Fr. JC Maximilian

["The Conversion of St. Paul" by Caravaggio, 1600/01]

As I was reflecting on this weekend’s readings for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, I thought of two men that I met while in the seminary.

Allan was literally a “rocket scientist.” He had a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Princeton. Allan sometimes described himself as “the pagan who married the good Irish Catholic girl who never went anyplace without her Rosary.” I think Allan said that he was married for about 10 years. Clearly he and his wife were very much in love, though he did not share her Christian faith. While I don’t think that Allan worshipped the pagan gods, I do think he was like so many people in our society — our world — who dismiss anything spiritual and only focused on the material world.

Yet something happened to Allan. Basically his marriage worked. See, marriage is one of the two sacraments for the good of the Church; the other is Holy Orders. In the sacrament of marriage, the husband and wife witness to the love that Christ has for His Bride, the Church. Through their married life, the husband and wife testify to a love that is permanent, faithful, fruitful and involves the sharing of a life of communion, just as Jesus’ love for the Church is permanent, faithful, fruitful, and invites us to share in His divine life. The vocation of marriage is for the husband and wife to make each other holier, and Allan’s wife did just that.

On vacations she would take him into the great, old churches in Europe where he appreciated the architecture and beautiful works of art. However, while God is certainly reflected in all works of beauty, Allan’s real encounter with Christ Jesus was through his wife. And in that encounter he recognized the Mystery which fulfilled the deepest longing of his heart, his deepest desires. He came to recognize that this ultimate fulfillment was not his wife in herself, but rather in the Mystery, the Person, she followed — Jesus Christ.

Allan entered the RCIA, and entered the Catholic Church on the Easter Vigil. He was so very happy, and his wife rejoiced that their life would now share this common faith. About a month after Allan became a Catholic his wife was diagnosed with cancer, and she died about six months later. Of course Allan was filled with grief over the death of his wife, but he saw the grace of God even in his grief. He realized that Jesus had called him into the Church so that he would have a family of faith to support him during his grief. A few years later, Allan heard Christ calling him to the priesthood, and now he is Fr. Allan.

My other friend is named Paolo. He was not raised with any kind of religious faith. As a young man he joined the Navy, and while in the Navy he got hurt. He was in the base hospital, in a lot of pain. The next morning he found some pamphlets by his bed talking about offering one’s suffering to Jesus. Paolo found out that the man in the bed next to him, despite being in a lot of pain himself and barely able to walk, had gone down to the chapel to get them for Paolo, hoping that they would help him. Nothing in the pamphlets touched Paolo, but he was touched by the action of this stranger, and as Paolo puts it, he started his journey to Christ by stealing a Bible from the hospital chapel on his way out. It was in the action of that anonymous Christian, and in the pages of the Bible that Paolo encountered Jesus Christ, and he became a Catholic. While after a few years in the seminary Paolo decided that God was not calling him to priesthood, and he is now married with two children, Paolo continues, with his wife, to bare witness to Jesus Christ in the ordinary activities of his life.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Paul was not a bad man before he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was a devout Jew. He was a man of the covenant, and he recognized that God had entered into a specially relationship with the Jewish people, and Paul lived that covenantal life to the best of his ability. His heart yearned for the coming of the promised Messiah. He just did not recognize right away that Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise. Paul saw this new “Way” as a threat to living a life faithful to the covenant with God, and in his zeal for God he persecuted the Church. On that road to Damascus, Paul was given a great grace — he had a profound encounter with Jesus Christ. In that encounter, Paul recognized the Messiah and his life was never the same. He continued to make his living as a tent-maker, but the real fire in his life was proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead. As St. Paul writes himself in one of his letters, “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.” Paul was filled with new life, the life of Jesus. This is the reality of the Church; not merely the institution and buildings, but the new life of Christ Jesus in all who follow Him.

All of us have also had a conversion. Maybe it has not been as dramatic as St. Paul’s, or even Allan’s and Paolo’s, but we have all been filled with the new life of Jesus Christ at our baptism. Sadly, for many of us, that new life did not get to really enliven us for a long time. Maybe we did not go to church for a long time, or going to Mass was just a duty to fulfill. However, I am sure that for many, and hopefully all of us, we had our own “road to Damascus” experience in which we had an exceptional encounter with Jesus Christ. Maybe it was when we were breaking free from an addiction, or excessive materialism. Maybe it was when facing a serious illness, or a death of a loved one. Maybe in was through a friendship with someone who is just so alive with the Holy Spirit. All of those moments are moments of conversion, of turning our lives over to Christ Jesus so that it is “no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.”

Today’s Gospel tells us to make disciples of all the nations. We do not need to go to Africa or China to do that. What we need to do is live our faith boldly and courageously. When we are gathered around the office water cooler or coffee room and the gossip begins, we can follow the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, and “say only the good things that people need to hear, things that will really build them up.” We can join with the thousands who this week traveled to Washington or Trenton to witness to the sanctity of human life from conception until natural death. We can allow the love of Jesus to shine through by our compassion to the poor, to those who are discriminated against. When we live the new life of Christ, the life that IS the Church, then others encounter Jesus Christ in us and are invited to accept the grace of conversion.

