First Holy Communion

In our parish children are receiving their First Holy Communion these Sundays of the Easter season. They will come into the church together, each one with her or his name printed on their clothes and we will greet each one of them by name at the altar. Their families and relatives will be here.

Later, we will call them to stand around the altar at the Eucharistic prayer and they will be the first to receive Communion. Afterwards, they’ll be joining their families to celebrate this important step in their life of faith.

We call them by name. In baptism, that’s the first thing we ask parents who bring their children to the baptized: “What’s his/her name?” and later we baptize them “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

God calls us by name. It’s my name and it stands for me. In baptism we are called by God, who takes us into his hands forever. We are baptized with water, with life, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. We know God’s name: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Baptized as infants, we didn’t speak for ourselves; our parents spoke for us, and they were entrusted to bring us up in this belief: that we are God’s children, God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

At first Holy Communion we speak for ourselves; no one holds us in their arms or speaks for us as they did in baptism. When we receive Jesus in the bread we say “Amen.” I believe he comes to me; I know who he is; He is my Lord and my God who loves me. He gave his life for me and he calls me to eternal life.

Our First Communion should be the beginning of many communions. Jesus wants us to know his name and to know us. That’s what the word “communion” means.

The Easter Season: a School of Faith

Most Catholic parishes during the Easter season focus on First Communions, which will be taking place in the next few weeks. Lots of visitors– grand fathers, grand mothers, other family members– will be gathering. It can be a logistical nightmare. Some parishes also may be focusing on their newly initiated RCIA candidates, getting them used to the sacramental life in the church.

But the readings for the seven weeks of the Easter season, particularly the gospel readings, seem to have another focus. They’re for veteran believers who have been around awhile, like you and me. They warn us not to think we’ve made it, not to take our faith for granted. We need to renew our faith in the Risen Christ.

Thomas the Apostle, doubting Thomas, is probably the leading figure in the gospels for the Easter season. He’s not a lonely skeptic, an isolated dissenter, he represents the slowness of heart and mind, the recurrent skepticism that affects us all.
We heard from Thomas on Sunday. For the next few days of this week, he’s joined by Nicodemus, a teacher in Israel, fluent in religious matters, who comes to Jesus by night. He asks Jesus questions but he doesn’t seem to understand his answers. “How can this happen?”

Nicodemus reminds us that faith doesn’t depend on how sharp your mind is or how many books you read. Faith is God’s gift to us.

On Friday we’ll start to read from John’s gospel about Jesus multiplying the loaves and fish near the Sea of Galilee. There’s a lot of unbelief in the crowd that Jesus feeds, according to John. “Many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him,” John says. Besides those who radically reject Jesus as the bread come down from heaven, there are others who have little appreciation for this great sign. Commentators suspect there were troubles over the Eucharist and over Jesus in the churches John is writing for.

Most of the gospel readings for the last weeks of the Easter season are taken from the Farewell Discourse in John’s gospel. There also the disciples are far from perfect. They’re overcome by fear, they seem to understand Jesus so little. He calls them “little children.” They’re not too far removed from the children making their Communion this season.

We don’t have a procession of perfect believers in the gospels of our Easter season. They’re imperfect believers, like us. But that’s a blessing, because they remind us that faith is something we have to pray for and struggle for. More importantly, they reveal the goodness of Jesus, who gave the wounds in his hands and his side to Thomas, who never dismissed Nicodemus to the night, who came to table to his disciples and fed them again, who called them “his own” and prayed that they would not fail.

We enter a school of faith in the Easter season where the Risen Christ speaks to us in signs like water, bread and wine, words that promise a world beyond ours. He is our Teacher and Lord.

The Thomas in Us All

The yearly feast of Easter is a celebration, not of one day, but of fifty days, from Holy Saturday till the feast of Pentecost. We also celebrate Easter each Sunday of the year.

Why this extensive celebration? Because we’re so slow to realize what it means, and need reminding over and over.

Some things — like telling time or tying our shoes — we learn once, but the resurrection of Jesus is a mystery not learned at once. Never grasped completely, it unfolds as life unfolds, day by day.

That’s why Thomas, the apostle, whom we remember on the 2nd Sunday of Easter, is such an important figure. Far from being a lonely skeptic, an isolated dissenter, he represents the slowness of heart and mind, the recurrent skepticism, that affects us all.

