Archive for category: Go and Glorify

You are here: / Go and Glorify

Beloved and blessed

/in

Father Daniel Schomaker

Guest

When we sit down with the Sacred Scriptures, we never exactly know what God is going to say to us; as the Word of God, we can echo St. Augustine from his Confessions that they are “ever ancient and ever new.” In my reflection with the readings for this weekend, I was drawn in a particular way to two words — that’s all! From the First Letter of St. John: “Beloved.” And in the Gospel, from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed.”

In the month of November, the Church calls the faithful to reflect on death. St. Benedict in his Rule reminds the monks to “Keep death before your eyes always.” This is not to be done out of fear but out of faith, hope and love.

Sadly, the world in which we live is really messed up. Fear, hate, discord, etc., etc., etc., pervades our society. But we who understand that we have been made with and through an intentional love, know that we are called into an eternal bliss. We are called to be saints! Hence why God refers to us as his “beloved”— those he loves!

Do we understand, I mean really, at our core, how much God loves us? Unfortunately, I don’t think we always do. But, HE DOES! Beyond anything we can possibly imagine. And the proper response to being loved is to love in return. Maybe this week, we don’t focus so much on trying to love others (always very, very important) but instead allow ourselves to be embraced by the love of God. This has to be an intentional act of the will and intellect, so it will take effort. We have to let God in and love us from the inside out.

When we allow ourselves to be loved by the One who IS love, it is then that we begin to find blessedness, beatitude, happiness! Being poor in spirit, or meek, or one who mourns doesn’t typically evoke happiness and joy, unless we get down to the heart of the matter — love!

On this November 1, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints — those individual, unique human persons whose names are lost to history, but who allowed themselves to be loved by God and who intentionally loved him in return, and so have received the gift of Heaven.

On Monday, November 2, we celebrate the Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed, those who have died with the hope of Heaven who still need some purification before they can enter into the perfection of Heavenly bliss.

And every day, in November and beyond, for us who still live in this “valley of tears,” let us “keep death before our eyes always” as we long to truly experience eternal bliss, where we will join all the angels and saints in praising God as his beloved and blessed.

Father Daniel Schomaker is pastor, Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ft. Mitchell and director, Office of Worship and Liturgy for the Diocese of Covington, Ky.

Our mess and the revelation of Divine Love

/in

Father Phillip DeVous

Guest

The twentieth century philosopher and theologian, Jacques Maritain observed, “nowadays the devil has made such a mess of everything…that the world will presently (soon) become uninhabitable for anybody but Saints. The rest will drag their lives out in despair…Christian heroism will one day become the sole solution to the problems of life.”

The life of heroic Christian holiness to which Maritain is referring always takes the form of close following of Jesus’ two greatest commandments. They are the non-negotiable core, as well as the summary of Christ’s teaching: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

There is no more vexed word in our language today than that of love. Silly sentiment abounds, completely bleaching out any real meaning to love. Consequently, if we are going to follow the way of Christ and live it heroically, being witnesses to what the real solution to the problems of life are, it is essential we recover a proper understanding of what the meaning of love is — as it is revealed by Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ reveals to us that, fundamentally, love is not understood to be a feeling. Love has a definite meaning and content that has been revealed in Christ. So, a Christian must purge his heart, soul and mind of all the bumper sticker slogans, Hallmark card sentiments, and social media memes that propagandize us in false, emotionally vacuous and profoundly superficial understandings of what love is.

To begin to understand love we must always start by paying close attention to the Word of God, gazing at the Cross, contemplating adoring the Eucharistic Christ, and offering ourselves in sacrificial service to others. Failing to do that, we will be drawn into the devil’s mess, treating love like a mere feeling, reducing both God and others to objects and making them idols to please us when we feel like it.

Christian love cannot essentially be a feeling because feelings cannot be commanded. I cannot command you to be happy or sad. Christ reveals to us that love is an action in accord with what is true and good. Christ further shows us that love is a sacrificial action in service of the true and the good. If Christ is who he says he is — the Son of God, the Word Made Flesh and the Divine Teacher — then he has the authority to command and create such love.

