21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Is 22:19-23

Ps 138

Rom 11:33-36

Mt 16:13-20

Linguistic communication is a fascinating area of study.  Attention to how a patient uses language is an important part of every psychiatric evaluation.  How and where one stresses or emphasizes a particular syllable, word or phrase may subtly, or not so subtly, affect the meaning, interpretation, and impact of what is being said.  Tone of voice reflects the emotional state of the speaker, influences the impact he will have on the hearer, and may predetermine a response.  Body language is another homily entirely.

Jesus posed two questions in this Gospel reading. The first was informational, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 

Jesus’ second question is specific. It is personal.  It demanded a personal answer of the apostles and it demands an answer from each of us.  That is where the effect of intonation, inflection and vocal stress is significant.  How did Jesus ask the question?  How did the apostles hear it?  How do we hear it?  Most critically, how will each of us answer it?   

But WHO do you say I am?

But who DO you say I am?    

But who do YOU say I am? 

But who do you SAY I am?

But who do you say I am? 

But who do you say I AM? 

This is the most difficult question Jesus asked his apostles and followers.  It is the most difficult question he asks us.  “Who do you say I am?”  . . . place the emphasis in your own mind.  Our answer may shift or evolve over time just as vocal emphasis shifts with the context.  Everything depends on how and what we answer.  

Peter’s answer was brief and spot on.  “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God.”  His answer included:  You are the Messiah, the Promised One,  the One who has ended our time of waiting,  and much more.  His answer was radical and courageous.   Had he proclaimed this publicly, had there been a mole present to go running to the authorities, charges of blasphemy would have followed quickly.  At the time the usual penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning. Today religious blasphemy gets the speaker a guest spot on Saturday Night Live. That too is another homily.

The Church answers Jesus’ question every year at the beginning of the Easter Vigil.  As he incises the paschal candle the priest proclaims: 

"Christ yesterday and today

the beginning and the end

Alpha and Omega

all time belongs to him

and all the ages.

To him be glory and power

through every age for ever." 

"The beginning and the end 

The Alpha and the Omega."  

Only ten words are needed to say everything one needs to know in life. The Church can boldly proclaim this because those of us born since Peter’s radical confession of faith have not had to wonder; we have not had to wait.  From the moment we were conceived we have lived in a world in which the promise was fulfilled.  From the first instant of life in the womb and continuing until natural death in old age, we were, we are, and will always be, living in the presence of the One for whom the world waited.  

Today's first reading and gospel once again illustrate the dependence of the New Testament upon the Old.  “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church . . . .I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Both the image of Peter as gatekeeper and the power invested in Peter to bind or loose sin derive from Isaiah: “I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut when he shuts, no one shall open.”  

This "keys to the kingdom" passage in Matthew is controversial to say the least.  As one writer who is prone to understatement notes, “The precise interpretation of this passage, on which the claims of the Papacy have been based, has been the subject of much controversy.”  One might add it has driven anger, hysteria, polemic, violence, and a lot of snarky hip cocktail party conversation.  

Did Jesus intend a linear papal succession?  Were Peter and his successors truly invested with the power to forgive or retain sin?  It is unlikely the arguments, hostility, or temper tantrums will end in this millennium.  The late Fr. Raymond Brown writes.  “ . . .given the New Testament evidence pertinent to the growth of the image of Peter, it is not easy for those who reject the papacy to portray the concept of a successor to Peter as contradictory to the New Testament.”  Of course that won't stop anyone from trying to argue against the primacy of Peter having been transmitted down the millennia.   

WHAT would Jesus want?

What WOULD Jesus want? 

What would JESUS want? 

What would Jesus WANT? 

The intonation dilemma again.  

Humans are skilled at transforming personal agendas into God’s revealed will be it justifying war, promoting abortion on demand, excusing economic exploitation, or encouraging all manner of sexual perversion.  The moment someone asks, "But what would JEEEEEEZUS (intentional emphasis) do?" it is obvious that the ride is going to get interesting.  I may not learn much about what Jesus would do but I am going to learn a lot about the speaker and his or her agenda.  