The idea of Faith being a type of Reason, or more properly a method of Reason, almost seems nonsensical in today’s world. For many people Faith and Reason are viewed as at least distinct, and at worse opposing ways of knowing something. In these few pages, Msgr. Giussani makes a strong demonstration that not only is Faith and Reason not in opposition to each other, but that Faith is the fullest flower of Reason.

First a couple of definitions. “The way to do something” is Giussani’s definition of Method, and he defines Reason as that energy peculiar to human beings by which we know. Faith is just one method of reason. It is an indirect method of knowing something, because it is mediated by a witness. Other methods of reason would include observation (the use of our senses), and the scientific method which is based on analysis and dialectic.

Msgr. Giussani argues that faith is the most important of all the methods of reason because it uses the entire person, my whole “I”. The other methods only use part of me — my intellect, my sight, my hearing, etc. Why does faith use all of my “I”? Because I have to trust the witness. This requires a relationship. I cannot relate to a witness with only my eyes, only my ears, only my intellect. For it to be a real relationship, I bring my entire “I” into it. It takes a love for truth, and such a love engages the entire person.

All of human society and history is based on this method of reason. If we do not trust each other, we would have chaos. We have faith that people will obey the traffic rules. Culture is simply the development of knowledge, which requires me to trust in the discoveries that others have made, and then in the future people with trust in my discoveries and add their own. All of this is based on the method of Faith.

The key in this method of reason which is faith is whether or not we can trust the witness. Trust in the person is vital, but we can trust unreasonably, as well as reasonably. The other morning a woman called me before 8 a.m. She started to tell a tale of woe and how she needed money for “personal items.” She slurred her speech as she talked to me, giving me the impression that she had been drinking. For me to believe all that she told me, for me to put faith in what she said, would be unreasonable. So by what criteria do we evaluate the witness? How do we know if we are trusting the witness reasonably? We know that it is right to trust a witness (1) when that person really knows what she or he is saying, and (2) when that person does not what to deceive us. If we believe that a person knows what they are talking about, and we have no reason to believe that they are trying to deceive us, if we make these judgments about the witness, then it is unreasonable NOT to trust what the witness has to say.

So what does this say about our Christian faith? Is Jesus Christ a trustworthy witness? Are the Apostles and the entire Christian culture for the past 2000 years?

“What are you looking for?”  What a remarkable question Jesus asks those first two followers.  It is remarkable because it cuts right to the heart of the matter.  Deep down, when we quiet all the distractions in our lives, this is the question that each of us ask ourselves; “What am I looking for?”  We know that it is not a mundane question, like when we have lost something like the TV remote.  Rather we know that this question, the way that Jesus asks these two followers, and the way we ask ourselves this question, that it is dealing with something really important.  It is dealing with our destiny; it is dealing with what makes our life meaningful.

“What are you looking for?”  Most people, when asked this question will say that they are looking for happiness.  But what is happiness?  What will make you really, truly happy?

When I was about 8 or 9 I really wanted this Evil Knievel action figure (hey, I am a guy; we don’t play with dolls) that had a motorcycle that you could rev up so that it could go on its own and you could make a ramp have have it jump over stuff.  I was sure that if I got that Evil Knievel action figure and motorcycle I would be truly happy.  You know what?  I got that toy for Christmas that year, and for at least a month I was very happy with it.  But then something new came along, or not, and Evil Knievel just no longer made me that happy anymore.

I am sure, especially with Christmas just behind us, all of you can think of a similar situation in your lives where you really wanted something – a toy, the latest fashion item, a game – and when you got it, it did make you happy, at least for a while, but then it faded and you started looking for the next thing to make you happy.  That is normal, and not just for kids.  We adults do it too; maybe it is for the latest tech gizmo, or for jewelry, or a particular job, or a particular romantic relationship.  This is not to say that any of these things are bad in and of themselves, but they can be distractions if they keep up from searching for the deepest desires of our hearts.  We are looking for eternal happiness.  St. Theresa of Lisieux once said that Jesus “would not inspire the longings I feel unless he wanted to grant them.”

“What are you looking for?”  When the two followers were asked this they had not known Jesus long at all.  In fact they were disciples of John the Baptist.  They had come to recognize in John the Baptist a real authority, that he was on the right way.  What he said corresponded with the deepest longings of their hearts, their desire for eternal happiness, so they followed him.  So when they heard St. John the Baptist say, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” they knew that they should follow that man.  They knew that they should follow Jesus.  “What are you looking for?”  “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  Another way of translating their response to Jesus is “Where and how do you live?”  Jesus invites them to “Come, and you will see.”

Since it is already four in the afternoon, they only get to spend a few hours at most with Jesus that first day.  It is not until the next chapter in St. John’s Gospel that we are told that Jesus works His first miracle, at the wedding in Cana, so it means that on that first night Andrew and that other disciple did not see Jesus perform a miracle so to believe in Him.  Rather they just spent time with Jesus, they listened to Jesus talk to them about God and eternal life.  This simple encounter with Jesus was enough.  Their hearts burned within them.  They might not have understood everything Jesus told them that night, but they knew in their hearts that He spoke to them the words of eternal life and happiness.  They knew that He was the Messiah and they needed to follow Him.  They also knew that they needed to share this good news with others.  Later, as they continued to follow Jesus and see Him work the great miracles that He does, they receive verification that they are following the right person, that they have made the right choice in following Jesus.