Considering this, what can be commanded is not feelings, but our choice, our decision, our resolution and our actions in accord with the choice for the love that Jesus Christ reveals and commands. We must note the love that Christ commands is total: “all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. The love being commanded here is total, which also means the sacrifice entailed and called for in such love will be total, both on His part and our own.

So, when Jesus commands us to love with all our heart, soul and mind, what he is commanding is that we love God with the entirety of our person; that we engage our every faculty in loving God; that we offer our whole self to God in love and hold nothing back. God claims our whole being for himself, not in the manner of a tyrant who wishes to exploit or annihilate us, but as a lover who deems us so precious that he will not tolerate the slightest capacity of our person going to waste.

The devil, and our collaboration with the devil through sin, has made a mess out of everything. And the mess that lies at the heart of everything is a totalizing confusion about the true nature of love. We are constantly tempted to us to reduce love’s demands; to avoid the radical revelation of Divine Love given by Jesus Christ.

Christian love is radical. It is a complete sacrifice of total gift, given to us right at the heart of the Holy Eucharist: “This is my body, which will be given up for you” and “Take this … the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for you.” This holy, eternal sacrifice of love is the source of that Christian heroism of the saints which will conquer the despair of the world. Radical love, after the pattern of his own, is what is Jesus commands of us. For the disciple, there is no alternative.

Father Phillip W. DeVous is the pastor of Sts. Peter & Paul Parish in California, KY.

The mission of the Church

/in

Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

These “Go and Glorify” columns generally focus on some aspect of the Sunday readings. This coming Sunday, however, is the Church’s annual observance of World Mission Sunday, so it seems appropriate to spend some time meditating on the theme of mission as it connects with the Church and its members.

We often speak of the Church’s mission, implying that Christ created the Church and gave her a mission. Various spiritual writers, Catholic and Protestant, have played with that idea in various ways. Some have remarked that the Church does not have a mission so much as she is a mission. Others have turned the words around and have written that the Church does not have a mission, but the mission has the Church. There is some value in playing with these ideas, but however one sees it, the Church and the mission are inseparable. The Second Vatican Council fathers even described the Church as missionary in her nature (<<Ad Gentes Divinitus, or Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church>>).

What is the mission of the Church? Pope Benedict has been quoted as saying that the Church does three things: she worships, cares for the poor, and evangelizes. While all three are woven together in many ways, the last two, and particularly the last, are what we normally think of as the missionary activity of the Church. Even her care for the poor is not discreet; always we have in mind the proclamation of the Good News.

World Mission Sunday is a day, as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia puts it, “set aside by the Catholic Church throughout the world to publicly renew its commitment to the missionary movements through prayer and donations.” On this Sunday we are reminded that there are women and men who have given their lives to spreading the Gospel in the world, and that they need our support, both of our prayers and sacrifices, and of our monetary donations.

It is nothing new that some are called by God to what we traditionally think of as missionary work and that others in the Church are asked to support them. Perhaps our first great missionary, St. Paul, wrote to the Philippians: “Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only; for even in Thessalonica you sent me help not once but twice.” (Phil 4:14-16)

It is worth highlighting a word Paul uses. We think of our donations as helping to fund some activity, and even our prayers for missionaries as support. It would be more helpful to think of Paul’s word — partnership. The work of missionaries is the work of the Church, so it is our work, too. When we provide monetary or spiritual help to missionaries we are partnering — taking our part — with them.

Those are not the only ways we can each take our part in the Church’s mission. We are called, too, to be missionaries of the Gospel to the world. Although it may look different than our picture of traditional missionaries, it is just as real. Consider this well-known prayer of St. John Henry Newman’s:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do his work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place . . .”

There is a question, then, that each of us is bound to ask: What mission has God assigned to me? How can I further God’s plan to bring the Gospel to everyone in the world — and that may not be someone in Africa or Appalachia; it may be my next-door neighbor or my barber or even a fellow parishioner. Whatever the work God has given us to do, our doing it will further the mission of the Church.

The Church offers us a choice of special prayers for this Sunday. The second option of a Collect for The Evangelization of Peoples includes the themes we have been considering in this article. May it inspire us.

