I Did Not Sign Up for This: Homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Matthew 9:36-10:8 

Jesus sent His apostles on mission with power over unclean spirits and the mandate to ‘cure every disease and every illness.’  It is a powerful mandate that includes an important distinction.  While giving the apostle the instruction to cure disease AND illness might strike some as redundant, the distinction is important to understanding the mission of the Church. Disease and illness are not the same thing or synonymous. Few are able to cure disease all have the mandate to treat illness. 

 

Disease is a biomedical affliction with pathological changes in an organ or organ system at the macroscopic, microscopic, or submicroscopic levels.  A disease affects only the patient. The illness, on the other hand, is a sociocultural perspective that includes how the individual and others perceive and experience certain states that are disvalued or feared, states caused by disease. Illness affects not only the individual but the family, the community, and at times all of society, in ever widening circles.  

 

The historical dichotomy is apparent in scripture if we consider leprosy.  Leprosy as described in both Old and New Testaments never had anything to do with what is now known as Hansen’s disease.  Leprosy was a catch-all term for visible lesions including vitiligo, psoriasis, and other scaly blemishes. Jesus cured the disease but more significantly He cured the illness and returned the sufferers to themselves and to society.  There are modern illustrations of the difference between disease and illness

 

AIDS was first described in June 1981.  By 1990 almost 101,000 had died of AIDS in the U.S. with 1/3 of those deaths reported in 1990. The toll of the illness on family, friends, community, and society was, is, and will remain beyond accounting. Ironically, one of the centers of medical care in the first decade of AIDS was St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York’s Greenwich Village, a hospital built and founded by the Daughter’s of Charity. It is ironic because the congregation’s old habit, with its distinctive coronet, is now being blasphemously mocked by the evil spirits infecting a pathetic group of men in Los  Angeles, a group whose name is beneath the dignity of repeating.  It is a blasphemy supported by the Dodgers baseball organization.  How soon they forget the deeds of the courageous women religious of all orders and congregations throughout history.

 

We had a refresher course in the difference between disease and illness thanks to covid which, as of 31 May 2023, caused one hundred three and a half million cases  and one million one hundred twenty seven thousand deaths in the U.S.  Of those deaths almost 853,000, fully three quarters of the total, were in the elderly sixty-five and above.  Many of those elderly, as well as patients hospitalized for other reasons such as broken hips,  were forced to suffer and die in anguished solitude, perceiving abandonment by their families and friends and bereft of the sacraments through a combination of government fiat, irrational fears of hospital and nursing home administrators, lack of compassion, and generalized stupidity.  As with AIDS the impact of covid can never be estimated.  The suffering caused by the illnesses associated with both diseases will reverberate for decades.  

 

How did the twelve apostles perceive Jesus’ mandate to cure disease and illness?  How did they feel when it was given to them?  How did they feel when the going got rough or when they realized the risks?  Ideally they did not respond in the same way as a young physician who wrote an op-ed column in response to covid titled, “I Didn’t Sign Up For This,” an extended whine about having to work under the conditions and risks of covid.  It might be best for this young doc to hang up the stethoscope now and seek a different line of work.

 

Mandate derives from the Latin mandatum, itself composed of two roots: manus (hand) and dare (to put) meaning ‘to put into one’s hands.’  The foot washing of Holy Thursday is referred to as the mandatum from Jesus’ words at the Last Supper  “I have given you an example, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

 

The histories of AIDS and covid as diseases AND illnesses have a shameful element in common.  That shame was, and is, the refusal of too many with training and ability to treat patients because of the diagnosis.  The stories of refusing to allow patients with AIDS to even enter a medical office were many during the early years.  More recently Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist in New York published a column on Medscape titled, “It’s Okay for Docs to Refuse to Treat Unvaccinated Patients.”  The good news is that Caplan is not a physician. He cannot treat patients.  The over 700 responses to his column were overwhelmingly negative, angry, or both.  It is never OK to cherry pick who or what will be treated based on diagnosis or social opinion.  I suspect had Caplan written that it was OK to refuse puberty blockers for so-called transexual children he would have been fired right quick.  

 

It is not easy to treat diseases.  Sometimes the best we can do is keep it at bay for a little while.  Treating the illnesses of modern times is even more difficult. That is a separate homily.  But, we have all been given the same mandate as that given to the apostles.  That is to treat illnesses and proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven through our words and the example of our lives.  

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The photos below are from the Church of St. Martin d'Ainay in Lyon, France.  Alas, I was not told about this gem until very late in my stay there.  I think its 11th century.  I would have shot more but there was a liturgy of some sort, possibly a baptism, happening and I did not want to intrude.  

A small stained glass window.

The main altar.  I was blown away by the fresco on the ceiling and the gold leaf. 

The play of light and shadow drove this shot. 

The baptistry.  We rarely see that kind of ironwork today. 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Panis Angelicus_Homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi

 Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a

Ps 147 

1 Cor 10:16-17

Jn 6:51-58

 

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi, is always a happy personal anniversary.  I celebrated my first Mass on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 2007, twenty-four hours after being ordained.  The feast signals 

another cycle through the missal and lectionary. Thus, today marks either the completion of the sixteenth time through the books or the beginning of the seventeenth exploration of the same books of prayer, ritual, and readings. 

 

The Church’s calendar is filled with feasts: The Annunciation, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost to name a few.  These feasts recall specific events in the history of salvation the history of the world, and specific moments in own personal histories.  They underlie the rhythm for our lives.  

 

Most of the feasts have a narrative flow.  There is a story in the readings that is retold annually.  Every year we hear the narrative of Jesus’ birth,  the long readings of the passion, and the reports of the descent of the Holy Spirit.  We can insert ourselves into the action on the page,  we can place ourselves at the manger in Bethlehem imagining the sights, the sounds, the aromas, and our own response to the event.  We can be present at Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth, fall asleep with the apostles in Gethsemane, or share in the shock of the newly empty tomb.  

 

Today’s feast is different. We have to sit back in silence.  There is no narrative or script.  The readings elaborate on the feast   by inviting us into quiet contemplation of the greatest of gifts, that of the Body and Blood of Christ truly and substantially present in the Eucharist.  It is overwhelming to consider 

that presence in the elements consecrated on the altar and received at communion.  It is deeply consoling to kneel in front of that same presence

in the tabernacle at all times whenever we wish. Alas, for some Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist is a stumbling block.  They can understand symbols.  They can understand metaphors. Some can even understand allusion. But still cannot understand real.  

 

Each of today’s readings adds something to our understanding of the meaning of this feast. 

 

In Deuteronomy Moses recalls what God had done for the Israelites in the desert.  

Once more he reminds them how God cared for them: bringing forth water from the rock and feeding them with manna, the bread from heaven, that prefigured the Bread of Life come down from heaven.  Moses reminds those he is leading,

“Not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.”  

 

This pushes us towards the Gospel.  

 

In his commentary on John’s Gospel, the late Jesuit Father Stanly Marrow wrote on the passage we just heard: 

 

 “. . . there is only one way of proclaiming the salvation in Jesus Christ, and that is by means of the Word.  The sacraments are another mode of proclamation by means of this same word.”  Recall that the first verse of Johns gospel proclaims: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

 

We need the Living Word.  We need the Living Word that is present  in the Eucharist and scripture,  We need the living word of  tradition and of prayer.

We need the Living Word if we are to know eternal life.   

 

Later in his commentary Fr. Marrow points out a crucial fact:  

“The promise of living forever in no way exempts any of us from dying.”

 

Today’s gospel began with Jesus telling the crowd: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven: Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  At the end He reiterated.  “This is the bread that came down from heaven.  Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

 

In no way is Jesus promising that our lives will be free from pain and suffering.  Jesus is not promising nor did He ever promise,that we and those whom we love won’t die.  Without dying none of us could hope to rise again at the last day. Eternal life is only possible through the Living Word; through Jesus the Son of God.  

 

The translation of the last verse of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians is awkward.  Loaf is not only unnecessary, it wrecks the flow of the sentence. .  

Another translation reads: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

 

“We who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread.” 

 

We are one when we are gathered here to listen to the Word of God, when we receive that Living Word at communion. and when we leave here to go about our daily lives.  We remain one after death.  

 

Today we recall the great gift of The Body and Blood of Christ.  

Real.  Substantial.  Truly present in our midst.  With that in mind we can only sit in awe and say with the psalmist: 

 

Praise the Lord Jerusalem. 

Alleluia.  

Amen.  

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A few shots from Sevenhill, South Australia, one thousand acres of heaven on earth. 

I was not the only photographer in the group.  John The was very good. 

Sevenhill is a winery with a farm attached.  One of the farm denizens. 

Many of the mornings was wonderfully misty.

Looking up from a road way below the subject. 

Fr. Jack SJ, MD

Homily for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity

 The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity compels us to contemplate the essential dogma and foundation of our faith. 

 

We begin and end the Mass with the Trinitarian formula.  The doxology of Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, is chanted with particular reverence by monastic communities after every psalm and canticle during the liturgy of the hours.  We recall the Trinity every time we bless ourselves.

 

What we call the Trinitarian formula, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit  cannot be replaced by neutered  gender-free versions such as in the name of a creator, a redeemer, and a sanctifier or other absurdities. A person is not a function. No function defines an individual. The dogma of the Holy Trinity is One God in Three Divine Persons, not one object with three functions.  The Trinitarian formula is critical to the Church's seven sacraments, 

 

The sign of the cross begins and ends everything the Church does. As it should and as it must.  We read in The Catechism of the Catholic Church, (#234):  “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself.  It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith.”

 

Every time we make the sign of the cross we recall the mystery of the Trinity, a mystery that remains incomprehensible  despite the many books attempting to explain it.  Each book may contain a fragment of insight but the sum of all the books written does not come close to capturing the true essence of the Trinity.  The dogma of the Trinity can only be understood through faith. This raises the question, What is faith? 

 

A dictionary defines faith as:  “Belief that does not rest on logical proof 

or material evidence.”  The  Letter to the Hebrews defines faith in forty verses that make up the entirety of chapter eleven. It begins with: "Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. . . . By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, 

so that what is visible came into being through the invisible." 

 

Faith is mysterious and impenetrable. There is no chance of truly "explaining" the Trinity. But no one can declare him or herself a Christian if he or she denies the Trinity.

 

The word Trinity does not appear in scripture.  The understanding of the Trinity grew in the earliest years of the Church as she began to consider 

what Jesus said and did during His time on earth.   

 

Jesus always spoke of the Father as distinct from Himself while also saying, 

“I and the Father are One.”  The same is true of the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus refers to His oneness with the Father he is referring to substance and NOT the functions of creation, redemption, and sanctification. Thus, the ancient creeds in Greek use homoousion which was translated as consubstantialem  in Latin. It is obvious that the English consubstantial, a word we will pronounce in a few moments during the Nicene Creed, arises directly from the Latin. The Trinity is a mystery. It will never be anything other than mystery. 

 

The responsorial prayer   came from the Book of Deuteronomy rather than the psalter.  It is a doxology to the Father:  "Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever;  And blessed is your holy and glorious name, praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages."

 

And thus the doxological praise of the Trinity that echoes it. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

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The photos are from Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia.  Spent three weeks there giving retreats in daily life and walking to the beach whenever possible.  

The kind of detail I always look for.  There is at least a short story in this scene if not a semi-morose pop song say by Cat Stevens.

Fr. Jack. SJ, MD