“What are you looking for?”  Jesus continues to ask us this question, right here, right now, every moment of our lives.  He knows that our hearts are longing for happiness.  He knows because He created our human hearts and put that longing for infinite love, truth, beauty, and communion in our hearts.  He created us for Himself.

We need to learn to silent the distractions in our lives; put other things and people in the proper priority, so that we hear His invitation to “Come, and you will see.”  This is what Eli taught Samuel to do in today’s first reading, so that Samuel could answer the Lord by saying, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”  We need to spend time with Jesus and recognize just how extraordinary His presence is.  That He speaks to us with an authority we have never known because His words correspond to our heart’s longing.

Whether we see great and powerful miracles or not, whether we understand everything that Jesus tells us fully or not, does not matter.  Spending time in His presence, that extraordinary presence, fills us with joy and peace and all the other fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Then our very lives will cry out, “We have found the Messiah!” and we will bring people to Jesus.

As we begin this discussion of Msgr. Luigi Giussani’s book, Is it Possible to Live this Way? An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence, Vol. 1: Faith (IPLW-Faith), we need to keep some things in mind about Msgr. Giussani’s writing.  First, especially in this work, we need to remember that Giussani did not set off to write a book.  This book is basically the transcripts of a series of talks that he gave, over a course of a year, to a group of young people who were planning to dedicate their lives to Christ in the Secular Institute in the Church called, Memores Domini.  This is a group who work in the world, yet live together making promises of obedience, chastity (celibacy), and poverty, living the charism of Communion and Liberation intensely.  If you read this book, you will notice that the style of writing is not very formal; that’s because it is really spoken, to a group.  Msgr. Giussani was probably given the transcripts to do some editing to, but mostly this book is spoken.  The other thing to remember is that this book was spoken in Italian.  I am sure that the translators have done a great job — far better than I could do, since I do not speak Italian.  Yet, it is still a translation, and each language has its own idioms.  The translators seem to have kept those idioms, which I think is very fair.  It will encourage me, and those of you reading this blog, to connect our own experiences to what is being discussed.  This is what we should be doing anyway, otherwise it will just become abstract, and not connected with reality.  We must always begin with reality, which is our experience.

On a personal note, since I am NOT copying the text of the book into these posts, I am writing a summary.  By definition a summary leaves some things out.  What I leave out is probably a factor of my own experience, of what struck me as I read (or for the first third of this book, re-read) the book.  Please read the book for yourself if you find this interesting.  Even better, find a School of Community (SoC) and read the text with them.  The interaction with other people, breathes life into this journey of faith.  In fact Msgr. Giussani speaks of the importance of doing this work in a group of other mature friends, because they help us limit the deceptiveness of our lives.  Too often we try to kid ourselves, keep ourselves blind to the reality in our lives.  Others can help us keep it real.  I hope that some of the discussion and comments that I hope that these posts generates will help me keep it real.

One concept that Giussani uses all the time, that we really need to have a basic understanding of just to begin, is the “heart.”  He will speak often of the “deepest desires of our heart,” and of making a judgment as to whether a fact “corresponds with our heart.”  When Msgr. Giussani speaks about the heart, he is using the term in the Biblical sense, and not it what is often common for us today.  So often today, when we speak of the heart, we see it as the seat of emotions, so the heart has to do with all things emotional.  It is often seen as being in opposition to the “head” which deals with all things intellectual and reasonable and logical. This is NOT the Biblical sense of the word, it is not how Jesus used it, and it is not how Giussani uses it (nor should we).  The heart is the totality of the individual person:  their emotions, their intellect, their memory, their will, everything about the person.  It is what unites us into a whole being.  We are less of a person if we ignore our intellect and will, and just focus on our emotions, and we are less of a person if we ignore our emotions and just focus on logic and intellect.  Both extremes reduces the human person.

Just the other day I received in the mail a free CD of some of the works of Mozart.  It is an offer to collect some of the best of classical music, and each CD comes with a small book to learn more about the composer and the individual works on the CD.  While reading the book about Mozart’s life, I came across a line that bothered me, and which addresses the beginning point of this book of Giussani that I am reading and sharing.  Early in his life, Mozart was the court musician for a cardinal.  This cardinal promoted the arts.  The author of the book made a statement to effect that “despite being a church official, the cardinal was also a man who promoted science.”  Did you catch what bothered me?  It is the common bias that suggests that people who have religious faith are not really reasonable, at least not in what they see as being higher reason — science.  This is the starting point for Msgr. Giussani, particularly in this work.  He wants to demonstrate that faith is reasonable.

A more precise way of stated what Giussani says, it that faith is method of reason.  That there are many different methods of reason, the methods depend on the object being examined, and faith is one of those methods.  In fact, instead of being a “lower” method, Giussani demonstrates that faith is the most complete method because it engages all of the person’s “I” and is the foundation of all society.

