Give Jesus Permission

FEW DISEASES were more feared or reviled than leprosy. Before man and God, it was presumed, a leper was the lowest of the low. His disease was proof he was less than nothing before God’s eternal, absolute and omnipotent perfection.

HOW REMARKABLE and touching that a distraught leper would kneel before Jesus—fully God and fully man—to give him permission to heal him. "If you will, you can make me clean,” he said. [Mk 1:40-45] Jesus was moved with pity. He embraced the sick man as he would his own mother. He touched him, saying, I do will it. He healed him.

TO BE moved with pity is to permit the compassion of your heart to carry you into the experience of someone who suffers. To be moved means to reach out and embrace. It means speaking and touching. Compassion is medicine for the spirit. It sets the scene for healing and the renewal of relationships. It makes possible the regeneration of human hope. Compassion liberates the soul from the clench of the present moment and quiets its trembling.

THE COMPASSION of Jesus Christ is a stirring reminder that Christianity is more than a glimpse of old light or the nimbus of an ambiguous future. Christ is immediate and radiant. This immediacy has a name—the Holy Spirit—who speaks what he hears. [cf. Jn 16:13] Become aware of your own poverty, now. Embrace the one who suffers, now. Open yourself to healing, now.

PERHAPS YOU'LL speak freely about all this, spreading the news everywhere. The Mother of God counsels us that truth is vindicated by silence. Yet, we are not to worry. If a ruckus ensues in your heart or in your household, go quickly into the desert to pray with Jesus. There in solitude you will be little. Make yourself less than nothing before God. Give Jesus permission to touch you and heal you.

Pope Leo XIII - Unaided Human Reason Is Dangerous

"ONCE ASCRIBED to the human reason the only authority to decide what is true and what is good, the real distinction between good and evil is destroyed; honor and dishonor differ not in their nature, but in the opinion and judgment of each one; pleasure is the measure of what is lawful; and, given a code of morality which can have little or no power to restrain or quiet the unruly propensities of man, a way is naturally opened to universal corruption.

"WITH REFERENCE also to public affairs: authority is severed from the true and natural principle whence it derives all its efficacy for the common good; and the law determining what it is right to do and avoid doing is at the mercy of a majority. Now, this is simply a road leading straight to tyranny.

"WHEN ANYTHING is commanded which is plainly at variance with the will of God, there is a wide departure from this divinely constituted order, and at the same time a direct conflict with divine authority; therefore, it is right not to obey.

"BY THE patrons of liberalism, however, who make the State absolute and omnipotent, and proclaim that man should live altogether independently of God, the liberty of which We speak, which goes hand in hand with virtue and religion, is not admitted; and whatever is done for its preservation is accounted an injury and an offense against the State. Indeed, if what they say were really true, there would be no tyranny, no matter how monstrous, which we should not be bound to endure and submit to."

Pope Leo XIII

Libertas

June 20, 1888

Love, Generosity, Healing

God created us in his own image and likeness,

            he loves us more than we know.

God created for us the whole world,

            his generosity is boundless as his love.

Jesus Christ chose the way of sorrows

            to renew us with God’s healing mercy. 

"It Is No Desert"

Stephen Crane’s poem XLII (“The Black Riders”) expresses the bleakness of a suffering heart—

I walked in a desert.

And I cried,

“Ah, God take me from this place!”

A voice said, “It is no desert.”

I cried, “Well, but—

The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon.

A voice said, “It is no desert.”  ^[1]  

Father Thomas Merton observes in NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION that of these three—aridity, obscurity and tranquility—we discover ourselves experiencing aridity most of the time. While such a state may be a cause for longing, it need not be the cause of distress. In aridity is found sanctity and the hidden lives of saints. The scriptures tell us, “But (Jesus) withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.”  [Lk 5:16] The person who eschews the desert never sees or knows these things.

