Fr. JC Maximilian

[Sorry, I could not find out who was the artist of this painting of Jesus healing the deaf-mute man]

Jesus receives a very different reception today, as He and his disciples arrive in the region of the Decapolis, than they did the last time they were there. The Decapolis was a region of ten cities (which is what the word “decapolis” means) which were established by the soldiers of Alexander the Great. They were not Jewish cities, but rather Greek cities. This was evident in the account of Jesus’ first visit to the Decapolis, which is described in the fifth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel. It was then that Jesus encountered the man possessed by many demons, and sent the demons into a herd of swine which then went and drowned themselves. Since Jews do not eat pork, thus they would not have had a herd of swine. At that time, when the people had seen what Jesus had done, they begged Him to leave their region. Basically they were scared of Him.

Apparently the man who had been set free from the “Legion” of demons had been busy telling people about the miracle that he had experienced and the goodness of Jesus. Now the people of the Decapolis recognize Jesus as a worker of mighty deeds who has compassion on those suffering from afflictions. Instead of “being seized with fear” (Mark 5:20), like during His first visit, the inhabitants bring to Jesus a man who is deaf and mute. “Previously deaf to God and mute concerning his saving deeds, now, in response to his mighty works of healing, they are able to hear his voice and sing his praises” (Healy, The Gospel of Mark: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, location # 2872 on the Kindle version).

Jesus’ healing of the deaf mute has two rather unusual features. First, most of the time Jesus performed His miraculous healings in very public settings. Here, however, Jesus takes the man off by himself. Why? Because Jesus understood the unique needs of the man, as He understands our unique needs. Jesus recognized that the deaf-mute man needed a private encounter with Him.

The other rather interesting thing about this miracle, is the very physical nature of it. For many of Jesus’ other healings He just says, “Rise, and get up,” or “I do will it, open your eyes.” It is His words alone which cause the miraculous healings. In this case Jesus takes about six steps in performing the miracle: He puts His finger in the man’s ears, He spits, He touches the man’s tongue, He looks up to Heaven, He groans, and then He says “Ephphatha!” Why all these steps? Surely all Jesus needed to do was say “Ephphatha!” that is “Be open!” First, again, I think it was Jesus being sensitive to the man’s special needs. I have done some work with the deaf and hearing impaired; I have even studied ASL some. Physical contact is a big part of the culture of the deaf. They are used to being touched to get their attention. So again, Jesus was meeting the man where he was at.

There is, however, a more significant reason for all these actions in this miracle. Jesus is illustrating “once again the sacramental quality of the body – its ability to be a visible sign and instrument of divine grace” (Healy, The Gospel of Mark: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Kindle location #2892-97). Jesus’ work of salvation involves all of us; both our bodies and our souls.

This has often been a confusing issue in the Church. There have been many who have seen the body as pretty much all bad, even an prison for the spirit or soul. The third-century Church Father, Tertullian, wrote so beautifully about how Christ mediates His grace in each of the sacraments through our bodies, so let me quote him:

“The flesh is the hinge of salvation . . . . The flesh is washed so that the soul may be made clean. The flesh is anointed so that the soul may be consecrated. The flesh is signed so that the soul my be protected. The flesh is overshadowed by the laying on of hands so that the soul may be illumined by the Spirit. The flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ so that the soul too may be filled with God. [Flesh and spirit] cannot, then be separated in their reward, when they are united in their works. (Tertullian, The Resurrection of the Flesh #8.”

Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man, in today’s Gospel reading, was a very real healing, but it has a deeper spiritual significance too. God has given us not only our physical senses, but He has also endowed each of us with marvelous spiritual faculties that give us the ability to see, hear and relate to Him. These interior faculties were disabled by Original Sin – not only were our physical senses, which include our emotions, made disordered, but our intellects were dimmed, and our wills were weakened. All of this created a very serious communication block between God and us. In healing people of their deafness, blindness, and physical disabilities, Jesus is providing us with a sign that He is also restoring our interior faculties. Jesus restores humanity to the fullness of life and of communion with God our Creator. Yes, even after baptism we suffer from concupiscence – that means that our physical senses can still be somewhat disordered (we want the wrong things), our intellects are still somewhat dimmed, and our wills have some weakness (recall how St. Paul groans about not doing the good he wants to do, but does the evil he does not want to do). Now, however, through the grace of Jesus Christ we are able to hear God’s voice in our hearts, sing His praises, and proclaim His mighty works. As another early Church Father, St. Irenaeus, once said, “The Glory of God is man fully alive.”

