The Eucharist and the Environment

Catholics and Methodists in the United States have been holding official ecumenical dialogues for the last 40 years. This year, instead of looking at dogmatic differences between the churches, the dialogue turned to an issue of common concern ­–“the ecological crisis as a summons to an ecumenical response.”

The result is a document entitled “Heaven and Earth are Full of Your Glory: United Methodist and Roman Catholic” which discusses the way the two traditions see the environment through their traditions of prayer. Both churches believe in Christ who died, rose from the dead and is coming again; both churches recognize the role of the Eucharist in their prayer. A common appreciation offers an opportunity for a common witness.

The document looks to the mystery of creation. The signs of the times call for an “ecological conversion” as we face “climate destabilization, the destruction of the ozone layer and the loss of biodiversity,” and hear creation’s groaning.( Romans 8,22) The prayer traditions of both churches  proclaim the place of creation in the plan of God; they need to emphasize this insight more and more.

“Creation is God’s first gift. Creation is the first sign of God’s glory and love. For humans, the world is not simply a stage for human action; our relation to the world, to creation, is constitutive of our very identity as persons.” (8)

“We believe in one God who both creates and redeems.”  We have forgotten today  what the psalmist proclaimed long ago: “ Know that the Lord is God; he made us, we belong to him.” (Psalm 100) Forgetfulness can lead to a distorted understanding of the role given to us in the Book of Genesis, “to subdue the earth.” Rather than absolute power, we have received a “summons to responsibility” based on a humble realization of our dependence on God’s mercy and kindness.

Looking at creation in an inadequate way also “leads to a diminished sense of the salvific work of Christ.” (12)

We gather for the Eucharist on Sunday, the first day of the week, to celebrate creation as well as the resurrection of Jesus. Sunday, the 8^th day, is also the day creation is renewed in hope.

In the Eucharist, we praise God as the voice of all creation and acknowledge our common place before our Creator and Redeemer. We listen to the divine word in the scriptures, but we also listen to the witness of all creation.

The bread and wine are signs, both of creation and of human work. The Eucharistic prayers of both traditions recognize the blessings we have received from God through creation. It’s important to see the interconnectivity between the bread and wine and the reality of creation. The document offers a practical suggestion: if possible use locally produced wheat and grapes to make the sacramental bread and wine for the Eucharist celebrated by each church. (34)

A Christian response to the ecological crisis, to environmental degradation and environmental justices is adequate only if it is informed by a sense of wonder before God’s gift of creation. The Eucharist evokes that sense of wonder when we join with the choirs  of angels, the whole company of heaven, and indeed with all creation singing:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of  power and might.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory,

Hosanna in the highest.

The Good Shepherd

“I am the Good Shepherd.” This is one of the names Jesus often used to describe himself and his mission. The Old Testament before him used this same image to describe God. So, Psalm 21 begins “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

During the Easter season the church favors portraying Jesus in symbolic ways: “I am the vine,”  “I am the Bread of Life,” and the description of him in our gospel: “I am the Good Shepherd.” That is because we know the Risen Christ now, not by seeing him, but in signs and symbols.

The Good Shepherd is a many-faceted image. On one hand, Jesus says he is the shepherd who goes in search of his lost sheep, and when he finds it he cradles it tenderly in his arms and brings it back to the flock. However far we stray, he will search for us and lead us back to the safety and comfort of his presence.

But the shepherd also leads his sheep and guides them through “a dark valley” into experiences and ways they cannot know. So, during the Easter season we read the story of the journey of the early church. Now, as then, Jesus is the shepherd leading his church into paths unknown, until finally she comes into “green pastures.”

He will lead each of us on our journey. Like sheep we feed intently on the small plot of life our eyes fall on. But the Good Shepherd is never far from us. No, we do not see him; but he is always near. We can trust him, “the shepherd and guardian of our souls.”

 

Paul’s Conversion

 

Today’s first reading at Mass from the Acts of the Apostles recounts the dramatic conversion of Paul. To underline its importance, Luke recalls it three times in his description of the spread of the church from Jerusalem to Rome, the ends of the earth.

Though largely responsible for Christianity’s growth among the gentiles, in Luke’s eyes Paul is Christ’s instrument, first of all. He’s an agent in God’s hands. His mission doesn’t come through his own powers of reason or imagination; he doesn’t suffer a natural life-changing blow as he falls to the ground on his way to Damascus.

Jesus speaks to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” That appearance caused Paul to be convinced that faith is a gift that justifies us and that the church is the body of Christ. He did not come to these beliefs on his own.

Paul’s great conversion story in Acts introduces a succession of stories recalling the conversion of the gentiles. Though Paul has a prominent part in these stories, he is still an agent whom God sends and constantly empowers.

