There’s Gonna Be a Great Day

6th Sunday of Easter

Last weekend in the New York area we were waiting for the end of the world. That’s what the signs in the buses and on billboards predicted. It was a message from Harold Camping, president of Family Radio, who calculated from clues he deciphered in the Bible that  May 21st was the day of judgment and later in October the world would finally come to an end.

Of course, it didn’t happen.

I must confess to being a long time viewer of Harold on his television program Open Forum, which comes on after the Evening News. Monday after the fateful day, I watched him respond to reporters asking for an explanation. The poor reporters didn’t have a chance. Harold has been dealing with questioners like them for years. They didn’t rattle him at all.

A spiritual earthquake occurred, Harold said. He hasn’t given up. The world’s going to end in October, just as he said.  He’s sure of it. I’m not.

I think my interest in Harold comes from his interest in the future when, according to traditional Christian belief,  Jesus “will come to judge the living and the dead.”

For Harold the last judgment is going to be like a scene from The Terminator and other grim science fiction movies that hold the popular imagination today.  The last days are dark days when God gets even with the human race for its sinfulness and unbelief. The world falls apart in scenes of horrible cosmic death and destruction. Not many will be saved.

We are living in tough times and some people think our world isn’t going to make it. That’s why they listen to people like Harold.

What we need to do is listen to the Easter message of Jesus. It’s so different. Listen to him speaking in the gospel today to his disciples who fear they will be abandoned and  wonder about their future. Their world was shaken too.

“I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”  “He will lead us to God,” St. Peter says. ( I Peter 3,18)  He gives us the Spirit of truth who will guide us from within. Jesus Christ is our Savior, a saving God.

Our first reading today describes a church experiencing a mysterious, unpredictable growth. From Jerusalem the gospel takes root in neighboring Samaria, an unlikely place to welcome it. From there it reaches to the ends of the Roman world. We believe that the mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus set in motion a great surge of grace.  God reaches out to creation, not to destroy it, but to bring it the blessing of life.

When we say Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead,  we’re not predicting death and rejection. God blesses all time with love. We don’t have to worry about the day or the hour for this to happen. God offers us signs that he is still with us and will stay with us all days. The Eucharist is one of them.

God is with us “now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

In Christ

What does that mean when we say we are “in Jesus Christ,”  when we pray “through Jesus Christ,” when we say we are “the body of Christ?”  Here’s Blessed Isaac of Stella from today’s Office of Readings:

“What Jesus, the Son of God, is by generation, his members are by adoption, according to the text: As children you have received the Spirit of adoption, enabling you to cry, Abba, Father.

“Through his Spirit, Jesus gave us the power to become children of God, so that all those he has chosen might be taught by the firstborn among many brothers and sisters to say: Our Father, who are in heaven. Again he says elsewhere: I ascend to my Father and to your Father.

“By the Spirit, from the womb of the Virgin, was born our head, the Son of Man; and by the same Spirit, in the waters of baptism, we are reborn as his body and as children of God. And just as he was born without any sin, so we are reborn in the forgiveness of all our sins. As on the cross he bore the sum total of the whole body’s sins in his own physical body, so he gave his members the grace of rebirth in order that no sin might be imputed to his mystical body. It is written: Blessed is the one to whom the Lord imputes no guilt for sin.

“The ‘blessed one’ of this text is undoubtedly Christ. Insofar as God is his head, Christ forgives sins. Insofar as the head of the body is one, there is no sin to forgive; and insofar as the body that belongs to this head consists of many members, there is sin indeed, but it is forgiven and no guilt is imputed.

“ In himself he is just: it is he who justifies himself. He alone is both Saviour and saved. In his own body on the cross he bore what he had washed from his body by the waters of baptism. Bringing salvation through wood and through water, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world which he took upon himself. Himself a priest, he offers himself as sacrifice to God, and he himself is God. Thus, through his own self, the Son is reconciled to himself as God, as well as to the Father and to the Holy Spirit.”

Harold Camping’s Church

I watched Harold Camping respond to reporters yesterday after the earthquakes and the rapture never came on May 21st. The poor reporters didn’t have a chance. Harold has been answering questioners like them for years. At the end of the interview he thanked them for being so gracious. They didn’t rattle him at all.

