My readers who pray the Liturgy of the Hours will be excited to know that the General Instruction for the Liturgy of the Hours is now available for pre-order. Why is this important?

Liturgical books in the Catholic Church are most often published with a preface of sorts explaining why and how the prayers and rituals in the books are to be performed. These instructions are usually called something like “General Instructions” or (in the case of the Lectionary), “General Introduction.”

For example, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) contains all manner of norms for how to celebrate the Mass that are otherwise not found in the Mass text itself. The GIRM is included in the front of every Roman Missal that is published; but it can also be purchased as a stand-alone volume, which is much more usable for study.

The Liturgy of the Hours, being an official liturgical text of the Church, also has a General Instruction, fittingly named the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH), containing all the norms about when, why and how the Liturgy of the Hours are to be prayed. Now that we are getting a 2nd edition of the Liturgy of the Hours with an updated English translation, we are also getting an updated 2nd edition of the GILH.

Unlike the Roman Missal, however, the Liturgy of the Hours is a four-volume work. Why does this matter? Because the GILH is included only at the beginning of Volume I (naturally enough). It is not repeated in subsequent volumes. But the first volume of the 2nd edition that will be shipped out in January 2027 (whether you order from Ascension Press or Word on Fire) will not be Volume I, but Volume II, with subsequent volumes shipping in time for use over the course of the year.

• Volume II covers Lent & Easter and will ship January 2027.

• Volume III covers the first half of Ordinary Time and will ship May 2027.

• Volume IV covers the second half of Ordinary Time and will ship July 2027.

• Volume I covers Advent & Christmas and will ship November 2027.

Why not start with Volume I? Advent is the beginning of the Church year, after all. Wouldn’t it make sense to start there? This is because the Church allows a window of time when liturgical texts get updated. People are not required to use the new text immediately. The first use date for the 2nd edition is February 10, 2027 (Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent), while the mandatory use date is not until December 2, 2027, the first Sunday of Advent. This allows those who are required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours ample time to acquire the new books.

But it also means that, for those who wish to begin using the new edition sooner, rather than later, we’d be waiting until November 2027 to read the General Instruction of the 2nd edition — meanwhile many people would have been praying with the 2nd edition text for ten months!

This is why I was excited to receive notification in my inbox today from two publishers who will be making the 2nd edition of the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours available as a stand-alone text, which you can preorder now.

Ascension Press is offering it for $14.99, with an expected ship date of January 10, 2027 (same as Volume II of the LotH).

Midwest Theological Forum is offering it for $16.95, with an expected ship date of “early 2027.”

Both will be 6” x 9” paperbacks. From what I can tell, the major difference between the two, other than font and layout, is that the MTF edition will include space for marginal notes, which may be useful for those looking for a study edition.

MTF also announced that they will be publishing a stand-alone edition of Compline (Night Prayer), which will also ship early 2027.

In today’s gospel from the lectionary, Jesus is speaking about the coming of the Son of Man and the importance of always being prepared, “for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Mt 24:44). Whether Christ’s final coming in glory to judge the living and the dead takes place a million years from now or later this very day matters not because each of us, at a day and hour known only to God, will inevitably come to the end of our earthly lives and face our own particular judgment. And for this, we must be ready.

Today happens to be the memorial of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, famous for praying ceaselessly for the conversion of her wayward son who would later go on to become one of the greatest doctors of the Church. The Office of Readings for today’s memorial contains an excerpt from St. Augustine’s Confessions, in which he describes his mother’s passage from this life.

It begins:

The day was now approaching when my mother Monica would depart from this life; you knew that day, Lord, though we did not. She and I happened to be standing by ourselves at a window that overlooked the garden in the courtyard of the house. At the time we were in Ostia on the Tiber. We had gone there after a long and wearisome journey to get away from the noisy crowd, and to rest and prepare for our sea voyage. I believe that you, Lord, caused all this to happen in your own mysterious ways.

He goes on to describe their time together. Being away from the crowds, as he said, they were able to engage in long conversation with one another about “what it would be like to share the eternal life enjoyed by the saints,” as he describes it. “That was the substance of our talk,” he writes, “though not our exact words.” They spoke of their hope for their eternal destiny, unaware that for one of them it would come much sooner than they imagined.

During the course of that conversation, Monica revealed to her son that she was ready — eager, in fact — to enter into that glory. Augustine remembers her words thusly:

“Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounces earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?”

To be clear, when Monica attests that she finds no pleasure in this life and has no further hopes in this world, it is not an expression of depression or despair, but the exact opposite. It is an expression of her great and joyful hope in the glory of the world to come. She has no further hopes in this world because she recognizes that she has been greatly blessed by God, and the greatest blessing of all is the gift of eternal life with Him. Eagerness to enter more fully into that blessed life keeps her eyes fully fixed on heaven.

A few days later, Monica would fall ill, and shortly thereafter pass from this life. As she was suffering from fever, one of her other sons (not Augustine) expressed concern that she not die so far from her native land of Tagaste in Africa. She chastised him, saying that it mattered not where she died or where her body was laid to rest, only that “you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.”

Monica did not know the day or hour of her passing, but when that day came she was ready; or, as Jesus put it in the gospel, she was “awake.”

The reading for Morning Prayer from the Common of Holy Women, which we pray today for Monica’s memorial, happens to be the same reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans that we will hear at this coming Sunday’s Mass.

I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect (Rom 12:1-2).

Monica’s mind was not conformed to this age — this age of sin and death that is passing away — but was already transformed and renewed by baptismal grace so as to be conformed to the age to come, the age of peace and life and eternal beatitude which was ushed in by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and which will be finally revealed in full at his second coming in glory. She lived in the light of this reality.

This is what it means to “stay awake”: it means maintaining a vigilant awareness that we Christians are no longer citizens of this present age, though we must endure it for a time, but that our true citizenship is in heaven (cf. Phil 3:20).

When we think of St. Monica we most often think (understandably) of her life of prayer and penance on behalf of her son. Her example in this regard is truly an inspiring witness for us, a testimony to her faithfulness, and a source of hope for all who have loved ones who have strayed from the faith. But we should not forget the powerful witness of her death, which due to the vigilance of her faith she was able to approach with hope and peace.

None of us knows when that day and hour will come for us — but it will come. We do not know whether or not we will be with family, whether or not we will have the benefit of the last sacraments or the Church’s rites, whether our passage from this life will be swift or lingering, or whether or not we will be able to anticipate its coming.

But, like St. Monica, we can be ready. We can be awake. And we can approach that unknown day and hour not with fear, but with contentment and a joyful longing for the peace we know awaits us.

St. Monica and St. Augustine, pray for us.

Lectionary Readings

Recently I went to the retreat house at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Alabama for a few days. This shrine is on the grounds of the Poor Clair monastery where Mother Angelica’s order is located; that’s where Mother Angelica is buried, in fact. It’s very near the EWTN studio where they record their Masses and other programming. I was staying at a retreat house they have for clergy, and it reminded me of the very first time I visited there.

It was during Covid, and not a lot of retreat centers were open. But I really needed a retreat. As clergy, we are mandated by canon law to make a retreat each year. But these were unusual circumstances. I don’t have to remind you of what a stressful time that was, in many different ways. I was stressed out, and agitated, and anxious about so many things. So I make the drive down to the shrine, check in to the retreat house, drop my things off in my room, and I have a little time before they are going to serve the evening meal, so I decide to go into the chapel and pray Vespers, or Evening Prayer.

I grab my breviary and head into the chapel. It’s a really beautifully appointed little chapel. I sit down in one of the pews, look around and take everything in, and before I start to pray I fix my gaze on the crucifix behind the altar, breathe out a sigh, and say, “Lord, have mercy.” And as soon as I say that, at that very moment, I feel a wave of peace flow over my body and I hear God say clearly in my head, It’s all mercy.

I haven’t received a communication that clear in prayer ever before or since. But it absolutely changed the way I think about mercy. I used to think about mercy primarily in terms of the forgiveness of sins. And that is a mercy that we need from God. But mercy is broader than that. Mercy really just means “help.” If someone is hungry and you give them food to eat, that’s mercy. You are assisting them in their need. If someone is lonely and you keep them company, that’s mercy. If someone is sick and you give them medicine, that’s mercy. If someone is tired and you give them rest, that’s mercy. And yes, if someone sins against you and you forgive them, that’s mercy.

When I heard God say, It’s all mercy, what I realized in that moment is that everything God does for us, everything God gives us, all the graces, all the blessings, but also all the struggles and challenges and every circumstance of our lives — all of creation, in fact — is a mercy from God, because God gives it to us for our good, because he loves us. Last Sunday we read Romans 8:28 that says “God works all things for the good of those whom he loves,” and when I’m struggling, I often like to add to that verse the words, “even this,” as a reminder that everything is a mercy.

Everything we have; our resources, our bodies, our souls, even the air we breathe, is a gift from God, because he is the creator of all things and there is nothing outside of his power. A major theme running through the story of salvation is God asking his people to trust him. Trust me, he says. I will take care of you. I will supply your needs. Whether it’s Israel sojourning through the desert, relying on the mana God gives them; or Jesus reminding his disciples that God takes care of even a little sparrow, so surely he will take care of us; or St. Paul telling Christians to give thanks and rejoice even in the midst of suffering and persecution, God wants us to trust him. He truly is working all things for our good, therefore all things are part of his mercy.

This is the meaning of “grace.” Grace is a word that simply means “gift.” The Church teaches that we cannot be saved without grace, because salvation is a gift. Salvation from what? From sin and death. Who can forgive our sins? God. Who can raise us from the dead? God. Who can offer eternal life? God. This is what God made us for, in fact — eternal life with him. We can’t achieve that on our own. We can’t bridge the gap between heaven and earth. But God can. And he gives us that as a gift.

That gift comes in the form of his Son, who gives himself fully on the cross. The cross is a beautiful thing when you consider it as grace, or a gift. As God, Jesus reveals to us on the cross God’s own heart. “God is love,” as St. John says. And love is a gift; love is a gift of yourself to the one you love. Jesus gives himself fully for his beloved — that is, you and me — when he gives his life on the cross. But as Man, Jesus also takes his humanity and offers it on our behalf as a gift to the Father.

You see, a gift demands a response. We lose sight of this sometimes in our conversations about grace, because we want to emphasize the sheer gratuity of God’s gift, meaning it is not something that can be earned — which is true. But a gift, especially a valuable gift, also demands a response. There are expectations that go along with accepting any gift. You all know what I mean. A parent might say to a child, “I’ll give you money for college — that’s a gift — but I expect you to make good grades.” When we give something good we want the recipient to use it for good, even if those expectations are unspoken. The people of ancient Israel were no different from us in that regard. They knew that when God gives to us, those gifts come with expectations; that we will be thankful, that we will be faithful to the covenant; that we will be obedient to the law and so forth.