Allow me to use Giussani’s example.  Let’s say I went to high school with Nadia, Carlos and Tom.  After graduation, I do not see Nadia and Carlo for 20 years, though I keep in touch with my friend Tom.  One night I get on a plane heading to Chicago (I am using different cities that Giussani), that first stops in New York.  I get on the plane, which started in Athens, and Nadia is in the seat next to me.  Of course we are going to talk; we are going to share about what we have been doing for the past 20 years.  She tells me that she is married with 6 children and works in insurance.  She then asks me if I remember Carlos.  I tell her, yes, but I have not heard from him in 20 years.  He was the class clown, and never took anything seriously.  Nadia tells me that he is now living in New York, and has become a very successful and responsible banker.  That because her work takes her to New York several times a year, she and Carlos get together when she is in New York.  Nadia gets off in New York, and I continue to Chicago where my high school friend Tom picks me up.  As we are drive to his house, I ask Tom if he remembers Carlos, the class clown.  Tom says of course, but he has not heard from him in 20 years.  I proceed to tell him that he is now a very successful banker in New York.

Now, I still have not seen Carlos in 20 years.  Why do I pass on this information?  Because Nadia, someone I know and trust, told me the information about Carlos and I accept as true what she told me.  Her testimony gives me, indirectly, knowledge.  This is the method of reason that we call faith:  indirect (but certain) knowledge obtained through the testimony of a witness.

We are not talking about religious knowledge, at least not yet.  Just knowledge.  Just think about all the things that you know by this method.  Fr. Mick, the pastor I live with, called me for dinner tonight.  He made pasta.  I do I know that it was not poisoned?  I did not observe him make it.  I trust him.  Likewise, when he opened the jar of sauce how did he know that it was not poisoned?  Because he trusts the grocery store.  To not trust someone we have no reason to distrust is unreasonable (as a psychologist, I might even say, depending on the degree of distrust, that it is paranoia, a mental illness).  When we drive down the road, and we have a green light, we know with a high degree of certainty that the cars on the cross streets are going to stop and not hit us.  If we have been in an accident because someone ran a red light, we might not be so trusting, but generally the only way that society can function is by its members trusting each other; by us having faith in each other.

How do I know that George Washington was the first president of the United States?  Because that knowledge has been handed down to me by my teachers and my history book.  I never observed directly George Washington being president, nor did my teachers.  Nearly all of the knowledge that I have is because of faith.  And unlike my knowing that 2 + 2 = 4, which I can demonstrate for myself and only uses part of who I am, knowledge by faith requires all of me, my total “I”.

This does, of course, lead us to religious faith.  Religious faith is knowledge we have about our destiny.  We will never meet our destiny on the street.  Destiny is a Mystery, yet it is a Mystery that we can come to know through faith.  I have given some vocation talks, and while I can point to events and circumstances in my life that pointed towards reality that God was calling me to be a priest, it certainly is not something I can demonstrate or prove scientifically.  These events and circumstances, along with the testimony of my spiritual director, helped me to discern my vocation; it helped me to make a judgment as to whether the proposal corresponded with the desire of my heart.  First I needed to quiet the distractions in my life so that I could hear my heart speaking, and so I could see the events of my life in reality.

As Msgr. Giussani says, “we can’t begin to discuss these things without some part of our heart praying, asking the Mystery of Being for light, affection, sincerity, and the simplicity to say ‘yes’ to what is true and ‘no’ to what is false” (IPLW-Faith, p. 15).

I have always wanted to do a bit more with this blog. Mostly I have just been publishing my homilies here, and I really appreciate the feedback that I get from those of you who read and comment. Yet, when I started this blog I hoped to also have posts discussing books that I am reading, maybe films that I see, etc. Of course the focus would be on the spiritual life, but more than just my homilies. I have never really gotten to do that, mostly because parish life can keep me very busy.

However, for New Year’s I wanted to make a resolution. While I am still busy in my parish assignment, I know that I can find time to do more spiritual reading, and then share some of my thoughts about what I am reading. This has become more important to me since coming to St. Theresa’s because I have become separated from what had been the spiritual highlight of my week for the past three years; School of Community. What is School of Community (SoC)? It is the basic gesture of the new ecclesial movement known as Communion and Liberation.

Communion and Liberation (CL) really started in a high school in Milan, Italy in 1954, although it was not called CL at the time. It was started by Fr. Luigi Giussani, who had decided to start teaching in high school after having taught theology at the local Catholic University. Msgr. Giussani stated that he never intended to start a “new” spirituality or movement in the Church. Rather he wanted to re-propose the Christian event in a way that would be interesting and provocative to his students. He was concerned that for too many of his students, Christianity had become a mere abstraction, a set of rules and dogmas. For Msgr. Giussani, Christianity has always been about encountering Jesus Christ, the Divine Mystery, as a real presence in the everyday experiences of our lives. The Church, instead of just being another institution, is really a life — it is the life of Jesus who gave His Spirit to the Church.