His answer to their main question was that everything occurred spiritually. There was a spiritual earthquake. He hasn’t given up.  The world’s going to end in October. He’s sure of it.

Harold claims to know all this from his calculations from the bible. He’s also dead against the Christian churches–all of them–which he says are inhabited by Satan. All you need are the bible and Harold for going through this world and  getting into the next.

In one way, Harold is a perfect example of why we need churches. He’s also an example of why private interpretation of the bible is rejected by the Catholic Church. Once you say that every individual has the primary role in interpreting the bible, you are on the way to creating as many churches as there are people like Harold.

The other danger Harold illustrates is that he make the bible he holds on his lap the sole authority for everything spiritual. Yes, it’s God’s word. But where did that  book come from, you want to ask him? It didn’t appear mysteriously from heaven. It was a book that came from believers. Parts of it were “memoirs of the apostles,” parts of it were “writings of the prophets,” letters from Paul and others. It’s a library of different experiences and expressions.

You need a living church to help you interpret it and give you balance. You need a living church to express and develop its wisdom. You need more than Harold.

The Peace of the Supper Room

The Easter readings at Mass these days are mostly from two sources. Our gospels, from the Gospel of John, invite us to the supper room where Jesus speaks words of peace and comfort to his troubled, fearful disciples before he goes to his death.

“Peace I leave you, my peace I give to you,” he says in today’s gospel. “ Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” He promises to return and take us to our true homeland. His words are calm and powerfully assuring.

The readings from the Acts of the Apostles, on the other hand, describe a world that’s fast-changing and challenging. Quite different from the hushed supper room that seems to be outside time itself. As Paul and Barnabas begin their epic journey into the gentile world they meet with amazing success as they go from place to place. In today’s reading, they proclaim the gospel and cure some in Lystra andDerbe. Their excited hearers think they’re gods from heaven and the two missionaries can hardly restrain them from offering them sacrifice.

But success quickly turns dangerous when “some Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived and won over the crowds. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.”

That same pattern would be repeated for Paul and others all through their missionary journey. Some days were godlike; others brought them to the brink of death.

That same pattern marks our lives too. Maybe no stones are thrown at us–yet. But if we follow Jesus we will also know the mystery of his death and resurrection.

That’s why we need to enter the supper room every day. We don’t journey on alone. Jesus who says he is the way, the truth and the life, goes with us.

We need his gift of peace.

An Upward Movement

Well, the world didn’t end yesterday. But a lot of  Catholics went to confesssion, just in case, I hear. The media is searching for Harold Camping but haven’t found him yet.

Instead of Harold’s gloomy, scary message, Jesus promises in the scriptures read at Mass today that he is the way, the truth and the life and that he has a home for us beyond this one. Good news for all.

In today’s Office of Readings there’s a wonderful sermon of St. Maximus of Turin proclaiming that all creation rises through the Resurrection of Jesus; “each element raising itself to something higher.” An antidote to the individualistic interpretation of the mystery of the redemption we hear so often.

“Christ is risen! He has burst open the gates of hell and let the dead go free; he has renewed the earth through the members of his Church now born again in baptism, and has made it blossom afresh with people brought back to life. His Holy Spirit has unlocked the doors of heaven, which stand wide open to receive those who rise up from the earth. Because of Christ’s resurrection the thief ascends to paradise, the bodies of the blessed enter the holy city, and the dead are restored to the company of the living. There is an upward movement in the whole of creation, each element raising itself to something higher. We see hell restoring its victims to the upper regions, earth sending its buried dead to heaven, and heaven presenting the new arrivals to the Lord. In one and the same movement, our Saviour’s passion raises human beings from the depths, lifts them up from the earth, and sets them in the heights.”

That’s a message poor Harold didn’t understand.

Harold Camping’s Judgment Day

Harold Camping is predicting judgment day today around 6 PM. Signs are up in the buses and on billboards in our area.

I watch his program every once in awhile because he’s an unlikely prophet. He’s an old man with a face like shoe leather and a gravely slow voice who always thanks those who call in to his program “for sharing.” But really there’s not much sharing. It’s mostly Harold shuffling through the bible he has on his lap and droning out his commentaries on bible verses. His big news is the end of the world coming today.