The readings today are all about graciously receiving gifts from God, and learning to trust God to supply our needs. The prophet Isaiah says, “All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!” The psalmist says, “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.” It seems like a clear message that we are to rely upon our good and loving God for everything, right?

And then we come to the gospel, where a great crowd has gathered around Jesus. We are told that his heart is moved with pity for them, and he heals their sick. And when evening comes, the Apostles tell Jesus to dismiss them so they can go to the villages and feed themselves. Given everything I just said, and what we heard just now from Isaiah and the Psalms and even St. Paul who says nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not even hunger, how would you expect Jesus to respond? The Apostles say, “Send them away so they can feed themselves.” And you would expect Jesus to say, “No. Let them stay. I will feed them,” right? “I will supply their needs.” But that’s not what Jesus says at all. He says, “Give them some food yourselves.” You feed them. That’s the twist the Apostles didn’t see coming.

You feed them. And they protest, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have.” It’s not enough. There are over five thousand people! It’s not enough! And truly it isn’t. But Christ works a miracle. He takes our limited, insufficient human resources, and when we apply them to God’s purposes, makes them more than abundant. But we have to use our gifts for God’s purposes. We have to take what we have been given, and give it away. This is the response to grace that God wants from us.

He says it plainly throughout the gospels in so many ways. If you want God to forgive you, you need to forgive others. If you want to receive God’s mercy, then be merciful yourself. The greatest commandment is to love God, and that means loving your neighbor. “Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus says. Take what you’ve been given, and give it away.

We see the same pattern repeated in the liturgy. The priest speaks the words of Christ when he says, “My peace be with you,” and we respond by what? Offering each other the sign of peace. The whole Mass, in fact, is all about giving away what we’ve been given. We come to Mass to receive Jesus himself in the Eucharist. And how do we respond? By going home and living our lives like everyone else, going about our business like nothing has happened? No! By going out as missionaries to share Christ with others. That’s what we are sent out to do at the end of every Mass, to take what we’ve been given and give it away.

But we don’t want to give it away! We don’t want to give our time, we don’t want to give our money, we don’t want to give our attention, our care, our resources, our lives, because giving feels like losing and we’re afraid of what it might cost us. God asks us to give our all and we just don’t feel like we have enough. I feel it, too. I’m right there with you. But what Jesus shows us in the multiplication of the loaves and fish is the same thing he tries to teach us when he says, “To save your life you must lose it” — but not just lose it, you have to “lose it for my sake” Jesus says (cf. Mt 16:25). You have to take what you’ve been given, and give it away. You have to give away, not the five loaves and two fish that you first brought to the table, but the loaves and fish that have been blessed by the Lord and multiplied by grace — that’s what God asks us to give as a blessing to others, to give what we’ve been given. You have to love people and serve people not with your own love alone, but with the love of Christ in you; with the power of Christ at work in you. That’s the secret! That’s enough! That’s how you can give yourself away without losing yourself, because by giving yourself, you are really giving Christ.

Everything we have, we have received from God as a gift, and the most precious gift he offers is his Son. This gift is free. We did nothing to earn it. But to receive this gift well, this is what God asks in return: that we give it freely to others. Freely we have received; freely we are to give. Christ is God’s gift. And for us to become Christ, to truly have Christ live within us, we must become gifts, too, taking all we have and offering it to God to be blessed, broken, and given away in love; because each time a Christian makes a sacrifice of love for another, Christ is multiplied in this world.

I had the chance recently to view Steven Spielberg's latest alien flick, Disclosure Day. I'm generally a fan of sci-fi movies, and in particular those dealing with government alien cover-ups. This movie in particular promised to explore how people of faith might respond the existence of advanced alien life, so I had a special interest in seeing it.

While I found it entertaining enough, I came away grossly disspointed at how it did (or more accurately did not) grapple with that issue. I have to say at the outset that Spielberg did manage to treat the topic respectfully, in the sense that religion was not presented as “the bad guy" or something silly that humanity needs to discard as a relic of the past. I am grateful for that. I'm just dissapointed in the shallowness of how faith was presented on screen.

One of the main characters is a young woman named Jane (played by Eve Hewson), whom we learn was once a novice pursuing a religious vocation. She is the primary catalyst for religious dialogue throughout the film. Somewhat typically, Catholicism serves as a cinematic stand in for religion in general.

The fact that Jane left the convent is meant to signal to us that she's not necessarily “all in" with religion. She's a questioner, but she still maintains a degree of faith, witnessed by the fact that when she and her boyfriend are in trouble, the monastary is where they run for refuge.

When said boyfriend, Daniel (Josh O'Connor) reveals to Jane his evidence that the government has been covering up the existence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life for decades, she expresses concern with how disclosure of this truth may impact people's belief in God. Daniel objects that he didn't think she even believed in God anymore, so why should she care about that. She responds that she still believes in God, she just “can no longer say with certainty that God is divine.”

That's when I inwardly groaned.

She believes in God, but no longer believes God is divine? I am an ordained minister with theology degrees and I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

The word “divine" refers to God. Something is divine inasmuch as it pertains to God. That's the meaning of the word. So to say, “I believe in God, I just don't believe that he's divine,” is nonsensical. There are any number of things you may or may not believe about God. You may struggle to believe in God's goodness, for example, or in his transcendence. But to disbelieve in God's divinity is to disbelieve in the very concept of God.

The writers themselves seem to struggle with even basic concepts of God, which is what I find so dissapointing. A few moments later in the same scene, after saying that God is essential to how we (as humans) define ourselves and is “what keeps the whole civilzation together” -- good points, I might add -- she then says, “We've been raised to believe in a supreme being, and now you want to show actual supreme beings? People can't handle both.”

I'm sorry, what?

Here is what we (and Jane) know about our alien visitors at this point in the film: they are technologically advanced enough to travel between stars, and so at least in that regard possess a high level of intelligence; they physically appear smaller and weaker than we are. Later in the film we learn that their language is based around mathematics (the “universal language”) and that they regard empathy as the highest virtue. But does any of that make them supreme beings? Do the writers know what a supreme being is?

Jane is concerned that people will be tempted to worship the aliens as gods, and that's a fair concern. After all, we are tempted to worship celebrities and politicians, so why not aliens with advanced tech? There is a lot that can be explored along those lines. But the way that concern is expressed belies a childish, not-even-surface level concept of who and what God is.

The first line of the Creed, which Christians hold to as the most fundamental expression of faith, is, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” “Heaven and earth" here is an idiom that means everything, all that is.

God is the unique creator of all that is; the source of being itself. That is fundamental to a monotheistic faith. This means God cannot himself be a creature within the universe. He must be outside of creation, which is to say, transcendent. Further, to create existence out of nothing he must be infinitely powerful, which is to say, omnipotent. Most all the qualities of God we can deduce from natural reason flow from this one fact that he alone is the uncreated creator of all that is, which is to say the supreme being. Almond-eyed aliens with zoomy-zoomy spaceships and cool math clicky language don't even come close to that category — and someone who used to be a religious novice ought to know that. Jane's characterization of religious faith just comes across as unbelievable.

In another scene, she calls her former Mother Superior on the phone for some faith-based consolation, asking how she would react if she learned of the existence of alien life. To her credit, the good Mother says it wouldn't shake her faith at all. In fact, she rather expects that in all the vast universe, God probably did make other intelligent life. At least it wouldn't surprise her.

Jane pushes back, pointing out that Genesis says we (human beings) are God's supreme creation. Mother corrects her, saying Genesis only says we are God's supreme creation on earth.

Only Genesis says neither of those things.

Genesis says we are created in God's image and that we are to have dominion over the fish and the birds and “every living thing that moves upon the earth" (Gen 1:26-28). So there is a heirarchy to God's creation. But it never says we are God's supreme creation, on earth or anywhere else. In fact, the scriptures frequently menion beings created by God that are much more powerful than us, and indeed closer to God. They are called angels. Human beings are specifically called “lower" or “less" than the angels (Ps 8:5; Heb 2:7). Rather than representing a challenge to Christian faith, the existence of beings much more powerful than we are is actually embedded in Christianity.

Again, someone who was a former novice, and certainly a Mother Superior of a convent, ought to be familiar enough with scripture to speak about it intelligently, and that just doesn't come across in this film's dialogue. This tells me that, while the script writers thankfully showed some respect for the religious perspective in the film, they didn't take it seriously enough to learn even the most basic things about it. And that's dissapointing.

If you are interested in exploring the actual implications of the possible existence of alien life to Christianity, from people who do take that perspective seriously, I recommend the book Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial, by Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, which offers answers to some of the most frequently asked questions received by Vatican astronomers, or, for a really deep-dive, listening to episode 55 of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, dealing with Aliens & Religion.

Watching Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this past weekend with my family reminded me just how much I enjoy ancient travel myths and hero journeys. You know the ones I mean; the hero travels to far away lands full of magic, giants, dragons and sea serpents. Venture far enough from the familiarities of home and anything is possible.

Later writers, such as Jonathan Swift and C. S. Lewis, have carried on this tradition with stories like Gulliver’s Travels and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (perhaps my favorite of the Narnia series). Swift was writing satire, and Lewis allegory, but what was the motivation for the original myth-tellers of old, captured in classics like The Odyssey? The likely answer to my mind is wonder.

Wonder is a wonderful thing. People often speak of how small the ancient world was with most people rarely, if ever, travelling far beyond the village of their birth. News of the outside world trickled in slowly, carried by itenerant bards, pilgrims and merchant traders. So in a certain respect, yes, their world was small compared to ours. Certainly it was much more local.

But by another way of thinking, their world was larger than we might appreciate. Precisely because the known world was so small, the world beyond the edge of the map loomed much, much larger in their imagination. In those dark places, there was room for all sorts of wonderful and fantastic things. “Beyond here there be dragons.” And why shouldn’t there be?

An island where a giant cyclopes dutifully shepherds his flock of sheep? Why not? Monsters of the deep that can sink ships? Certainly possible. Sirens who lure sailors to their death by their song? Is it really so hard to imagine? Vast indeed is the unknown.

Or it was, once upon a time.

Today, our world is fully charted; and not just charted, but available. From the comfort of my living room, I can spin the globe on Google Earth and zoom in on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, walk the streets of Jerusalem, or peek in on the Antarctic research station all dutifully monitored by the watchful eyes of never-sleeping sattelites.

Furthermore, the answer to any question of science, history, or culture that may pop into my head is only a search query away. There's no need to travel to a library to satisfy my curiosity, far less to an unknown land. We've eliminated the need for wonder.

But the human capacity for wonder still remains. We cannot help but be tantlized by the possibilities that lie beyond the borders of our knowledge. I think this helps explain the modern fascination with aliens. With the earth fully exlored (more or less; we still really don't know what secrets the ocean depths may contain), the frontiers of modern exploration lie beyond our planet. The more we learn about the universe, the more we discover just how unbelievably large it is. Anything could be out there, even things that make ancient monsters look mundane!