Reading the Acts of the Apostles, we realize it’s not just a description of the past; it’s a template for the church of every age. Personalities like Paul and human factors play a part in her growth, but the church’s advance is not principally through human power, reason, or imagination. The power of God’s Spirit guides and supports it through time.

We need to pray and welcome it.

Sing a New Song

In the days after Easter our readings during the liturgy speak of the growth of the church as well as the source of its growth, the Risen Christ, who abides with us in signs and mysteries.

The church’s growth is never easy;  Stephen’s persecution, described in the Acts of the Apostles, tells us that.

But we have “Bread from heaven,” better than the heavenly manna. This bread  keeps you alive forever.

“Sing to the Lord a new song; his praise is in the assembly of the saints.” We’ve been given a new song to sing each day, Augustine says in his commentary.

“A song is a thing of joy; more profoundly, it is a thing of love.” To sing we’ve been  given the gift of love, a new convenant,  a new promise of a kingdom.

“You have heard the words: Sing to the Lord a new song. Now you want  to know what praises to sing. The answer is: His praise is in the assembly of the saints. If you desire to praise him, then live what you express. Live good lives, and you yourselves will be his praise. Singers become the song.”

Earth Day and Solar Panels

Saturday evening,  April 21, after the 5 PM Mass, the Parish of St. Mary’s in Colts Neck, NJ, dedicated an array of solar panels that will cut their use of energy in the parish complex by 90%.  It’s the first parish in the Trenton Diocese to do it, and one hopes an incentive to others. Congratulations to Fr. Tom Triggs and his lively environmental committee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I offered these thoughts at two Sunday Masses the next morning:

“Bread from heaven.” How frequently Jesus uses earthly things to speak of the things of heaven. “I am the vine,” “I am the light,” “I am living water.” He calls himself the “son” of the “Father.”

Jesus takes things we know: birds of the air, flowers of the field, seed scattered in the earth, to point to things unknown. The created world reveals secrets of a world beyond here.

Shouldn’t we reverence creation then? If we follow Jesus we will. Yet, as we watch our natural world being plundered, its air and waters polluted, its environment sacrificed for human convenience and pleasure, we know our attitude toward our natural world must change. Human-centered and human-concerned, we lack respect for the non- human.

In the Book of Genesis, human beings are said to be made in the image of God and are given an important relationship to the rest of creation. We’re caretakers of creation; we don’t own it; we care for it for awhile. We have a responsibility for it; it has rights of its own, and we have to use all our ingenuity in its care.

Our understanding of God and Jesus Christ, his Son, also suffers from lack of respect for creation. Taking bread, taking wine, Jesus gave thanks; they’re creation’s ambassadors, instruments of a divine exchange. They enlarge our relationship to God by reminding us that God’s plan includes creation as well as our human family and it embraces even the simplest creative things.

Placing bread and wine on precious plates and in precious cups, we carry them to the altar in church and they bring Jesus to us. Can we begin to learn a greater respect for creation here?

The Easter Tree

At Easter we reconsider the cross and with it all suffering and death.  Artists did this as they presented the fruitful cross in the great apse of San Clemente in Rome brimming with life. (above)  Preachers like Theodore the Studite do it; here’s his sermon below. And Patricia Tryon told the story of the tree of the cross, the Easter Tree,  in Bread on the Waters.

“How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

“This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree.

“What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!”

Patricia Tryon

My last blog entry was “A community of believers.” You’re blessed belonging to one.

Patricia Tryon died April 14 on the Saturday within the Octave of Easter. She was part of the believing community I’ve belonged to these past years. May God bring her a believer’s reward..

“That should be on the internet,” Patricia said on the phone the first time I spoke to her, as she inquired about a book almost 17 year ago.

“I don’t know anything about the internet,” I replied.

“I’ll do it for you and tell you about it, ” she said.

And so began “Bread on the Waters,” (www.cptryon.org)  a website “to feed the web-surfer’s spirit” launched in November, 1996, that’s attracted millions since. She opened new worlds for many of us. My own work in the new media began with her.

The phone-call was the start of a long collaboration between this brilliant, faith-filled woman and me and others. We enjoyed her friendship and were welcomed into her world of family and friends, first in Portland, Oregon, and then in Longmont, Colorado.

Patricia’s  “community of believers”– not bound in the usual way to  one place– stretched over continents. It was connected by phone calls, email, Facebook, and occasional visits. It involved websites and splendid visual art and book lists and sparkling intellectual discussions and an abundance of human kindnesses. Patricia was an enlightening presence in it. “Ask Patricia,” we would say,  about all kinds of things, and she usually had an answer. Like all communities of believers, this one was held together by faith.

Her wisdom, advice and achievements we’ll remember, but I’ll remember something else about Patricia– her deep longing for God.