O God, you have willed that your Church

be the sacrament of salvation for all nations,

so that Christ’s saving work may continue to the end of the ages;

stir up, we pray, the hearts of your faithful

and grant that they may feel a more urgent call

to work for the salvation of every creature,

so that from all the peoples on earth

one family and one people of your own

may arise and increase.

Let us pray for one another.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.

A wedding garment of mercy

/in

Deacon Greg Kandra

Guest

The parable we hear this Sunday is one of the most challenging in the Gospels —about an extravagantly generous king who throws a large wedding feast for his son. He invites anyone and everyone, only to take offense when one guest shows up improperly dressed.

There’s a lot to unpack here — about the king and, really, about ourselves.

Peel back the layers of this parable and you understand it’s about more than just fashionable wedding apparel. (Spoiler alert: Don’t go leafing through Modern Bride to decipher the meaning here!)

Commentators will tell you: the king in this story — God — is less interested in what we choose to wear; he is more concerned with how we choose to live and how we respond to his invitation, his call. Do we ignore him? Shrug him off? When God invites us to the feast, do we show up clothed with the very best we have to offer? Are we willing to make the effort?

I can’t help but be reminded of St. Paul’s advice to the Colossians, who used a garment metaphor to describe the Christian journey: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another … And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.”

So the real question here is: What do we choose to “wear” when we go into the world? Do we don righteousness a desire to live with holiness and humility and justice? Or do we just throw on indifference? What do we “put on” when God invites us to his feast? Do we clothe ourselves with the best we have, and offer the best we can be? Do we strive to wrap ourselves in holiness and faithfulness, compassion and mercy?

Pope Francis once described it this way, as a matter of grace: “The wedding garment,” the pope said, “symbolizes the mercy that God freely gives us, namely, grace. Without grace we cannot take a step forward in Christian life. Everything is grace. It is not enough to accept the invitation to follow the Lord; one must be open to a journey of conversion, which changes the heart. The garment of mercy, which God offers us unceasingly, is the free gift of his love; it is precisely grace. And it demands to be welcomed with astonishment and joy: ‘Thank you, Lord, for having given me this gift.'”

I think there is one more lesson to take away from this parable. It’s about the one who is extending the invitation. What kind of a king is this? How should we think of our God?

Jesus has described a ruler with limitless generosity. The king tells his servants, “Go out into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.” And the servants do just that, gathering “all they found, good and bad alike, and the hall was filled with guests.”

Here is a king willing to share the best of everything he has to offer with every soul in his kingdom. He does it with patience and, as Pope Francis said, mercy.

It may seem like this king has a stringent dress code. But what he really has is a code for living the spiritual life — a life spent working daily to make ourselves worthy of the invitation we’ve been given. That means extending to others the generosity and mercy our king offers us, and to show up at the feast with a spirit of faithfulness, gratitude and love.

So, don’t worry about what’s in your closet. In God’s kingdom, a desire to live a holy, faithful and loving life — a life of righteousness — is always in fashion.

Deacon Greg Kandra is an award-winning author and journalist, and creator of the blog “The Deacon’s Bench.”

What’s most important

/in

Father Daniel Schomaker

Guest

This past week I had the privilege of visiting the Eternal City, Rome. It was a time for me to slow down — which I found quite refreshing.

Normally I’m always going from one thing to another. On this trip I noticed something, and it was a point of many conversations amongst the other priests who were with me. The many visitors to the Vatican and surrounding Rome had almost no self-awareness. Walking through pictures, pushing to the front of the line, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, bumping into you, cutting you off, and so on. Everyone was in a rush.

I have to be honest; I did behave this way at least once because I couldn’t handle the crowd in St. Peter’s Square — I just had to get out. My own self-reflection suggests that this was very selfish. I had no concern for the other. I certainly felt that others had no concern for me.

Why have we gotten this way? I think it’s because we have fallen into the trap of the secular world — “look out for number one.” I am most important. I am the determining factor of what is right. I, I, I. Me, me, me.

The problem is that when we live for the self, we are actually hurting the self. None of us created the world, and none of us has saved it. Only God has done these things! And his command is this: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

In the Gospel today, the tenants tried to take that which wasn’t theirs. They were living for the self. In the end, it was their downfall. Let us be sure that as Christians we are living for the other — willing the good of the other — living lives of love.