This isn't to say aliens are just modern-day myths. Maybe they exist. Maybe they don't. (If you are curious about exploring the ramifications to the Christian faith of the existence of rational extraterrestrial beings, Jimmy Akin explores that question rather thoroughly in this episode of his Mysterious World podcast.)

Aliens loom large in the modern imagination precisely because they are unknown, and therefore could be anything. If we do discover extraterrestrial beings one day, I wonder how long they would hold their fascination.

Unicorns aren't real, but rhinoserouses are, and are they really any less strange? Dinosaurs couldn't breathe fire, but would our anscestors have considered them anything other than dragons? If giant squids don't qualify as sea serpents, I'm not sure what would. And have you seen a girraffe? Fantastic things really do exist; only our familiarity with them makes them feel mundane.

We are the prime example! Consider what a wonder the human person is. No other creature on earth tells myths, writes poetry, falls in love, wonders about the stars, or prays to unseen gods. Why do we, uniquely, do these things? Where does this impluse come from?

This leads us to another avenue of exploration beyond even the sea and the stars, which is the spiritual realm. Human beings have forever been curious about what forces operate beyond the observable limits of our physical experience. The ancient myths are full of angels and demons they called gods whose machinations intercepted at times with the human world.

The world of the spirit remains, even moreso than space, the great unknown beyond the edge of the map. The only way to get there, it would seem, is to make a journey you can't return from (though some have managed to swim a bit out from shore and come back with Near Death Experiences). What happens to our unquenchable human spirit after the body dies? If only someone from the other side were to come to reveal that to us …

Ultimately, I think this is what our fascination with the unknown is pointing us toward -- the great unknown that is God. We naturally intuit that there must be more to the world than what we see, more to discover than our limited experience might allow for. Our universe is truly full of wonder, and no matter how much we catalog and classify the things that are in it, there will always be more beyond the edge of our understanding.

In Homer's original Odysssey, Odysseus’ chief fault was hubris. He thought he was so clever, and his reliance on his own cleverness led him to no end of trouble. As our knowledge of this world increases, I hope our fascination with myths will keep us humble before the great mystery of all that yet lies beyond.

According to my extensive research (aka, a quick Google search I just did a few minutes ago), the plant with the smallest seed is the orchid, varieties of which typically have seeds ranging from 0.1 mm to 0.05 mm, or about the size of a speck of dust.

According to similar extensive research, the largest plant in the world by volume is a sequoia tree in California’s Sequoia National Park called General Sherman, estimated to have a trunk volume of 1487 square meters. The largest plant by area, on the other hand, is an underwater seagrass called Posidonia australis in Shark Bay, Western Australia, which spans some 77 square miles.

What does this have to do with anything?

Well, if you were paying attention to the gospel this past Sunday, you’d think the title for smallest seed in the world and largest plant in the world both belong to the mustard plant. After all, Jesus clearly says:

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants (Mt 13:31-32a).

So do we have to choose between believing Jesus or Google? We don’t need to rely on a Google search. Mustard plants typically get no more than six feet high or so. Just take a walk in the woods and you’ll see with your own eyes plenty of plants much larger.

So is Jesus just wrong? Has he never seen a tree? Or perhaps the gospel writers are wrong about what Jesus said? Either way, it seems there is a problem. The Church teaches the Bible is inerrant, which means it has no errors. But there is clearly an error here. That means the Bible must be untrustworthy. What else might the gospel writers have gotten wrong? The virgin birth? The crucifixion? The resurrection? Why should we trust anything the scriptures say?

This is the sort of conundrum one gets into when one assumes every word of scripture must be literally true. Thankfully, the Church does not teach us to read the Bible this way.

The confusion is understandable. The Church does teach the scriptures to be inerrant, and that can certainly sound to the average ear to mean “literally true.” But Church teaching is actually more nuanced.

The Catholic Church teaches that God inspired the human authors of sacred scripture in such a way that, while they used their own human powers and faculties, they were guided by the Holy Spirit to write what God wished them to write to convey truth for the sake of our salvation (Catechism of the Catholic Church 106).

As described by the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, and quoted in the Catechism:

Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures (Dei Verbum 11, qtd. in CCC 107).

In other words, the Holy Spirit affirms what the sacred writers wished to affirm with their text. So the question becomes, do the writers of sacred scripture always wish to affirm the literal meaning of each and every word they write? The Catechism (and all of Christian tradition) would say no.

In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current. For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression (CCC 110).

This just makes sense. Truth is not always conveyed by use of straightforward, literal meaning. If I am writing a scientific analysis of experiments performed in a chemistry lab, the language I use will be very exact and precise. On the other hand, if I am writing a poem to express devotion to my beloved, the language I use will be flowery and symbolic. Both express truth.

Even in everyday speech, we often employ words and phrases to convey truth that goes beyond the literal meaning of the words. A common example is if I said it were “raining cats and dogs.” The literal meaning of these words suggests that felines and canines are falling from the sky, but that is not at all the truth I mean to affirm. The truth I mean to affirm is that it is raining very hard. We understand this, because we understand the idiom. The problem when reading texts written millennia ago is that the idioms are often unfamiliar to us. Knowledge of the culture and traditions of the time is therefore essential to any kind of scriptural exegesis.

This doesn’t mean we need to all be historians and anthropologists to understand the Bible. Often we just need to employ some common sense. Let’s look again at what Jesus says about mustard seeds in Matthew 13:31-32.

In this part of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus employs various parables to describe the kingdom of heaven. He describes it as seed sown in different types of soil (Mt 13:18-23), as a field where wheat and weeds grow together (Mt 13:24-30), and as yeast leavening bread (Mt 13:33). His purpose is to convey “knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 13:11) — not to teach the disciples about farming or baking.

So when Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed we must ask, what is the truth he means to affirm? Is he making a point about botany? No. This text is not asserting a truth about the relative sizes of plants, but about the kingdom of heaven, and it is that truth, conveyed by means of simile and metaphor, that the Church teaches is inerrant.

We must remember that the scripture writers, while inspired by the Holy Spirit, still use human language and modes of speech; and that involves not only simile and metaphor, but also exaggeration and hyperbole. We use these forms of expression so commonly, in fact, that we often take them for granted.

For example, I remember describing my experience of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. I said, “It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen!” Well, that’s not literally true, is it? Every time I watch a sunrise or sunset, I’m looking at a burning ball of gas some 865,000 miles in diameter. But when I say the Grand Canyon is the biggest thing I’ve ever seen, if someone corrects me by pointing out that I’ve seen the sun, we’d think they were being a pedantic jerk!

Similarly, if I said to a newborn baby, “You’re just the tiniest thing!” it should be clear to anyone that I’m not meaning to assert that this baby is the smallest thing in the universe, only that she is quite small.

So when Jesus talks about mustard seeds, there is no need for us to take his words hyper-literally. He’s not making a point about the relative size of plants. He’s asserting a truth about the kingdom of heaven by comparing it to a seed that, while being very small, grows into something much larger, just like the tiny yeast performs its hidden work to produce an outsized effect in a loaf of bread.

So is this passage true? Is the kingdom of heaven like a small seed that grows into a large plant? Two thousand years later, we see that the Church, which began with a handful of disciples, now includes members from every nation on earth. Christ is indeed the seed that has fallen to the ground and died, only to rise and produce a great harvest (cf. Jn 12:24).

Those who have ears ought to hear.

Lectionary Readings

Some of you may know that my family and I have a pet donkey at home. Her name is Lucy. She’s a sweet old girl, who likes apples, being brushed, and rolling in the grass. The reason we have her is because we also have sheep and donkeys have traditionally been used as guardian animals for livestock because they’ll chase away wolves and coyotes and the like. If you pay attention when you are driving through farm country and pass a field with cows or goats or sheep in it, you’ll often see a donkey among the herd.

And I have a confession I want to make. No offense to any horse lovers in the congregation, but I’ve come to like donkeys better than horses. There’s nothing wrong with horses. I totally get why people love them so much. They are beautiful, noble, majestic creatures! But that’s actually why I don’t like them as much as donkeys. Whenever I’m around a horse I always get the impression that the horse thinks he’s better than me! I never feel that way around donkeys. With their goofy faces and oversized rabbit ears, they embody humility. Horses are so aristocratic; it’s no wonder horses have always been associated with royalty.

But not in Israel. In ancient Israel, the royal steed was actually the donkey. King David rode a donkey. If you remember the story of when David was nearing the end of his reign and one of his sons was trying to usurp the throne from Solomon, whom he had chosen as his heir, David ordered that Solomon be placed on his royal donkey and processed through Jerusalem, and that’s how people would know Solomon was his successor.

It is interesting that the donkey was associated with kings in Israel. As far as I know, Israel was unique in this. Any other king would be mounted on a powerful war horse. But not Israel. Israel’s kings were meant to be more like the donkey; humble, gentle protectors: not arrogant, not amassing riches or glory for themselves, not relying on their own strength, but on the strength of God.

I go into all this about about donkeys because, believe it or not, it helps us to understand what Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel when he says, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones” (Mt 11:25). That’s kind of a strange verse to begin a reading with. What are “these things” that Jesus is talking about? The Church kind of assumes that we’ll know the context.

But if you don’t, and you say, OK, I’ll just go back a few verses to see what Jesus is talking about here, this is what you’ll read. This is Matthew 11:21-24, the three verses that immediately precede our gospel reading today.

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: ‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.’ For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

And then we read, “At that time, Jesus exclaimed . . .” that God has hidden these things from the wise but revealed them to little ones. But what things? We still don’t know the answer to that question. Jesus condemns the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum because they didn’t repent, but what was it that they missed, exactly?

This is where the donkey comes in. In Zechariah’s prophecy that we heard in the first reading, he tells Jerusalem to rejoice because, “your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass” (Zech 9:9). Zechariah is prophesying in the days after the second temple had been constructed. The first temple had been destroyed during the Babylonian conquest, when Judah was sent into exile. But if you recall from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, King Cyrus of Persia had permitted the Jews to return and even gave them money and resources to rebuild Jerusalem, including the temple. So now the temple was rebuilt, and sacrifices were once more being offered on its altars; and the people were waiting.

What were they waiting for? They were waiting for the glory of God to return. The glory of God, the shekinah in Hebrew, had dwelled in the temple, in the holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. It left when the temple was destroyed, but now that the temple was rebuilt, the people were hopeful that it would come back, and that the kingdom of Israel would be restored. Those two things, the glory of God and the restoration of the kingdom, went hand in hand in the Jewish mind. And this is what they were waiting for. They were waiting and waiting, and nothing seemed to be happening. And so they struggled with doubt and despair, as we may well imagine.