“A charism,” Fr. Giussani has written, “can be defined as a gift of the Spirit, given to a person in a specific historical context, so that this person can initiate an experience of faith that might in some way be useful to the life of the Church. I emphasize the existential nature of charism: it makes the Christian message handed down by the apostolic tradition more convincing, more persuasive, more ‘approachable.’ A charism is an ultimate terminal of the Incarnation, that is, it is a particular way in which the Fact of Jesus Christ Man and God reaches me, and through me can reach others.” Else where Msgr. Giussani said, “I tried to show the students what moved me: not the wish to convince them that I was right, but the desire to show them the reasonableness of faith; that is, that their free adhesion to the Christian proclamation was demanded by their discovery of the correspondence of what I was saying with the needs of their hearts, as implied by the definition of reasonableness. Only this dynamic of recognition makes whoever adheres to our movement creative and a protagonist, and not simply one who repeats formulas and things they have heard. For this reason, it seems to me, a charism generates a social phenomenon not as something planned, but as a movement of persons who have been changed by an encounter, who tentatively make the world, the environment, and the circumstances that they encounter more human. The memory of Christ when it is lived tends inevitably to generate a presence in society, above and beyond any planned result.”

Of course these high school students went to college/university, and then they entered into the adult world, and they continued to follow the “method” Msgr. Giussani taught them, of looking at the experiences of their own lives in order to recognize Jesus’ presence. Part of this method was to meet weekly for “School of Community,” which aims at being a true school which, through the reading and discussion of texts indicated by the Movement’s Center, shapes in its participants a clearer understanding of the nature of the Christian fact and illuminates their life. Since 1954, Communion and Liberation has grown into an international association of the faithful.

I “met the Movement” three years ago. As the regular readers of this blog know, the first couple years of my priesthood was “different.” A few months after my ordination I was diagnosed with cancer. Oh, it was a very easy to treat cancer, and I have been cancer-free for four years now, but it was still pretty scary to be told that you have cancer. And for most of the first year of my priesthood I felt crappy as I was being treated. I really felt as if I had been robbed of the “honeymoon” of being a newly ordained. Then, just after I was told by my doctor that all my “numbers” were where they wanted them, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died two months later.

After my father’s death I felt very dry spiritually. I desired a way to rediscover my priestly zeal. A priest friend of mine, in another State, casually mentioned CL. I did not know what it was, so I Googled it. As I read about the Movement, something within me stirred. I thought, “This might be what I am looking for spiritually.” I saw that there was a local contact, and one month after my father’s death I was in a coffee shop in Princeton meeting with Luca and Daniel. After that meeting I really did not have any better idea of what CL was, but something about them made be want to follow. In CL language, in them I found a correspondence with what my heart was truly desiring.

We started to meet weekly for SoC, and I found my zeal and joy. My faith became less intellectual and abstract, and more alive with my own experience. After sponsor a lecture series at my parish, others joined our SoC. It was not a huge group, but that group helped me to grow as a person, a Christian, and a priest. They continue to meet each week. But now I am over an hour away, and it is just too difficult for me to block out what is essentially 3-4 hours each week to travel there for SoC.

Of course I am still involved with CL. I formally joined the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation this year. I attend the yearly Priest Retreat, and try to attend the yearly Fraternity Exercises. I read Traces, the monthly magazine of the Movement. And the parishioners here at my new assignment often hear me talk about CL. Several have become interested in learning more, and I would not be surprised if we form a SoC here in the future (forming friendship is first, then the desire to do SoC).

Yet, I still miss reading from the designated text and discussing it in SoC (not in an abstract way, but in terms of how it corresponds with my own experience). They had been reading, Is it Possible to Live This Way? An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence, Vol. 1 – Faith, and I had only gotten through the first third when I was transferred. Since then Vol. 2 – Hope, has been released and is the current text for SoC. Both are available from Amazon.

It is my intention to do a kind of “virtual SoC” on this blog. It will help me discipline myself to reading the text, and reflect on it. It might also give some of my parishioners more of an introduction to CL. In the original Italian, Is it Possible to Live This Way? An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence, is a single volume with the three parts being “Faith, Hope, and Love”, but I they are translating it into English as 3 books. It is really a series of conferences that Msgr. Giussani gave over a course of a year or so, to a group of women and men who were consecrating their lives to the service of the Church, in the charism of CL, in a secular institute called Memores Domini. Since it is basically the transcript of those talks, the book(s) have a bit of an unusual style, especially to American readers. But it is also very accessible because it has a lot of examples. What I hope to do is a few times a week give a summary of the section I have read, and then my own reflections on the section. I welcome comments from readers, but try to remember to avoid abstraction and speak from your heart, your experience. I will start with the first volume, Faith, just because I hate not finishing a book, but if I read and post several times a week, I should be able to finish the first book quickly and then get in sync with Vol. 2, Hope.

Please, do not think of this as real SoC. That really is about developing community, friendship, companionship. But maybe this will help spark an interest in CL in others, who can look to join a SoC near them, or start one.

One of the sites that I often go to get ideas, mostly illustrations, for my homilies is www.epriest.com.  For example, the information and quote that I had in my homily for the Epiphany about Annie Johnson Flint, I got from that site.  They had some fascinating information concerning the Star of Bethlehem on their site, which was just too much to share in a homily, but I thought I would put it here on my blog.  What follows is all from the www.epriest.com website, just edited and paraphrased by me.

