering hero.

He dealt with hard, complicated things, so that we could inherit the simple, beautiful thing to which the New Testament testifies: the mystery of Jesus Christ alive in His Church.

He died a martyr 1,816 years ago today. Pray for us, St. Irenaeus! Especially for this joker who was born on your feastday. (And for his mother, who deserves the credit.)

ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ 8:28

All things work for the good of those who love God. Tois agaposin ton Theon. Those who love God.

May that be us. May we love neither success nor failure. May we love neither riches nor poverty. May we long for neither a long life nor a short one. May we love neither the English language nor any other language. May we love neither tacos, nor hot dogs, nor spring rolls, nor pizza. May we love God. May we be “those who love God.”

Because tois agaposin ton Theon panta synergei eis agathon.

In the dialogues of Plato, one of the characters has the name Agathon. Because he is good. Real good. Beautifully good.

Synergei eis agathon. Synergei sounds like… Synergy.

What a concept. Co-operation. Co-work. Effort made together for one goal. Synergy. Synergy for the good.

What synergei eis agathon? What works together for the good of those who love God? Panta.

Back in the day, what airline covered all of Am? Yes. Pan Am. What pagan temple held altars for all the gods? Yes. Pantheon.

Panta syunergai eis agathon. All things. All work together for the good. Spilled milk works for the good. Bruised egos work for the good. Language barriers work for the good. Missing coffee cups work for the good. Tough days work for the good. Piñatas work for the good. All things work together for the good of…

The God-lovers.

Face-to-Face

On every page of every letter of St. Paul preserved in the New Testament, we can feel the tension between the fact of his physical removal from his audience and his desire to share what he has with them.

He loves the written word, because it allows him to communicate across the vast Mediterranean. But he hates it, because he would prefer to be there. In most of his letters, St. Paul writes to people he knows well, people he loves, people he would still be with—were it not for the inexorable impulse from above which keeps him moving to spread the kingdom of Christ.

Like all the “books” of the New Testament, St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians bears witness to the inadequacy of written words to convey the Gospel. I & II Corinthians, the canonical gospels, the entire New Testament: really just a beautiful shadow of the immeasurably more beautiful reality to which all these documents testify.

So: our passage from the first reading at Holy Mass today…

The context: I am writing to you again because I wrote before, and yet you still carry on like non-Christians. Yes, my letters have authority. But the real “letter” I want to write is: you Corinthians.

You, acting like members of Jesus’ Body, like redeemed children of eternity. That is the only letter I really want to “write,” and would that I could write it by standing there among you and teaching you in person!

Does St. Paul go on to compare himself to Moses, to the pre-eminent prophet who spoke face-to-face with God and returned to the children of Israel with skin blazing with divine glory? Yes, the Apostle does presume to compare himself to Moses. But only because Christ is Christ. Because Christ is God reconciling to Himself all the sinners who have broken Moses’ holy law.

If Moses’ face shone—if the face of the man who saw God inscribe the Law of justice, in words, shone—then how much more will the face of the Apostle of Christ shine? Christ Who is Justice and Who gives justice to the unjust. Christ the one and altogether true Word of divine love, Who makes all other words sound like gongs and clanging cymbals.

St. Paul wrote with a fire and a zeal, with a sympathy and an insight, that few writers could claim to possess. After all, he wrote as a chosen Apostle of the divine Redeemer, a messenger of Revelation.

But St. Paul would prefer not to write with words on paper. He would prefer face-to-face. Face-to-face with his audience to teach them about coming face-to-face God.

St. Luke Day Homily

The four gospels provide us with our clear picture of the living Son of God. Four men composed these books, with the Holy Spirit guiding them, and using all their skill as writers, too.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have achieved a great literary feat. The subject of their writing emerges in vivid color, and they themselves disappear.

St. Luke did not write about himself; he wrote about the Son of God. Ditto for the three other invisible word-portrait painters. When they wrote, they forgot about themselves and gave us Christ.

Luke and John, though, do each provide one sentence to explain their goal in writing, namely to give true testimony. St. Luke spells it out most clearly. He addresses us directly:

Many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses have handed them down. I decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent lover of God. (Luke 1)

We have two extremely solid reasons, then, for trusting the four gospels of the New Testament as the definitive standard when it comes to information about Jesus of Nazareth.