This is when Zechariah comes in and tells them not to worry, but to rejoice, assuring them that their king and savior would indeed come, and they would recognize him because he would be riding on a donkey. And when he comes, he will banish the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem. He would proclaim peace not just to Judah, but to all the nations, and his dominion would not just include Israel, but all the ends of the earth. They just needed to wait.

They waited for 500 years, under the Persians, under the Greeks, under the Romans. Worldly empires came and went. And they waited. But what should they do while they waited? There were different ways of answering that question. This is when the various Jewish factions we read about in the gospels came into being. The Sadducees said, “Well, we have the temple. We can worship God. Even though we’re under Roman rule, we have ‘religious freedom,’” to use a modern term for it. And that’s not too bad. So we should just accept the status quo and learn to get along with the worldly powers that be. And there is a certain wisdom to that.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, figured that since God permitted Israel’s destruction because of their unfaithfulness to the covenant, maybe God would return and restore Israel if the people were faithful enough. So their focus was on being hyper-vigilant in keeping all aspects of the Mosaic law and teaching others how to keep the law. And there is a certain wisdom to that, too.

Then you have the party called the Zealots. These Jews were tired of waiting. They said, “We need to do something! We need to take up arms, to start a rebellion against the Romans to kick them out, just like our ancestors did to the Greeks during the Maccabean revolt.” And there is a certain wisdom to that way of thinking, as well. After all, it had worked for the Maccabeans.

So there is a certain logic and a certain wisdom to all three of these approaches, but also clearly some faults. But I’m willing to bet that if you asked anyone from any of these three groups, they would have told you that they were doing the will of God; that they were the ones being faithful, and the others were wrong-headed.

Now you may be thinking, I remember Jesus admonishing the Sadducees and the Pharisees on multiple occasions in the gospels, but he never says anything against the Zealots. Except that he does, and we’ve missed it. You see, the Zealot party was centered up in the Galilee region, and there were three towns in particular where they gathered most of their recruits. Any guesses as to which three towns? Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.

The people in these towns were ripe for the Messiah to come. Any day now, they expected their savior to come riding in on a war horse, and they were ready to take up arms and follow him into battle. So when Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of God is at hand, that got people’s attention. But he said strange things, like how the kingdom belonged to peacemakers, and how to enter God’s kingdom you needed to love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, and turn the other cheek. He said if someone presses you into service for one mile, which was a thing Roman soldiers often did, that you should give them two. These don’t sound like words of wisdom. Jesus did not sound to them like a warhorse. He sounded like an ass.

This is what was hidden from the wise and the learned, but revealed to the little ones. This is why the crowds that waved palms and shouted “Hosannah!” to welcome their king on Palm Sunday abandoned him when he was arrested and crucified. They forgot the reason why Israel’s kings rode on donkeys. They were never meant to be like other kings, because the kingdom of God is not like other kingdoms.

In God’s kingdom, humility is stronger than pride. In God’s kingdom, mercy matters more than might. In God’s kingdom, victory comes through forgiveness, not violence. In God’s kingdom, the mighty are cast down and the lowly are raised up, and authority is used to serve others, not oppress them. As we celebrate 250 years of independence for our great nation, let us not forget that if we want our country to be a Godly country, this is what that looks like. And if we want to be good citizens, these are the virtues we must practice.

This is not to say we have to all put on our birkenstocks and strum guitars and sing, “Give Peace a Chance.” Yes, there are times when it is right and just to take up arms and fight — in defense of the innocent, in defense of our God-given human rights, in accord with the Church’s teachings on just war. As long as we live in a fallen world, this will always be the sad and necessary truth. But let us be careful never to put our hope in our own self-righteousness, our own political power, or military strength, lest we share the fate of Chorizin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. In the end, the chariot, the warhorse, and the spear will be banished from God’s kingdom, because that kingdom is a place of compassion, of peace, and of rest. That rest can be ours even now, if we yoke ourselves to the donkey-riding king who is meek and humble of heart, and imitate his example of humility in all the circumstances of our lives.

Lectionary Readings

The readings for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) begin with 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a. You’ll notice that there is a gap, with verses 12 & 13 being omitted, and that we only hear the first half of verse 16 at the end.

There is a reason for that, I’m sure. The truncated version of the story of Elisha and the Shunamite woman that we hear at Mass today focuses more on the hospitality given to the prophet by the Shunamite, which ties nicely into the gospel’s message: “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward” (Mt 10:41). More on that later.

But I find the full account of the story of Elisha and the Shunamite woman fascinating. The story begins in verse 8, where we are told of a “woman of influence” offering meals and, eventually, a place to stay for the prophet, making for him a little guest room of sorts to serve as a waystation whenever he passed through the area.

In thanksgiving for all she has done for him, Elisha desired to do something for her in return. Initially, she is reluctant to accept any sort of recompense for her kindness. In the omitted verses (v. 12-13), Elisha offers to put in a good word for her to the king or the army commander. Her response is merely, “I am living among my own people.” In other words, “I’m fine.”

But Elisha presses and eventually his servant points out to him that the woman has no son and that her husband is old (implying that she will be utterly on her own after her husband’s death). So Elisha tells her, “This time next year you will be cradling a baby son.” This is the first half of verse 16, that we hear at Mass today. That’s good news! And so our story seemingly ends on a high note.

But listen to the second half of that verse, that we don’t hear. The Shunamite woman’s response to this seemingly good news from the prophet (whom she trusts a great deal, remember), is “My lord, you are a man of God; do not deceive your servant.” She’s afraid she’s being lied to.

Have you ever wanted something so much for so long without having it that you eventually acquiesced to life without, and given up hope? This must have been her position. Despite longing for a child, she must have buried any hope of ever becoming a mother so deep down inside that she was afraid of even admitting to it herself. And now here comes the prophet causing that buried desire to resurface. It must have felt like opening an old wound. No wonder she said, “Don’t lie to me.”

And that’s just the beginning of the story. If we read the rest of chapter 4 we discover that she did indeed have a son, just as Elisha foretold, and that he initially was healthy. But while still a young boy, he took ill and died. She lays her dead son’s body out on the prophet’s own guest bed and then immediately seeks out Elisha on Mount Carmel. When she finds him, she tells him (accuses him, really), “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘Do not mislead me’?” (2 Kgs 4:28).

We can only imagine her anguish, frustration, and sense of betrayal. How dare God grant her this gift of a son, which she didn’t dare ask for on her own, only to take him away so suddenly?

But Elisha rushes to her home, sprawls himself out over the dead boy’s body, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, hands to hands, and prays. After doing so, the boy is miraculously brought back to life. What are we to make of all of this? Why would God grant this woman her deepest longing, which she herself dared not hope for, only to take it away, and give it back again? Who knows? This is indeed a hard thing, but so is much of life.

I am reminded of Job 2:10. We receive good things from God and also bad. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

But the story ends with resurrection, and that, I believe is the point. There will be hardships in life. There will be tragedies. There will be ups and downs. But what God desires for us all in the end is life. This helps us to make sense of what Jesus says to us in the gospel reading today.

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 10:37-39).

Jesus isn’t saying we need to hate our own parents or love them any less than we do. But we need to love him more. That is, we need to be faithful to him first and above all. Why? Because he is the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25). Our parents will die. Our children will die. Everyone else in our life can and will disappoint us in time, if all our hopes for happiness and fulfillment rest upon them. But not Jesus. He has conquered death for us and through his death brings us to resurrection.

This is why we must take up our cross and follow him. This is why Paul reminds us in the second reading today that to be baptized into Christ is to be baptized into his death (Rom 6:3). Because it is only through His death that we have true and everlasting life.

I mentioned above that one possible reason the Church may provide a truncated version of the story of Elisha and the Shunamite woman in the first reading is to focus our attention on the virtue of hospitality, and that this aligns with some of what we hear Jesus saying in the gospel passage for this Sunday. That is true enough, as it goes.

But in reading what our Lord says about being hospitable, I couldn’t help but make an observation.

First, let us recall that in this section of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is speaking in particular to the Twelve Apostles. In other words, he is not addressing the crowds at large. Matthew 10 begins with his calling of the Twelve and then commissioning them to go to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mt 10:6-7). He warns them that they would face persecution, and then, in the section we read from today, speaks to them of the conditions of discipleship, i.e. taking up the cross and following him.

The part that deals with hospitality begins, “Whoever receives you, receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (Mt 10:40). In other words, he is not — at least not in this passage — speaking to his followers about the need to be hospitable to others. Rather, he is speaking to his chosen Twelve in particular about their need to rely on the hospitality of others, telling them that those who welcome them will be blessed, because by welcoming them, they are, in fact, welcoming the Lord. This all lines up with his earlier instructions that they are not to take provisions on their missionary journey, but to rely on what God would provide through the hospitality of others (cf. Mt 10:9-10).

It is in this context that Jesus says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward” (Mt 10:41, emphasis mine). In other words, this is not a verse about helping those in need, or welcoming the stranger in a general sense. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of other scripture passages to support those works of mercy. That’s just not what this passage is about. In this passage, Jesus is speaking specifically of the rewards that accompany hospitality shown to holy and righteous people.

And lest we may be tempted to think he has only the Apostles in mind, our Lord concludes his discourse by saying, “And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple — amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward” (Mt 10:42). So any act of kindness, even one as small as offering a drink of water, given to a disciple of Christ because he is a disciple of Christ will be rewarded by God.

Again, please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that it is not a good and holy, and indeed morally praiseworthy thing to offer hospitality to strangers and aid to the poor. I am just saying that this isn’t what this passage is about. I point that out because my sense is that many priests and deacons this Sunday will use these readings as an occasion to preach about the virtue of hospitality in general. And that’s fine. That’s a message that needs to be preached. And there certainly is a tie-in with the readings for today. But we cannot ignore the actual words that Jesus is speaking here and the implications that it has for how we ought to treat our fellow Christians in particular.

Something very similar can be said when it comes to the famous passage in Matthew 25 where Jesus speaks of the judgment of the nations, when the Son of Man will come in glory and separate out the sheep from the goats. All the nations will be assembled before him (Mt 25:32) and we will be judged according to whether or not we fed the hungry, clothes the naked, cared for the ill, and visited the imprisoned (see Mt 25:31-46). Clearly a call to minister to the needs of the poor, correct? This is how this passage is always preached, after all.

But Jesus speaks particularly about giving aid to “these least brothers of mine” (Mt 25:40), not people in general. So who are these "brothers” of Jesus? One interpretation is that anyone in need is a “brother” of Jesus because of their need. But a traditional understanding of this text is that the “brothers” of Jesus are Christian disciples who suffer for the gospel. This understanding lines up especially well with what we hear in today’s reading from Matthew 10.

Again, please do not misunderstand me. I’m not saying that it is not good to help those in need generally. There is plenty in the gospels, and in the scriptures more broadly, lauding people who minister to those in need. We absolutely should be doing that. But it is also clear that there is something distinctive about giving aid to our fellow Christian disciples.