As many of the readers of this blog know, for the past several years I have been very involved in the ecclesial movement, Communion and Liberation.  For the past three years I have attended their CL Priest Retreat, and this year’s was at Malvern Retreat House which is just outside of Philadelphia.  In fact, one of my seminary classmates, Fr. Phillip Forlano, who is also involved in Communion and Liberation was one of the organizers of the retreat (and he and the rest of the team did a great job).  In June, the US Editor of Traces: Communion and Liberation International Magazine asked me to write an article about the Priests Retreat.  Since it was several months after the retreat (which has always been the week after Easter, so in April this year), I decided to spend some of the article on how the retreat has borne fruit in the lives of the priests who attended.  Well, the article is out, in issue #7, and I have attached it below as a PDF file.  It is mostly readable (though my byline is not clear).

http://frjcmaximilian.stblogs.com/files/2009/09/Garrett-Cont emplateandSharetheFruit2.pdf

Here is a link to the flier for the 2010 CL Priest Retreat; share it with your favorite priests, 2010 Priests Retreat Click to download invitation

A few years ago, I was writing a series on my blog explaining the various parts of the Mass. I cannot remember exactly how the issue came up, but one of the people who left a comment to one of the postings asked, “Father, how much of the Mass can I miss and it still count for fulfilling my obligation.” I replied that the Mass really should be seen as an integral whole, that begins with the Entrance Hymn and ends with the Recessional Hymn, so we really should be there for the whole thing. WOW! Did that open up a lot of vigorous discussion on my blog. Quite a few people said that they were told that as long as they were there for the Gospel, they had fulfilled their obligation. So I asked them, “So, if you miss the first word of the Gospel, are you there for the Gospel? If so, how much of the Gospel reading can you miss for you to still be there for the Gospel?” I will admit, several people got annoyed at my response, but I was trying to point out that they had a very Pharisaical approach to the celebration of Mass.
        
This seems to be the major theme of this week’s readings, namely following God’s rules. In today’s first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that they are to obey the statues and decrees which he had taught them, so that they might live. Moses assures them that these statues and decrees, these rules, have been give to them by God, and they are not to add to them nor subtract from them. In fact, their following of these rules from God will be evidence to the other nations of their wisdom and intelligence.
        
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus responds harshly to the Pharisees who have been criticizing His disciples for not following the traditional purification and washing rituals which had become part of their custom. Jesus calls them hypocrites, and quotes Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.”
        
At first glance it might appear that these two readings oppose each other. So why would the Church give us both of these readings to reflect on at the same time? Basically the Church is inviting us to make a serious reflection on the place of God’s law in our lives.
        
The most important thing for us to remember is that God LOVES us! God does not give us statues and decrees to burden us, but rather in order to set us free. In revealing His commandments to us, God is rescuing us from our own inadequate ideas, so that we “may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land which the LORD . . . is giving you.” The physical Promise Land given to the Israelites is a sign that points to a more important, infinite reality – Heaven, which is our true home.
        
There are two main ways in which we can misuse God’s law. One is legal minimalism, and the other is maximalism. The example that I gave from my blog a few years ago is an example of minimalism. “Father, is this a sin?” “Father, does the hour fast before Communion mean an hour before Mass or an hour before when we think we will actually receive Communion?” “Father, how far away does the nearest Catholic Church have to be to excuse us from going to Sunday Mass?” You might think these are made up questions, but I assure you they are not.
        
People who are minimalizers are really asking how little can they do and still keep on the right side of God. What’s the least I can do to make sure I don’t go to hell? Minimalizers are often the ones sneaking in late for Mass and leaving as soon as they receive Holy Communion; why? To avoid the crowd in the parking lot. Minimalizers think they know all the bare minimums for being a “good” Catholic. What they really do not know, however, is JOY. If your first concern is to find out how little you need to give God and His Church, you will experience these minimums as heavy burdens. Why?
        
Basically minimalizers are trying to live with God on the fringe of their lives; and as long as they try to keep God on the fringe, He will always be a threat to them. God will always be trying to move into the center of their lives. The only people who find joy in religion are those who live with God already at the center of their lives. They have discovered that religion is not all about law, rather it is all about LOVE!
        
This is how Jesus lived, and it is how He calls us to live. Jesus never worried about fulfilling the minimum obligations of the Law, because He did them automatically. He never asked, “How little do I have to do for God?” Instead Jesus always asked, “How much can I do for God?” Jesus lived passionately His love for His Father. People in love never ask how little can they do for their beloved, but always want to do the most for their beloved. Love is expressed through generosity and self-sacrifice.
        
