Simple Catholicism
Jewish
To Know the Lord
In recent Sundays we have heard about the covenant: How God – by his initiative – establishes a relationship with human beings. We learned about the covenant with Noah after the great flood – when God made a new beginning. Jewish scholars call this the “Noahide Covenant.” It has certain norms that apply to all human beings: setting up law courts, repect for marriage and human life – and the prohibition of idolatry.
After many generations God made a specific covenant with Abraham – who is the father of the Jewish people. That covenant has laws which God spelled out in detail through Moses. Those laws guided the Jews in their relation to God and to others.
Today, in our first reading, we hear about a further covenant – a “new covenant.” The prophet Jeremiah says God will place his law within us. The new covenant is not a new law. Rather, God by his Spirit helps us interiorize his ancient eternal law. He will write that law upon our hearts. Then, He says, “All shall know me.”
All shall know me. How does that happen? How do we know the Lord? Not only know about him, but actually know him?
We have a cue in this Sunday’s Gospel. It begins with some Greeks who approach the Apostle Philip with this request, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” To see Jesus, that is the key to knowing God. To see Jesus is to enter the “new covenant.”
Before talking about what it means to see Jesus, I would like to say something about these “Greeks” who wanted to see Him. They had “come to Jerusalem to worship at Passover time.” They were not necessarily people from what we today call the country of Greece. In Jesus time, “Greek” applied to the people who spoke that language – and Greek had become the common language of the Roman Empire and beyond. Some of those “Greeks” had adopted partial or full Judaism. And many first century Jews lived outside of Palestine and had immersed themselves in Hellenistic culture to the point that their first (or only) language was Greek. The Jews of Palestine refered to them as “Hellenists” or simply “Greeks.” These two groups (Greek converts to Judaism and Hellenized Jews) were large.
So, the “Greeks” were a broad group. A few from this vast number wanted to see Jesus, to know him. How would they do it? We see the steps in today’s readings.
First, of course, someone has to introduce them to Jesus – in this case the Apostle Philip, together with Andrew. It is not an accident that they both have Greek names. (Philip means “friend of horses” and Andrew simply means “man.) The important thing about them, however, is not their names, but that they are Apostles. They represent the Church. We need to be introduced to Jesus – and that happens through the Church, particularly by the sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.
Along with that initiation (or introduction) comes repentance. Jesus says the grain has to fall to the ground and die in order to produce any fruit. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “love, as mortals understand the word, isn’t enough. Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried.”1
We must repent – die to sin – if we are to know the Lord. Jeremiah tells us that we will know the Lord because he will forgive our evildoing and remember our sins no more. When we see the Lord – and not our own reflection in a mirror – we become aware of our sins. And we open ourselves to his mercy. As we say in the Psalm, “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.”
So, repentance and initiation. Then we begin the exhilarating work of daily prayer: conversation with God. Prayer, of course, does not happen by our own power. God has to lift our minds and hearts to him. Prayer is God’s work in us. There are, however, certain things that facilitate prayer.
Regarding prayer, I recently read an interview2 with Fr. Liam Cary – the new bishop of Eastern Oregon. Bishop Cary emphasized having a place for prayer. He admitted that sometimes people grab a cup of coffee and sit on the porch in an easy chair. “You can do it,” Bishop Cary said, but he added, “one should be more careful and attentive to the details of prayer.” He told how a sacred image can help: “when you have holy images,” he said, “you have someone looking back at you, as it were, you’re conscious of being seen.” Bishop Cary encouraged people to use the Book of Psalms, maybe reading three psalms in the course of a day. Finally, he underlined the importance posture: moments when a person sits, stands or kneels. I quote:
“Then, for example take the prayer of the monks or the sisters, you begin standing up and then you kneel, and then sit down for awhile. You kneel while you pray the psalms, sit down when you read a little bit of scripture, stand up for certain parts of the office. Bow down, bow your head like the Muslims; I think the first thing they do in the morning is to bow their head to the ground as a sign of worship.”
From what Bishop Cary says about prayer, we take home three things. They begin with the letter “P”: place, a space that has some sacred image, psalms that provide inspired models for prayer and finally posture: kneel, stand, sit and bow. Place, psalms and posture can help us know the Lord.
To sum up: To know the Lord – to experience his new convenant – requires introduction, initiation, repentence and prayer. A sacred place, the psalms and the use of posture can help us pray – to see Jesus, to know the Lord. Amen.
1 – From The Great Divorce. The dialogue between Lewis and McDonald continues:
“Ah, but it’s cruel not to say it. They that know have grown afraid to speak. That is why sorrows that used to purify now only fester.”