I don’t really have a point to make other than to draw attention to what the gospel text actually says. It is certainly something to reflect upon. Perhaps it is the spiritual unity we are meant to have in Christ that gives our need to assist those who suffer for the faith more urgency.

Lectionary Readings

Is the Mass a sacrifice or a meal? That is a trick question, because the correct answer is that it is both. According to the Catechism, “The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s body and blood” (CCC 1382).

The reason people sometimes get confused on this point and think that it must be either one or the other is due to an assumption that these two things — sacrifice and meal — are two distinct concepts that the Church is somehow trying to bring together into one act of worship, and we don’t quite know how they fit. But if you study the Old Testament, you discover that sacrifices and meals went hand in hand when it came to giving worship to God.

When the people of ancient Israel offered a sacrifice to God, the animal they sacrificed was not just left to rot. It was eaten. In fact, the consummation of the sacrificial victim was understood to be an integral part of the sacrifice. The sacrifice had to be eaten, not just by the priest who offered the sacrifice but also by the people. That was how the people participated in the act of sacrifice. They ate the sacrifice. The best example of this, and the one we are probably most familiar with, is the Passover. Jesus instituted the Eucharist at a Passover meal. But if you remember the origin of Passover, it was in conjunction with the tenth and final plague God inflicted upon Egypt when he liberated Israel, the death of the first-born. For the angel of death to pass over the Hebrew families, not only did they need to sacrifice a lamb and mark their doors with its blood, but everyone in the family had to eat the flesh of the lamb. That was their participation in the sacrifice.

The practice of eating sacrificial animals wasn’t unique to ancient Israel but happened in many ancient cultures. In fact, it was probably the norm. If you went anywhere in ancient Greece or Rome you would find animals being sacrificed to various gods and goddesses in temples dedicated to them. And attached to the temple would be places kind of like restaurants, where people would go and be served meat from the animals that had been offered to the gods. Eating the meat was considered a participation in the sacrificial offering. That’s why if you read the Acts of the Apostles, or the letters of St. Paul, you find the issue coming up of whether Christians could eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols.

You see, for many ancient peoples, especially those living in cities, this would have been the normal way to get meat in your diet; you’d go to the temple, like we might go to Haywood Smokehouse, only the brisket or the pulled pork would have come from an animal sacrificed to Zeus or Aphrodite. So Christians rightly wondered, is it OK to eat this meat? Or is that a form of idol worship, since eating the flesh of the sacrificial animal was considered a participation in the sacrifice?

St. Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians. The Christians in Corinth reasoned that since the pagan gods are false, it doesn’t really matter if we eat meat sacrificed to them. So they’d share in the Eucharist on Sundays, but then on other days they would enjoy meals at the pagan temples. St. Paul points out the scandal of this. Even if eating the meat itself might not be wrong, other people would assume that by eating the meat, these Christians were joining in the pagan sacrifice. It would lead others to believe that you can worship Jesus, and at the same time continue to worship pagan gods. So to avoid scandal, Christians should avoid eating meat sacrificed to idols.

It is in this part of 1 Corinthians that St. Paul reminds them of what the Mass is all about. “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16). What is the cup of blessing? Some of you may know that in the Passover meal, there were multiple cups of wine that were involved, each with its own place in the liturgy. The third cup of wine was called the “cup of blessing.” This was the cup that was served as the lamb was being eaten; and it was this cup that Jesus took into his hands at the Last Supper when he instituted the Eucharist, saying, “This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant.” There was no lamb being eaten at this time, of course, because Jesus himself was the lamb, and he had just offered them his body to eat for the first time in the Eucharist.

I go into all of this because it helps us to see how the Mass can be and must be both a sacrifice and a meal. And more importantly, it helps us to see how it is that we, as Christians, participate in the one unique sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ. Catholics and Protestants agree that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is unique. His sacrifice alone atones for the sins of mankind and reconciles us to the Father. All Christians agree on this. What we disagree on is how we participate in that sacrifice.

The Protestant answer is that we just need to believe in Jesus. But to the ancient mind, the way you participate in a sacrifice is by eating the sacrifice. So the Catholic understanding is and always has been that we participate in Jesus’ sacrifice through the Eucharist. In fact Jesus instituted the Eucharist precisely so that we might be able to participate in his sacrifice, to consume the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and thereby pass over from death into life.

How else are we to understand what Jesus says in today’s gospel? “[U]nless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (Jn 6:53-54). That sounds crazy unless we understand that Jesus intended to offer himself as a sacrifice, and sacrificial victims were meant to be consumed. That’s how the people participated in the sacrifice.

But still, the idea of eating human flesh was just as shocking in the first century as it is for us today. John tells us, “The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” (Jn 6:52). Jesus gives us the answer when he says, “I am the living bread come down from heaven” (Jn 6:51). “Bread from heaven” is a reference to the manna God sent to sustain his people in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. Earlier in this passage in John, the people, who had followed Jesus out into the wilderness because of the signs they saw him perform, which ought to make us think of the Exodus. There, they asked Jesus to perform another sign. They wanted him to give them manna like Moses did (see Jn 6:30-31). Jesus corrected them, saying that it wasn’t Moses who gave them bread from heaven, but “my Father gives true bread from heaven . . . which gives life to the world” (Jn 6:32, 33). When they say, “give us this bread,” Jesus tells them, “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:34, 35).

When Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:51) and “my flesh is true food” (Jn 5:55), he combines both of these things into one in his person. He is what the manna and the Passover lamb were both pointing to. He is both the bread given from God as nourishment, and the sacrifice given to God as offering.

This is what makes the sacrifice of Christ unique. All other sacrifices are sacrifices given by man to God. In Jesus Christ uniquely, the gift of perfect, sinless humanity is offered to God — a spotless lamb — and the gift of divinity is offered to man. And in the Eucharist, we share in that gift and in all the benefits it affords, including the benefit of eternal life. “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ” (1 Cor 10:16)? Is it not a participation in his sacrifice?

This is the Eucharist. This is why the Mass can be nothing other than both a sacrifice and a meal. The meal is our participation in the perfect sacrificial offering of Jesus Christ to our heavenly Father in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. Jesus is the lamb of God, and the bread from heaven, giving eternal life to all who share in his Eucharistic feast.

Lectionary Readings

We are nearing the end of the Easter Season. Next week we will celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord and the week after that we will celebrate Pentecost and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. The gospel that we hear today points us to these coming events. Jesus tells his disciples that in a little while they will no longer see him, but he will not leave us orphans. He will send an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to be with us always, and through the Holy Spirit we will be in Jesus, just as Jesus is in the Father.

We will abide in him, and he in us, just as he abides in the Father and the Father in him. And this union with Christ and the Father is made possible through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is like the glue that binds us to the Trinity. He makes our union with the Father and the Son possible. So how do we participate in this life of the Spirit?

If you pay attention to the readings we hear at Mass during the Easter season, you might notice how often they point us to the sacraments as a source of grace. It is as though Jesus is telling us, this is how I will be with you. This is how you are to remain in me and I in you. We participate in the life of the Spirit through the sacraments Christ left us.

On the very day of the resurrection Jesus breathed on the Apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them” — the sacrament of Reconciliation. On that same day, Jesus accompanies two disciples on the road to Emmaus, where he makes his presence known to them in the breaking of the bread — the Eucharist. Last Sunday we heard about the sacrament of holy orders, when the first deacons were ordained through the laying on of hands as assistants to the Apostles to share in their ministry; men filled with the Holy Spirit. Today we hear about one of those deacons, Philip, baptizing people in Samaria. But there was a limit to what Philip, as a deacon, could do. He could baptize them, but he could not lay hands on them and call down the Holy Spirit — what we today call the sacrament of confirmation. For that, you need the authority of a bishop. And so they sent for the Apostles, Peter and John, who administered that sacrament and so completed the Samaritan Christians’ initiation into the Church.

Why was this confirmation necessary? If baptism is our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus, confirmation is our participation in Pentecost. It is when the Holy Spirit empowers us as he empowered the Apostles, enabling them to proclaim the gospel, both in word and by the example of their lives, boldly withstanding persecution. That is our job as Christians, but we can’t do it effectively by our own power. We need the power of the Spirit.

But don’t we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism? Yes, we do. So what makes confirmation unique? So many of us in the Church struggle to give an answer to that question. Confirmation has been called “a sacrament in search of a theology.” And this is a shame, because as we see in today’s readings, it goes all the way back to the very beginning of the Church. The Apostles came to these new converts who had been baptized, and so were now part of the Church; but they needed something more. They needed to be confirmed as members of the Body of Christ by receiving the Spirit that animates that Body.

I think perhaps our understanding of confirmation is lacking because we don’t understand the natural symbol being evoked. All of the sacraments convey God’s supernatural grace to us through natural symbols that we can understand. Jesus feeds us with his Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and we understand this through the natural symbols of bread and wine. In baptism we die to our old self and rise a new creation in Christ, which is shown by the symbol of descending into the waters and rising again from them. Baptism is also a cleansing. It cleanses us of sin as an ordinary bath cleanses us from dirt.

The natural symbol helps us to understand what is taking place spiritually, that is hidden to our senses. So what is the natural symbol for confirmation? We are anointed with oil. That is the physical sign. Today most of us are only anointed with oil in church, so we don’t have a context for its meaning as a natural symbol. But the truth is, we do anoint ourselves all the time, we just don’t use that language to describe it.

After we bathe, what do many of us do? We may moisturize our skin with lotion, or put on cologne or perfume. These are forms of anointing. They are not necessary parts of bathing. Soap and water will get us clean. Lotions and perfumes are extra; they are an added luxury, making our skin soft and making us smell good. It’s a way of pampering ourselves. Ancient people liked to feel good and smell good just like us, only their way of doing it was to use scented oil. They would anoint themselves in this way.

Because this anointing was an added luxury, it came to be used in ancient Israel as a sign of God’s special favor. When God chose Aaron as high priest, for example, Moses anointed him with oil. When God chose David as king, Samuel anointed him with oil. These anointings signified that God was bestowing special blessings upon these individuals, not just because God liked them, but because God was preparing them for an important mission; to be a priest or to be a king. They would face special challenges and so needed additional strength from God to carry out their mission.

In Hebrew, the word for an anointed person is messiah. In Greek it is christos. We call Jesus the Christ because he is anointed by God in a special, unique way. When did Jesus receive his anointing? It was immediately after his baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove. Jesus was not anointed with a symbol of the Spirit. He was anointed by the Spirit directly, as were the Apostles at Pentecost.

So confirmation and baptism have always been linked together in the mind of the Church. We are made members of Christ through baptism, and that means we also share in his mission. That means we also need a share in his anointing. This is what it means to be a Christian; the word “Christian” literally means a “little anointed one,” a “little Christ.” That’s why the Samaritan Christians, even though Philip had baptized them, still needed anointing by the Holy Spirit, to strengthen them for their mission — their part in Jesus’ mission.