When a person enters the desert for the first time (or rarely), he sees only a wasteland and nothing there. The man who embraces the desert, however, knows it as a sanctuary of temporal and spiritual beauty and the great wonders of God. This makes sense. Our Lord Jesus Christ spent most of his time in the wilderness, there communing with his heavenly father. It was the city and its builders, not the desert, who betrayed Jesus.

No, dear disciple, you are not off. You build on solid rock, that is to say, holiness. With the carpenter of Nazareth to help you, you are building a house of love on this foundation. You may be rebuked or condemned for being holy. Do not look to the right or the left. Keep your eyes on the Blessed Trinity and the heavenly city Jerusalem not made by human hands.

The spiritual man is the living sign of the marvelous visible works flowing from the invisible love of the most holy Trinity. It is an irony that human beings actually don’t “enter” the desert in this life; we are in the desert from the beginning. One advances far in spiritual life when he consciously embraces the desert which surrounds us always. There, like Jesus, pray to God the Father. There like Jesus, allow God’s Spirit to minister to you and defend you.

If you thirst to live a holy way of life, return to the Sacrament of Confession—the springs of life-giving water. The Spirit’s voice speaks—“It is no desert!” In this sacramental oasis you will find refreshment, regeneration and the spiritual strength to care for your brothers.

__________________________________________

^[1]  Stephen Crane, THE COLLECTED POEMS OF STEPHEN CRANE, "The Black Riders", XLII, ed. Wilson Follett (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941) 45. 

Photo courtesy of Ookaboo.

The Whole World

When one child in the whole world is happy,

            the whole world is joyful.

When one artist’s song or painting in the world is beautiful,

            the world itself is attractive.

If one laborer in the world enjoys a single day of leisure,

            the entire world is at ease.

If one young person in the whole world is in love

            the world itself is lovely.

When one marriage in the world is celebrated,

            the whole world is festive.

If one person in the world tries to be holy,

            the risen Jesus offers the whole world salvation.

Should one Christian in the whole world devoutly pray,

            the world entire kneels before God. 

Brave Men and Women

WHEN A young American enters a recruiting station to sign up, he walks in as an individual who has made a private and personal decision. At the instant he voices the oath of service and affixes his signature, his personal decision becomes very public. 

ENTRUSTING HIS life to our elected government, the young recruit joins thousands of other young men and women in the mission of protecting the United States of America. Their service to God and country will require unwavering loyalty and obedience. 

MILITARY PERSONNEL must be confident that what is expected of them by their nation, president and commanding officers is prudent and just for friend and foe alike. From superiors and fellow service members, military men and women should expect excellence in all things.

WITH FULL knowledge that true heroism in the service of one’s country arises from the day-to-day hard work of duty and strenuous labor, we beseech our gracious and provident heavenly Father to grant our soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines a lively faith, a gallant heart and a serene acceptance of his unsearchable will. 

THOUGH IT brings sadness to the human spirit, we must acknowledge the dangers that men and women face in the defense of their nation. Many are gravely injured or killed and many more will suffer silently in the years after conflict is ended. In time of war, we continue to stand in solidarity with our soldiers, our airmen, our sailors and our marines who have pledged their lives for the well-being of all the families of our nation.

OUR LIVES depend on the cooperation and respect we give the soldier on the ground, the airman in the sky, the sailor and marine, and national guard. We civilians would do well to plant this truth deep in out hearts and to live our lives in such a way as to be worthy of being defended.

OUR YOUNG service men and women depend on Christian families who remember their sacred duty of interceding to God on their behalf. May the names of these brave men and women and the record of their noble service to God and country not be forgotten.  

MAY THE peace of Christ become the peace of nations: “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” [Eph 6:12] 

Photo courtesy of Ookaboo.

Elegant Recovery

Young altar servers and acolytes advance far when they learn this important lesson about the liturgy:  Don’t try to be perfect. Rather, strive to make an elegant recovery. The most wonderful example of this, of course, is Jesus' resurrection on the third day. I am convinced that for all human beings, life in this broken world is lived authentically in the "recovery" zone.