Coming to know God’s will is rarely instantaneous.  Coming to know God’s will requires time and a discerning heart.  And, we can only know God's will for ourselves.  We can't know it for the guy whose behavior we are trying to manipulate or the policy we are trying to implement or prevent.

Imagine that you are walking down a street.  Jesus approaches and asks, “But who do YOU say I am?”  

Spend this week answering that question in your own words.

_________________________________________

A glass of water on the table.  Was trying out a lens I hadn't used in a long time.  Long telephoto.  I was quite far from the table when I took the shot. 

Sailing in Cohasset Harbor

A large number of kids had sailing lessons in the mornings during the retreat. 

The lighthouse once again using the long telephoto lens.  Any shorter lens and it would look like a toothpick.

A little bit of color.  Tiger lilies.  

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Memorial Maximilian Kolbe

Today is the memorial of a man for our time; a modern saint whose life and action were wedded to following Jesus to the point of sacrificing his own life for the life of another, a man who offered his life in exchange for the life of another who was, until that moment, a complete stranger 

Rajmund Kolbe, was born in 1894. His 1941 death in Auschwitz was the result of an heroic act that grew out of a childhood experience when, after being scolded for some childhood mischief, he had a vision of Mary, Mother of Jesus as he was saying his night prayers. She was holding two crowns: a red one that stood for martyrdom and a white symbolizing purity. She asked if he were willing to accept either crown. He replied that he would accept both. In 1910, when he was 16 years old, he entered the Conventual Franciscan novitiate in Lwow where he received the name Maximilian.

Despite chronically poor health from tuberculosis he founded a number of friaries, published a monthly review and, in 1930, became a missionary to Japan where he established monasteries (friaries), published a Japanese language magazine, and where, like Mateo Ricci, the great Jesuit missionary to China, he befriended and entered into dialogue with Buddhist and Shinto priests. When he was called back to Poland as the rumblings of WW II were sounding in the background, the scene was set for him to win the crown of martyrdom. Kolbe was arrested in 1941 along with other Franciscans. After some time in Pawiak prison he was sent to Auschwitz where he would receive the red crown of martyrdom in a manner that is stomach churning to consider. 

Three prisoners escaped from the camp in July 1941. As was characteristic of standard Nazi-sociopath logic--a form of which is apparent in a few groups in the U.S. and elsewhere today--ten prisoners were chosen at random to be put into “The Bunker” an airless underground space (one suspects sanitary facilities were non-existent) where they would be deprived of food and water, condemned to die slow deaths from the combined effects of starvation and dehydration. Franciszek Gajowniczek was among the ten men chosen. A man of 42 years with wife and two children, he piteously cried out that he would never see his wife or sons again. Hearing this, Kolbe stepped from the line-up and negotiated a trade to take Gajowniczek’s place in the hell hole. The switch was allowed. 

The ten men languished for two weeks. No food. No water. No fresh air or natural light. They prayed aloud. As each man died his voice dropped out. Kolbe. the tubercular, was the last to survive. He did not, however, die in the bunker. Because the executioners needed the bunker, most likely for the next random group to be punished, he was taken, barely alive, to sick bay where he was injected with camphor, an early form of today's push to permit the killing of the ill elderly.
. 
The crown of martyrdom that young Kolbe accepted from the hand of our Blessed Mother gave him the courage to die so as to save the life of another man, just as Jesus died to save all mankind from death. 

There is a follow-up. 

Kolbe was beatified by Paul VI in 1971 and canonized by fellow Pole and saint John Paul II on 10 October 1982. 

Franciszek Gajowniczek survived the camps and returned to his wife. Both sons had been killed in action during the war. When he was widowed he remarried. His death at age 95 in 1995, came 53 years after Kolbe entered the bunker in his stead. He was present in Rome at both the beatification and the canonization. 

On a visit to Chicago Gajowniczek told his translator that "as long as he had breath in his lungs he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love of St. Maximilian Kolbe”

The child who accepted the crowns of purity and martyrdom became the shepherd who took the place of one of the sheep being led to slaughter.

Today we call that child saint and implore his intercession.