Jesus’ mission is the reconciliation of mankind to God the Father by forgiving sins, conquering death, and raising us to eternal life. Our part in that mission is to live in light of that reality and to proclaim that good news to all the world; to give a reason for our hope, as St. Peter says in the second reading. We are called to be priests and kings and apostles of Jesus Christ, and God empowers us for this mission through anointing; through confirmation. Everyone in this church who has been confirmed has this anointing, this power, and this mission. What we do not have is excuses. Whatever excuses we might think we have, the Holy Spirit is telling us, “I have taken care of that already. Trust me to lead you and give you strength.”

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Paraclete. That’s not a type of bird. It’s a legal term which means “advocate.” What it literally means in Greek is “someone who walks beside us.” The Spirit walks beside us even now. When we read of the Apostles performing mighty deeds in the early Church — curing the sick, casting out demons, dying for the faith — we need to remember that we are part of the same Church and that we have received the same Spirit.

So in these days leading up to Pentecost, let us, like the Apostles, devote ourselves to prayer and open our hearts and minds to everything that the Spirit makes possible for us. Let us not just be passive recipients of grace, but let’s live our mission as Apostles in the 21st century, proclaiming good news, giving reason for our hope with gentleness, reverence, and the power of the Spirit, to all who very much need a reason for hope.

We sometimes mistakenly consider work to be the result of the Fall. This is a misreading of Genesis, which tells us only that man’s labor would become more burdensome due to our sin.

The reality is that man was tasked with work from the beginning. “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). That certainly involves work, though the implication is that it was not toilsome before the Fall.

Likewise there will also be work for us to do in heaven. We very often lose sight of this fact because of the emphasis put on the rest we will have from our earthly burdens. Jesus does say, after all, “Come to me all who labor and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).

But the scriptures also speak of the saints reigning with Christ for eternity. St. Paul assures Timothy, “If we endure, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim 2:12), and Revelation speaks of the saints reigning “for ever and ever” (Rev 22:5).

Reigning is not a passive thing. To reign is to rule and govern, and that involves work. Heaven won’t be an eternal siesta. We’ll be doing things, participating in that dominion over creation that God gave us from the beginning (see Gen 1:28).

All this means that human labor is inherently good, a reality we are invited to reflect on on this feast of St. Joseph the Worker. There is a great dignity in human work. God did not make us to be idle.

That means everyday human labor is (or can be) a holy endeavor. Too often we treat work as something that gets in the way of devotion. “If only I weren’t so busy,” we tell ourselves, “I could pray more, be at church more, read the Bible more, etc.” But holiness is not found only in doing these “religious” things, important though they may be. Holiness can and should be found in the duties of ordinary life, including our labor.

Holiness doesn’t come from doing different things (unless what we’re doing is sinful, then yes, we need to do different things) as much as doing the things we do for God, rather than for man. St. Francis de Sales writes in the Introduction to the Devout Life.

To apply this principle to our daily work, it simply means attending to our responsibilities to the best of our ability, working honestly and virtuously, with concern not so much for the adulations of man but for the glory of God.

If we attend diligently to our responsibilities with this in mind, our daily work becomes something that leads us closer to God, whether we are a CEO responsible for the running of an international corporation, or the janitor responsible for sweeping the floor; whether we are a king or a humble carpenter.

I think it’s safe to say that for most modern Christians, the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is an image of comfort and care. This is certainly not wrong. But I also think it’s safe to say that most modern Christians’ ideas around sheep and shepherds come from petting zoos rather than real shepherding experience. Certainly the Jewish people of the first century would have had a different perspective.

That perspective would have been formed not only by the fact that animal husbandry was much more of a common, everyday experience, but even more from an historical and scriptural tradition that cast Israel’s leaders in shepherding roles.

The Shepherd King

Let’s start with the interconnection between shepherds and kings that existed in the Jewish imagination. When we think of shepherd-kings of the Old Testament, the first person to come to mind is King David — and rightly so. When Samuel came to anoint the one who was to succeed Saul as the true king of Israel, he chose the youngest of Jesse’s sons, who was busy at the time shepherding his father’s flock (see 1 Sam 16:11-13).

David would go from shepherding the flock of his father, Jesse, to shepherding the flock of God the Father, the people of Israel, establishing the dynasty that would ultimately lead to the Messiah, whose reign would endure forever (see 2 Sm 7:12-16).

But when we think of shepherd-kings in the Old Testament, there is an even older example we ought to consider. I’m speaking of Moses. Unlike David, who was a shepherd who became a king, Moses was raised as a prince in the house of Pharoah, and became a shepherd after being exiled for murder. It was while he was shepherding the sheep of his father-in-law, that God called him to return to Egypt to liberate his people.

Thus begins the great Exodus story where Moses, as shepherd of the people, leads them out of the land of Egypt, through the dark valley of the wilderness into the verdant pastures of the Promised Land.

The Shepherd Messiah

Of course, Moses did not himself enter the Promised Land. When the Lord tells Moses that he is not to enter into the Promised Land , due to his transgression at Meribah, Moses prays that a successor be appointed who would lead the people into those verdant pastures.

That successor who would continue to shepherd the people was Joshua, son of Nun. Let us not forget that the name Joshua is simply another linguistic form of Jesus (Yeshua), and the same name in Hebrew. Joshua — like so many other Old Testament figures — is a type of Christ.

One of the many Messianic prophesies awaiting fulfillment in the first century is the promise recorded in Deuteronomy that God would raise up a prophet like Moses who would speak to them all that God commanded (see Dt 18:15-19). The immediate fulfillment of that prophesy was found in Joshua; the final fulfillment would be found in Jesus Christ.

Other Messianic prophesies are even more specific when it comes to a shepherd-savior. Micah, in particular, speaks of the coming of a great king, who is to be born in Bethlehem, and who would be a shepherd to Israel.

Elsewhere in Micah, God himself speaks of shepherding the people of Israel.

So who is the true shepherd of Israel? Is it the Messiah-king? Is it God himself? The answer is both. Even David, who exemplifies the shepherd-king, confesses in prayer, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Ps 23:1).

The Divine Shepherd

That the ultimate shepherd of Israel would be God himself is stated most clearly in Ezekiel.

Here God speaks through the prophet in harsh words, accusing Israel’s leaders to be no more than false shepherds. Instead of feeding and caring for the flock entrusted to them, these selfish leaders have been feeding themselves at the flock’s expense.

In response to these false shepherd’s negligence, God promises to shepherd the people himself.

The Good Shepherd

It is noteworthy that the miraculous deeds performed by Jesus are specifically those shepherding acts that God accused the leaders of the people of not doing. He heals the sick, causes the lame to walk, and most notably feeds the people in John 6 by making them lie down (cf. Ek 34:15) in verdant pastures, no less.

Jesus tells parables of seeking out lost sheep (Lk 15:3-7; Mt 18:12-14). He claims to have been sent to the lost sheep of Israel (Mt 15:24), and in the immediate context of the Good Shepherd discourse in John’s gospel, he says:

There could be no mistake for the first century Jew: Shepherd was a Messianic title. It is no surprise, therefore, that when Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd,” (Jn 10:14), these words led to “a division among the Jews” (Jn 10:19). They knew the significance of his words; they just weren’t sure they could believe him — or even that they wanted to.

The Good Shepherd is indeed an image of great comfort for those who believe — that is to say, who are members of Christ’s flock. But for those leaders of the people to whom Christ was speaking, it is also an image of imminent judgment. And to the extent that Jesus identifies himself as the Divine Shepherd of Ezekiel, they are words of blasphemy worthy of condemnation — unless, of course, Christ is truly divine.

When we think of Christ as the Good Shepherd, does it have the same impact for us today? It can, and it should, if we allow our ideas of shepherding to be shaped by scripture rather than petting zoos.

“What parish do you belong to?”

It seems like a pretty straightforward question. Most American Catholics would answer by saying something like, “We go to St. Hildegard’s,” or, “I go to Mass at St. Albert’s.” In other words, they answer by saying what parish they attend Sunday Mass. But, according to canon law, one’s parish membership is not determined by Mass attendance. It is determined by your place of residence.

The Code of Canon Law defines a parish as “a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church” that is entrusted to the care of a pastor under the authority of the diocesan bishop (c. 515). It further establishes that, “As a general rule a parish is to be territorial, that is, one which includes all the Christian faithful of a certain territory” (c. 518). In other words, a parish is defined by its geographical boundaries. If you live within those boundaries, you are part of that parish. Those with seasonal residences may belong to more than one parish, and special consideration is given in the law for migrants and itinerant workers who lack a place of permanent residence. But where one attends Mass has no bearing on parish membership at all, even if one registers with the parish office.

Canon law in fact says nothing about parish registration. This is an administrative convenience adopted in the American Church to help facilitate communications and record keeping. Registering with your parish is useful, but legally has no bearing on parish membership. Does that mean one must always attend Mass at one’s parish of residence? No. The Sunday obligation is fulfilled by worshiping at any Catholic Mass, regardless of location. So why does parish membership matter?

There are certain rights and obligations that exist in ecclesial law between a pastor and his parishioners that do not transfer simply because you have decided to attend Mass at the parish across town. The details of these rights and obligations are beyond the scope of this article, but they largely have to do with the faithful’s rights to sacraments such as baptism and matrimony, and pastors’ ability to grant dispensations from certain obligations. The important thing to note here is that whenever canon law makes mention of a person’s parish or pastor, it is the territorial parish that is intended, even if one routinely attends Mass elsewhere.

Given the fact that many Catholics today live within an easy drive of multiple parishes, one may wonder whether the whole idea of the territorial parish is a bit outdated. The Vatican itself is wrestling with this question. In 2020, the Dicastery for the Clergy issued an instruction entitled, “The pastoral conversion of the Parish community in the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church,” which confronts the fact that “increased mobility and the digital culture have expanded the confines of existence” (no. 8) leading to situations in many places where “the Parish finds itself in a context whereby the territorial affiliation is increasingly less evident” (no. 9).

Perhaps one day canon law regarding parish membership will be amended to reflect the realities of a more mobile demographic. But, to quote Aragorn’s famous speech in the Lord of the Rings films, “This is not that day!” For now, one’s proper parish is determined by where one lives; and while that comes with certain challenges, it also comes with opportunities.

A parish is meant to be a family of faith, under the guidance and loving care of the pastor as the father of the family. (Perhaps you’re thinking, “My parish doesn’t feel like a family, that’s why I go somewhere else!” but stick with me here.) Consider the difference between family and friends. The obvious difference, of course, is that one gets to choose one’s friends. You become friends with people because of mutual affection, shared affinities and interests, and so forth. This isn’t to say friendships can’t be challenging, but it’s relatively easy to get along with those with whom you have a lot in common, and one always has the option of ending a toxic friendship.