Young persons who serve the altar, may you receive this healing truth and enjoy the most elegant recovery of life—the holiness of your mind, heart, soul and strength. I pray that you will value your very own personhood as a treasure and see yourselves as God sees you—worthy of love and redemption. I ask God to lead and guide you into a holy life well-lived. 

St. Patrick Cathedral Basilica, New York City

For a Moment

WHERE THERE is great love there are always miracles...One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are . . . I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.  
[Willa Cather, DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP (1927) Book I, p. 49] 

Mystery of Salvation - Ordinary Time Wk 2 Cycle A - Jan 19 2014

KEEPING WATCH

1.  Your fidelity and devotion to the third commandment—”remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”  [Exo 20:8]—is a testimony to your faith. Many of you have sacrificed to be here. Your presence in the House of God is itself a gift to the Most High. What you have sacrificed in order to worship this day is also your gift to our loving, provident Father.

2.  Your steadfast example of keeping watch with the Lord inspires and invigorates all those who gather in his name. You, as the Bride of Christ, strengthen the determination of those whose faith is weak. May they repent and turn again to God with all their heart, soul, and might, “that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord”.  [Acts 3:19] 

MYSTERY OF THINGS

3.  In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we appeal to the Father through the divine personhood and merits of his son, our Lord Jesus—upon whom the Spirit descended and came to rest.  [cf. Jn 1:33]  We offer the unworthy yet earnest desires of a people united in faith: “But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself”.  [Psa 4:3]  Many of our prayers petition God for specific and difficult things.

4.  We “earnestly desire the higher gifts”. This “still more excellent way”  [1Cor 12:31]  is the mystery of things that are known but not fully understood. We ask the Lord to grant us a share of his divine attributes, gifts that endure, things that cannot be seen:  “...so faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love”.  [1Cor 13:13]  Our enduring Christian mission is the sharing of our faith.

SHARING AND WITNESSING

5.  You are sharing and witnessing it to others at this very celebration of Holy Eucharist. Every individual, indeed every generation through whom God shows his glory, must discover anew the baptismal mystery of Christ. It is the “secret and hidden wisdom of God which God decreed before the ages for our glorification”  [1Cor 2:7]  that we might possess “. . . full awareness of (man's) dignity, of the heights to which he is raised, of the surpassing worth of his own humanity, and of the meaning of his existence”.[2]

6.  The Holy Spirit enables us to see for ourselves what the baptizer saw, and to bear witness as his spiritual heirs that Jesus Christ is the “Son of God”.  [Jn 1:34]  St. Jude entreats us in Sacred Scripture, in his exquisite little one-chapter epistle, to “contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints”.  [Jude 1:1]  

Gladiator

/I mind the invincible

actus of the fiery ant who

in campaign for easy food

found my colossal arm

oddwise to its forage plan:

/who battled cross its hairy top

to make of me a Sophocles

by jaw and poison barb—

mocking my flaming wound

and sapient stink-eye.

/this tiny rooster offed the plank

of the picnic table, a pirate

whose olympic prank

throws the darwin switch

to acids of a million larvae

close-hauled in rubbery decks below.

August 18 2013

Heaven's Ecology

MOST CHRISTIANS today assume much but know little about their Christian religion. This generation assumes that Christianity’s two fundamental virtues are ignorance and self-interest. Sin is non-existent, God’s judgment becomes irrelevant and the Christian religion is an easy-to-break throw-away ornament.

BUT FOR Christians who cling to their religion while assuming much and knowing little, some real thinking about sin and judgment is needed and fast. If you are acting on the (even implicit) assumption that you can slipstream from this world to the next carrying a boatload of sins, expecting to offload them at God's throne and sail right into heaven because your "friend" died on a cross, you're not thinking.

HEAVEN’S ECOLOGY is not going to be fouled by a toxic dump of sins—yours or anyone else’s—at the foot of God’s throne. If God shows you mercy at the moment of your personal judgment and intends you to share life with him forever, AND you are carrying not-reconciled sins and have done little or nothing in this present life about it, then you’re going to have to take your sins somewhere else and deal with them before you come back. 