The other extreme are the maximalizers, who think that they are putting God in the center of their lives. They take religious practices and devotions to extremes, and they make sure that people know it. I am not talking about pious people here, but rather pietistic people. Like the minimalizers, the maximalizers are also being self-centered. They think that by going to the extreme in their pietistic practices they can establish a claim on God that He will be bound to honor. This is what Jesus is criticizing in today’s Gospel. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees laid not in their obeying the law that God had given them through Moses. Rather it was in supposing that this obedience gave them a claim on God. We NEVER have a claim on God. God has an absolute claim on us, but we do not have a claim on God. God’s love and our salvation are not things that we can earn; they are absolutely free gifts from God because of His love for us. God does not love us and save us because WE are good enough. Rather it is because HE is so good to that He wants to share His love with with us. God’s law is not a list of obligations that we must first fulfill before God will love us and bless us. Rather, God’s law is the description of our grateful response to the love and blessing God gives us out of pure generosity. God wants us to be happy, to live in freedom and to have that life to the full.
        
So, what are we? Minimalizers? Maximalizers? Or grateful, loving children of God?

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It seems obvious that in order to follow, we need looking at someone who is standing before us. The person that stands before us is the person whom we encountered that first nudged us, gave us an idea, a desire for seeking real happiness. Maybe it was a priest or religious sister or brother. Maybe it was a teacher, or a parent, grandparent or other relative. For me it was Luca and Daniel, the first two people involved in Communion and Liberation that I met. We met in a coffee shop in Princeton, NJ and while I really did not understand a lot of what they were talking about (this thing called “Method”), I noticed a difference about them. It was nothing in what they wore, or even explicit behavior. It was more of their entire being; I could tell that they lived life more deeply to the heart in its simplicity. It was an attraction to something spiritual which spoke right to the deepest desires of my heart. And it provoked me to reflect on the seriousness in living my life. Not life as merely health, money, relationships. All those things are part of life, but they are not life itself. Life is about a goal, it is about a meaning.

This naturally led me to the next step in following: a desire to imitate Luca and Daniel. What does it mean to imitate a person? First of all it means to understand what the person says and the steps they take. If all we do is hear the words of the person standing before us, we will not follow them. While it might seem to take great effort, in truth it requires the least amount of effort imaginable. It requires simplicity; having the heart of a child. Of course this mean also having the curiosity of a child as well.

After my meeting with Luca and Daniel, I certainly was curious to learn more about Communion and Liberation, since I understood enough to know that it was their involvement with Communion and Liberation that was the source of their “difference” in living life. So I started to meet with Luca and Daniel weekly for School of Community. I didn’t understand why we were starting in the middle of the book (Why the Church?), nor why we only read such a small section at a time. After all, I had been in academics for most of my life, and I usually had hundreds of pages of reading to do each week. But because I wanted to follow Luca and Daniel, I decided to simply do what they did, to live life.

The only other option to living life as following is instinctiveness. This means just following one’s emotions and gut feelings. Instinctiveness degrades man to the level of animal.

The key to following is understanding — both the words and the actions — and understanding is an act of reason. Understanding means to grasp the correspondence between what you are told and what your are (the needs of your heart). “To understand means to grasp the profound correspondence between what you’re told and your I, the needs of your I, the profound needs of your heart, the profound needs of your life” (Guissani, IPLW-Faith, p. 135).

Obeying begins as effort and work. We recognize that what the one standing before us is telling us is out of love for our life, and therefore should be heeded. As we obey, as we follow what we are told to do, our taste for life increases. Slowly, bit by bit, we begin to understand what the one before us is telling us, and slowly we no longer depend on who says it to us. We follow because we love, and we know that the one we follow loves us. This means that real obedience is friendship. “A friend is characterized first and above all by seriousness towards life, by the affirmation that life is a serious thing. Life is a serious thing: serious before the universe (thus it has a task) and serious before destiny (thus it has an ultimate meaning that must be reached)” (pp. 138-139).

I must admit that at first I found this understanding of obedience a bit of a challenge. Many years ago I read C.S. Lewis’ science fiction trilogy, and in one of the books a character makes a statement that in a certain sense obedience is blind, because if it was just because we following what made sense, then all it would be is being reasonable, and not obedience. The point was that obedience requires a surrendering oneself into the hands of another.

