Sunday Readings
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Change We Believe

It has been said that, “great ideas can change the world.” In many cases this is true. We are the product of one of those great ideas; “that all men are created equal” is one of them. But we also know there is a very big difference between a great idea and a better world. We can see the years of struggle for so many ethnic groups in this country to realize that great idea of equality. We even hold life as an inalienable right endowed by our Creator – but as of last week, we will once again be exporting its termination throughout the world and funding it even as more Americans keep losing their jobs. So all the ideals and best intentions of humanity do not necessarily result in a better world.

As Christians, we face the same problem. We look to the Gospel, the teaching of Christ and the Father’s plan for the good of humanity both in this world and in the world to come. But generation after generation, regulation after regulation it doesn’t always seem to hold. We have a plan and an order of life that would be the greatest benefit to ourselves, but again, it doesn’t seem to work.

Pope Benedict has declared this year the year of St. Paul. Today is the celebration of the conversion of St. Paul as he was traveling the road to Damascus in his persecution of the infant church. That is why things are a bit different with the prayers and readings of today from what is in the missalette. We celebrate that graced moment when Saul became St. Paul. And of all the figures in our long history, St. Paul was the evangelist of the right way and the most religious way of living the Christian life. We can even say, that Christianity and its message was communicated to the world at large by the St. Paul more than by Christ himself. Paul’s conversion and alead him on missionary journeys to the edges of the known world at that time. The great ideas of the Gospel were proclaimed by him. So why in every age does this message seem to fail to do for us what it seemed to do for Paul?

What we celebrate today is not a great idea or a terrific message. St. Paul was not changed because he had the wrong ideas or that a new idea was better. St. Paul was converted because he met the person of Jesus Christ.

You often hear people who are in love with each other say that, “when I met him or her, everything changed in my life.” We have an effect on each other that cannot be measured by a questionnaire or a membership card. I’m sure that almost everyone here has seen It’s a Wonderful Life. It is a cultural treasure because it celebrates that almost-mystical power of a single person to change the course of history. But more importantly, it demonstrates how strongly we change individual lives. George Bailley may have made an economic and social difference in that movie. But again, it wasn’t his high ideals; it was himself. Those ideas and plans and programs were not obscure because they were personal.

It is so easy to be distracted in Christianity by everything else except the person of Jesus Christ. We can use oceans of ink debating social, moral, liturgical, and historical flashpoints without ever once inconveniencing ourselves with a reflection on the person of Jesus Christ. We can reduce Christianity to a set of legal norms or emotional sparks of interest and never once have to consider the encounter with the living Christ. We can speak highly of His Mother, His friends, and His manifestations among us and never once meet Him. And still we hope that His ideas, His greatest of ideas, will change our lives. So time and time again, it doesn’t seem to work.

So where is this Christ? How do we meet Him?

The answer is the prayer of St. Paul. Who are you Lord? Christ is found in prayer. Yes, we know him in the Eucharist, in the faces of the poor, in the theology of the Church. But knowing him as St. Paul did is a thing of prayer. And I’m not talking some extreme piety that results in flashes of light and peels of thunder – although it may. No, it is in the ordinary routine of life that we ask St. Paul’s question and find the person of Jesus Christ. Or better, it is praying in that routine of life because St. Paul met him on the road, not in church. Jesus did not make himself known to Paul at a scheduled time and place. Paul was shocked; he was surprised. But more than anything, he was there. And it was this encounter that changed Paul who changed the world. And it has never changed.

In the routine of daily life, going through your to do list, is the place and time to know Christ more. Not all at once or completely, but bit by bit we move from only knowing about Christ to knowing him. The church urges us on this feast of the conversion of St. Paul to be converted as was St. Paul. Conversion – spectacular or humdrum – is something every human being needs to undergo all the time. Like the roadwork on 95, we are always “under construction.” This is a relationship – begun by God and carried on by us. And no relationship, no family, can ever be strong without getting to know each other more and more as people.

What a grace this is, that God reaches out to us as he did to St. Paul. Yes, the truths of our faith are true. The dogmas of our church are matters of Revelation requiring our belief. And we believe these things, we hold these truths not because they are just great ideas, but even more because we know the one who gave them to us. And in moments of prayer – short and frequent – we grow in that relationship and live – as best we can – according to those great ideas. And with the example and the prayers of St. Paul, we too hope one day to say, as he did, “to me, life is Christ Because I have known him in whom I have believed.”

Sunday Readings

Looking for What?

The first time I remember hearing the words of this Gospel today was when I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The main character is asked by the scientist, “Mr. Neary what are you looking for?” I thought it was a silly question because with a UFO landing right in front of him the answer should be obvious. But it wasn’t. It never is because it is never answered.

The first words recorded by St. John in his Gospel is that same question – what are you looking for? They are also the same first words (addressed to Mary Magdalene) St. John records after the resurrection. It seems to be a theme of St. John’s Gospel and it is a good one to begin this short time between Christmas and Lent. What is it, Jesus asks, that we are looking for?

For starters, the answer is very simple. It is singular, powerful, and complete. The answer is Jesus himself. Now what type of test question could this be if we already have the answer? It really wouldn’t be a very good one would it? Answers to questions we never ask are merely solutions. And since there is no “solution” in the Gospel, this must be something else.

It certainly is. These two new disciples do not answer Jesus’ question with a series of ever deepening circles of inquiry. They are not looking for theological statements or compact definitions. They are not beginning a theological inquiry or signing up for a class. Their response is of another order. They are asking to be where He is staying. They want to remain with him more than knowing a great deal about him. Their answer became an invitation, not just information. They were given the opportunity to experience Jesus.

This is something in our modern world, replete with instant communications, that we are sadly lacking. There is no mystery when we have the background check. We need no struggle when we need only see someone’s online profile. And with faith, we can choose to access only what we care to. Sadly, no friendship – with each other or with God – can survive without the element of discovering each other. Love grows cold without the surprising vision of finding for ourselves what we think no one else can see.

Yet time and again, we do fall in love, we do discover each other. We hear people say – and we even say ourselves – that ‘we have never felt this way before’ or we ‘never thought we could feel like that again’. With or without the catalyst of a disaster or tragedy, we hear stories of people discovering God in their lives as if they were the first, the only, in the last to do so. For all these who discover love – human or divine – these are the ones who today would be a bit closer to answering Jesus’ question because they have accepted the invitation to “come and see.”

I think we are all - regardless of what stage we may think we have reached- in the same position. In our failures, frustrations, and wondering, we too are asked by Jesus, “what is it you are looking for?” I don’t think there is anyone whose answer is so complete and so accurate that they need nothing more in this world. That very human desire to go deeper, to know more, even to have more betrays our restless hearts. We are engineered by nature to keep looking and to keep finding. Change, after all, is the only consistent thing in life. That goes for our spiritual life as well. We can never be satisfied with one single prayer or one single act of devotion. Instinctively (but not always faithfully) we find ourselves seeking God. Even just considering for a moment that the question of today’s Gospel can be asked of us, as individuals, is in itself a prayer. To consider, even briefly, that desire of the human heart to ‘come and see’ shows us a capacity to find the presence of God.

The challenge of the Christian life then, is to find God – the God who invites us to find him. Again, this is not a test; it is an invitation to spend time and to be with the one we seek. This relationship of seeking and finding is what we call prayer. It is the lifting of the mind and heart to God along with the rest of ourselves. It is spending time answering the question of what our heart desires in the presence of the One who alone can fulfill that desire. And without time set aside, it’s hard to see how that can happen. Most of you already know that saying “I love you” only on Valentine’s Day is the surest way to not have the opportunity of saying it on the next Valentine’s Day. When it comes down to it, the greatest gift and the costliest sacrifice is time itself. Spending those few extra minutes a day in quiet or even in church before the Blessed Sacrament may not seem difficult, but it can be and for most, it is.

This week, as we begin Ordinary Time once again, before Lent hits us, maybe we could ask ourselves if we are willing to spend time with God. Are we generous enough to do that? Are we really seeking or just looking around? Each individual person has to consider this question in some way in each of our lives. Our answers will be as unique and varied as we are. We are answerable only to ourselves and never in competition with each other. Some will find that time walking around the neighborhood. Others will find it sitting quietly in their rooms as the day dawns or the evening darkens. And, yes, some will find it kneeling in adoration before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

Wherever and in whatever way God calls each of us, He asks all of us what we are looking for. With whatever answer we can or cannot come up with, the Lord is pleased just that we are listening.

I don’t know how Christianity works without prayer. I guess it becomes a philosophy or a social theory among many others. But our faith is a conversation. It is a discovery of love that never stops looking, never stops finding.