And the reality is, it starts with really simple things. Good manners and kindness. Let’s start being self-aware, so that we can see others. How do we change the world? Start with changing yourself!

Father Daniel Schomaker is pastor, Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ft. Mitchell and director, Office of Worship and Liturgy for the Diocese of Covington, Ky.

Indifference to God, fascination with Christ

/in

Father Philip DeVous

Guest

Ultimately, everything depends on the God question. Faith is faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ or it is nothing. And to the extent we can grasp the nettle of the matter, it is that the crisis in the heart of modern man exists to the degree to which he is indifferent to God. That indifference to God, however, is often not met with a direct repudiation of Jesus Christ, but rather, by erecting a simulacrum of the savior — an idol — who approves our every whim to live as we will.

In recognizing this situation of deep indifference and idolatry, we must cry out anew with the Psalmist, “Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.”

No doubt, there are many reasons as to why people have grown indifferent to God. The reasons are as personal as every individual who has become indifferent. I think, however, we could sum up a great many of those reasons as distraction. After all, the world puts many titillating things before our eyes.

The passing world is very good indeed at making us forget that it is passing away. The sum of this relentless distraction leads us down the path of disinterest in Jesus Christ, inattentiveness to the things of the spirit, then on to indifference, and finally to a kind of blindness to God and to the presence of Christ in our midst. This is a constant pressure and temptation with which we all contend.

So, here are some questions to ask ourselves daily to avoid being pulled down the road of indifference to God and to the priority of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom: Do I find Jesus Christ interesting? Do I find Jesus Christ fascinating? Do I want to know more about Jesus Christ?

Every pastoral work of the Church is dead in the water if we do not find Jesus interesting and do not have a desire to really get to know him. It is a tragic irony that after more than a millennium of Christianity as the dominant religion in the Western world that the challenging person of Jesus Christ is now largely met with widespread disinterest, even by many claiming to have a relationship with Him. How many church related things do we engage with whereof Jesus Christ is barely spoken?

If there is to be a resurgence of faith in our time, which truly rediscovers the priority of Christ, taking faith beyond the routine and superficial, it will only start when we again find Jesus fascinating. And, it must be said, Jesus Christ is fascinating!

Let us pray to hear the words of St. Paul with fresh, inquisitive ears when he says: “(Christ Jesus) Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, something to be grasped.”

In this single sentence we have two claims that were revolutionary in St. Paul’s time and our own. First, that Jesus is God. The God of the Israelites was understood as majestic, so holy that not even His name was to be said, lest one offend with blasphemy. Though He cared for Israel, the chosen people, he was to be carefully approached and attended to. The apostle is saying this Jesus is that God. The Lord. The Creator.

Second, even though Jesus is the God of Israel, He “did not regard equality with God.”

Why?

“…Because he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and human in appearance.” Now whatever one may think about this claim, is this not a fascinating claim? That the all-holy Eternal God from whom all things were made, through whom the entire cosmos was fashioned, set aside His glory to take the form of a slave, to approach us.

Faith can only be sustained if we find Jesus interesting. When we pursue that interest in prayer, worship, fellowship, service and study, our fascination with Jesus grows. Consequently, we find ourselves more willing to listen to Him, to live more of our life “through him, and with him and in him.” Allowing ourselves to be led from indifference to interest, and then onwards to fascination, we become more desirous and willing to bend the knee, and to let the entirety of our lives confess “that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Father Phillip W. DeVous is pastor of Sts. Peter & Paul Parish in California, KY.

The goal of Christian life

/in

Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

In the last few weeks, we have heard individual lessons that will aid our growth as Christians. For example, last weekend: forgive over and over (77 times in the translation we heard, seventy times seven in other translations); the weekend before that: if your brother sins against you, tell him his sin first privately, if he does not listen to you, with others, but not to retaliate, but to convert him; the weekend before that: there is nothing more important than one’s eternal life.

But while focusing on individual lessons is important, the danger is that our lives as Christians becomes just another version of if I-want-to-get-to-heaven-I-must-do-this-and-this-and-this. There is an overarching lesson that makes sense of all the individual lessons and can inspire us with the overall goal of our Christian faith; we hear it today in the first reading.