After thinking about this for a while, I realized that C.S. Lewis (at least in how I understood him) that both right and wrong. It seems that Mr. Lewis was making the common dichotomy between faith and reason. That obedience is rightly associated with faith, but that does not mean that it is opposed or beyond reason. Mr. Lewis is correct, though, that obedience requires trust, and surrendering of oneself into the hands of another. In this case it is following the one who stands before us, in whom we have recognized an exceptionality in how they live. That what they say and do corresponds to the deepest desires of our hearts, and so with the simplicity of a child we follow those before us.

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Yes, it has been a while since I made a posting on this book. I have actually been trying to catch up on the back issues of Traces, the journal of Communion and Liberation. I am still at least three issues behind. But I have also realized that I really need to do School of Community, for my own spiritual welfare. It helps keep me grounded in the reality of Christ’s presence in my life. So I have been doing some more reading in this book; in fact it was the basis for my homily this past weekend, which a lot of parishioners found very exciting. The other reason for my lack of regular postings is just finding the time to write them.

With this section we begin the third and final chapter of the book. This chapter is called “Obedience,” but before getting into obedience, Msgr. Guissani wants to emphasize, once again, the reasonableness of faith. A precursor for faith is freedom. Again, this is not freedom as license to do whatever we want. Rather freedom is our relationship with our ultimate end, our relationship with the infinite. In other words, freedom is the being free of the obstacles that prevent us from getting to where God has called us to be right from the beginning.

Msgr. Giussani gives a few definitions in this section. First, that affection is an attitude towards a known object, and when we have the correct affection or attitude towards the known object we call this a virtue. He also defines reason as the understanding of the correspondence between what someone says about reality and what the heart expects about reality.

The reason I used this section for my homily this past weekend, is because a significant part of this section is a reflection on the section of St. John’s Gospel that we heard this past weekend. Let us recall, for the past few weekends we have been hearing from the Bread of Life discourse. It began with the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish, and last weekend it finishes with the people having a hard time accepting Jesus’ statement that He is going to give them His body for their food, and His blood for their drink, and that unless they eat His flesh and drink His blood they will not have any life within them. Guissani, in his typical way, says that the people are not just saying “this is hard to accept.” Rather they most likely saying that Jesus is crazy. It is crazy to say that we are to eat His body and drink His blood. It was because of this “crazy” talk that many of those who had been following Jesus went back to their former way of life and followed Him no longer.

The real question is whether or not Jesus is being crazy, or are those that abandoned him being crazy, being unreasonable. This is where Msgr. Giussani has real important insight. Too often we want to set faith and reason as opposing each other. At best we put faith as something on top of reason, that takes us beyond where reason can take us. That we have reason, which takes us so far, but then we need to take a leap of faith. Guissani (as does Pope Benedict XVI) points our that faith IS reason. The way we see faith as reasonable is in our own experience.

First, the people were attracted to Jesus because His words spoke to the deepest desires of their heart. They challenged the merely human things that they think will make them happy, and help them see that only the infinite will bring them true freedom and happiness. There is an exceptionality in this encounter with Jesus because His words correspond to their hearts’ desire. Yet, they want to test or verify what Jesus is saying. Therefore Jesus works signs, miracles, as a proof of His authority and truthfulness. The Bread of Life discourse starts with one of these great signs; Jesus feeds over 5000 people, with a lot left over, with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. The people recognized this sign of Jesus’ power, because they wanted to make Him king. They knew it was a miracle, yet they still were not getting it; they were still wanting to fit things into the merely earthly, human way of being a king. So now Jesus gives them the powerful words. They knew that He was not speaking metaphorically. They knew that He was talking about really giving us His body and His blood as our food and drink. Given the evidence that they had experienced; the words that spoke to the deepest desires of their hearts, and the verification that the miracles provided, it is UNREASONABLE not to continue to follow Jesus.

St. Peter, on the other hand, is being reasonable when he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter was able to recognize that while what Jesus was saying may have been incomprehensible to him at that time, he knew it was reasonable to follow Jesus. Peter was not denying what his heart was telling him, that Jesus was the way to eternal life, just because his own understanding, his own intellect is limited. He trusted that Jesus would make everything known and understandable when the time was right. All he needed to do was to follow Jesus.

This is exactly what we all must do. I could not understand why, at age 40 and having only been ordained a priest for a few months, I was diagnosed with cancer. But I remember clearly saying over and over again, “All for Jesus.” That was my statement of trust in God, and committing myself to following Jesus, even though what laid ahead was unclear to me. Because of my experience with Jesus, my encounter with Him, it would be unreasonable to do anything else but follow Him. I think it is easy to see how this is going to lead us into a deeper reflection on obedience

[“The Disputation of the Eucharist” by Raphael]

Well there seems to be some trouble in Dodge City, or in this case Capernaum which is where the events in today’s Gospel took place. It might be a little confusing as to what the people are murmuring about in today’s Gospel reading. Don’t worry; its not because your memory is going or you weren’t paying attention last week.