Who were these Magi, these Wise Men from the east?  We know what their coming meant, theologically speaking – it shows that Jesus Christ was not just another Jewish prophet.  The Magi were “from the east” – they were not Jews.  And yet, they came to worship Jesus.  This shows that Christ was the promised Savior of the entire world, of both the Jews and the Gentiles.  But that doesn’t really tell us much about the Magi themselves, or about their star-inspired adventure.  Is that adventure just a myth, as non-believers claim?  Is it just a mystery that we can’t really understand, as many Christians believe?  Or does the Magi’s discovery and journey have something more to tell us?

A lawyer and law professor named Frederick Larson recently applied his legal logic to this very question.  Professor Larson studied St Matthew’s description of the Magi’s adventure and discovered a group of specific, measurable characteristics having to do with the star of Bethlehem.  Then he used modern astronomical know-how to search for a non-mythical and non-mysterious explanation.  His investigation could never have been done before modern times, because it required computer technology.  With computer software, you can recreate what the night sky looked like on any date in history, from any point on the earth’s surface.  When Professor Larson started doing that in search of the Star of Bethlehem, he discovered three things that can give all of us a whole new appreciation for today’s feast of the Epiphany.  [Note: Professor Larson has produced an excellent DVD explaining in detail some of the points used in this expositional homily. He also gives parish and church presentations on his findings. More information is at www.bethlehemstar.net]

The first thing he discovered had to do with the Magi themselves.  He looked at other references to the term “Magi” or “wise men” in the Bible.  Then he looked up references in other ancient literature.  He discovered that Magi were, basically, the “scientists” of the ancient world.  Quasi-scientists, from our perspective, since they didn’t have the benefit of the modern scientific, experimental method.  But even so, they did make a rational, logical study of philosophy, medicine, and the natural world – including the stars.  They were like the scholars and professors of ancient times.  But instead of working in universities, they usually worked for kings.  A king would finance his own group of scholars, using them as consultants and translators, and also to enhance his kingdom’s reputation.

One group of these scholars revered throughout the ancient world was the Chaldean Magi, based in the city of Babylon, just south of Bagdad, in modern Iraq.  This school was already well-established 600 years before Christ, when the prophet Daniel was exiled from Jerusalem.  The King of Babylon at the time forced Daniel and a few companions, some of Israel’s most promising scholars, to join his school of Magi.  There they studied, learned, did amazing deeds, and even kept their faith in the one, true God, as the Book of Daniel describes.

The prophet Daniel never returned to Jerusalem.  He lived his whole, long life as a top-scholar and royal adviser among Babylon’s Magi, where he not only learned from others, but also shared Jewish history, prophecy, and beliefs.  It is not unreasonable, therefore, to think that his prophesies were known, studied, and passed down through the generations by the Magi there.  And if that’s the case, it would make a lot of historical sense for St Matthew to tell us that the wise men “from the east” had seen signs of the Savior’s birth and come to worship “the newborn King of the Jews.”

That is a reasonable, interesting, and enlightening explanation of who the Magi may have been, but it doesn’t explain the star of Bethlehem.

For that, Professor Larson needed to put modern astronomy to work.  He programmed his software to show what the stars would have looked like in Babylon in the year 3 BC.  He knew the star of Bethlehem couldn’t be a shooting star, or a super nova, or even a comet.  Those things would have been obvious to everyone, and yet, King Herod and his advisers were astonished by the Magi’s news.  King Herod even asked when the star had appeared – so it couldn’t have been an obviously dramatic phenomenon.

Instead, it must have been something extraordinary inside the ordinary – something that would be truly remarkable, but that only the expert Magi would have noticed. vDid anything like that occur in the sky, in the year 3 BC?  Yes.  That September, the Planet Jupiter, the brightest planet in the night sky, followed its normal retrograde motion back and forth, but this time that motion created an elliptical, crown-like pattern above the star known as Regulus.  The Magi would have known Jupiter as the King Planet – the brightest and biggest planet.  And the name “Regulus” also means “king”.  The King Planet giving the King Star a coronation – the first coincidence.

At that time and place, this unusual conjuncture occurred inside the constellation known as Leo, or the Lion.  The Magi would have recognized the Lion as the Biblical symbol for the Israelite tribe of Judah.  And the Old Testament prophesies predicted that the Messiah would be born of the tribe of Judah – the second coincidence.

Also at that time, the constellation that rose in the east after Leo was Virgo – the Virgin.
And right at the feet of the constellation, at that particular moment, was the new crescent moon, the “birthing” moon.  Another Old Testament prophecy predicted that the Messiah would be born of a Virgin – coincidence number three.

Together, these starry coincidences linked three concepts: King, Jewish, and Birth – the King of the Jews being born.

Nine months later, things got even more interesting.  In June of the year 2 BC, the Planet Jupiter, the King Planet, was no longer in conjunction with the King Star, Regulus.  Instead, on the horizon of the western sky, Jupiter was having an even more spectacular rendezvous.  Jupiter came so close to the Planet Venus that their light merged, becoming the brightest light in the night sky – the brightest the Magi would have ever seen.  And the Magi, along with the rest of the pagan world, knew the planet Venus as the Mother Planet – the icing on the cake.

If at that point the Magi had begun their journey, by the time they reached Jerusalem the orientation of the Jupiter-Venus conjunction would have changed.  Looking up from Jerusalem, the Magi would have seen it in the south – the exact direction of Bethlehem.  Also at that time, Jupiter’s retrograde motion made it appear – relative to the position of the other stars – to have stopped in its tracks, just as St Matthew says.

Here is a historical and scientific hypothesis that not only doesn’t contradict the Biblical evidence regarding the star of Bethlehem and the journey of the Magi, but actually sheds new light on it.

The theory means that unbelievers can’t just dismiss the star as a Christian myth.  It also means that we believers shouldn’t hide comfortably behind a vague and quaint mystery.  Instead, this new insight into the star of Bethlehem gives us a deeper understanding and appreciation of our God.

The coincidences witnessed by the Magi were not miracles.  They did not suspend the normal laws of nature.  On the contrary, the clockwork regularity of the planets and stars was perfectly respected.  And this is the most astonishing fact of all.  It shows that from the beginning of time, when God set that clock in motion, he already foresaw Christmas Day.  It shows that God’s highest priority is us and our salvation.  The universe itself is centered on Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Friend.

And we know him. He has revealed himself to us through the Church, just as he revealed himself to the Magi through the star.  Even more – he gives himself to us even more astonishingly: in the Eucharist, a gift so wonderful the Magi could never have conceived of it.

The God who guides the entire universe, who guided the Magi to Bethlehem, wants also to guide our lives – just because he loves us, and he knows we need his help.

["The Epiphany," by Giotto di Bondone 1320-25, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

We used to call them the Three Kings, although now they are more properly referred to as the Magi or Wise Men.  However, today is still a celebration of a King.  God is a King.  The Savior he sends us, Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, comes not to philosophize, but to rule.  King Herod trembled because he knew this, where as the Magi rejoiced because they knew this.

Jesus teaches us an important, precious truth about ourselves even before He can speak:  in our hearts there are two potential ways of responding to the coming of Christ the King – either way of Herod or the way of the Magi.

King Herod had spent his life murdering, exhorting, and building up his own personal kingdom, ruled by his own whims for his own personal glory.  When the Christ is born, a King with authority on high, Herod immediately feels threatened.  In Herod’s way of thinking, if Jesus is not destroyed or discredited than all that he has spent his life building will be swept away.

The Magi have a completely different reaction to the birth of Christ.  They were the scientists of that age.  They had spent their lives studying all of creation, and through their study of nature they came to realize that there was a Supreme Creator and King, and with humility they searched for signs of Him.  When they see the signs that the Savior has been born they rejoice.  Instead of hoarding and protecting their treasures, the fruits of their life’s labors, they generously offer them to Christ as gestures of honor, respect, and allegiance.

Whenever Christ enters our lives, which he does every day through the voice of conscience, the teachings of his Church, and the designs of Providence, we must choose in whose steps we will follow, Herod’s or the Magi’s.  Will we tremble, afraid of what Jesus may demand of us?  Or will we rejoice, glad to have such a glorious Lord to follow?

Often, when we feel tempted to respond like Herod, it is because we have started to doubt in God’s goodness.  It is easy to do.  We see the hardships and injustices of the world, and we might think, “How could God really be all good, all wise, and all powerful if He lets these things to happen?”  However, that is a very self-centered way of looking a suffering.  In the first place, it ignores all the wonderful and good things that exist and happen in the world.  In the second place, it ignores the good that God can and does bring out of suffering.

How many of you have heard of Annie Johnson Flint?  That’s OK, I had never head of her until the other day either.  She was born in nearby Vineland, NJ in 1866 on Christmas Eve.  She was born an orphan.  She lived with crippling arthritis for 40 years, and then she was stricken with cancer.  Despite all the suffering she experienced in her life, she wrote nearly 6000 Christian poems and hymns, most of which dealt with finding hope in the midst of suffering.  Her writing has inspired and strengthened thousands, if not millions, of suffering people.  In one of her hymns she wrote:

He giveth more grace as the burdens grow greater;
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.

When we suffer, it proves that we are not God, that we are not in complete control of our lives and the world; suffering exposes our limitations, and opens our hearts to God’s grace.  That opens the door to humility, the virtue that Herod lacked, and the virtue that the Wise Men had.  Humility and wisdom always go together, and they produce patience, compassion, and interior joy.  Suffering, when we live it with Christ, can bring those lasting treasures into our hands, because it forces us to let go of false, self-centered illusions.

What part of our lives is still resisting the Kingship of Christ?

Maybe it is our goals?  Maybe we are still thinking that our achievements will bring everlasting happiness in our lives.  They won’t; only the achievement of Jesus, namely His passion, death and resurrection will bring us eternal happiness.  The only achievement that will last is that of fulfilling His will, following His example and His teachings.  The gold medals which we treasure so much in our lives, we need to turn into the gold that the Magi left at the feet of Jesus.

Maybe it is the affections of our heart?  Maybe we are looking for that perfect romantic relationship, believing that it will bring true meaning to our lives.  It won’t.  Without Christ Jesus, there is no such thing as a perfect relationship.  Jesus is the one who gives every relationship its lasting beauty and joy.  We need to strive to please Him first, and then He will make our relationships pleasing beyond our wildest dreams.  We need to lay the affections of our heart at Jesus’ feet, just as the Magi offered our Lord the sweet smell of their frankincense.