(ACTUALLY, WILLFUL ignorance is not a virtue or bliss but stupidity. Neither is squalid self-interest a virtue in God’s sight but always wicked. Thinking Christianity has nothing to do with such stupidity and wickedness.)

THAT "SOMEWHERE else" is purgatory, a cleanup site where your soul is going to have to be scoured clean of debris and become presentable before you can sit down at heaven’s banquet table. We have known this teaching and taught it for 2,000 years. It is thoroughly attested by the Scriptures, the Magisterium and the Tradition—the three great witnesses standing on the rock of Peter.  [cf. Mt 16:18]  

THE SAINTS of heaven are persons reconciled to God on earth. What are the good works of the elect? They are the gold, silver and precious stones of the heavenly city Jerusalem.  [Rev 21:18-21]  What are not-reconciledsins but wood, hay and straw, cast forthand withered, gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.  [Jn 15:6]  

FOR NO other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire (purgatory) will test what sort of work each one has done.

IF THE work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.  [1Cor 3:11-15]

AS SURELY as heaven exists for perfect souls to praise God, there is a purgatory for imperfect souls whose not-reconciled sins are the lumber, hay and straw that will be used to fuel the fire that purifies them. "If any one will not work, let him not eat."  [2Thess 3:10]  

Perhaps There's Still Time

Pope St. Leo the Great who reigned for 21 years in the mid-5th century wrote: “The Lord’s passion is prolonged until the end of the world.”

As long as there exists in this world a single tear on the cheek of one of his “little ones”, our risen Lord Jesus Christ continues to bear our human grief, and by so doing, sorrows with us. As long as there exists in this world the impoverishment of one of his “little ones”, our risen Lord Jesus Christ continues to pray for “our daily bread”, and by so doing, hungers with us. As long as there exists in this world the injury of one of his “little ones”, our risen Lord Jesus Christ continues to heal us with the medicine of mercy, and by so doing, suffers with us.

Is any human being so well off, so insulated from ordinary experience, so estranged from his own heart that he truthfully can say I’ve never cried, I’ve never been hurt, I've never been so alone? In the name of heaven, then, why do so many Christians attempt to carry their sorrows, impoverishment and injuries alone and apart from the Body of Christ? 

When the Church prays the Stations of the Cross, all members of the Body of Christ pray these words for Christ:

COME ALL you who pass by the way, look and see whether there is any suffering like my suffering. At this I weep, my eyes run with tears: far from me are all who could console me, far away are any who might revive me.  [Lam 1:12,16]

Our Lord Jesus Christ suffers for you, and he suffers your holding back from him. Perhaps there is still time for you to pause, reflect and surrender your whole heart to our crucified Lord. If you sincerely desire to console Jesus, to revive him in the midst of his suffering for you, then bring him your tears, your hunger and your distress. And let him heal you! “The Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth!”  [1Jn 5:7]  

Entrust yourself to the Good Physician whose clinic is the Church, whose office is the Cross, whose license is the Gospel, and whose medicine of mercy is his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The Lord himself has given you life by the blood and water which flowed from his side as he hung upon the cross:  “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.”  [1Jn 4:7] 

Dance of the Stripes

For two or three days after a zebra birth, the mare does not permit her foal to gaze at other members of the herd or the harem stallion standing guard nearby. Her offspring must learn to recognize her alone. More effective than sound or scent is nature's visual marker—the mare's own stripe pattern. 

A foal needs time, however, to imprint this unique design in its brain before mother and baby can mingle freely in the herd. This is not casual play but a matter of life or death. The herd cannot remain stationary for long. Moreover, the baby's window of receptivity "closes" after the short period of confinement. 