God says today through Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,/ nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord./ As high as the heavens are above the earth,/ so high are my ways above your ways/ and my thoughts above your thoughts.” (Is 55:8-9) If only this truth could become most prominent in our minds, we would be well on the way to holiness!

To understand this, we must understand the purpose and goal of the Christian life — it is not to become a good person, but to be transformed.

There are different ways to describe this transformation. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes it as changing from bearing the image of the “earthly man” to the image of the “heavenly man”:

“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust [Adam]; the second man is from heaven [Jesus]. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” (1 Cor 15:47-50)

How does this transformation take place? We heard this a few weeks ago (22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time) from Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind …” (Rom 12:2) In the Gospel of the same Sunday Jesus put it this way to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! … You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matt 16:23)

It is vitally important to know — lest our spirituality become muscular, so to speak, and Pelagian — that this kind of transformation is not something that we do, but something that happens to us. We have a part to play, but that part is what we do to open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

Regularly reading and meditating on Scripture is essential. How can we know the mind of God if we ignore the books that teach us that mind?

Prayer is next, of course, where God speaks directly to our soul and communicates what He wants us to do.

Finally, practice. The more we seek to live as the prophets and saints and, especially, Jesus, teach us, the more habitual a holy life will become.

Let us learn the individual lessons that come through the scriptures but let us keep in the mind the overarching purpose of the Christian life, to become people who think the way God thinks and value what God values, so that we may become like him.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.

We gain when we forgive

/in

Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

One of the most difficult things Christ to do for one another is to forgive one another. There can be a desire to hold onto that grudge, because the person has done something so horribly to us and is not deserving of our mercy and forgiveness. They have caused a wound within us that may never fully heal, or at the very least will leave a nasty scar. While it is true that some wounds take so long to heal (if they ever fully heal at all), nevertheless, we are still called to forgive all who have wronged us, because God has chosen to forgive us of all the wrongs that we have done, as well as the fact that when we choose to forgive, our hearts are set free from the imprisonment that wrath and resentment causes.

This is the essential teaching in our readings this weekend, particularly in our Gospel reading from Matthew 18:21-35. In this passage, Peter asks Jesus how often we must forgive those who wrong us. “As many as seven times?” he asks (18:21). Now, we have to keep in mind that in Peter’s eyes, as well as the eyes of the Jewish audience to whom Jesus is speaking and Matthew is writing, forgiving someone seven times is already seen as extremely generous. At this time, many rabbis considered forgiving someone three times to be sufficient. However, Jesus goes even further. He tells Peter, “not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (18:22; also translated as “seventy times seven”). By using this extremely high number, Jesus is not intending to put a hard limit on the number seventy-seven or four hundred ninety. Instead, it seems more likely that he is using hyperbole that would have been even more emphatic at his time to emphasize the need for a limitless mercy for those who have wronged us.

That is when he goes into one of the most beautiful parables of Matthew’s Gospel: the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, where we hear about this servant who owed his master “a huge amount” (18:24), but was forgiven of his debt by his master. In the original Greek for this passage, it actually says the amount that the servant owed and is translated in other versions of this passage: “a myriad of talents.” A myriad was the equivalent of the number 10,000, while a talent was a unit of measurement for denarii. The denarius was the equivalent of a day’s wages. Now, a talent was worth 6,000 denarii, so that meant that this servant owed his master 10,000 talents, which equates to 60,000,000 denarii. That is the equivalent of over 160,000 years of wages that he owed! He was never going to pay that back, and yet the master chooses to completely forgive him of the debt when the servant begs him to give him more time. That is an incredible act of mercy on the part of the master!

However, when this servant met another servant who owed him “a much smaller amount” (only 100 denarii), rather than showing that same mercy he received, instead, he forces the servant to pay him what he owes. The master is not happy when he hears this news and tells the servant, “I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” (18:32-33). He then throws him in prison until he is able to pay back the full debt, which is ultimately never.

When we choose not to forgive those who have wronged us, the truth is that we are very much like this unforgiving servant. In reality, while our neighbor can certainly do some horrible things to us, the debt that they owe us pales in comparison to the debt that we owe God when we sin against him, who is an infinite God. Our sins against that infinite God thus bear infinite value, and yet, God still chooses to forgive us. That is the same mercy we are to show to one another.