But one doesn’t choose one’s family. For better or for worse, you are stuck with these people. Siblings fight. Parental relationships can be strained. Spouses don’t always get along. But you stick with it, because that’s what families do. Friendships come and go, but family relationships never go away, even when they turn dysfunctional. That’s a powerful motivation to work on those relationships.

Family life provides the context in which we learn fundamental lessons about charity and forgiveness, justice and mercy, patience and humility. It’s where we learn to swallow our pride and sacrifice our ego for the sake of the other. In other words, family is where we learn to love. It’s no wonder family relationships tend to be the strongest bonds in human society.

A parish is meant to be more like a family than a gathering of friends. The mobility of our modern culture has eroded that aspect of parish life. It is more typical today for people to choose their parish based on where they like the liturgy, the priest, or the faith formation program, than by where they happen to live. I’m not begrudging anyone their decision to attend a parish where they feel they and their family will be spiritually nourished. But there are also those who parish-hop every time there is a priest transfer or someone on parish council steps on their toes. And that’s not healthy in the long run.

Parish life can be difficult, just like family life can be difficult, because people can be difficult. I can be difficult, and so can you. We are all works in progress, and we are meant to make progress together. So perhaps there is wisdom in the Church’s tradition of placing us in the parish where we live. If we thought of our parish more like a family we’re born into than a friend group that we choose, perhaps we wouldn’t be so quick to abandon ship when things aren’t to our liking. Perhaps we’d be motivated to do the hard work of getting along with those we don’t agree with and loving those we don’t necessarily like. To me that sounds like a recipe for growing in virtue.

God commands us to love our neighbor. Let’s start with the ones sitting in the pew next to us.

I had the blessing of being interviewed by Cathy Jo Lang recently as a guest on her podcast, The Joy of Transformation (formerly called the Unplanned Joyful Life). Cathy is a registered nurse, and also a Life Coach and Catholic speaker.

Our conversation ranged from topics including my own conversion story (I was baptized in the Catholic Church at the age of 23), my work in college campus ministry, and how I came to write a book about St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life.

I invite you to give it a listen.

If, after listening, you’d like to purchase a copy of my book here is a link to where you can purchase it from Sophia Institute Press.

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If we turned on the news at any point during this past Easter Week, we would have heard of “wars and rumors of wars,” to borrow a Biblical phrase (cf. Mt 24:6; Mk 13:7). But if we turn our attention to the Church, to the scriptures, to Jesus, we find another message. We find Jesus in our midst, as he appears amidst the Apostles on the Sunday of the Resurrection, speaking words of peace. “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:19).

What is this peace offered to us by Christ? And why is it so elusive? When we look at the history of our world, up to and including our own day, why does war seem like the norm, and peace the exception? And is that all peace is? The absence of war?

No. The peace Christ offers is more than the mere absence of violence. It is something deeper, something war and violence cannot touch; something that can endure in our hearts despite whatever troubles may surround us. John’s gospel records for us that on the night he was betrayed by one of his friends, on the night he was arrested and led to his torture and death, Jesus told the Apostles (who themselves would go on to suffer torture and death), “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (Jn 14:27). He said this after promising to send the Holy Spirit, who would bring to their remembrance everything Jesus said and did.

And now, on the day of the Resurrection, after suffering violence to the point of death, Jesus appears to them alive and glorified, speaking once more of peace. “And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’” (Jn 20:22-23). In the same breath that he gives them peace, he gives them the authority to forgive sins. That breath is the Holy Spirit.

This tells us something about the nature of the peace Christ offers. Thomas Merton once said, “We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.” The peace Jesus offers is the fruit, first and foremost, of being in a right relationship with God. And for that, we need forgiveness for our sins — a forgiveness won for us on the cross. As Jesus prayed as he was being nailed to the wood, “Father, forgive them” (Lk 23:34).

There can be no peace without forgiveness: not between ourselves and God, and not between ourselves and our neighbor. The only way enemies can become friends is with forgiveness. The only way swords get beaten into plowshares is with forgiveness. The only way to have peace in our world is to forgive one another our trespasses and the only way to have peace in our hearts is to forgive those who trespass against us. This is just what Jesus commands us to do. But we don’t want to do it. It seems like a weakness. It feels like giving up. So we cling to our grudges and our self-righteous anger. Because the truth is that it takes great strength to forgive and often it just seems too hard. We need help to forgive. We need mercy to soften our bitterness. So God sends his Holy Spirit to give us the strength we need to let go of our grievances.

This is the essence of forgiveness; it is a letting go. In his parables about forgiveness, Jesus often uses the example of monetary debt. If I lend you $100, that means I am $100 poorer. That’s how much you owe me. And that has a damaging effect on our relationship. Every time I see you, I will think, “That guy owes me 100 bucks.” It colors all of our interactions. It changes the way I think and feel about you. There are only two ways to correct that imbalance. You can pay back the money you owe, which would be the way of justice. Or I can forgive your debt, which would be the way of mercy. And if someone is unable to pay back their debt, the way of mercy is the only way to achieve peace and reconciliation.

Forgiveness is an easy enough calculation when it comes to money. To forgive a $100 debt is to accept the loss of $100. That’s the cost of forgiveness. But the debts we owe one another often are not figured so neatly. How do you put a value on a betrayed trust? A ruined reputation? A broken heart? But the principle of forgiveness is the same. You accept the loss. You let it go. You no longer hold that debt against the other. And in mercy you find peace.

This is precisely how our Lord forgives us. He relieves us of our debt, not counting the cost. He lets go of our transgressions, holding nothing against us. And he knows perfect peace. This is the peace he offers to us, if we forgive as he forgives; if we love as he loves. “Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus tells us in the beatitudes, “for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt 5:7).

Let us this Easter enter into Christ’s peace by accepting the forgiveness offered to us through the Church in the sacrament of reconciliation. Let us share Christ’s peace by forgiving those who trespass against us. May we let go of all grudges and grievances, so that the peace of Christ may reign unhindered in our hearts, and may the trials and tribulations of this world never remove us from that peace.

Another article of mine has appeared in the April 2026 issue of The Deacon Magazine (now published by the National Association of Diaconal Directors).

In the summer of 2025, I attended the annual conference of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association (CCMA), hosted that year by Notre Dame University. I was blessed to assist at Mass each day of the conference, ministering at the altar alongside Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend; Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis; and Fr. Pete McCormick, the Assistant Vice President for Campus Ministry at Notre Dame. It warmed my deacon’s heart to be able to serve these celebrants, proclaim the gospel, and distribute the Precious Blood to my co-laborers in the Lord’s vineyard.

While I was not the only deacon present at the conference, I was the only one serving at the altar, save for one Mass when a second deacon assisted. Toward the end of the conference, a colleague asked me, “How did you get to serve at all the Masses?” My answer was simple and straightforward: “I showed up.”

Prior to the conference, an email was sent to clergy asking if they would be willing to assist with any of the liturgies. I clicked the link, filled out the form, requested my letter of good standing from the chancery, packed my alb in my carry-on and then did the most important thing one can do in ministry: I showed up. That’s how I found myself before Mass each day, the only deacon in a sacristy bustling with a score of concelebrating priests. I got to serve because I was there.

Prior to my ordination in 2018, I received some advice from my then-pastor that has served me well ever since: “Show up to things.” He was speaking specifically about the tendency for clergy to become sequestered in their own parish ministry and lose connection with the larger diocesan community. I didn’t want to be one of those deacons who was ordained and received his assignment, never to be seen or heard from again. So as much as possible, I have made the effort to attend ordinations, receptions, retreats, and continuing education opportunities offered by the diocese. While not every such offering is necessarily stellar, on the whole, these opportunities to connect with the broader diocesan community have been invaluable.

I have found the advice to “just show up” to be of benefit in other areas of ministry, as well…

Read the Rest

We began Holy Week on Palm Sunday by commemorating our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. On that same day, four days before Passover, thousands of lambs would also have been driven into the city, to be scrutinized by the priests, as only spotless and unblemished lambs were worthy to be sacrificed. And so our Lord Jesus, after being hailed as Son of David, was scrutinized as the Paschal lamb and declared unblemished by Pilate, who said, “I find no fault in him” (cf. Jn 19:4, 6).

Just as the Passover lamb was to be consumed by those who were to benefit from the sacrifice, Jesus instituted the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, so that we might consume the flesh of his Body, which would be offered for us.

And today, on Good Friday, that unblemished lamb is offered on the Cross, with Jesus serving both as victim and high priest, the one offering and the one being offered. As we heard from Jesus’ lips only a few moments ago, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30).

Today the Church venerates the Holy Cross, on which hung the Savior of the world. This instrument of torture and shame, once used to execute traitors, is now used to bring about the death of the faithful one, the Savior, whose only crime was to cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly, to proclaim liberty to captives, forgiveness of sins, and the coming of the kingdom of God.

The cross is the throne from which our king reigns. It is the doorway to salvation. It is the bridge between heaven and earth; not because it is the instrument of the Lord’s suffering but because he made it the means by which he gives himself in love. St. Augustine says, “When Christ has already given us the gift of his death, who is to doubt that he will give [us] the gift of his own life?” Therefore, he says, the cross is not a cause for shame, but “our greatest hope, our greatest glory.”

The cross of Christ is indeed our greatest hope. This is why, even given all the miracles Christ performed during his ministry, St. Paul says he will not boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 6:14). By Christ’s obedience unto death, the cross has become the tree of life. Let us now approach the cross with reverence, joy, and above all gratitude for so great and unmerited a gift.

As the foster-father of Jesus and the husband of Mary, St. Joseph is arguably one of the greatest saints in the Catholic Church. Yet the gospels are relatively silent about the details of his life. He is called a tekton in Greek, which means “builder,” but is often translated as “carpenter.” We would perhaps today say that he worked in the trades. We can deduce that he was likely from Bethlehem, as we’re told that was his ancestral city, although he was living in Nazareth when he was betrothed to Mary. Nazareth was a relatively new community at that time, and so no doubt there were plenty of opportunities there for someone in the building trade.

We are told that Joseph is descended from King David. This is affirmed in both of the genealogies given by Matthew and by Luke. He is called “Son of David” (Mt 1:20), a title later attributed to Christ himself. This is an important detail because it affirms the prophecy we read in 2 Samuel, that God would raise up an heir for David whose kingdom would remain forever. This prophecy is central to the messianic hopes of Israel. In the thousand years between David and Jesus the kingdom had been divided by civil war and conquered by multiple foreign empires, and during the lifetime of Joseph and Mary the king who sat on the throne was not from the Davidic dynasty, but was a puppet-king put in place by Rome. Nevertheless, Israel held out hope that God’s words to David would be fulfilled.

“I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. It is he who shall build a house for my name. And I will make his royal throne firm forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me” (2 Sm 7:12-14).