“Keats was wrong, then, when he said he was certain of the holiness of the heart’s affections.”
“I doubt if he knew clearly what he meant. But you and I must be clear. There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It’s not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels. The false religion of lust is baser than the false religion of mother-love or patriotism or art: but lust is less likely to be made into a religion.”
2 – Here is an extended quote from the interview:
The first thing is to give time to prayer, regular time. Not necessarily hours and hours but regular time; morning, evening, especially in the middle of the day, the time has to be there everyday.
Then, as I said centering on the Eucharist. If possible go to Mass everyday, if not than try to go to Eucharistic adoration.
As for the form of prayer, I would recommend to people to get used to the Psalms. Because that is the prayer of the Church. Of course if you become a religious or a priest then that is the prayer that you will pray.
I found for myself, when I was thinking about being a priest, a way that I just stumbled upon, of praying the psalms; I would say three in the morning the next three in the evening and three more the next morning and three that evening again. This way I said three Psalms each day.
That was very, very helpful for a number of reasons. It quickly became very easy to do, and I liked it. I liked that form; it had a beginning, middle, and an end, so I knew when I had completed my prayer. I had a sense of completion and that’s important. Prayer shouldn’t just be this open-ended thing where I’ve got to go on for however long. It’s similar to the Mass; it has a beginning, middle and an end.
The thing about the psalms is that you get to learn about the scriptures. You’ll find that in some of them you don’t understand what’s being said, but that’s alright. You just learn it, incorporate it, and gradually you get to know about things.
You notice that various things turn over and over in the psalms and it can widen out your spirit, because maybe you’re not accustomed, for example, to prayers of praise. Maybe all you’ve ever done is ask for things, which is alright, but you learn there is more to praying than that, simply by going through the psalms. You can go through the whole book of psalms and then go back through them again.
You’ll begin to at home with the scriptures; these prayers are at the heart of the Church. You can be sure that this is good material for prayer, where as there is other material for prayer that could be questionable. However this is unquestionable solid ground for prayer.
Then, I think, the form of the body of prayer is important. You can take the church building as a model of how to pray, there are images, it has center. The space is focused on what is most important, the altar and the Tabernacle. You have the crucifix, the holy images of Mary and the Saints. So should our place, our house, of prayer be. The task is to build a house of prayer.
You should take care to arrange that space, so that when you come into it, it doesn’t take you long to enter into prayer. Because that space is where you pray. The other thing is that when you have holy images you have someone looking back at you, as it were, you’re conscious of being seen. That’s very important because we are seen.
Some people talk about praying as getting up in the morning and taking a cup of coffee and sitting in the easy chair on the porch. You can do it, however I think one should be more careful and attentive to the details of prayer.
Then, for example take the prayer of the monks or the sisters, you begin standing up and then you kneel, and then sit down for awhile. You kneel while you pray the psalms, sit down when you read a little bit of scripture, stand up for certain parts of the office. Bow down, bow your head like the Muslims; I think the first thing they do in the morning is to bow their head to the ground as a sign of worship.”
Everthing Matters – Except Everything
My homily this Sunday is about our human tendency to forget God. To put this tendency into context, I would like to begin with an observation by G.K. Chesterton. He said that one of the characteristics of the modern world is our willingness to talk about everything – nothing is off the table. He added, though, that there is one thing we are embarrassed to talk about: everthing! As Chesterton says, for us “everything matter – except everything.”
What does Chesterton mean when he says that we talk about “everything except everything”? Well, people have opinions about politics, movie stars, crime, fashions, climate, the causes of illnesses and the latest scandals – you name it and people have their opinion and they express it freely. But we shy away from talking about everything itself: What is this universe, this existence we have been thrown into? And what – or who – is behind it all?
We steer away from those questions. Our reluctance – even our embarrassment – to talk about everything itself has had an effect on us. We are busy about many things. We are concerned about many things – but we have forgotten everything.
The Israelites were in a similar situation during the Babylonian Exile. We heard about it in the first reading. In Babylon the Jewish people encountered new problems – and new opportunities. Many of them prospered in Babylon. Perhaps because of that prosperity, they tended to forget their home – to forget Jerusalem. The Psalm writer gives a warning, “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten.” To forget Jerusalem would be to forget God. That would be fatal.
Now, Babylon on the banks of the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers was attractive, even exciting. The exiles faced a temptation to get comfortable in Babylon. If they did that, however, they risked losing the one thing that really mattered – their home, Jerusalem, God himself. The Psalmist, therefore, speaks out: “May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not, if I place not Jerusalem ahead of my joy.”