The many harems of a migratory zebra herd typically graze a short distance away from birthing females. The approach of any curious adult, therefore, is cause for alarm to the new mother. The mare quickly blocks her foal from gazing on the visitor's stripes. This task can be exhausting for the new mother. If the baby is distracted from memorizing its mother's stripe pattern, it will never recognize her among the herd population. 

Such failure is always deadly. A confused and disoriented foal is ostracized by the harem. Herd members, rebuffing its cries, will drive the baby away. Wandering helplessly, the infant zebra quickly succumbs to starvation or attack by predators.

A baby zebra, from the moment of its birth, engages in a poignant life and death struggle. To have a chance, it must recognize the stripe pattern of its birth mother with invincible accuracy. A human being, contemplating the desperate urgency of this bonding imperative, may be inclined to perceive it as a cruel lottery. Perhaps it is in some sense. Nevertheless, a certain inevitability—one may call it perspective—reasserts itself in the human mind.

Nature is relentlessly even pitilessly what it is. No, not pitilessly. The word pity belongs to our peculiarly human capacity for poignant self-reflection. Such impulses are anathema to nature's ecological machinery. Nevertheless, the reality is that most zebra foals mature successfully, find food and survive predation to experience the ultimate imperative—procreation. The dance of the stripes is performed again. 

(Photo courtesy of Ookaboo.)

Who Will Save the Nations?

SIMILARLY, ONCE the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

SO GREAT is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher.

Pope Leo XIII

Tametsi futura prospicientibus

November 1, 1900

Fourteenth Station: Both Old and New

During the year before my adult confirmation in the Catholic Church, I desired to pray the Stations of the Cross. Scarcely aware of this venerable devotion, I entered the solemn nave of St. Anne Church one Friday afternoon to pray with a singular purpose. Everything else could wait outside in the glare and heat of day. 

The Church was quiet and empty of people. Hesitant and unsure of myself, I was thankful to be alone in the stillness of the Church. With a little book in hand, I walked the Via Dolorosa tentatively at first, concentrating on kneeling and the rhythm of the devotion. The First Station. Jesus Is Condemned to Death.

The events of Jesus’ passion and death moved me deeply as I prayed each station. Jesus meets his mother, Veronica and the women of Jerusalem—the cross crushes him to the ground—stripped and nailed, he is lifted up—dying, he is taken down. Until at last, I knelt before the Fourteenth Station. Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb. I took a deep breath.

The words poured from my heart. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.  [Psa 84:10]  I prayed silently, Father in heaven, I ask for the hand of your daughter the Church. Will you permit me to be a priest?

I remained on my knees for some time. No sight or sound or insight altered the holy silence. Nothing disturbed the serenity of the nave or the sunlight filtering through the stained-glass windows. I dared to ask God too much, too soon. The stillness, however, did not discourage me. I pictured a father glowering over his daughter’s puny and unacceptable suitor. You’d better toughen up your knees. You’ll have to let go of many things.

You can’t go any lower than the grave, and I suppose that’s why petitioners pour their hearts out in this spiritual pilgrimage. I never went back to the Fourteenth Station to ask for priesthood again. Once was sufficient. But my friends—all but one of whom would disavow me—knew where to find me. I was always in the Church.

It’s not a matter of adroitness or merit or even personal need but rather the impossible—daring to ask for that which no human excellence suffices, pleading God’s own unfathomable reasons when human thought fails and prayerful silence looms like a mountain before human frailty.

Inevitably, all human experiences give way to forgetfulness, rarely to be illuminated by conscious reflection and shared in the present moment. This may seem to be cause for distress, especially when the loveliest events of life begin to fade, and one fears losing them altogether.

The stillness doesn’t mean oblivion for as David wrote, But as for me, my prayer is to thee, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of thy steadfast love answer me.God recalls to the soul the things of faith like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.  [Mt 13:52]  Not new or old, but rather the good things in God’s time that are always old and always new.  

Pope Leo XIII - Political Campaign against Christianity

"WE HAVE but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. 

"PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society."