Last weekend, just in the Diocese of Trenton, we transferred the Solemnity of the Assumption from Saturday, August 15 to Sunday, August 16. Mostly we did that because our cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady under the title of her Assumption, so it was a time of special celebration for the Diocese. However, it means we missed a part of the “Bread of Life” discourse that we have been hearing from St. John’s Gospel for the past several weeks. In fact we missed the key point of the whole discourse, and it is that key point that has the people in today’s Gospel reading all upset and murmuring.

So what did Jesus say last weekend that has all the people talking? Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. . . . unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. . . . For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

This is VERY serious stuff. The people listening to Jesus immediately recognized that He was not talking metaphorically. Jesus was not saying that as bread is food for the body, so His words are food for the soul. Jesus makes it very clear that He is really giving us His Body as the Bread of Life and His Blood as the Cup of Salvation. Yup! His real Body and His real Blood for us to eat and drink.

In today’s Gospel reading we hear that many of those following Jesus said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” I think that the one commentator whom I read this week probably had it a bit more accurately when he said that the people started to cry out that Jesus was crazy. CRAZY! How can someone give us his body to eat and his blood to drink? Well, OK, there are some people who eat human flesh but they are crazy. Is Jesus telling us that we need to become crazy?

As a result, we hear that “many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” In other words they abandoned Jesus. As an interesting aside, the chapter and verse numbers in the Bible are not technically part of the sacred text. They were added centuries later by some monks just to make it easier to find passages in the Bible. The only place in the New Testament where we have the numbers 666 is right here, St. John’s Gospel 6:66 “many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”

Of course not everyone abandoned Jesus. He turned to the Twelve Apostles and asked if they too would leave Him, and Peter, the spokesman for the group said, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” So who were being the crazy ones? The disciples who abandoned Jesus, going back to their former way of life, or Peter and the rest of the Apostles? Of course we know that Peter and the Apostles chose the better part, but was their faith in Jesus reasonable?

Often times people think that faith and reason do not go together; you either have one or the other. Or you have reason, which can take you so far, but then you need to make a “leap of faith,” as if that leap is something unreasonable or beyond reason. I would like to propose, however, that faith IS reasonable; and I am in good company in doing so because it seems to be the major theme of Pope Benedict XVI recently, and it was the theme of one of Pope John Paul II’s encyclicals. So how is faith reasonable?

Let’s just look at the Bread of Life discourse as a whole to see. If you go back about four weeks, when we started reading from the Bread of Life discourse we started with the account of the multiplication of loaves and fish. People had been following and listening to Jesus for a couple days. Something in His words spoke directly to the deepest desires of their hearts. Jesus spoke to the desire that really is at the center of every human heart, the desire for true happiness. The people recognized, through Jesus’ words, that they often looked for happiness in the wrong places – in human things which by their very nature are limited and fallible. Yet every human heart yearns for infinite happiness, and this was what Jesus was talking about when He spoke about the Kingdom of God. Yet the people wanted some verification of what Jesus was saying. They knew it corresponded to the desires of their hearts, but was Jesus really telling them the truth about how to find this eternal happiness. To show His authority, His truthfulness, Jesus worked many signs. He healed the sick, He cast out demons, and at the beginning of the Bread of Life discourse Jesus took a few loaves and a couple of fish, and made them more than enough to feed a huge crowd – over 5000 people. The people clearly saw this sign of Jesus’ power, because they immediately wanted to make Him king. Jesus realized that they wanted to make Him an earthly king, that they still were not getting it, so He went across the lake to Capernaum. The people, after witnessing Jesus’ great sign of feeding them and still longing for the reality that Jesus spoke about, followed Him to Capernaum. And it is there, in Capernaum that Jesus states very clearly what they must do to have eternal life, “. . . unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. . . .”

Despite hearing what they heard, that which corresponded to the deepest needs of their hearts, and seeing the miracles that Jesus worked as a sign of His authority, most of those that followed Him could not accept this way to eternal life. I would argue that they were being very unreasonable. It is like not following the medical advice of your doctor with whom you have developed a good rapport with and who has helped your through so many other times of illness; it would be unreasonable not to trust the doctor now just because what they say is hard to hear.

St. Peter and the other Apostles, on the other hand are being reasonable. Basically Peter is saying, “Lord, we really do not understand what you are telling us about your flesh being true food and your blood being true drink, but your words correspond to our hearts’ deepest desires, and we have seen the miracles that you have performed. Clearly you are the Holy One of God. While what you are saying may seem incomprehensible to us right now, we trust you. We know that you will lead us to all truth, all understanding, all joy, and eternal life and happiness. Even without understanding it all, it would be unreasonable for us not to follow you.”

St. Peter is right. Jesus often will ask us to do things that seem incomprehensible to us. I really did not understand why, after only being a priest for a few months, I was being asked to deal with cancer, but I knew the reasonableness of following Christ Jesus. Maybe some of you are facing things you do not understand – illness, unemployment, family problems. Do you recognize the reasonableness of following Jesus even in your not understanding? Are you staying to follow Jesus, or are you leaving to return to your former way of life?

[In the Diocese of Trenton, our bishop transferred the Solemnity of the Assumption to Sunday, August 16 this year. Even though the Assumption is not a holy day of obligation, our Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption, so he wanted us to celebrate it on Sunday]

“When the course of her earthly life had ended, she was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven.” It was with that simple sentence that Pope Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. It is not difficult to understand what this dogma means, but many people do not understand why it was so important for the Pope to define this Dogma concerning our Lady. After all, it is not in the Scriptures; notice that today’s Gospel has to do with Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth, before she had given birth to Jesus.

The years preceding the definition of the Dogma of the Assumption were filled with a lot of despair. The world had just come out of the Second World War. In less than 30 years the world, largely the “Christian” nations, had experienced two devastating wars. The technological revolution which had promised so much at the beginning of the century still left millions in poverty. A lot of people were asking the question “why?”

It is a question that many people still seem to be asking themselves. We do not need to look hard to find the atrocities that plague the world: terrorism, widespread drug use, high unemployment, abuse of children, women, the elderly, gang violence, even piracy is on the rise. There are hurricanes, mudslides, swine flu, and so many other disasters that add to human suffering. Why? Why all this suffering? It is easy to give into despair.

To counteract just this despair is the reason that the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption. It is a celebration of hope. It is a sign that God’s promise to draw all things to Himself will be fulfilled, that He truly does love us and wants us to live in communion with Him. Mary is experiencing now, in the completeness of her body and soul, all that God promises everyone who follows Him

What is hope? The Solemnity of the Assumption teaches us that hope is not merely wishful thinking. Rather hope is a certainty; it is a certainty about our future based on the certainty of something here in the present. In other words, there is no separating Faith and Hope. Faith is our relationship with Christ Jesus. By encountering Jesus, we recognize an exceptional Presence in our lives; a Presence that touches the deepest desires of our heart. Faith is not merely an assenting to a set of doctrines. Rather it is all about a living relationship with Jesus. By recognizing the mighty works of Christ Jesus in our lives NOW, we have a certainty about our future. We are certain that when Jesus says that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, that He really is all those things. By our relationship with Jesus we know that He really is the Resurrection and the Life. Real Faith in Christ Jesus leads to the certainty about the future which is Hope.

The Blessed Mother lived that Faith, and she bore witness to that Hope. Her living relationship with God allowed her soul to proclaim the greatness of the Lord, and for her spirit to rejoice in God her savior. She recognized the might works of God – the mercy He had shown on those who fear Him, the strength of His arm which had scattered the proud in their conceit, and how He had filled the hungry with good things – and this allowed her to have hope in “the promise He made to our father….”

Of course, this living Faith and certain Hope is not just for the Blessed Mother. Today we have three children who will be baptized in just a few minutes. Their parents have brought them to the Church to share with them Faith. Obviously these children do not know a lot about Jesus right now; that will come in time. Their parents bring them for baptism not just to share with them information about Jesus. Rather they come to share with their children their relationship with Jesus. They want for their children the new life that Jesus offers to all of us through baptism. In bringing their children for baptism, these parents are saying that they have recognized the exceptionality of the Presence they have encountered with Jesus, and they want to share that exceptionality with their children. They should know that like in any relationship, baptism is not a one-time event. Rather it is an ongoing experience of companionship. It involves teaching their children about Jesus, bringing them to Mass each week so that they can encounter His Presence anew in the Word of God proclaimed at Mass, in the community of Faithful who by the power of the Holy Spirit form the Mystical Body of Christ in the world, and when they are older and prepared, in the Eucharist, the very Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. It will be in this living relationship with Jesus that they will give to their children Hope – a certainty about the future that will cast away all doubt and despair.

All of us here are disciples of Christ. As Bishop Smith says in the new Pastoral Plan for the Diocese, “Led by the Spirit,” which we kicking off this weekend, “As disciples of Jesus, we cannot be content to take a passive approach. Discipleship is about mission.” We will be hearing a lot about this new Pastoral Plan for the Diocese over this coming year. It is an invitation to deepen our Faith – our living relationship with Jesus, to witness to our Faith to those who do not yet have that living relationship with Jesus, so that together we will have the certainty of Hope. Then like the Blessed Virgin Mary, our spirits will rejoice in God our savior.

Today has been a long, but joyful day. I had the early morning Mass, and the I took off for my Mother’s house. We were planning a trip to NYC for the solemn profession of four friars in the Congregation of Franciscans of the Renewal, Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s community. One of the friars, Br. Luke Joseph of Red Bank, is a friend of both mine and mom. He had been a seminarian for the Diocese of Trenton (he was known as Ian then), and for a year we lived at the House of Formation in Trenton; he as a college seminarian and I was a deacon. Then for my first assignment as a priest I was assigned to St. James in Red Bank, where I got to know his family. Three years ago Mom and I traveled to the Bronx for his first profession so we wanted to be there today too.

We took NJ Transit to Penn Station, NYC, and then had the joy of figuring out the subway. Google had us taking the 5 to the S to the 1. Fortunately we asked a real New Yorker who told us to take the E to Lexington and 51st then the 6 to 86th Street. It did save us some walking, though we still had to walk six blocks, in the pouring rain, to Our Lady of Good Council.

The church was beautiful, and there was a wonderful turn out. Of course there were a lot of CFRs, both friars and sisters, as well as the Sisters of Life and the Missionaries of Charity. I spoke with Fr. Groeschel, and to my pleasant surprise ran into Fr. Brendan Kelly of Lincoln, NE. Fr. Kelly was a year behind me at the seminary and we are friends. His nephew, Br. Patrick, was one of the others making solemn profession. Two other priests from Trenton were also there; friends of Br. Luke Joseph. I also ran into a seminary classmate, Fr. Kevin McGolderick, a priest in Philadelphia. My mother also knows Fr. Kevin; the met on a pilgrimage to Medjegoria.

I am typing this on my iPhone as we are heading back to Hamilton, NJ. I hope the picture of Br. Luke Joseph also posts.

In the neighborhood where I grew up, we have the largest stop signs I have every seen. I’m not kidding, it takes two of the typical poles to hold them up. As my college roommate said when he first saw them, “You gotta be blind to miss them.” Yet, despite their great size, people do drive right through the stop signs. Sometimes no matter what you do to communicate, some people just will not get it.

Jesus must have felt that way a lot. I can see Him shaking His head in exasperation. Today’s Gospel is pretty much a continuation from last week’s. If you recall, Jesus performed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes last week. This week, after crossing the sea – during which Jesus walked on the water – Jesus and His disciples are in Capernaum. The crowd, whom Jesus had fed and left on the other side, notices that Jesus is gone, so they go looking for Jesus. It is always a good thing to go looking for Jesus, but as Jesus points out to the crowd, we need to do it for the proper reason. The crowd had come looking for Jesus just because they had eaten the loaves and fish. They were looking for another free meal, and maybe a healing. Jesus tells them that they should come looking for Him so that they can receive the food that “endures for eternal life.” Jesus tells them that the bread and fish that He had multiplied were only a sign, a sign pointing to a deeper reality. He was pointing out to them that their physical needs, while important, should never distract them from the deepest needs of the human heart. The need for God. And how does the crowd respond to Jesus? They say, “What sign can you do?” Just the day before they saw Jesus take five loaves and a few fish more than enough to feed over 5000 people, yet they still want a sign for Jesus to prove who He is. Some people just never seem to get it.

Last week we mentioned that for the next several weeks, the Church takes the Sunday Gospel reading from the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, which is known as the “Bread of Life” discourse. The first part of this sermon, which we hear more of today, is really an invitation to have faith; particularly faith in Jesus. Jesus tells the crowd, and us today, that He is the Bread of Life; “whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” So what does it mean to have faith in Jesus?

Often when we think of the word “faith” we think of a list of truths to which we give assent. This makes faith something abstract; all in the head. While faith does involve the use of reason, it is so much more that just a “head thing.” Faith involves the whole person. Most essentially, faith has to do with a relationship of trust with another person. We really cannot have faith in a concept. We can only have faith in a person.