He’s dead against the Christian churches of any denomination. Satan’s got into the churches, he says. He’s arrived at today’s judgment day by an absurd set of calculations. But unfortunately he’s got an big audience out there who have lost confidence in institutions like churches and governments and are afraid.

Harold preys on their fears. He announces a God who only will save a few. Get ready, Harold says. He’s coming today in earthquakes. And while you’re getting ready, send some money in to Family Radio so that they can announce the news to the world.

It would be laughable, if you did not listen to the callers on Harold’s show. Last night a couple were asking about their three year old baby. “Will our baby be saved?” Their baby can’t speak yet for herself and can’t pray so they have her close by as they read their bible and pray fearfully for salvation. But how can they help their baby be saved?

“Let not your hearts be troubled,” Jesus said in our readings at Mass yesterday. “In my  Father’s house there are many mansions.”

Harold’s God isn’t mine.

Our Union with Jesus Christ

We should not forget our union with Jesus Christ, Pope St. Clement tells us in his Letter to  the Corinthians. Though we celebrate our independence, our uniqueness, our power to choose, as we do particularly today, these are not isolated from the gift of communion.  Jesus does not take these away these gifts or suppress them; he redeems them and gives them new power.  He calls us to communion.

We are made for communion, Clement says. The various parts of our body unite to bring us life; soldiers in an army come together for common causes. Above all, Christ becomes our eyes, our face, our hearts, our understanding. Yet, instead of becoming the sole focus of our lives, Jesus directs us to the service of our neighbor:

“In Christ Jesus let our whole body be preserved intact. Let every one of us be subject to his neighbour, according to the special gift bestowed upon him.”

A beautiful letter from today’s Office of Readings:

“My dear friends, this is the way in which we find our Saviour Jesus Christ, the High Priest of all our offerings, the defender and helper of our infirmity.

“By him we look up to the heights of heaven. In his face, exalted and without blemish, we see ourselves reflected. By him the eyes of our hearts are opened. By him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms up anew towards his marvellous light. By him the Lord has willed that we should taste of immortal knowledge. He is the radiant light of God’s glory. He is now as far above the angels as the title which he has inherited is higher than their own name.

“Let us then, men and brethren, with all energy act the part of soldiers, in accordance with his holy commandments.

“Think of the soldiers who serve under our generals, and with what order, obedience, and submissiveness they perform the things which are commanded them. Not all are prefects, nor commanders of a thousand, nor of a hundred, nor of fifty, nor the like, but each one in his own rank performs the things commanded by the king and the generals. The great cannot subsist without the small, nor the small without the great. There is a kind of mixture in all things, and thence arises mutual advantage.

“ Let us take our body for an example. The head is nothing without the feet, and the feet are nothing without the head. The very smallest members of our body are necessary and useful to the whole body. All work harmoniously together and they are under one common rule for the preservation of the whole body.

“In Christ Jesus let our whole body be preserved intact. Let every one of us be subject to his neighbour, according to the special gift bestowed upon him.

“Let the strong not despise the weak, and let the weak show respect to the strong. Let the rich man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless God, because he has given him one by whom his need may be supplied. Let the wise man display his wisdom, not by mere words, but through good deeds. Let the humble not bear testimony to himself, but leave witness to be borne to him by another. Let him that is pure in the flesh not grow proud of it, and boast, knowing that it was another who bestowed on him the gift of continence.

“ Let us consider, then, brethren, of what matter we were made. Let us consider how we came into this world, as it were out of a sepulchre, and from utter darkness: who and what manner of beings we were. He who made us and fashioned us, having prepared his bountiful gifts for us before we were born, introduced us into his world.

‘ Since, therefore, we receive all these things from him, we ought for everything to give him thanks; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen”

Water and the Spirit

In the easter season we celebrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It’s the season for First Holy Communions and in the readings at the liturgy we hear that Jesus is the Bread of Life.

But let’s not forget the Sacrament of Baptism which is also part of the sacramental gifts we receive from the Risen Lord.  We’re reminded of this sacrament in Basil the Great’s words on the Holy Spirit recently in the Office of Readings.