What does “longing for God” mean? We sense it more than describe it, I think, but the psalms give it a voice.  “Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, O God.”  It’s a longing for that tremendous Mystery that gave us the sun and the other stars. It’s expressed in a longing for beauty, for truth, for things that matter, and no darkness or suffering can stop it.

“Why are you cast down, my soul, why groan within me. Hope in God. I will praise him still, my Savior and my God.” That longing is tested, and Patricia surely experienced the testing in a soul cast down, groaning. Still, she hoped in God, her Savior, praising him still.

Writing in her blog at the start of this year, Patricia said, “ I have decided my word will be “hope”.

St Paul writes about hope in his letter to the Romans (ch 5):

‘Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.’

And again, in chapter 15 he writes:

‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’”

On the Saturday after Easter, her Savior called; her longing ended and her hope was to be fulfilled. I’m unable to get to her funeral, but like many of her Passionist friends throughout the world I celebrated Mass for her. We extend our condolences to her husband Chuck and daughter Alys on their loss.

I’ll also be listening these days to some of the great Baptist hymns she loved so much.

“So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,

till my trophies at last I lay down;

I will cling to the old rugged cross,

and exchange it some day for a crown.”

Hope does not disappoint, Patricia.

A Community of Believers

I’m interested in the church as a community of believers–that’s the way the Acts of the Apostles, which we’re reading after Easter, describes it. We look so often at church leaders, like Peter and Paul, and we miss the crucial part ordinary believers play. They’re more than passive spectators.

Some time ago visiting a parish, the director of religious education was getting the young people ready for confirmation and first communion. “The parents are the ones who make these things stick,” she said. “If they don’t bring the young people to church; if they don’t think it’s important, neither will they. You can have the best preparation program around, but if parents don’t back it up with their own example, the young people wont be back.”

Families and friends still turn out for First Communions, I notice. Good they do. But in some way the community– families, friends, all of us– have to communicate our belief that sacraments are important signs of the presence of the Risen Christ.

We’re a community of believers.

Lamp for a Dark Place

The sky over the boardwalk at Spring Lake sometimes gets swept with colors before nightfall, but soon the only light will come  from a lamp that shines through the night.

Here’s a reading from Augustine,  a beautiful commentary on the lamp burning in the dark, till the great Sun shines again. It’s a prophetic light, he says, lit till the time when “lamps will no longer be needed. When that day is at hand, the prophet will not be read to us, the book of the Apostle will not be opened, we shall not require the testimony of John, we shall have no need of the Gospel itself. Therefore all Scriptures will be taken away from us, those Scriptures which in the night of this world burned like lamps so that we might not remain in darkness.”

Life’s darkness is temporary; we are meant for the light.

“I implore you to love with me and, by believing, to run with me; let us long for our heavenly country, let us sigh for our heavenly home, let us truly feel that here we are strangers. What shall we then see? Let the gospel tell us: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. You will come to the fountain, with whose dew you have already been sprinkled.

Instead of the ray of light which was sent through slanting and winding ways into the heart of your darkness, you will see the light itself in all its purity and brightness. It is to see and experience this light that you are now being cleansed. Dearly beloved, John himself says, we are the sons of God, and it has not yet been disclosed what we shall be; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

I feel that your spirits are being raised up with mine to the heavens above; but the body which is corruptible weighs down the soul, and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind. I am about to lay aside this book, and you are soon going away, each to his own business. It has been good for us to share the common light, good to have enjoyed ourselves, good to have been glad together. When we part from one another, let us not depart from him.”

Signs of the Risen Christ

At Easter we see the Risen Christ in sacraments, especially Baptism, Confirmation and the Holy Eucharist. St. John Chrysostom, following the Gospel of John, says that these are signs already revealed on Calvary. Jesus is dead when the soldier pierces his side; he is still on the cross. From his wounds the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist are given to his church.

Water comes forth and then the blood, Chrysostom says, “because first comes baptism and then the mysteries (the Eucharist).” With his spear, the soldier pierced the temple wall, the saint goes on, “but I am the one who finds the treasure and gets the wealth.” (cf. John 2,19)

From the sacraments the church is formed, the saint continues. Like Adam, who was cast into a deep sleep to form Eve, Christ dies the sleep of death and from his side the church is taken. “From his side Christ formed the church just as he formed Eve from the side of Adam.” (Baptismal Homilies, 3,16-18)

In an early baptismal homily preached in the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem which the Emperor Constantine constructed atop of the remains of Calvary and the newly discovered tomb of Jesus, Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (+387), says: “… you descended three times into the water and ascended, showing the symbol of the three days of Christ’s burial… How kind and loving! Christ received nails in his hands and feet, while I without pain and trials receive freely a gift of salvation because I share in his suffering.”

At Easter we recall our baptism and the Eucharist. Sacraments are real signs that bring us into the mystery of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. We meet the Risen Christ in them.