This is why the Word became Flesh, why the Second Person of the Trinity took on our human nature. God wanted to make it easier for us to have faith, easier for us to enter into a living relationship of trust with Him. Faith begins with an encounter, and encounter with a living person – with a presence. Yet this is no ordinary encounter, rather in the encounter we experience something exceptional. How do we know when an encounter is exceptional? We know that something is exceptional when it corresponds to the deepest needs of our heart; corresponds to that for which we move, and live, and have our being.

Such an exceptional encounter invokes in us a sense of wonder. We know to know who this person is. Don’t we see this dynamic in this beginning section of the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel. Something attracted the crowd to Jesus. Yes, it was mostly their physical needs, yet in encountering His presence, they are filled with wonder. They want to know who this man is, who speaks to them with such authority and does so many powerful works. Jesus then invites them to see beyond just the physical, to recognize the real, the deepest needs of their hearts. They know that bread and fish will only satisfy them for a limited amount of time, then they will get hungry again. Jesus wants them to see that they were created for something much more than just satisfying these recurrent physical needs. We were created for the infinite. We were made for communion with God. Jesus invites them, and us, to be His companions along the road to eternal life and for to trust that He will give us the food for the journey.

The final characteristic of faith is our human act. Do we accept the invitation of Jesus? Do we put our trust in Him? Do we follow Him and allow Him to feed us with His Body and Blood, the Bread of Life and the Cup of eternal salvation? Do we have faith in Jesus? Do we get it?

[“The multiplication of the loaves,” by Giovanni Lanfranco, 1582-1647]

One of the most beautiful, and theologically rich chapters in the Gospels is the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, which we hear the beginning of today. This chapter is so important that we spend five weeks, starting today, reading from this one chapter. This chapter is known as the “Bread of Life” discourse, and contains a profound teaching on the Eucharist.

St. John tells us that this event, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, occurs near the time of Passover. Passover is the most important of the Jewish holy days, for it recalls the mighty works of God in freeing the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. In particular, the Feast of Passover commemorates the Angel of Death passing over the homes of the Israelites which were marked with the blood of the sacrificial lamb, on which the people were feasting. A sacrifice within the context of a meal — a very important theme for us to keep in mind.

Jesus, in the Bread of Life discourse, starts to reveal that He is the real sacrificial lamb on whose Body and Blood we will feast. The great work of God which will be accomplished in Christ Jesus will not be simply a liberation from a physical enslavement. Rather it is the liberation from sin and death. It is the food that brings us to eternal life.

In this first part of the 6th chapter of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus is concerned about feeding the “large crowd” that followed Him. The crowd has been drawn to Jesus in their suffering, and Jesus has been healing the sick. Jesus surrenders Himself to the reality of human suffering so that He can truly feed them.

Let us focus on three sayings of Jesus in today’s Gospel to help us understand this wonderful mystery. Jesus asks Phillip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” This question highlights the human impossibility of the situation. Yet it also strengthens the faith of those who hear it. How often do we find ourselves in impossible situations? Perhaps it is unemployment, or an illness, or family discord. Yet faith in Christ Jesus turns what seems absurd and futile, when left to human devices, into a cause of celebration and rejoicing. “To receive the Bread of Life, we must first sacrifice our negativity, our self-reliance, and our negligence towards God” (Cameron, To Praise, To Bless, to Preach: Spiritual Reflections on the Sunday Gospels, Cycle B, p. 101).

Next Jesus tells His disciples, “Have the people recline.” As the Apostles invite the crowd to recline on the grass, they are also encouraging the people to put their trust in Jesus. In other words, the Apostles foster hope in the people. The certainty that they have now in their relationship with Jesus gives them a certainty about the future — Jesus will provide. Elsewhere in the Scriptures, we are told “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope….” (1 Peter 3:15). We, as witnesses of Christ, are to foster hope in those around us. By fixing our eyes confidently on Jesus, we unite ourselves to the Lord in a communion of holiness.

Lastly, Jesus commands the disciples to “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” Why did Jesus insist on gathering up the left over fragments? It was to emphasize that what the people had just experienced was much more than an ordinary meal; it was an extraordinary encounter of Divine love. This extraordinary encounter of God’s love, experienced through the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, will find its fulfillment on the hill of Calvary in Jesus’ death on the Cross. The Divine love is without limits.

The disciples gather up the fragments so that they can be shared with others. Likewise we gather up the fragments — the brokenness — of our lives so that in our suffering, united to the Cross of Christ, God’s love is released for the salvation of the world.

To partake in the Bread of Life, we must be willing to make an offering of ourselves that is equal to Christ’s. As He gave His all for love of us, we must give all we have for love of Him.