You and I can also forget our true home. We can get so busy, so concerned with everything that we forget everything itself. Like the exiles we need a reminder. Let me give you an example (this is a true story):1
Once a middle-age priest had a visit from two young nuns. Since he didn’t have any food in his refrigerator, he invited them to a nearby restaurant. It was a nice a day and they walked. As they were going down the street, the priest noticed heads turning. At first the priest thought they were looking at him, but he quickly realized they were not looking at him, but at the Sisters. It was not that there weren’t other nice looking young ladies or even strangely dressed ones. There was something about the veil those Sisters were wearing. They were calling attention not to themselves, but to the Bridegroom. Some weeks later the priest ran into a lady who said, “I am not a Catholic, but I saw those Sisters the other day with you. I just felt something good inside of me.”
Those young Sisters – simply by the authenticity of their lives – they helped people remember God: To pause from all things worrying them, to forget about everything happening and to think about everything itself. To remember God.
How do we remember God? It’s not like trying to recall where I put the keys. It’s not a question of racking one’s mind. The truth is that none of us can remember God unless he remembers us. God has to take the intiative. And he does. As we heard in the Gospel, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
To remember God, the first thing is to recognize that He is other. He is distinct from us and we from him. We are not splinters of God. We did not emanate from him – like rays of the light from the sun. We are, rather, his image – like a reflection in a mirror. When I look in a mirror – after I get over the initial disappointment – I recognize that is me. But of course the image only exists if I continue in front of the mirror. The image is distinct from me, but it does not exist apart from me.
So it is with us and God. Our existence depends on him. But we did not ooze from him. He made us in his image and likeness. And He gave us all, including the great gift of freedom – but we used our freedom to turn our backs on Him. In a word, we sinned.
Because of our sins, we try to hide from our Maker. We want to forget Him, pretend we have some existence apart from Him. That has become our natural tendency. We have spent so much time forgetful of God we cannot now remember Him unless He remembers us. That is why the Bible has so many prayers such as, “Remember your people, O Lord” or more simply, “Remember me.” Those are good prayers, especially these last weeks of Lent. It’s not because God has to be reminded, but we certainly do. Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.
We need silence to remember God. We need something else – a willingness to let light shine on our lives. That can be a little scary. All of us have things we would rather others did not know about – and maybe we are even afraid for God to know about. For that reason Jesus says, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” God does not want to condemn us. He wants to save us. He has saved us – in his Son Jesus. Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.
To sum up: We have opinions about everything at all, but we shy from everything itself. As Chesterton says, for us “everything matters – except everything.” This is fatal because it causes us to forget our true home. “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten!” Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.
Bottom line: As Chesterton says, for people today “everything matters – except everything.” This is fatal because it causes us to forget our true home. Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.
1- The middle-aged priest was me. I adapted the account so any homilist can use the illustration. Continue reading
The Convenant with Noah Today
As we focus on baptism, we remember the covenant God made with Noah – a covenant that God continues in the voice of conscience.
Today we celebrate the First Sunday of Lent. It is significant that in the opening reading we hear about the covenant that God made with Noah. Our Jewish brothers and sisters refer to this as the Noahide Covenant. This covenant does not just apply to Jews, but to the whole human race. You will remember that in the Bible Noah and his family were the sole survivors of the great flood.
According to Jewish scholars, the Noahide Covenant has seven pillars. They include the prohibition of idolatry, murder, theft, sexual immorality and blasphemy. This applies to us today. Sometimes people ask if there are moral rules that all humans must follow. We have an answer in the Noahide Covenant: It is wrong to kill, to take innocent human life. It is wrong to steal – to do violence to another human being by robbing his possessions. It is wrong to engage in sexual immorality. Do I need to go into details? These teachings are not… Continue reading
Behold the Lamb of God
Bottom line: If we have in our hearts anything like the Jewish people – or the peoples of America – we would thrill to hear John’s exclamation: Behold the Lamb of God.
At the beginning of Advent we received a beautiful gift: the new English translation of the Roman Missal. Many of my priest friends – especially the younger ones – have commented on how much they appreciate this new translation.
One of the parts I particularly like is the invitation to Communion. The priest holds up the Host and says, “Behold the Lamb of God…” We hear these same words in today’s Gospel. John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims to Andrew, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Continue reading
The Fundamental Freedom – Freedom of Religion
This Thanksgiving Day we express gratitude for all the blessing we have received and the freedoms we enjoy. We recognize freedom of religion as being the foundation stone for the other freedoms. And we re-dedicate to preserving that precious gift. Continue reading
Father Bloom
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