Pope Leo XIII

Tametsi futura prospicientibus

November 1, 1900

"Everything Must Change" Christmas Cycle A, Baptism of Lord Jan 12 2014

ALTHOUGH NOT a vessel of beauty, nonetheless John the Baptist was a vessel of mercy. Although hesitant to baptize Jesus—it is you who should be baptizing me—Jesus replies mysteriously to the baptizer's consternation: "Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."  [Mt 3:15]

AS A sign of contradiction, the baptizer reluctantly casts water on the Divine Fire to fulfill all righteousness: He baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River. In a scene contemplated by holy priests who ponder their judgment before God, the heavens opened above Jesus and the Spirit of peace descends upon the Son of God.

TO THE sign of water was added the divine benediction from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."  [Mt 3:17]  Thus the ritual of sign and blessing was completed by Jesus as an example of holiness for the people and the empowerment of his ministry.

THE OLD year comes to an end; a new one commences. Utterly untouched by human chronology, the procession of time continues uninterrupted until Christ's return in glory. The days and seasons drift by and man is left to reflect on the fact of his mortality and his life's meaning. If he is wise, man will interpret lessons and experiences in a fruitful way, and he will contemplate the purpose of that which has ended or continues to unfold.

THE PASSING of a year helps one to thresh accomplishments and regrets, to winnow promises fulfilled and unfulfilled, and to store in the barn a harvest against future uncertainty. The evocative ballad Everything Must Changeurges mortal man to contemplate the mystery he cannot master: "Everything must change; nothing stays the same. The young become the old, and mysteries do unfold, for that's the way of time:  No one and nothing goes unchanged.” 

THERE ARE as many ways of letting go as there are leaves on a tree. In the past year, each of us has bid farewell to something or someone, and in many instances, not without great sorrow. We detach and say goodbye, this sometimes against our will. We are compelled to accept the inevitability that time and space will separate those who sail away on the unseen wind and those who come to rest firmly in the earth.

MY HEART goes out to you who persevere in faith, to you who love Christ, who worship the Father wholeheartedly, and walk in the Spirit. And I implore our heavenly Father with all my soul that this new year of grace will bring times of refreshing for the Church and his faithful people. I pray, too, that when your self-assurance is a bruised reed and your strength of will is a dimly burning wick, you will behold the "Spirit of God descending like a dove"  [Mt 3:16]  to bring you peace and contentment.

MAY YOU realize in the depths of your soul, as God's beloved children of faith, that Christ the Light of the World has purchased your salvation at a great price and that every good gift comes from God. For he who was baptized in the fire of his holy passion, death and resurrection has won for his Church the fatherhood of the God of mercy and clothed us with the glorious garment of his abiding pleasure.

Part 3 of 3 – The Presence of the Priest

MIRACLE OF RESERVED BREAD

When offered for the sake of the Name, a priest's imperfect love and deeds are united to Christ in whom liberality is perfect and infinite. Hence, the Catholic priest's ministry of selfless charity and mercy is established as a sublime oblation of cosmic proportions.

Recall how Jesus fed the hungry multitudes that gathered to hear him teach on the Galilean hillsides. Often subordinated to the miracles of loaves and fishes is the miracle of the reserved bread. Seven and twelve baskets--the numeric signs of perfection and totality--were left over after thousands ate and were satisfied.  [cf. Mk 6:42]  The quantity bread left over is unmistakably a sign of comprehensiveness, that is to say, the universal scope of Christ's ministry and its simultaneity.

TODAY AND FOREVER!

The sacrifice of Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is at once international and cosmic, contemporaneous and eternal, consonant and contradictory. Jesus is bread for all of Galilee and Israel, for the Near East and the entire world, today and forever! His is the True Presence abiding in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the tabernacles of Catholic Churches all over the world--reverently safeguarded to nourish the sick and home bound and war-weary.