I wish our catechesis paid more attention to the water we bless ourselves with as we enter church. A treasure of meaning.  The early church made much about going down into the water and the significance of the water as a gift that puts to death and gives life. The Spirit gives water the promise of life, Basil the Great, says in this beautiful description of the mystery of Baptism.

“ The Lord, who gives us our life, gave us the covenant of baptism, containing a type of life and death, for the water fulfils the image of death, and the Spirit gives us the promise of life. Hence it follows that the answer to our question why the water was associated with the Spirit is clear. The reason is because in baptism two ends were proposed: on the one hand, the destroying of the body of sin, that it may never ripen into death; on the other hand, our coming to life in the Spirit, ripening and having our fruit in holiness. Like a tomb, the water receives the body, symbolizing death; while the Spirit pours in the quickening power, renewing our souls from the deadness of sin into their original life. This then is what it is to be born again of water and of the Spirit, the water bringing the necessary death while the Spirit creates life within us.

“In three immersions, then, and with three invocations, the great mystery of baptism is performed. Thus the symbol of death is made complete, and by the passing on of the divine knowledge the baptized have their souls enlightened. It follows that if there is any grace in the water, it is not of the nature of the water, but of the presence of the Spirit. For baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God. So in training us for the life that follows on the resurrection the Lord sets out all the manner of life required by the Gospel, laying down for us the law of gentleness, of endurance of wrong, of freedom from the defilement that comes of the love of pleasure, and from covetousness – all this so that we can by our own choice achieve all that the life to come of its inherent nature possesses.

“ Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the status of adopted sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory – in a word, our being brought into a state of all fullness of blessing both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us. Through faith we behold the reflection of their grace as though they were already present, but we still have to wait for the full enjoyment of them. If such is the promise, what will the perfection be like? If these are the first fruits, what will be the complete fulfilment?”

Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit

Celebrating in Bayonne

Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish in Bayonne, NJ celebrated its 150th anniversary Saturday evening, May 14, with Mass presided over by Archbishop Peter Gerety, the retired archbishop of Newark. About 30 priests, 4  like myself raised in the parish, concelebrated the Mass. Msgr. Frank Seymour, the diocesan archivist–also from the parish– preached the homily.

A number of former parishioners came back to celebrate at the Mass and at the dinner that followed in the school hall, along with the present parishioners.  Most Reverend Joseph Younan, Bishop of Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Diocese came to the anniversary. Like so many immigrant groups before, the Syrian Catholics from places like Iraq in the Middle East have found a home in Bayonne. Now they have their cathedral at St. Joseph Church, which formerly belonged to the Slovak community.

The bishop and the wonderful choir from St. Dominic’s Academy that sang latin polyphony at the Mass says that  Bayonne is still a city for immigrants.

Memories flooded into my mind. I arrived early to walk through the church where I grew up and where so many important moments of my life took place. The church I remember so well still bears the stamp of its Irish origins. I counted three statues and windows of St. Patrick and the familiar scenes in the windows of the life of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, bright and fresh as when they were put there.

Baptisms, weddings, funerals, anniversaries took place here. I celebrated my first Mass here; afterwards at the parish meal Msgr. William F. Lawlor, our pastor, fell over and died of a heart attack as he offered some remarks. That event made headlines in The Bayonne Times the next day.

I sat at the banquet after Mass with some of the “living stones” of St. Marys, which we used to call the parish years ago.  One has been a member of the parish council for decades. The others lived there for most of their lives, although now they have moved away. Watching them easily connect with each other , trading stories, reliving memories, singing and dancing with delight, makes you appreciate the deep delight and faith that kept this place alive for 150 years.

I have a treasured picture from 1914 of my mother’s graduation from St. Mary’s School.

She’s  clutching her diploma. Many of these kids were just off the boat or their fathers and mothers were. But they set their worlds on fire.

My mother said her class loved getting together in later years. One of them Msgr. Leo Martin became the popular pastor of St. Marys, his home  parish. Another, whose name I forget, became head of the New York Stock Exchange. (He always footed the bill for the celebration, my mother said).

The “living stones” loved the celebration Saturday evening. I loved being with them.

Death Destroyed

On this Friday in the Easter season the poetic St. Ephrem the Syrian has this beautiful description of Christ conquering death:

“Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it.

 ” Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.

  “Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strong-room and scattered all its treasure.