________________________________________________________

Kolbe is one saint on whose memorial I almost always preach.  It is daunting to consider that his memorial and the memorial of another great Polish saint, Edith Stein, fall five days apart.  They both died in Auschwitz one year apart, with Kolbe dying first in 1941.  

Will be away the coming weekend and thus no homily until after I return on 27 August.  Monday 24 August marks 23 years since I entered the novitiate.  Friday 14 August marked 21 years since vows 

The chapel of Mary Help of Christians in Brezje, Slovenia.  Made a very unexpected trip there to celebrate Mass for a group of people participating in a week long seminar.  They were from multiple countries and English was the only language they had in common.  The chapel is tiny.  I celebrated facing away from the congregation.  

A sculpture of the Holy Family outside the shrine in Brezje.  The cross is several hundred yards away and enormous.  However, when one kneels infront of the statue the cross appears the way it does here.  

The main body of the shrine in Brezje.  The chapel with the icon is to the right.

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 August 2020

Is 55:1-3

Ps 145

Rom 8:35, 37-39

Mt 14:13-21

The past months have forced us to consider Paul's question in the Letter to the Romans:  Will anguish, or distress or peril separate us from the love of Christ?  Today he could ask, will covid destroy our faith?  Will restrictions, economic fallout, illness, death, or the  general stress with which we have been living separate us from Christ? 

We are dealing with an unknown peril. The greatest stress underlying our  common experience is uncertainty, much of the stress is in not knowing  and in perceiving--correctly--that medical experts are leading blindly much of the time.  Even worse can be said of politicians and wannabe politicians--both parties--who have been amoral in their politicization of the various crises wracking the country.

  

We heard in Psalm 145, the responsorial psalms: 

"The Lord is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works."

And yet we find ourselves looking toward the heavens and crying out with Habakkuk:

"How long O Lord must I cry for help, 

and you do not listen?

Or cry out to you--violence,

and you do not intervene?"

The writer of the responsorial psalm assures us: 

"The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
 to all who call upon him in truth."

And yet we find ourselves pleading in the words of Psalm 13: 

"How long O Lord will you utterly forget me?

How long will you hide your face from me?"

We cry out for consolation but it doesn't come.  We scream WHY . . . . and hear silence.  But only then, when we are alone in that startling silence, can we truly know that the Lord is with us, in the everlasting covenant and the promises He made to  David

Just as Paul asks a rhetorical question in the second reading, Isaiah asks one halfway through the first reading: "Why spend your money  for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?"

Questions that begin with why are never easy to answer because they demand that we look deep into ourselves to explain our motives and desires.  In doing so we confront our sinful selves.

Some time during the first month of psychiatric residency psychoanalyst Carol Tosone suggested that we avoid beginning a question with "why?" when with patients because why implies the possibility of punishment. It was an eye-opening moment.  She went on to illustrate saying that it was like being  in grade school when the teacher stood over you and asked, "And why did you do that young man?" and the unsaid "Uh oh" that followed. 

'What' questions, 'who' questions, and 'when' questions, are easier to answer, because they are requests for facts. 'Why' questions ask about feeling, desire, and motivation.  Thus, Isaiah's question forces the listener or the reader to go inside him or herself to seek the answer. That internal journey can be frightening. 

What of bread?

One need not be a biblical scholar or a theologian of any stripe, to realize that the narratives of the feeding of the multitude prefigures the Eucharistic  Banquet in which we are privileged to participate.  The feeding of the multitude from a few small loaves and some fish foretold and continues to remind us that from those few loaves broken and blessed, consecrated in the hands of our Lord, Jesus has nourished uncounted billions of people with the only necessary thing: the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation, poured out for us that we might live despite the crises we are facing today and those we will face in the time to come.   

_______________________________________________________

The photos are from Piran, Slovenia.  I was only able to visit once for a total of twenty-two hours.  It rained most of the day, periodically erupting into downpour but then stopping.  These yellow shutters caught my eye.  This is what I would have on a house.  

The patina and texture of these doors scream: Photograph me.  

This was a courtyard in front of the entrance to the Franciscan Monastery in which we stayed during the quick overnight.  The following morning the weather became gorgeous.  Alas, I had the 11 AM Mass in LJ.  Interesting ride back to the city.

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD