Homily Ordinary 6C: Who do you trust? God or the world?

 Homily for 6^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2022

Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12,16-20; Luke 6: 17,20-26

Introduction

Whom do you trust?  This question has been brought into sharp relief in the past two years as we have navigated our way through the COVID pandemic.  We live in a world where competing interests claim our trust.  Do we listen to institutional authority like the department public health and established scholars or to the voices opposing them?  Do we listen to our priests, bishops and the Holy Father, or do we listen to other voices that have set themselves up as alternative holders of tradition?  Whom do we trust?

If this question is important where our material welfare on earth is concerned, it is even more important where our spiritual welfare is concerned.

Scripture and Theology

Fortunately, we can turn to the Scriptures, to our reading from Jeremiah for a good answer.  Jeremiah says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD.”  And then he adds: “Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD.”  Is Jeremiah saying we cannot trust our parents, our teachers, our priests, our leaders?  No.  What he is warning us against is placing our trust in human beings in those things where we should trust God.  Where do we find our inner strength, our ultimate fulfilment?  For both Jeremiah one's ultimate trust, strength and fulfilment cannot come from human things, from worldly things, but from God.  Trust in human things like riches, satisfaction, laughter and praise cannot satisfy us.  What satisfies us truly comes from God, even if trusting in God means suffering through poverty, hunger, tears and persecution.

Jeremiah goes on to explain the difference between these two approaches using two examples.  Those who trust in human beings and human things are “like a barren bush in the desert” that does not get any nutrients.  There is no nourishment from that arid ground.  But those who trust in the Lord are “like a tree planted beside the waters” whose roots go into the water and receive nourishment, receive what gives them life, even during a drought.

It is the same trust in God as opposed to trust in human beings, that allows us to understand what Jesus taught in the sermon on the Beatitudes that we just heard.  Jesus reversed the fortunes of those who experience these four forms of suffering:

• Poverty: "Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours."
• Hunger: "Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied."
• Tears: "Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh."
• Persecution: "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven."

Jesus is inviting us to trust in God, who turns what human beings see as curses, into blessings.  And just in case, they did not understand his message, in this version of the Beatitudes from the gospel of Luke, he takes four things that human beings would normally consider to be blessings and calls them woes or curses.

• Riches: "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation."
• Satisfaction: "Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry."
• Laughter: "Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep."
• Praise: "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way."

Jesus is turning things upside down, by saying that poverty, hunger, tears and persecution bring about blessings, happiness and a reward in heaven.  Jesus is Jesus reversing the fortunes of those who possess riches, satisfaction, laughter and praise and turning them into woes or curses.  These reversals can only be understood and accepted by those who trust in the Lord and not in human things.

This teaching was strange not just for us, but perhaps even for the Jewish people to whom Jesus preached.  For when Moses taught them from a mountain like Jesus was doing here, had given the people of Israel a different set of values.  In Deuteronomy he had essentially told them that if they obeyed the Lord, they would receive material blessings:

Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out (Deut. 28:3-6).

But now Jesus, the new Moses, if you like, the new Sheriff in town is saying that what brings you blessing are not these material successes, but reliance on God.

And so, Jesus is not condemning riches, satisfaction, laughter and praise in themselves; nor is he extolling poverty, hunger, weeping and persecution in themselves.  That would not make sense.  What he is condemning is the complete reliance on passing things of the flesh, and the complete avoidance, at all costs, of those sufferings that come about because of being his disciples.

Christian Life

This reversal of values preached to the people of his time is also particularly relevant for us today.  In the past two to three hundred years especially, man has achieved some great things: discovered penicillin and other medicines that have cured many diseases, flight technology that makes it possible to travel from New Orleans to Los Angeles without people trying to shoot at you, computers that have changed the way we communicate and the amount of knowledge at our disposal.  But perhaps this material success has come at a cost; for like Jeremiah warned, we trust, we find strength only in human efforts, not in God.

That is why even today we must try to seek our blessing from Jesus' four beatitudes of poverty, hunger, weeping and persecution rather than from the four corresponding curses of riches, satisfaction, laughter and praise.

For while possession of material riches can console us on this side of heaven, it is a willingness to do without that assures us that "the kingdom of God is yours." A businessperson or employee, for example, who because they treasure the values of God rather than the values of the world, will take a smaller profit or a smaller pay-check, when they could take a bigger one but an immoral one.

In the second beatitude and its corresponding curse, the Lord also invites us to substitute present satisfaction with present hunger, so that in the future, we can be satisfied.  We must not settle for passing things, but must seek our fulfilment in the higher things of God.  The Catholic practices of fasting and abstinence are examples of present hunger that will bring future satisfaction in the Kingdom.

The third beatitude about weeping and its corresponding curse about laughing remind us that our current state of sadness or joy is not permanent and in fact will be reversed.  Many Christians undergoes suffering of all kinds, in the sure hope after the example of Jesus' own suffering and death, they will be blessed.

And the final beatitude and curse about personal reputation reminds us that it is better to have a bad name among people because of being and doing good, rather than a good name because of being and doing bad.  I have found the recent popes, especially Benedict XVI and Francis, as perfect models of this beatitude; for rather than run in a popularity contest, they simply do God's work, and are reviled for it.

Conclusion

Finally, as with all things, Jesus did not teach, what he himself did not undergo.  He was poor, having nowhere to lay his head.  He was hungry, fasting for 40 days in the desert.  He wept not only for Lazarus his friend, but especially during the Passion.  And he was called names.  And now he sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.  May we follow his example so as to have his destiny.

Homily Ordinary 5C: God's grace, cleansing and commissioning

 Homily for 5^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2022

 Isaiah 6:1-2a,3-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Introduction

The death and funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005 was a great media event.  Even in my remote village of Uganda, where I was pastor, we followed everything both on Radio Maria and on EWTN television via satellite.  In fact, on the day of the funeral itself, an hour before the funeral in Rome we celebrated a Mass for his soul, and then we set up the TV in church and followed the funeral Mass.

At the end of it, one of my parishioners came to me rather disturbed.  He had heard that the Holy Father, before he died, had asked for prayers for his soul.  “Why does the pope need prayers,” he asked? “I thought he was a holy man.  If he needs prayers, what hope is there for us ordinary Christians?”

I don’t remember what I told him exactly, but I think I must have assured him that the pope too was a mortal human being, an imperfect Christian, subject to temptation and sin like everybody else.  That is why he also needed prayers.

But perhaps I should have referred my parishioner to our readings of today, which remind us that the men God calls for his ministry, are often not perfect men.  In fact, often they are sinners.  But with God’s grace, they can be his instruments.

Scripture and Theology

We heard the prophet Isaiah declare: "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips."  How did he know this?  No human being, by his own power, can realize his own sinfulness.  Isaiah does so only by the grace of God.  Think of our first parents Adam and Eve; after they had sinned, the weight of what they had done began to dawn on them only "When they heard the sound of the LORD God walking about in the garden" (Gen. 3:8); that is when they hid from the Lord.  Isaiah too came to this realization of his sinfulness, during his vision in the Temple, when the Lord came upon him.

Similarly in the gospel, Simon the fisherman declares: "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."  But even he says this only after an encounter with Jesus Christ, after the Lord has worked on him as it were, after Jesus has demonstrated his power by the miraculous catch of the fish. Simon was able to accomplish that fete only after following the instructions of Jesus to throw into the deep water.

And so, for both men, Isaiah and Simon, the first step is that God entered their lives and brought them to a realization of their unworthiness.

The second step was cleansing.  In the case of Isaiah, after finding out that he was a man of unclean lips, we heard that "Then one of the seraphim [that is an angel] flew to me, holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it, and said, 'See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.'"  This image of cleansing clearly shows that before Isaiah could take up his mission from God, he had to be prepared.

In the case of Simon, Jesus cleansed him with these words: "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men."  These words together with the interaction that Jesus had with Simon and the others, especially with the miraculous catch of fish, led them to become changed men.  Of course, Jesus did not force himself upon him; Simon was free to reject or accept this infusion of grace.  Simon could, like any self-respecting fisherman, have refused to listen to the directives of carpenter; what does a carpenter know about fishing?  But he cooperated with this graced moment, allowing the Lord to work on him through the miraculous catch, and allow him to see himself in a new light.

Now that they have been cleansed, the third step for Isaiah and Simon is that they are given and accept a mission from God.  Isaiah tells us that after his lips were cleansed he "heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?'"  And he replied: "Here I am send me!"  Because his lips had now been cleansed, he could now carry out the work of speaking God's word as a prophet.

Simon and his three colleagues similarly accepted the invitation by Jesus for them to become fishers of men.  For "When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him."  And they were his closest friends, witnesses to all Jesus said and did, especially his death and resurrection, and would eventually be charged with passing on this Good News to the rest of the world.

Christian Life

The Lord has not stopped calling people in this way.  He continues to call men and women, who are imperfect, to be his messengers, to do his work.  But he also continues to clean their lips by sending his grace upon them.

Like his predecessor Simon Peter, that is what Pope Francis has kept reminding us.  You might recall an interview he gave several years ago when he was asked: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” And in what has now become a famous answer, he said: "I do not know what might be the most fitting description....  but the best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

Similarly, for Pope Benedict, the very first words he said publicly in St. Peter’s square as pope were the following: “After the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord.  The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.”

If the last three popes have acknowledged that they are sinners in need of prayer, inadequate instruments at the Lord’s service, how much more should the rest of us, priests and deacons, married men and women, recognize our sinfulness and our unworthiness.  But we must also recognize that despite this sinfulness, despite this unworthiness, strengthened by his grace, the Lord will use as for his work

For those of called to a life of marriage and family, you probably realize how inadequate you are. After the honeymoon of romantic feelings dies down and the task of building the marriage bond and raising helpless babies into adults begins, then you realize “I don’t know what the heck I am doing!”  I now look back at my own parents and realize, they really didn’t know what they were doing.  But try they did and I think I came out alright, somehow.  You too must like Isaiah, Simon Peter, Pope Benedict and others, entrust yourselves to the Lord, especially by prayer and by learning from him and his church what your responsibilities are.  You don’t give up because you are unworthy; you strive to make yourself worthier with his help.

Imagine you were the owner of a company, you were falsely imprisoned and your employees had abandoned you; on your release and exoneration, would you hire back that bunch of losers?  Is that not what Jesus did after the resurrection?  He took back the Eleven Apostles, who had abandoned him at his hour of suffering, one of whom, Simon, had even denied him not once, not twice, but three times.  The only one that he did not receive back is Judas Iscariot, not because his crime had been more heinous, but because unlike the Eleven, Judas refused to repent and return to the Lord, so that he might work on him a little more, to lead him to repentance, and cleanse him with his grace like he did with the others.

Conclusion

I would like to leave you with one final image, the image of a used car.  Many of us can never afford a brand-new car and buy used ones.  It seems that God too, in choosing vehicles to use for his ministry, he prefers the human equivalent of used cars.  Like used cars which are often dented, broken, and in need of repair, he chooses imperfect men and women, in need of repair and cleansing.  But then, like an experienced driver, after closely examining them, he painstakingly works on them, perhaps gives them an oil change, a flush of the fluids and a new coat of paint, and then he puts back on the road.  Can we allow God to make some repairs on us, perhaps give us a new coat of grace, a new infusion of faith, and a flush of our sins, and so renew us to go and do his work?

Homily Ordinary 4C: Preaching the gospel in season and out of season

 Homily for 4^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2022

Jeremiah 1:4-5,17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13; Luke 4:21-30

Introduction

Today's gospel picks up where we left off last Sunday, when Jesus gave a sermon in his home synagogue of Nazareth.  And as we just heard, they did not receive him well.  The people ". . . rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong."

I have been a priest now for nearly twenty-four years, but thankfully, I have never been run out of town, or been lynched because of my homily, at least not yet.  Is it perhaps because I am not teaching the truth as Jesus taught?  I hope not.

So, what did Jesus say that really ticked off the people of Nazareth, his own townspeople that they wanted to lynch him?

Scripture and Theology

Actually, the initial reaction to Jesus' sermon seems to have been quite good.  After he said, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" we heard that "all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth."  It is like when parishioners come to the priest after Mass and say, "great homily Father" or "good job Father", even when you did not preach.

The difficulty arose when the people engaged Jesus further about his homily, just like parishioners might ask the priest a few follow up questions about his homily.  During this follow-up Jesus made two points that apparently insulted them.

The first hint of trouble was when they asked: "Isn't this the son of Joseph?"  They asked this question because "familiarity that breeds contempt."  They were wondering, where does Joseph's boy come off trying to teach us?  How come this local boy, whom we so coming up, perhaps whose diapers we changed, is now claiming to be God's messenger?  They presumed to know him and so presumed that he had nothing to offer that was of value.

In response Jesus pointed out the contempt behind their familiarity with him. He told them: "Surely you will quote me this proverb, 'Physician, cure yourself,' and say, 'Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'"  In the few last weeks we have seen Jesus preaching and performing miracles all over the place, especially in Capernaum, a town about 40 miles north east of Nazareth.  And surely the word must have circled back to his home town, where perhaps people are incredulous that the carpenter's son could amount to anything like they are hearing about him, and wonder why he has not done the same at home.  And that is why Jesus tells them what is now a famous saying: "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place."

But surely being a local boy is not enough to rile them up so much that they want to kill him.  It is what he says after, that ignites their anger.  To make his point that "no prophet is accepted in his own native place", Jesus quotes two examples from their history, from the Old Testament, where the prophet, like him, did not work miracles among his own people, but did so among foreigners.

The first example comes from the time of the prophet Elijah, when during a three-and-half-year famine, he was sent, not to the widows in Israel, but to a widow in the pagan city of Zarephath in the pagan land of Sidon.  You might recall that we read that reading last November (1 Kgs 17:10-16).  Elijah asked this widow to make him some dinner from her very last supply of flour and oil, which she did.  And then because of her selfless generosity, miraculously, "She was able to eat for a year, and he and her son as well; the jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry."  Jesus brings up this incident to teach them that just like Israel’s wickedness led God to confer his blessings not on them but on a foreigner, Jesus too might be led to perform his miracles elsewhere.

But Jesus was not finished.  He then gave the example of Elisha, the prophet who succeeded Elijah.  He said: "Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian."  Again the point is the same: the prophet performed a miracle for a foreigner, a pagan, but not his own people, because they were so sinful.

I hope you can begin to understand the fury of the people of Nazareth, because with these examples from their past, Jesus was kind of insulting them.

1.    They must have thought: "How dare he drudge up their terrible past of sin and infidelity to God?"  It would be like a preacher today dredging up the low points of our Church's history: the Inquisition, the Crusades and the sexual abuse scandal or low points from this country's history, such as the slavery and the Jim Crow period.  Nobody wants to be reminded about the morally low points in their past, and neither did the people of Nazareth.

2.    But to add insult to injury Jesus is suggesting that not only were their ancestors sinful, but that now the people of Nazareth are acting in much the same way.  Again it would be like someone not only bringing up things from the past but also suggesting that people today are no better.

3.    And thirdly, how dare Jesus compare them, the People of God, unfavourably with the pagans, with foreigners, who come off better in these examples of the past, and even today?

In short, the people reacted with fury, not just because their local boy was presuming to preach to them, but especially because he was challenging them in a very pointed way.

Christian Life

What about today's prophets, especially those to whom Jesus entrusted the ministry of preaching?  How are they received?  How do we receive them?

Although I have never been run out of town for my homilies, I have come close to it, especially at election time, when people of one party accost me, verbally of course, for apparently promoting the other party, and people of the other party also accuse me of promoting the party of their opponents; and yet they are all hearing the same homily.  Outside election time, they may also push back, if like Jesus, I challenge something they really like in a pointed manner.

But my worries about my bodily health pale in comparison to the rampart attacks on my bosses, the bishops and the Popes.  Whatever they say, they are attacked by one faction or other in the Church, especially by the faction whom a particular message afflicts directly, since the job of a preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Pope Benedict XVI, for example, was often stridently attacked for consistently reminding us about the "dictatorship of relativism."  By that phrase he was reminding Catholics and the world, to reject a thinking that prizes opinions over objective truth, a truth to be found only in Jesus Christ.  And guess who attacked him most, it was those who rejected eternal truths, like the inherent value of life, from natural conception to natural death.  If they could, they would have driven him off the cliff of the hill, and some did try to do so metaphorically.

And then we come to the current Pope Francis, who also has a particularly consistent message that asks the Church to do as we heard Jesus declare in last Sunday's gospel: "to bring glad tidings to the poor. . . . to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free . . ." essentially, to go to the peripheries, to the most vulnerable in society.  He also reminds us like Jesus did to the people of Nazareth, that God sometimes sends his blessings to those who are not like us like foreigners and immigrants, those who belong to a different religion such as Muslims.  And there are no prizes for guessing those who counter-attack him most; it is those who have closed their eyes and ears to the cries of the poor.  And just like one faction did for Pope Benedict, another faction today vehemently want to push him over the cliff, both literally and metaphorically.

Conclusion

All preachers, indeed all Christians, are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, not only in preaching the Good News, but also in accepting the often-fierce responses to their preaching.  Sometimes they are able to escape the attack like Jesus did at Nazareth, when he walked through the crowds, at and other times they don't and with Jesus suffer crucifixion or some other suffering like Jeremiah.

As for us the people of God, may we never be like the lynching mob of Nazareth, but rather the people of Capernaum who received Jesus warmly; and may we pray for our leaders that they heed the instructions St. Paul gave to Timothy his successor: to "preach the word,. . . convince, rebuke, and exhort . . .," in season and out of season (2 Tim. 4:2).

Homily Ordinary 3C: Going back to the sources

 Homily for 3^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2022

Nehemiah 8:2-6,8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Introduction

The catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina remains forever etched in the minds of many New Orleanians and for others in our area, the more recent Hurricane Ida.  I bring up these tragic events because they have some similarities with what is happening in our first reading today.  What is a person of faith to do after a disaster?

Scripture and Theology

The book of Nehemiah, from which our reading comes tells the story of the restoration of the Jewish nation after their exile in Babylon, when they returned home and found a total devastation of their homeland. This story is told by the books of Nehemiah and of Ezra, the two principal figures behind this restoration.

·        First, much like the hurricanes destroyed our area, the Jewish people returned to find their Holy City of Jerusalem destroyed by its conquerors.

·        Second, their sacred temple was destroyed, much like our secular temple the Superdome was left in tatters after Katrina.

·        Thirdly, the walls of the Jerusalem were also destroyed, again like our levees that had been breached.

·        Most of all, it was not just the physical structures that were in ruins, but also the spirit of the community, what it meant to be a Jew was no longer there, much like the spirit of New Orleans was lost. 

And so, these two men, Nehemiah a lay man who served as the political leader, and Ezra, the priest who served as the religious leader, worked to restore the nation, restoring both the physical structures and the spiritual identity of the nation. 

But how did they do it?  How did they restore the nation?  While for us New Orleans, what helped restore our spirit was our great food, our music, and the return of our beloved Football team, the Saints, for the people of Judah, they turned to the Bible.  Yes, they read the Word of God.  They chose to go back to the Book of the Law that described who they were and what their obligations to God were.  We heard that everybody assembled to hear the priest Ezra read the Word of God, "men, women, and those children old enough to understand."  And how long was this reading?  "He read out of the book from daybreak till midday."  Do you realize how good you have it, that my homilies are only ten minutes long, and that you are sitting, not standing in the sun for the Mass which also lasts no more than an hour.

But why go back to read an old book, to read those old instructions?  Every nation worth its name has its founding principles.  For example, when the founding Fathers of the United States of America founded the nation in 1776, they laid down certain fundamental principles to guide the nation.  These principles are written in the Constitution.  Of course to this original document have been added over the years other foundational principles.  For example, in 1865 the thirteenth amendment was enacted to abolish slavery and in 1920 the nineteenth amendment expanded voting rights to women.  The Constitution is very sacred to Americans, because it lays out what it means to be an American nation.

That too is the reason why when Nehemiah and Ezra wanted to rebuild their nation, they turned to the Source, the Law of God as given to them in the Bible.  For while they could build all the physical structures they needed, without a spiritual foundation, they would not be a Holy people of God again. 

The initial reaction of the people to the reading was very powerful.  We heard that "all the people, their hands raised high, answered, 'Amen, amen!'" essentially agreeing with what Ezra had just read, since Amen means, "let it be so."  But in addition, "all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law."  Perhaps they were touched when they heard, some perhaps for the very first time, who they were, how much God had loved them, how much he cared about them, how all he asked was for them to be faithful to him, to follow his laws and dictates.  For they had been in exile and perhaps thought that God had gone back on his promises.  The Book of the Law renews their hope.

Similarly, today's gospel also tells us about the power of God's word.  Luke begins his gospel by explaining why he is writing down these things. After admitting that others have written gospels, he writes: "I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received."  Luke wants this man Theophilus, probably a Roman official or a prominent person of the time, to whom he dedicates his writings, to know the foundations of the Church in the life of Jesus Christ.

Today's gospel went on also to describe the beginning of Jesus' ministry. When asked to do the reading and preach at the synagogue on the Sabbath he reads from the prophet Isaiah, which says: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."  Jesus then borrows these words of Isaiah, which the prophet had used to give hope to the exiled people of Israel to introduce himself and his mission.  And then he concludes: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Christian Life

My friends, a few years ago Pope Francis asked the Church to celebrate today’s Sunday, the Third Sunday of the Year, as the Word of God Sunday.  Like Nehemiah and Ezra, he would like to us be reminded of our founding document, our founding principles, our origin story.  We must learn to appreciate God’s Word, something which we Catholics are not often known to do.

I am reminded of a story about a priest visiting a Catholic family – in a parish far, far away.  And while visiting the family posed a question to him.  He then asked for their family Bible so that he could refer them to a passage that would answer their question.  When they handed him the big old bible, on opening it, some reading glasses fell out.  That is when the dad blurted out: "I have been looking for those glasses for more than a year now."

Do we read our Bible often enough?  Do we go back to it, to be fed by God’s Word and inspired for action by it?  St. Paul writing to his protégé Timothy tells him:  "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  Do we equip ourselves for good work by turning to Scripture?

And yet as Catholics, we don’t read Scripture in an individualistic manner.  We read the Bible within and with the Church.  We are helped to understand it by both our forerunners in the faith and by those who have carried on the Tradition of the Church.  While the Protestant only reads his Bible, the Catholic reads both the Bible and the Catechism which helps him or her understand what he is reading, in the same way the deacon Philip helped the Ethiopian eunuch understand what he was reading.

Also, as Catholics our reading of Scripture is complemented by the Eucharist.  What we hear with our ears, that the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose for our salvation, we actually experience when we celebrate the Eucharist, the memorial of his death and resurrection.  That is why our Mass has both the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  Word and Sacrament go hand in hand.

Conclusion

I will leave you with God’s Word itself. How could we forget the injunction of the Letter to the Hebrews which says:

Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart (Heb. 4:12).

But we will give the Last Word to God himself who through the mouth of Isaiah tells us:

So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what pleases me, achieving the end for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11).

May God’s Word be the force that convicts and moves us to action.  And may all we do find its beginning and end in God’s Word.

 

A Pastoral Provision (not promotion) of the 1962 Missal

Rev. Deogratias Ekisa, S.T.D

July 19, 2021

“The Holy Father has asked us to provide, not to promote the Extraordinary Form.”  That sentiment, uttered by a wise Archbishop Alfred Hughes many years ago, is what helped me understand the purpose of Pope Benedict XVI’s liberal expansion of the use of the 1962 Missal, in the 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (SP).  I would like to propose that the same sentiment could help us understand Pope Francis’ reversal of that license in his recent motu proprio Traditionis Custodes (TC).

What do you call this Mass?

To understand the motivations of both papal documents, we must use correct terminology.  While both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis speak of the 1962 Missal and its liturgy, colloquial use has come up with shortcuts to describe this reality.  The most common phrases used are, Latin Mass, Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), Tridentine Mass, and Extraordinary Form.  However, this less technical but convenient terminology can also be misleading.

Latin Mass:  While this phrase is partially correct since the 1962 Missal could only be celebrated in Latin, while the revised Missal is often celebrated in the vernacular, it is incorrect because even the newer form of the Mass promulgated after Vatican II can be celebrated in Latin.  I know that because I often celebrate it in Latin.  That is probably why some qualify the term and speak of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Traditional Latin Mass:  But again that term is also misleading because all forms of the Mass, right from the beginning are just as traditional, because they encompass Tradition.  In fact, as Pope Francis argues, the current Mass is just as traditional.  Writing to the bishops to explain the motu proprio he says:

It must therefore be maintained that the Roman Rite, adapted many times over the course of the centuries according to the needs of the day, not only be preserved but renewed “in faithful observance of the Tradition”.[SC 3] Whoever wishes to celebrate with devotion according to earlier forms of the liturgy can find in the reformed Roman Missal according to Vatican Council II all the elements of the Roman Rite, in particular the Roman Canon which constitutes one of its more distinctive elements.

Tridentine Mass:  This phrase, like its parallel “Vatican II Mass”, has some truth since the 1570 Missal on which the 1962 Missal is based was the fruit of the Council of Trent, just like the 1970 Missal is the fruit of the Second Vatican Council.  But it is also incorrect since the 1962 Missal is not an exact replica of the 1570 Missal that arose from the Tridentine Council, but had some significant changes made to it, first by Pope Pius XII and then by John XXIII.  That is probably why traditionalist groups reject even the 1962 Missal.

Extraordinary Form: This phrase has papal authority behind it.  In Summorum Pontificum, after indicating that the current Missal of Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the Church’s liturgy, Pope Benedict rightly calls the 1962 Missal the “extraordinary form of the Church’s Liturgy.”  Unfortunately, the technical meaning of the Latin term “extraordinarius” was lost in translation.  While in Latin it means “secondary” or “the exception”, in everyday English it is understood as meaning “special” or even “outstanding.”  (The original meaning of the term is reflected in its use in Roman Pontifical Universities where ordinary professors are senior to extraordinary professors, the latter being the US equivalent of “Associate Professors” and the former being the equivalent of “Full Professors.”)

And so, while these terms are helpful shortcuts, they carry with them the inherent danger of misrepresenting the Church’s mind on the liturgy.  For example the 1962 Missal does not have a monopoly on use of the Latin language, nor is it the exclusive reservoir of the Roman liturgical Tradition, and is extraordinary, not in the sense of being outstanding, but only in the sense of being an exception to the normative liturgy.  Therefore, in this essay, I will refer to the 1962 Missal or older usage rather than any of these terms. 

Inch to mile: Benedict’s well-intentioned experiment exploited

To understand what Pope Francis has done, we must first return to the intentions of Pope Benedict XVI in granting a greater license in using the 1962 Missal, expanding on what his predecessors had granted in a limited way.  Contrary to some commentators, and as his use of the term “extraordinary” indicates, Pope Benedict did not intend to promote the older form of the liturgy as an alternative to the reformed liturgy.  As he unequivocally indicated, “The Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the lex orandi (rule of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite” (SP Art. 1).  Instead he wanted to provide the older usage for those who sincerely needed it, to preserve the unity of the Church.  In his Letter to the bishops accompanying Summorum Pontificum he indicated that the reason for his magnanimity was “to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew.  . . . [to] generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.”

Pope Benedict himself had asked that after three years the bishops would send to the Holy See their experiences of the experiment.  Thirteen years later, perhaps when with more data a more mature evaluation could be made, Pope Francis formalized that request by surveying the college of bishops.  This is what he found.

The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene. Regrettably, the pastoral objective of my Predecessors, who had intended “to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it possible to remain in this unity or to rediscover it anew”,[SP] has often been seriously disregarded. An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity, by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.

My own anecdotal experiences are consistent with these more formal findings.  For example some of the communities attached to the older usage present themselves as normative rather than the exception, in doctrine, in liturgy and discipline.  Some of them vehemently rejected the bishops’ legitimate liturgical restrictions and certain other directives during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Also, there is a tendency among some seminarians and young priests attached to the older liturgy, to primarily celebrate the liturgy of the 1962 books rather than the normative one, sometimes even substituting the older breviary for the newer one in its entirety.  And when they must learn and celebrate the newer liturgy, this is often done through the lens of the older liturgy, rather than through the principles of the liturgy promulgated by the Second Vatican Council.  They see the newer liturgy not just as being imperfect, since all liturgies on this side of heaven are inherently imperfect.  They see it as also being defective and needing to be fixed by additions from the 1962 rubrics, even those that Popes Paul VI and John Paul II chose not to include in the liturgical reforms, in what might be called a “Trentification” of the normative liturgy.

A doctrinal crisis beyond and behind liturgical choices

But a far more serious problem that prompted the Holy Father’s intervention is doctrinal rather than liturgical.  While Pope Francis decries all liturgical abuses in all forms of the liturgy, there is something more fundamental in the abuses associated with the 1962 Missal.

. . . the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the “true Church”. The path of the Church must be seen within the dynamic of Tradition “which originates from the Apostles and progresses in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit” (DV 8). A recent stage of this dynamic was constituted by Vatican Council II where the Catholic episcopate came together to listen and to discern the path for the Church indicated by the Holy Spirit. To doubt the Council is to doubt the intentions of those very Fathers who exercised their collegial power in a solemn manner cum Petro et sub Petro in an ecumenical council,[LG 23] and, in the final analysis, to doubt the Holy Spirit himself who guides the Church.

While this rejection of conciliar and papal authority by no means applies to every adherent of the older usage, it is still widespread enough to raise alarm bells.

Even when not overtly articulated, this rejection is inherently contained in the very choice of the older form over the newer one.  Put simply, such a choice sets aside the authority in the Church, that it is the bishops of the Church in an ecumenical council that decide what should be normative in teaching or discipline.  An expanded use of an older form on par with the newer form (rather than as an exception serving a specific need as Pope Benedict intended) implicitly questions the wisdom or even the validity of the conciliar change.  And while individual members of the faithful may not explicitly articulate that rejection of the conciliar changes, it seems to come with the territory, being ipso facto contained in their choice.

Time for reset: provide, not promote

And so, that is why the Holy Father has imposed restrictions on the usage of the older liturgy, so that even the unintended confusion of the exception for the norm, the privilege for the right, may not be promoted.  Most of these restrictions affect the priests and not the faithful.  In line with the principle of providing and not promoting the older liturgy, the Holy Father has ensured that the older liturgy is provided for those who are attached to it and need it for their spiritual benefit.  What he has done is, as it were, removed it from the main menu, and put it on the specials menu.  Priests are ordained primarily to provide the normative liturgy for the faithful (main menu), and not their particular predilections (specials menu).  That is why it is now the bishop, whose place it is to regulate the liturgy in his diocese (not the individual priest), who will oversee the provision of this exception to the norm.

The bishop will grant permission to priests who want to celebrate the Mass according to the 1962 Missal, in the same way that the bishop grants other liturgical permissions that respond to the spiritual needs of his flock.  The bishop will see to the spiritual welfare of individuals and groups attached to the 1962 Missal, providing priests and places for them to be served.  In addition, the readings in particular will now be proclaimed in the vernacular language, and not in Latin as previously done, so that the people can understand the Word of God being proclaimed to them.  And the bishops will make this provision on condition that those served “do not deny the validity and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform, dictated by Vatican Council II and the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs,” just as Pope Benedict had hoped.

Despite the fact that the short notice of Pope Francis’ document has not allowed them ample time to study the document, the initial reactions of many bishops, excepting the usual suspects, have been quite positive.  They have indicated that, after studying the instructions with the help of experts, they will do exactly what the Holy Father has asked of them.  They will both see to the spiritual welfare of that small portion of the flock that is still attached to the 1962 Missal, as well regulate the celebration of Mass according to that Missal, as is their responsibility.

Would I celebrate with the 1962 Missal?

One of my students once suggested that I take the trouble to learn and celebrate the “Extraordinary Form” Mass. He noted that my command of Latin was superb, my liturgical demeanour reverent, and my penchant for observing rubrics obsessive (in a healthy manner), these being the minimum requirements for any priest who wishes to celebrate the 1962 liturgy.  “When hell freezes over” was perhaps the answer he expected.  But I gave him a different answer.