 As the Gospel makes clear, one person is not offered bread from heaven  [cf. Jn 6:32-35]  at the cost of another's suffering. So it is with the Spirit of Fire that consecrated the Lord at his baptism. The Father and the Son do not send forth a portion but rather the fullness of the Holy Spirit to set the world ablaze.  [Lk 12:49; cf. Isa 55:10-11]

MINISTRY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Spirit of God apportions his gifts to believer as Christ wills, but the Spirit himself is not rationed: "...for it is not by measure that (God) gives the Spirit".  [Jn 3:34]  The priest, baptized, confirmed and ordained consents to receive the fullness of the Spirit in whom he is continuously being renewed and made new after the image of his Creator: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations."  [Isa 42:1]  

As a condition of accepting the ministry of righteousness in the name of Jesus Christ, a priest must regard all else as matter for renunciation. The priest, a visible sign of the unseen spiritual order, grows in the knowledge of the Divine, proclaims the concerns of God, and by the extravagance of his personal sacrifice and unselfish ministry, bears witness to all that he a new creation in righteousness and holiness of Christ.  [cf. Eph 4:24]

POWERFUL EXAMPLE

Whereas the natural or earthly man rations his enthusiasm and his material gifts to a privileged few, the open-handed spiritual man shares the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (and) self-control.  [cf. Gal 5:22]  

Hence, the priest of Christ is the credible witness that man's trust in and love for the heavenly Father will not go unrewarded. Unquestionably, he becomes a powerful example for the good in the presence of the Father's humble ones; to him is entrusted the salvation and care of their souls.

JOY OF THE MASTER

As the servant of God's children clothed in the new nature, the man consecrated in the Sacrament of Holy Orders offers both heart and hands to his bishop who admonishes him to safely shepherd God's people to the threshold of the parousia (Gk. coming or presence). May the priest of God never fail to protect the little souls entrusted to his care.

May he never fail to provide them a constant and unremitting example of the true priesthood. By so doing, he will have been faithful over a little, and Christ will set him over much: the joy of the master is the reward of his priests.  [cf. Mt 25:21]

Part 2 of 3: The Presence of the Priest

FACE TOWARD GOD

No priest is called by Christ to cultivate the aesthetic of helplessness, or to be a hand-wringer, or to be a mechanical dispensary of sacramental grace. He is to point the way to Christ by the example of his own person, that is to say, the people of this world must see in him the image of Christ-out-of-Egypt repatriating his chosen people to the heavenly Jerusalem.

With this said, a priest is not an endpoint or the ultimate result of a series of spiritual activities, experiences or tendencies. Rather, he sets his face toward God so that the faithful might do likewise.  [cf. Lk 9:51]

YIELDING TO FEAR

Mindful of the apostle's injunction--"Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness"  [Jas 3:1]--he understands that his desire for union with God will be tested harshly and judged strictly. While aided by the Spirit, many priests can fail to pursue the spiritual quest to its beatific end.

Many priests in this generation have yielded to fear and turned away from the narrow gate, the cross of Christ!  [cf. Mt 7:13-14]  Their failure to keep the evangelical counsels--to live simply, chastely and in obedience to lawful authority--will be the downfall of a multitude of souls, for children on milk cannot lead other children to solid food.

IMAGING ALPHA AND OMEGA

The faithful can perceive in the priest a reflection of the Alpha and Omega, the only-begotten Son through whom all things were made: By mediating the mysteries of salvation on the altar of the cross of Christ, the priest of God prophesies the omega, the cosmic perfection of the order of grace.

By his guileless and transparent acceptance of supernatural faith, hope and love, the priest images the alpha, the more perfect baptismal sign of rebirth in the Spirit and the regeneration of the human person "from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit".  [2Cor 3:17-18]  God confers on him, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, a ministry of heaven and earth to reveal the form of Divine Truth and to form the Body of Christ.

JOHN THE BAPTIZER

He is sent into the disordered and darkened world to bear the life and the light of Christ. Greater than the vessel is the refreshment it pours out.Perhaps John the Baptizer appeared to the crowds to be more of a spectacle and a specter than an instrument of God.