1. If we hold the Christian faith, then it is because the Church has taught it to us. We believe that the Sacred Scriptures provide us with infallibly true teaching because the Church says that they do.

2. If we read documents with an historian’s critical eye, we recognize that the four gospels of the New Testament have a much higher level of credibility than any other source of information about Jesus of Nazareth. All the other sources—the “apocryphal gospels” and other fragments here and there—were all written generations later than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And many of the other supposed sources of information have obvious axes to grind, whereas the canonical gospels have, as we mentioned earlier, an evident purity of intention in their presentation.

So: Talk-show hosts and other sensationalists might jump all over so-called “discoveries” that Jesus was married, or had a girlfriend, or lived to be seventy, or wore a bandana and combat boots, or was a Hindu, or preferred horseback riding to religion. But anyone who actually knows something about this just laughs. We appreciate what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did to give us information about the Son of God upon which we can absolutely rely.

Standing on the (written and unwritten) Word

As we have been discussing over the past few weeks, Almighty God has revealed Himself to us by a particular course of events. By words and deeds, which culminated in His personal appearance as a man, God has revealed the divine truth.

The truth that God is love, triune love. The truth that God conquers evil and brings good out of it. The truth that God wills the eternal salvation of every human being.

So the next thing we have to consider is this: God has spoken His Word in Christ. We want to stand on this Word of God, since it alone provides the foundation of truth. How do we do that? How do we stand on God’s Word?

Quote of the Day from Douthat Beach Reading

The Jew of Nazareth is a paradoxical character. No figure in history or fiction contains as many multitudes as the New Testament’s Jesus. He’s a celibate ascetic who enjoys dining with publicans and changing water into wine at weddings. He’s an apocalyptic prophet one moment, a wise ethicist the next. He’s a fierce critic of Jewish religious law who insists that he’s actually fulfilling rather than subverting it. He preaches a reversal of every social hierarchy while deliberating avoiding explicitly political claims. He promises to set parents against children and then disallows divorce; he consorts with prostitutes while denouncing even lustful thoughts. He makes wild claims about his own relationship to God, and perhaps his own divinity, without displaying any of the usual signs of megalomania or madness. He can be egalitarian and hierarchical, gentle and impatient, extraordinarily charitable and extraordinarily judgmental. He sets impossible standards and then forgives the worst of sinners. He blesses the peacemakers and then promises that he’s brought not peace but the sword. He’s superhuman one moment; the next he’s weeping.

Bad Religion‘s chapter about the “quest(s) for the historical Jesus” made me laugh with delight and cry with sweet consolation.

If you don’t have time to read the (impressively erudite) book right now, the moral of this chapter is: Jesus, the Church, and the canonical gospels (and the whole New Testament) go together like love and marriage and a horse and carriage. If you want to get in touch with the “Jesus of history,” you do well to begin by reciting the Nicene Creed.

St. Paul’s Faithfulness

Like a spiritual father and a good friend, St. Paul wrote to Timothy. Let’s consider for a moment three ways in which the great Apostle kept faith.

1. St. Paul kept faith with his ancestors, the children of Abraham, the nation of Israel. Paul was a rabbi, a zealous adherent of Moses’ law. He undertook his mission as an Apostle of Christ not to depart from his Jewish heritage, but to keep faith with it. Christ had fulfilled the Law and the promises that the prophets received. St. Paul perceived this, and he served Abraham, Moses, and the nation of Israel—by serving Christ.

2. St. Paul kept faith with Christ’s promise of eternal life. Paul never encountered a single event without understanding it by the light of faith. Everything happened to prepare for eternity.

Am I achieving success in organizing a church here in this town? It is for the salvation of souls and the kingdom of God. Am I sick, hungry, and alone because they threw me out of this other town? Then my sufferings serve the cause of building up Christ’s mystical Body. Am I imprisoned in Rome? Then there is a soul in this prison with me that I am meant to touch with the Good News.