After simultaneously appreciating his kind words about my liturgical style and also suppressing my surprise at this blatant attempt at promoting rather than providing the older liturgy by recruiting me, I told him that I did not have any particular predilection towards the 1962 Missal, and was quite happy with the normative liturgy.  And since Pope Benedict had offered the concession of using the 1962 Missal for those who were attached to it, my celebrating it simply because I could, would be treating the this sacred mystery as if it was lagniappe or a hobby.

I told him, however, that as a priest, I am ordained to serve God’s people.  And so, I could foresee myself learning and celebrating the 1962 Mass in these three situations of service to God’s people.

1. If the bishop asked me to do so (after all I am an obedient son of the Church), for example, to serve a community in need of this Mass.
2. If I discerned a need for such a ministry, for example, in a nursing home with people whose only experience of the Mass is the older form and who would find the normative Mass impossible to pray; I would of course need the bishop’s permission to proceed with said initiative.
3. If the Holy Father made the 1962 Missal or suchlike Missal the normative liturgy of the Church.

In reaching these conclusions I am operating out of the same principle, that the Mass of the 1962 Missal should be provided when needed, not promoted as a parallel experience of the Mass.

What is the end game?  A unified normative liturgy

A point that is often overlooked and not spoken of enough is that all these provisions have as their end goal, a unified liturgy, the liturgy arising from the Second Vatican Council.  In summarizing how the bishops are to implement the motu proprio, Pope Francis said the following:

Indications about how to proceed in your dioceses are chiefly dictated by two principles: on the one hand, to provide for the good of those who are rooted in the previous form of celebration and need to return in due time to the Roman Rite promulgated by Saints Paul VI and John Paul II, and, on the other hand, to discontinue the erection of new personal parishes tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the “holy People of God.”

Clearly, the Holy Father intends “to re-establish throughout the Church of the Roman Rite” “the unity of one, single Rite, in which is preserved the great richness of the Roman liturgical tradition.”

Perhaps unintentionally, some commentators about these things give the impression that nothing significant happened at the Second Vatican Council or that if something happened it is about to be reversed and we can go back to the good old days of the pre-conciliar liturgy.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  And when theologians and clergy do this, they sell the faithful a pipe dream.  In the pithy words of Monsignor Eric Barr: "The TLM is not going to be a parallel rite with the ordinary form of the Mass.  There will still be times when it is celebrated, but it will never be the hinge upon which the Catholicity of the Church swings.”

The continuation of the usage of the 1962 Missal is a concession to a perceived pastoral need.  How long that need will exist will be seen down the road.  Because provision rather than promotion is the principle to be followed, the 1962 Missal probably will eventually go the way of the Mozarabic Rite that still continues to be used, but just in the Cathedral of Toledo in Spain.  It might go the way of the Gallican Rite or even some of the Rites of the religious communities that are preserved and only occasionally used by them.  Especially given the radical change in the understanding of liturgy arising from the teaching of the Council, it is a vain hope to think that the 1962 Missal will now or in the future become part of the main liturgical fare, on par with the normative liturgy of the Church.

The universality of the Catholic Church means that it will always have diversity, including diversity of liturgical expressions.  But this diversity is not the selfish kind witnessed at the Tower of Babel, but the Pentecost kind that is guided by the Holy Spirit who inspires the Holy Father and the college of bishops.  They are the ones who indicate what diversity is allowed and how it is allowed.  It is they who indicate what is to be merely provided and what is to be promoted as normative.

A good example of this principle is the Pastoral Provision in the USA that allowed former Anglican married priests to be ordained Catholics priests while remaining married.  As the name of the program indicates, this is a provision, not a promotion of the idea of married priests.  By allowing these married men to be ordained priests, nothing was changed about the discipline of priestly celibacy, which remained normative and intact.

Therefore, what we have in both Summorum Pontificum and Traditionis Custodes is a pastoral provision, not a liturgical promotion of the 1962 Missal.

Going beyond the literal meaning of "All Lives Matter."

 THE PERFORMATIVE MEANING OF SPEECH

Anyone who has been presented with the proverbial question of "Have you stopped beating your wife?" will immediately appreciate that speech communicates more than just a literal meaning.  For whether he answers "No, I have not stopped beating my wife," because in fact does not engage in such beastly acts, or he answers "Yes, I have stopped beating my wife" because he does not wish to engage in wife-beating, his answers, without the necessary qualifications, will communicate guilt.

The argument of those who respond to "Black Lives Matter" with "All Lives Matter" is often that those words have a literal meaning, i.e. all lives matter, including Black lives.  But like the person who asks the husband about wife beating in this manner, they ignore the meaning of that phrase beyond the literal.  In fact, the same "All Lives Matter" will offer similar, perhaps unintended offence, when used in the context of any life situation such a particular funeral, advocacy for the lives of babies, or even the parallel "Blue Lives Matter" advocacy for law enforcement.  And this offence does not come from the literal meaning of the words, but from the extra meanings that language has.

I offer an excerpt from my doctoral dissertation on this subject of the performative meaning of language, hoping to show that we must be concerned not only with the literal meaning of what we say, but also with the other meanings of what we say, meanings, which whether intended or unintended, often carry more weight in certain situations.