You know, in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Mr. Neary never fully answered that question. He just silently goes off into another world. His answer was his search. We are no different when it comes to our God. In searching we find. Listen to the Lord. He is still standing there on the seashore asking each of us that same question. Trying to answer, trying to listen is the invitation is our call to prayer. And as we see, over time, it is also the answer.

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Sunday Readings

Commencement

Every year in May and June, throughout the world students get up on stage, received a piece of paper, smile for the cameras and we call them “graduates.” The ceremony is what we call a graduation. But almost universally these ceremonies are called “commencements.” Since I knew that the word commencement meant a beginning, I always wondered why it was used since this is clearly an ending. What was happening was not a beginning but a final step. After all, this step better reflected the Latin word gradual and was more accurate to what was happening.

But I had a very limited idea of this. I thought all those years, all those classes, tests and the like were supposed to bring us to a point where we would get that little piece of paper. I saw it as a reward and what was due me as a matter of justice. But those who are responsible for education saw something more. They saw this as truly a beginning. They saw all the work and all the effort not for a piece of paper or a prize at the end of the race. They saw this all in preparation for the beginning of something else.

Today, we end the Christmas season. Now many would think if they came into a Catholic Church on this day, that the maintenance crew was slacking off. The world has already taken down most of its decorations – so why haven’t we? The secular view of things says that after 25 December, Christmas is over. For them, that date is the final goal of all the preparations that they (and the retailers) had been making since Halloween. For them Christmas day is a graduation. For us, it is only the beginning.

The feast of the Baptism of Lord, intimately united with the feast of the Epiphany, is a silent proclamation that what began on Christmas does not end the following day. It says that the Baby born in Bethlehem was born for a purpose, for a reason. And even more, it says that we share in it. Christ, in his sacred humanity, is baptized for us humans who are called to share in his divinity. Now obviously, Christ was not baptized for the removal of sin sicee as God, he had no sin. But sharing in our human nature, he takes our sinful human nature into the waters of the Jordan with him. And this is the beginning. This is our beginning as well.

From the earliest days of the Church, we have wondered why Christ was baptized. We can all admit, as a matter of faith, that Christ had no need of baptism like we do. But what we see, what we hear of, is something mystical. In that sacred humanity, the one who created the waters is sanctified by them. And in sanctifying them, he begins the process of sanctifying the world. That human body, sinless though was, is baptized. And in his baptism, we find our own.

This is not a point to be taken lightly. Too often, baptism is taken as seriously as it seems to have been taken in the Godfather movie. In many respects and in many quarters, baptism is merely a cute ceremony that speaks of the innocence of new life. But baptism is the beginning of our redemption. The cost of our redemption, its high point in this life, was the death of the one who was baptized today. This truly is a commencement and not some token of membership for those who care little and who value little what that membership means both here in this world and in the world to come.

So as we celebrate today the Baptism of Jesus Christ, we recall our own. We recall our humanity, sinful as it can be at times, being redeemed in the waters of the Jordan. What began on those riverbanks would end in this world on a hill outside Jerusalem. The waters that flowed around Christ on this day lead to the water that flowed from his wounded side. But it didn’t stop there. These same waters were those seen watering the garden of Paradise and the rivers of the new and heavenly Jerusalem.

So no, we do not take this day lightly. We see ourselves in our best hopes in the Christ who is baptized by John. We see it time and again as infants are brought to the font for the same ceremony, the same waters. And in this action, which is not our own but is God’s, we find hope.

If you notice, the days are starting to get a bit longer. Not by much, but they are – a few minutes more each day. So even in the natural world, this is a time of hope. It may still be cold, but the winter will end. Now that we have celebrated Christmas and all the tinsel is stored for next year, we too have hope. The great hope of Christmas was not something theoretical nor something merely symbolic. In the baptism of the Lord we see our own. We see ourselves – and all the good and bad within us – redeemed and sanctified.

This truly is a beginning. And there is no beginning without hope. More than the next level, by our baptism, by Christ’s baptism, we find new life. This is our hope; not just for the world to come but even more so for this world. We live in this world for the time that we have with hearts set on the world to come. In baptism, we have commenced that journey. The faith that we profess, and which we will now renew, is, if you will, our diploma and our passport. It is our tangible sign of hope that God has created us and re-created us for his glory.

If you read it college diploma, it says that the bearer is entitled to the rights and privileges of this diploma. I’m not sure what that means for us today but I do know that our baptism has transferred us into the kingdom of light and has made us the sons and daughters of God. And there is no honor, no rights and privileges, greater than that.

And it is ours because of the Lord, whose we are, and who was baptized for us.