Everything by the light of faith—faith in the promises of Christ: The final day will come. The dead will rise. God is the God of the living, not the dead.

3. And St. Paul kept faith with his friends. The New Testament testifies to many wonderful things. But one thing it most certainly testifies to is this: It is the written record of some of the most beautiful, most loving, most intimate and pure friendships that the world has ever seen or ever could see.

Christ taught the human race how to be a friend. St. Paul put the lesson into immediate practice. He prayed for; he lived for; he spent all his intellect and strength for; and then he died for his friends.

Let’s pray that some of St. Paul’s enormous faithfulness will rub off on us.

…PS. Don’t forget that quick click on the handy Compendia tab offers you instant access to an extensive collection of Holy-Year-of-St.-Paul material!

St. Paul’s Perspective and Ours

When St. Paul spoke in Athens, he referred to the one, true God, Whom no pagan image can represent. The true God does not need our service. Rather, He freely gives us all that we have and are. He has made the whole world and the entire human race. He is everyone’s God, the only God.

St. Paul appealed to the fact that everyone, somewhere within him- or herself, knows this God. God is, after all, closer to every individual human being than he is to himself.

Apostles Child-Like and Rabbinical

Two quick points on the two Holy Apostles, Ss. Philip and James.*

1. Maybe you remember how we spoke 2 ½ weeks ago about St. Thomas, about how child-like and straightforward he was in his conversations with Christ. St. Philip was equally as intimate with Jesus and also wore his heart on his sleeve.

When the Lord asked Philip about feeding 5,000 men and their families, the no-nonsense Apostle quickly calculated how much money it would cost. 200 denarii.

Then, at the Last Supper, Jesus told the Apostles that they now knew and could see the Father. Philip broke the solemn silence. “Show us!”

2. St. James, who was a kinsman of Christ, became the first Bishop of Jerusalem. Now, here’s a question: What was the difference between a rabbi in Jerusalem and the first Bishop of Jerusalem?

The people called Christ “rabbi.” Rabbis made other rabbis by gathering disciples to themselves and teaching them over a period of three years or so. All the rabbis in Jerusalem had become rabbis by studying under rabbis. St. James also was a rabbi who had studied under a rabbi.

See my point?

One thing Jerusalem rabbis did was to write letters to Jews in other parts of the Roman Empire. These letters encouraged diaspora Jews and helped them to stay faithful.

Now, obviously, the first Christian Bishop of Jerusalem would never write such a letter! Except that he did. It’s the twentieth book of the New Testament.

Rabbi-Bishop James’ letter to the Diaspora does not, however, urge the observance of the Law of Moses. It makes no mention of Temple sacrifices. Instead, St. James interprets and applies the Sermon on the Mount.

So…what do both these Holy Apostles teach us? What do all apostles teach us? This:

You want God? You want religion? Keep it simple. Look to Jesus Christ.

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*a.k.a. James “the Less,” to distinguish him from St. John’s brother James, who is called “the Greater.”

Completing the Prophets’ Picture

The saints who wrote the four holy gospels had an enormous task, namely to present to us the Person of Jesus Christ, the God-man.

The evangelists’ primary literary means for doing this was to recount the ways in which Christ fulfilled all the prophecies that had foretold His coming.

The prophecies express the beautiful vision of salvation. And yet, the picture does not come fully clear in the Old Testament books. Only when they were fulfilled in Christ did the meaning of the prophecies fully emerge.

The evangelists grasped this, and wrote their books in order to complete the Bible, to make the Old Testament make sense by writing the New.

The vision of the prophets included the healing of the blind and deaf, and many other miraculous works which transcend the fallen state of created nature.

Above all, the prophets foresaw the New Covenant as a whole: the state of reconciliation and friendship between sinners and the Creator, Who had previously been justly offended by sin.

This is why the four evangelists narrate the miracles worked by Christ as a series of preludes, leading up to the miracle of His death and resurrection. Faith in the New Covenant made in Christ’s blood is the ultimate miracle. It is the miracle of the restoration of the original friendship between God and man. This friendship, which we have by faith in Christ, is itself the foundation of all the many other gifts of the Creator, like sight and hearing, knowledge and wisdom.