Attired in camel's hair, a leather waistband, and feeding on locusts and honey in the Judean desert, the enormously popular erimite (Gk. of the desert) mesmerized large numbers of pilgrims with his denunciation of hypocrisy and his call to repentance.

GREATER IS GOD'S LOVE AND LIFE

Certainly he seemed acrid and forbidding as he shouted to the Pharisees and Sadducees from the rocks, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"  [Mt 3:7]  and to the crowds from Jerusalem, "Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."  [Mt 3:10]

Greater than the act of personal surrender, then, is the divine love of God by which a young priest is configured to the high priesthood of Christ. More efficacious, also, than the priest's humble submission to obedience, is the divine life that God pours through him to slake his people's spiritual thirst. There is, therefore, much for the priest of God to contemplate in the way of duty, simplicity and humility.

Part I of 3: The Presence of the Priest

WHAT THEY SEE IN A PRIEST

Some look upon a priest as the endpoint of a sequence of religious events rooted in history. They see him as a living "proof text" of the divine Logos (Gk. word, truth, Christ), the bearer of the mysteries of God. Ordinary persons cannot easily comprehend a priest's theological and philosophical knowledge. 

It would seem to many lay persons that through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, a priest is given the privileged grace for which Moses was renown in ancient days--knowing the Lord face to face  [Deu 34:10]--the very grace forfeited by the foolish Adam who walked in the garden with God in the cool of the evening breeze.  [cf. Gen 3:8]  Not a few, then, will impute to God what they see in the priest.If he is holy and devoted to the Church and to its members, then God is perceived as perfect and charitable. 

LEAD PERSONS TO CHRIST

However, if a priest is perceived as worldly and egotistical, many will be misled by their weak faith to perceive God in the same way. Thus is it critical for the attentive priest to lead persons to Christ and not to himself. 

The presence of the priest is certainly a sign of the nearness of God. But the priestly ministry is not merely one of presence; still less is it the cultivated passivity of religious intellectuals for whom the supernatural power of God is a worn abstraction. The young man who presents himself for ordination stands in two worlds, with one foot on earth and the other in heaven.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders unites the Holy Spirit and the ordaining bishop in conferring upon him the indelible mark of priesthood. He is anointed in the flesh by his bishop, a successor to the Twelve. He is anointed in the Spirit by the grace of Christ, the Lord of all that is seen and unseen. 

The man of God is ordained to be the visible sign of the invisible supreme power of God. The newly ordained is to be the sign of Jonah  [cf. Lk 11:29-30]: always human and bound to his humanity, he is sent out on the Kingdom road. But the vessel must always find its way back to the fountain.



SIGN OF MERCY

With one hand a priest clutches the robes of Christ tightly. In the other, he bears the Sacred Word of God. Christ is the fountain of divine revelation through which the priest will minister to the sheep who have not known the Shepherd. The sign of Jonah is a sign of contradiction. God uses the humanity of the priest to overturn human expectations, but the priest for his part must call on the divinity of God to set to rights the broken world. 

The sign of Jonah is a sign of mercy witnessing to the world that the urgent need to reform is authentic. Though the hour of this age is late and the clock strikes eleven for the present generation, the priest shines God's light on timid spirits huddled in the world's dark corners.

PROOF OF EXCELLENCE

He is not there to bring them to silence, but to join them in beseeching the power of Jesus Christ to deliver them. With one foot on earth and the other foot on high, he carries the distress of lost and troubled souls to Christ, and he returns to them the will of the Lord mediated through the sacraments of faith. 

Whether the priest's apostolic work is easy or rough, he has but one objective: to bring every soul to follow Christ as he himself does, to bring every soul near to the miraculous power of God, and to stir the hearts of people everywhere to praise the Father for his glorification of Christ. 

To this apostolic task, the Lord Jesus Christ demands that each of his priests offer a humbled spirit willing to preach fearlessly, teach ardently and bring to the apostolic task entrusted to him by Christ the proof of excellence.