******************************

An excerpt from:

PONTIFICIUM ATHENAEUM S. ANSELMI DE URBE

FACULTAS SACRAE TEOLOGIAE

 Thesis ad Lauream n. 212

 DEOGRATIAS OPADA EKISA

THE SACRIFICIAL BANQUET AS THE SACRAMENTAL FORM OF THE EUCHARIST, WITH THE MASS OF PAUL VI AS A TYPICAL CASE

2.2.4.1. John Austin – How to do things with words

The thinking of John Langshaw Austin (1911-1960) was inspired by the desire to unmask what he called the descriptive fallacy of logical positivism.  According to positivism, the main purpose of sentences was to describe facts or the state of affairs and thus sentences were true or false based on their correspondence to reality or the lack of it, respectively.[1]  Austin saw another type of meaning in sentences, other than truth or falsity, the meaning of performance.  While formal logic might be helpful in providing certain truths, for Austin ordinary language is the guide to useful truths.[2]

 Language is a guide to useful truths because language is performative, as expressed in Austin’s theory of speech acts.[3]  The performative dimension of language comes from speech having three levels: "locutionary", "illocutionary" and "perlocutionary.” These are not separate acts, but three distinct levels of the same act of making an utterance.  Let us identify these levels in the simple utterance, “The Light is red.”  (1) The first act, the locutionary, is simply the ordinary act of saying something; in this case that the light in question is red.  At this level the speaker makes a meaningful utterance, which anybody familiar with the grammar and vocabulary of that language can understand.  In our example the utterance makes sense and transmits some information, namely, that the colour of the light is red.  As a locution, this statement can be judged true or false, depending on whether the light in question is indeed red in colour. (2) But in making this locutionary act, the speaker could also be doing something else, such as warning the listener.  Let us take the example of a father, seated in the passenger seat of a car, teaching his daughter how to drive.  If he makes the statement “The light is red,” when they are approaching a traffic light, he does more than just inform her about the colour of the light.  He is also performing the act of warning, the illocutionary act.  It is important also to stress that what the illocutionary act effects is not achieved separately from the locution, but is achieved in the very locution itself.  In other words, the father does not first utter the sentence “The light is red,” and then give the warning; but in the very uttering of the sentence he also issues the warning.   (3) Besides the locutionary and illocutionary acts, the father in making the utterance may also perform another act, namely, eliciting a response from the daughter, such as having her stop the car.  “Saying something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons: and it may be done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them. . . .”[4]  This is the perlocutionary act.

And so, the three distinct acts of the one utterance could be distinguished thus:

a)      The locutionary act is the act of saying something, and thus has meaning.

b)      The illocutionary act is the act accomplished in saying something and thus has a certain force e.g. warning, promising, affirming, ordering, and questioning.

c)      The perlocutionary act is the act accomplished by saying something, and thus achieving certain effects e.g. eliciting a reaction or response, persuading, inducing, convincing, and deceiving.

Since our work is dealing with the efficacy of rituals words (and actions), let us focus briefly on the illocutionary dimension of the speech act.

By virtue of the illocutionary force, the utterance goes beyond merely saying something meaningful and actually does something else such as “asking or answering a question, giving some information or an assurance or a warning, announcing a verdict or an intention, pronouncing sentence, making an appointment or an appeal or a criticism, making an identification or giving a description, and the numerous like.”[5]  In doing these things an utterance has the force of impacting its hearer beyond simply passing on its sense and meaning.  That is why the same utterance (with the same meaning) can have different illocutionary effects depending on the context.  And so our utterance “The light is red,” when referring to a reading light, may have the illocutionary effect of complaining about the inadequacy of the light for reading a book, instead of the warning effect when referring to the traffic light.[6]  Besides context, the aspect of convention also affects the illocutionary effect of the utterance; for example if green rather than red was the colour associated with warning, then our utterance would not have the same illocutionary effect of warning.  To use another example, the utterance “We find the defendant guilty,” has the illocutionary force of issuing a verdict, not necessarily from the meaning of those words, but from the conventionally agreed conditions, such as their being said in a court proceeding, by a jury, etc.

The perlocutionary act must also be distinguished, and yet not separated from the illocutionary act.  In our driving lesson example, the perlocutionary act elicits a response from the young lady, the response of stopping the car.  This act operates simultaneously as the locutionary act utters a meaningful sentence and as the illocutionary act issues a warning.  This was probably the intended outcome of the utterance.  But there could also be an unforeseen perlocutionary act, such as causing the driver to panic and lose control of the car.  Thus the relation between utterance and the perlocutionary effect is not necessarily cause-effect.  It is the convincing (or dissuading) power of the utterance that achieves it.[7]

---

[1] See especially: Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics (London: Cambridge University Press, 1903); and Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica (London: Cambridge University Press, 1910).  It should be noted that in his later life, as described in his posthumous work Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), Ludwig Wittgeinstein repudiated these views of logical positivism.

[2] Mervyn Duffy, How language, ritual and sacraments work: according to John Austin, Jürgen Habermas and Louis-Marie Chauvet (Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2005), p. 23.

[3] John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955, eds. James O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 94-132; see also Idem, “Performative Utterances,” in Philosophical Papers, eds. James O. Urmson and Geoffrey J. Warnock, pp. 233-252, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 251.

[4] Austin, How to do Things with Words, p. 101.

[5] Ibid., pp. 98-99.

[6] Austin classifies these illocutionary functions into three groups: “securing uptake, taking effect, and inviting a response.”  The “securing of uptake” is the assurance that the utterance has been understood in its meaning and its force.  The “taking effect,” is the transformation of the context such that, for example, after baptising the ship Queen Elizabeth, it is no longer appropriate to call it Generalissimo Stalin.  The effect of “inviting a response” can be seen in a question requiring a response, a promise requiring its maintenance, an order its accomplishment.  See Austin, How to Do Things with Words, p. 118.

[7] Ibid., p. 107.