Yet, Thomas is still a sign of hope. He reminds us that the Risen Jesus offers, even to the most unconvinced, the power to believe.

Lord Jesus,
the Thomas in us all
needs the wounds in your hands and side,
to call us to believe
you are our Lord and God.

Risen, present everywhere,
bless those who have not seen,
blind with doubts
and weakened faith.

Bless us, Lord,
from your wounded hands and side,
give us faith
to believe in you.

Is Faith a Ticket to Success?

You can’t listen to the story of the Prophet Jeremiah, our first reading these days,  without thinking about the passion of Jesus.  In fact, readings from the Book of Jeremiah are the dominant readings for Holy Week. We see Jesus in Jeremiah.

God tells Jeremiah to “hold nothing back,” but speak the truth to those in power, no matter how unpopular it is.  Jesus did the same.

Like Jeremiah, Jesus was innocent, but was framed by the powerful as guilty. They questioned his authority, but he would not deny his mission.

Only a few voices seem to stand up for Jeremiah and only a few stood up for Jesus. Neither had many faithful followers at their time of trial. Yet both were carried along by God’s power and their names vindicated.

Our gospel reading recalling the lonely death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod Antipas adds him to this brave company.

Some would have us see our faith as a ticket to success, an inoculation against failure or suffering.  Believe and nothing bad will happen to you. Yet, as you look at Jesus, the prophets and the saints, you see a more realistic profile of faith. We’re promised victory, yes, but only by accepting the mystery of the cross.

Keep an eye on Jeremiah and John. Keep an eye on the passion of Jesus. Follow them.

Believing for Others

The healing of the paralytic told in today’s gospel from Mark is a great story. Four friends bring him to the door of Peter’s house in Capernaum but the crowds are so dense that they can’t get in to see Jesus so they climb up on the roof, cut a hole in it and lower him down before Jesus. Was the paralyzed man conscious, or half conscious? We don’t know.

 

 

 

What ingenuity! What nerve! What determination on the part of his friends! Think of the logistics involved in it all. The pictures here show the ruins of Peter’s house now enclosed in a shrine and a picture from the shrine looking down into the house–possibly just where the man was lowered down.

We know Jesus forgave the man’s sins and then healed him completely, so he left the house carrying the mat that once bore him. The gospel wants us to recognize that Jesus the healer is Jesus who forgives sins. Those who heard his words of forgiveness that day were shocked by this action which they rightly judged was divine.

But I’m led back to the four friends who had a part in this miracle. Let’s not forget them. They believe and their belief makes them go to extraordinary lengths to  help another .  We believe for others as well as for ourselves. Faith reaches out; it doesn’t remain within.  Believing prompts us to do daring things.

Back to Peter’s house. Did Peter look up that day and say, “Who’s going to pay for that hole in the roof?” The story of the paralyzed man is a wonderful story.

22nd Sunday

Don’t miss the way the Prophet Jeremiah talks to God in our first reading today and the way Peter the Apostle in our gospel gets the message of Jesus all wrong. They’re examples of what faith in God is really like. Without people like them, we might think faith is a ticket to a wonderful life and endless sweet dreams.

Jeremiah is fed up with God:

“You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped;

you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.

All the day I am an object of laughter;

everyone mocks me.”

The lonely prophet lived in hard times when Babylonian armies were sacking Jerusalem and everyone was calling him a deceiver because of a message they didn’t want to hear– God was going to let his holy city be completely destroyed and his people led away in chains.

The message sours the prophet’s mouth and breaks his heart. He feels like a fool.  Yet listen to him:

“I say to myself, I will not mention him,

I will speak in his name no more.

But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,

imprisoned in my bones;

I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.”

He’s faithful to God no matter what.

Peter, a believer,  gets the message of Jesus wrong. He can’t accept the prediction of the Cross, but wants success instead.

Yet God works with this apostle whose faith is so imperfect and  prizes this prophet whose faith is so tried. Since our faith may be like theirs, let’s hope God will work with us.  “We believe; help our unbelief.”

Ever Old, Ever New

Our faith is “ever old and ever new.” It has a beauty ever old and ever new, a beauty found in the ancient scriptures we’ve received and in the creeds and traditions handed down to us; a beauty that shines out as it meets new times and circumstances and knowledge. The beauty of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we hear about “an age of faith,” meaning an age gone by when faith was strong and real. That age is gone, it’s said; our times are unbelieving times when faith is weak and dying.