Maybe it’s our sufferings?  Maybe we are still angry at God for the hurt we have experienced in life.  But if He has permitted it, it’s only because He knows He can transform it.
We need to stop rebelling against our King and loving Lord and lay our sufferings at His feet – just as the Magi offered him their myrrh, the spicy ointment used to embalm bodies for burial.

Jesus wants to be our King, so that we can enjoy the adventure of living in and fighting for His Kingdom.  Let’s let Him.

Something struck me this past weekend as I was greeting people after Mass.  A lot of people were just saying “Happy New Year” as I greeted them.  No “Merry Christmas.”  Eight days have passed since we celebrated the birth of Jesus on Christmas.  For much of the world, the Christmas message is already forgotten.  Fortunately the Church has not forgotten the Christmas message, and continues the celebration of Christ’s birth all the way through the Feast of the Epiphany.  Following the wisdom of Mary the Mother of God, the Church continues to spend these days in unceasing celebration and contemplation of this most astonishing event in the entire history of the human family.

Sadly, there are fewer people here today than there were on Christmas.  For too many of our brothers and sisters, the noise of New Year’s Day has distracted them from the true meaning of each year, each day.  We are hear to pray for them, taking their place before the manger so that Jesus, Mary and Joseph do not spend this day alone.  For without Jesus, New Year’s would have little meaning; just a mark of the passage of another year towards at best an unknown future.  It is Christ Jesus who gives all time, all life a reason for hope, and a guidance on how to live life to the full.

Today’s gospel reading provides us with a game plan for living as disciples of Christ.  First, let us look at the Shepherds and the three actions that they do in today’s gospel.  First, they “went in haste” to find the child Jesus.  They were eager to seek out and meet the Savior, to spend time with Him, getting to know Him, and receiving His blessing.  That was why the Jesus humbled Himself to be born in a manger, so that we might be able to find Him more easily.  Human history is a history of people lost in the darkness of sin and death, searching for forgiveness, meaning, grace and light.  The significance of the name “Jesus,” which means “God Saves,” is that Jesus gives us all that we are looking for – forgiveness, meaning, grace and light.  He saves us from sin and death.

Second, the shepherds “made known the message that had been told them.”  The news that the angels told them, and that they experienced when they encountered the Babe of Bethlehem was too good for them to keep for themselves.  They had a strong need to share the Good News of the Savior with everyone.  In fact, this is one of signs having had a true encounter with God; the desire to share it with others.

Even on just a merely human level, we have all experienced need to share good news with others.  Maybe it is a good book that we have read, or a movie we have seen, or a restaurant that we have eaten in that had excellent food – we tell our family, friends and co-workers about it so that they too can have the same good experience.  How much more should that be the case when we have had an encounter with Jesus?  Our hearts should burn with the desire to share this experience with others.  In fact, if we do not feel that burning desire to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others, it probably means that our friendship with Christ Jesus needs some maintenance.

Being a committed Christian does not make us immune to falling into the temptation of spiritual mediocrity – what we call the vice of sloth.  We may continue to come to Mass, say our prayers, but underneath it all our hearts are not in it.  We are just going through the motions.  An excellent thermometer of this spiritual mediocrity is if we feel an inner urge to spread the Kingdom of God, to bring others into a friendship with Christ Jesus, and to share our experience of Jesus with others, as the shepherds did.  If we do, then we can be confident that we are NOT suffering from sloth and our friendship with Jesus is healthy.  If we don’t, then we need to “make haste,” like the shepherds, to Bethlehem to take a fresh look at our Savior.

Third, after “making haste” to see the baby Jesus, and then having “made known the message that had been told them,” the shepherds returned “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.”  The shepherds were so full of joy that they could not hold it in.  Materially nothing had changed for them.  They were still poor; they had received no money, nor a better job, nor a new home.  They did not even receive any Christmas presents.  Yet they were full of joy, and when asked why they were so joyful they would have said something like, “We have seen God, our Savior, and we have seen his Mother, our Queen. And now we know that God loves us more than we could ever have imagined.”  When we seek Christ, and share the Good News of Christ, then He will fill our hearts with the same joy that the shepherds had.

The shepherds in today’s gospel reading clarify the most important things of the Christian life; seeking Christ, sharing Christ, and rejoicing in Christ.  However, life did not end for the shepherds that Christmas morning.  They had to return to the humdrum of their ordinary life, as do we after our encounter with Christ.  What is the secret of keeping the meaning and message of Christmas shining in our lives, even after we take down the lights and ornaments?

“Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  Mary, our Mother, shows us the way.  Mary didn’t let life’s hustle and bustle drown out the beauty and wonder of Christmas.  Think about it; we know more now than Mary did then about how everything was going to work out.  Mary had to walk in the dim light of faith, one step at a time, trusting in God, witnessing His actions, and seconding it whenever she could.  She paid attention to all God’s actions in her life, pondering in her heart all of His gifts to her.

God continues to dwell among us.  He continues to shower down His gifts on us too.  We must reflect on them in our hearts.  Let us ask our spiritual Mother, the Mother of God and of all Christians, to teach us how to take care of the precious faith we have received and renewed during these days, just as she took care of the baby Jesus.