As a descendant of David, Joseph was a prince in exile. Jesus, though not his biological son, was he legal heir and so heir to the Davidic throne. The fact that Jesus’ natural father was not Joseph but God himself fulfills in a miraculous way God’s promise that “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.”

Another thing we are told about Joseph is that he was a “righteous man” (Mt 1:19). To be righteous is to be a man of justice and integrity; to be right not only with your neighbor but also with your God. To be truly righteous requires not only human virtue but faith and trust in the Lord. In our second reading from Romans, St. Paul writes of Abraham’s trust in the Lord that he, who was old and barren, would become the father of many nations. This faith was “credited to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:22). Joseph had faith like Abraham and so can be called a true descendant of Abraham, not only by blood but also by faith. You can think of God’s promise to Abraham as being fulfilled in St. Joseph who, by virtue of being the foster-father of Jesus has become the spiritual father of those from every nation who have become members of the Body of his Son.

There is one final fact about Joseph that I want to touch on, and that is this: his ability to discern the voice of God. We are told in the gospel that when Joseph was considering divorcing Mary, an angel appeared to him in a dream, telling him not to be afraid to take Mary into his home. “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him” (Mt 1:24).

How many of us have had dreams that seemed more significant than others? More real, more pointed? Ones that lingered long after waking? Did we dismiss them as just a dream or were we open to a possible heavenly message? How many times, even in prayer, have we felt the movement of the Holy Spirit and dismissed it as imagination?

To be sure, most dreams are only dreams, and not every fleeting thought that comes to us in prayer is inspired. But are we open to that possibility? And would we recognize the difference? Figuring out when God is trying to get your attention requires both openness and discernment. Pope Benedict, in his Jesus of Nazareth book, calls this “an essential quality of the figure of St. Joseph: his capacity to perceive the divine and his ability to discern. Only a man who is inwardly watchful for the divine, only someone with a real sensitivity for God and His ways, can receive God’s message in this way” (Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives). Perhaps this is the most important aspect of St. Joseph for us to emulate: a sensitivity for God and His ways, a sensitivity borne of a life devoted to prayer and the practice of virtue.

There is a tradition in the Byzantine Churches of never depicting Joseph alone in sacred iconography. He is only ever shown as part of the Holy Family or holding the Christ-child. I discovered this when I went looking for an icon of St. Joseph for our campus ministry chapel to commemorate the Year of St. Joseph, and I couldn’t find one just of him. I think it’s a beautiful tradition, and fitting for this great saint who gave himself entirely to the care of Mary and Jesus. Joseph discovered the meaning of his life in being the foster-father of the Savior. Joseph knew exactly who he was, that he was no one apart from Jesus. He is who he is because of his Son, and is only himself with the Son. Would that we all might discover the same truth, that we are only ourselves in our relationship with Christ.

May St. Joseph continue to guide and protect the Church as the Body of his Son, and lead each of his spiritual children to follow his example of discernment and trust in the Lord.

Ever since Ascension Press and Word on Fire announced themselves as publishers of the new US English editions of the Liturgy of the Hours, people have been asking when and if a single-volume edition would also be available, to replace the current Christian Prayer books. It seems that we now have an answer.

Midwest Theological Forum has announced that they have been selected by the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship to publish what they are calling “Major Extracts” of the Liturgy of the Hours, 2nd edition. According to their website, the selection was made in November 2025, though Adoremus Bulletin only posted about it on their Facebook page yesterday (which is how I learned of it).

This “Major Extracts” volume (I’m not certain if that’s to be the final name), is described as a “diurnal,” that would include the full psalmody for Morning Prayer (Lauds), Daytime Prayer (Terce, Sext, and None), Evening Prayer (Vespers), and Night Prayer (Compline). How much, if any, of the Office of Readings (Matins) will be included is “being discussed.”

Additional material such as devotional prayers and/or a simple guide to praying the Liturgy of the Hours may also be included.

This single-volume edition would take the place of the current Christian Prayer and Shorter Christian Prayer volumes.

While priests and religious are obliged to pray the full five hours of the Liturgy of the Hours, permanent deacons such as myself are only obligated to pray two — Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer — although many of us pray more than this. The same is often true for members of the various lay associations of religious orders, such as Lay Carmelites, Benedictine Oblates, or Secular Franciscans. The single-volume Christian Prayer book has been a convenient and affordable option for these and anyone who doesn’t necessarily need access to the whole shebang.

I first learned to pray the Liturgy of the Hours more than two decades ago using the single-volume Christian Prayer. It served me well for many years before I took the plunge and invested in the full four-volume set during diaconal formation, primarily to have access to the Office of Readings. I’ve never regretted that decision, so to me a new four-volume set is a must have. I wasn’t considering purchasing a new single-volume edition, but now that MTF has announced itself the publisher, that may change. I’ve always been impressed with their liturgical books which I would describe as dignified without being showy, and always high quality.

The big question, of course, is when will it be available? All the MTF website has to say on that just now is “in advance of the mandatory use date of the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2028.”

I look forward to more information from them as it becomes available. For now, you can join the waitlist on their website.

Lectionary Readings

On the Second Sunday of Lent we hear the gospel of the Transfiguration. Before Jesus journeys to Jerusalem to enter into his passion he allows Peter, James and John to receive a vision of his glory, to bolster their faith for the trial to come. I think the Church gives us this reading during Lent for a similar reason, to shore up our faith as we do penance and prepare to commemorate the Lord’s Passion during Holy Week.

During the Transfiguration, we see Jesus standing alongside Moses and Elijah. These two figures represent the whole of the Old Covenant tradition. Moses, as the great law-giver of Israel, represents the Law. And Elijah represents the prophets; those who speak on behalf of God to call Israel back when they are unfaithful to the Law. With them now is Jesus: more than the law-giver, he is the Law; more than a prophet who speaks God’s word, he is the Word of God made flesh. The law and the prophets all point to him.

But before we hear about the Transfiguration, the Church wants us to hear about Abraham, or Abram (before his name was changed). Why Abram? What does he have to do with the Transfiguration, and our Lenten journey toward the Passion? Centuries before God spoke through Elijah or established his covenant with Moses, God called Abram on a journey of faith and established covenant promises with him.

Today we hear only the very beginning of Abraham’s story. Abram was from a place called Ur, which is in modern-day Iraq. He originally sets out with his father Terah to the land of Canaan, where Israel would later be, but they stop and settle in a place called Haran, which is in modern-day Syria, about half-way between Ur and Canaan. The scriptures don’t say why they originally left for Canaan, or why they decided to stop and settle in Haran. But perhaps we are meant to infer something from the name of Abram’s father, Terah, which means “wanderer,” or one without direction. However they found themselves there, God now gives Abram a direction, telling him to, “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1). He gave Abram direction, but not a destination, at least not yet. He just said go “to a land that I will show you.” He’s asking Abram to trust him.

This is an important lesson for us. When God calls us to go somewhere or to do something in our life, he usually doesn’t show us the end. He gives us a direction. He shows us the next step, and says, “trust me.” Maybe this is because if God were to show us where he ultimately plans to take us (which is heaven) we would feel so completely inadequate to get there that we’d never set out on the journey. Or if we knew all the challenges we’d have to face along the way, we’d never take those first steps. But that’s what God wants of us: to take those first steps, trusting in him, letting him guide us and sustain us along the way.

And to guide and sustain Abram, God promises three things to him. First, that he would make of him a great nation. Second, that he will make his name great, which in the context of the time implied that he would establish a dynastic line from him. And third, that through him all the nations on earth would be blessed. We can think of the whole rest of salvation history from this point forward as God fulfilling these three promises.

God fulfills the first promise when he leads Israel into the Promised Land after the Exodus. The second promise is fulfilled later when God establishes the dynastic line of David that would lead to Jesus. And the third promise is fulfilled in the new covenant with the establishment of the Church, which is Catholic, or universal — that is to say, for all peoples. So God kept every one of his promises to Abraham, but Abraham didn’t see any of them come about in his lifetime. And yet Abraham kept moving forward in faith, trusting that God’s promises would be fulfilled even though he couldn’t see how.

God’s perspective is so much greater than our own — infinitely greater than our own. He sees things we can’t see. He knows things we cannot know. Of course we know this intellectually. God is eternal. He is omnipotent. Of course his perspective is greater than our own. But we often fail to appreciate how this affects our own faith and the trust that we should have in God, especially when things don’t seem to make sense to us.

Just think about how these three promises would have been understood by the Jewish people at the time of Jesus. Yes, God had given them the Promised Land — but they lost it; first to the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then to the Greeks and finally to Rome. Yes, God established a royal dynasty in David, but that had also failed. The king who sat on the throne in their day, King Herod, wasn’t a descendant of David. What about all nations being blessed through Abraham’s descendants? Forget about it. Abraham’s descendants were a conquered and subjected people who over and over had rebelled against God. No one was being blessed by them. What must they have thought about God’s promises to Abraham?

We may just as well ask what Jesus’ disciples thought of the cross. I think the disciples on the road to Emmaus summed it up well when they said, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Lk 24:21a). We had hoped. But surely this can’t be: a man taken prisoner, tortured, and executed as a criminal. A man, as they thought, now buried in a tomb. We had hoped.

But what they couldn’t see was the resurrection. What they couldn’t see in the man hanging on the cross was the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises: the one who brings us not to the Promised Land of Canaan but the Promised Land of heaven; the inauguration not of an earthly kingdom, but the kingdom of God; they couldn’t see all the nations of the world being blessed as Jesus drew all people to himself on the cross (see Jn 12:32). How could they see that? How could they know? They didn’t have God’s perspective. That’s why Jesus gives Peter, James and John this vision of his glory — to show them what they couldn’t see on their own.

Before the Transfiguration, Jesus begins to tell the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed, and on the third day be raised (see Mt 16:21), and then he says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt 16:24). They are looking for the kingdom, they are looking for glory, and Jesus is saying yes, that is coming, but this is how we get there: first I must suffer, and you must suffer. It’s going to look very bad for a while, so I need you to trust me. And Peter responds by saying, “God forbid, Lord” (Mt 16:22).

We are all like Peter. One day we say, “Lord, to whom would we go? We have come to know and believe that you have the words of eternal life.” The next day we say, “God forbid, Lord, this cannot be.” One day we say, “I will follow you Lord, even unto death,” and the next day we are running away, afraid and ashamed of the man on the cross. We stand up in church and we profess our creed and we affirm our baptismal promises, but when an unexpected cross comes our way we run, we protest, we complain. But this is what it means to have faith. There will always be challenges in our life that we cannot foresee. There will always be hardships and trials to overcome. And the way we overcome them is to trust in the one who loves us and who knows what we do not know and sees what we cannot see; the one who sends us his Son and says, “Listen to him.”

May God grant each of us faith like Abraham’s as we journey through this life, that no matter what uncertainties lie before us, we might always trust in God’s promises; promises fulfilled in Jesus Christ, his Son and our Lord. Amen.

Homily Audio Archive