But is that true? Is faith just for another time, or is it also for our time? Can it be that  it only waits for fresh understanding and expression.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice.” (T. S. Eliot)

“Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13,8) Where are the voices that speak of him now? Are they ours?

We Go to God Through Questions

I’ve been talking to a number of people lately who have questions about their faith. I emailed this to one of them today:

Here are some sources you might find interesting as you look again at the faith you learned long ago.

Just a few months ago a new Catholic bible was published called the New American Bible Recent Edition. NABRE. The last printing was 20 years ago, but since so much new archeological material and textual discoveries have become available since then, they thought a new edition was due. Part of what we are experiencing today is an explosion of new knowledge in these fields and in other fields of human knowledge. I’m going to pick up that new bible soon myself. It has wonderful notes and introductions to the books and it’s also the translation we read in church.

I was in a Barnes and Noble store yesterday and looked at the section of bibles, but I could hardly locate the New American Bible among the other editions. With the decline of Catholic book stores it’s hard to get the books we might be looking for. The media don’t help either with some of their sensational productions on religion.

The pope’s two new books, “Jesus of Nazareth”. are also good to read. I’ve been reading his last one about the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, and I find it stimulating. He’s using much of the latest scholarly materials and offering some wonderful insights. and he’s not afraid to take on tough questions.  We are all doing the same thing: learning and learning again.

I like a recent catechism published by the American bishops: The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults. You can get it at Amazon.com. It approaches the different aspects of faith simply and offers a person, whether a canonized saint or not, who exemplifies that aspect and tells their story. Faith is better seen when it’s lived by people.

Since you were impressed by your recent visit to the Holy Land you may be interested in some entries I did for our pilgrimage from St. Mary’s from October 16 to November 20, 2010. You can find them on Victor’s Place, my blog, at https://vhoagland.wordpress.com/

I think I told you what one of my theology teachers told me long ago. “We go to God through questions. You find one answer and ten more questions are there waiting to be answered.”

Questions are part of our search for God.

Abraham, The Unwavering Nomad

Abraham is  “our father in faith” we say in the 1st Eucharistic Prayer, and the Letter to the Hebrews read today at Mass says why. Abraham believed when God called him to leave his own land and go to a land he did not know. He believed in God’s call.

He was a nomad who lived in tents, always on the move, on the way to a permanent home. That’s us too. As an old man, he believed when God said he would generate a child. Abraham trusted in God rather than in himself.

The great patriarch was tested, because faith grows through testing. Abraham’s greatest test came when God asked him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. For Christians that event prefigured the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s only Son. Here’s how the Letter to the Hebrews expresses it:

“By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son, ?of whom it was said,?Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.?He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, ?and he received Isaac back as a symbol.”

My favorite reflection on Abraham is Jessica Power’s beautiful poem:

“I love Abraham, that old weather-beaten
unwavering nomad; when God called to him
no tender hand wedged time into his stay.
His faith erupted him into a way
far-off and strange. How many miles are there
from Ur to Haran? Where does Canaan lie,
or slow mysterious Egypt sit and wait?
How could he think his ancient thigh would bear
nations, or how consent that Isaac die,
with never an outcry nor an anguished prayer?

I think, alas, how I manipulate
dates and decisions, pull apart the dark
dally with doubts here and with counsel there,
take out old maps and stare.
Was there a call after all, my fears remark.
I cry out: Abraham, old nomad you,
are you my father? Come to me in pity.
Mine is a far and lonely journey, too.

Window on the World

The window in my room faces west to a slice of Union City that includes the old monastery church and parking space, some city athletic fields, a crowded  block of houses along 21^st Street and a few big oak trees that somehow have survived the urban sprawl.  It’s a wonderful window for taking in the world.

Earlier this morning, Jose reached into the van carrying some neighborhood people to work to bless them, anticipating the morning sun that blesses everything now. A  few minutes ago, a flock of pigeons momentarily touched down on the wires along the street, thenflew away. I can’t figure out their unpredictable ways.

I leave the tiny figures of Mary and Joseph and the Child on the window sill all year because they seem to complete the picture.  Keep your eyes fixed on examples of faith, St. Ambrose said yesterday in his commentary on the Visitation.  Mary saw it in Elizabeth and Elizabeth saw it in Mary. Joseph certainly had eyes of faith too.  The Child is so small.  Only eyes of faith can see him–and everything else as well.