That said, there is another thing that choosing to forgive our neighbor does for us: it frees our hearts from the prison of resentment and wrath. Ultimately, what do we gain when we choose to hold a grudge against someone and refuse to forgive them? We do not gain anything. In fact, we lose something: the peace that is meant to reign within our hearts. We allow that person’s sin against us to have power over us. However, when we choose to forgive someone of the debt that they owe us, we reject that power and instead choose to live in the freedom of the children of the Father. We choose to look past the evil the person has done and ask God to intervene in their lives to transform them into the person that he wants them to be. We gain nothing in refusing to forgive one another. We gain everything when we choose to forgive as the Lord himself has chosen to forgive us.

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.

Fraternal correction

/in

Father Daniel Schomaker

Guest

On this 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time the Church calls us to reflect on “fraternal correction.” We need a little context to understand Jesus’ teaching. Immediately preceding the passage for Holy Mass this weekend, is the story of the lost sheep — where only one of a hundred is lost. And Jesus tells his disciples (us): “It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.” (Mt. 18: 14b)

Being lost in the spiritual life is multifaceted. Sometimes, it means abandoning the Way that leads to Heaven. Or, being deceived into thinking you are on the right path though you aren’t. We might find ourselves searching but end up wandering around aimlessly instead. And sometimes we can be on the right path, we just get turned around and are facing the wrong way, or we have stumbled and fallen on our face!

All of this “lostness” is the consequence of sin. Living contrary to our nature — which is willing the good of the other — and instead giving into the ego and living for the self. The Lord Jesus, does not accept us being lost, and comes seeking us out.

Too often in our society we forget that our selfish actions, our sins, have an effect not just on ourselves, but on the community of believers — the Church. And so, Jesus teaches us how to correct the bad behavior of a disciple and heal the hurt caused to the Church.

It starts privately! Not on social media as is so often the case today! As Jesus’ disciples, we are not called to shame or humiliate each other, but to love. Remember what we learn in the Scriptures: the love the disciples had for one another lead to the “adding of those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:47b) Shaming a brother or sister in Christ can be a detriment to the apostolic mission.

If the correction isn’t accepted, then Jesus calls us to take one or two others with us to give witness to the facts of the bad behavior. This is in keeping with the Law found in the Book of Deuteronomy. It is still quiet, private.

Only when there is obstinance in the one who is sinning is it brought to the authority of the Church — those who have the power to bind and to loose. And then if there is not conversion and reconciliation does Jesus command that they be cut off from communion. It is from Jesus that we get the practice of excommunication.

This sounds extremely harsh on the part of Jesus, but all sin is a barrier to communion. But there is in fact a positive side to this being “cut off” from the Church. The sinner is returned to the state of one who is in need of evangelization. They then get to hear the Gospel proclaimed again. And hopefully more clearly so that they can be returned to the communion of disciples and reintegrated into the Church. Remember, sometimes the healing process can be difficult, and the medicine doesn’t always taste good.

There is nothing that cannot be healed and forgiven. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Father Daniel Schomaker is pastor, Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ft. Mitchell and director, Office of Worship and Liturgy for the Diocese of Covington, Ky.

Possible, though difficult

/in

Bishop Emeritus Foys

Guest

Jesus has asked His disciples what people were saying about Him. Who do they say that He is. They answer that some think He is John the Baptist come back from the dead or one of the great prophets or Elijah come back to earth. But YOU, Jesus says — who do YOU say that I am. Silence, broken by Peter, who proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who is to come, the Savior of the world! Jesus commends Peter which must have made Peter feel honored indeed. He’s riding high!

Then, Jesus tells His disciples that they are on the way to Jerusalem where Jesus will suffer and die. Well, Peter was having none of that. Absolutely not! He had just been singled out as the rock upon which Jesus was going to build His Church and Peter was to play an important role in that. Jesus suffer and die? Preposterous, It didn’t fit Peter’s narrative. After all, this was a glorious moment. Jesus was going to lead the disciples to a great victory over those oppressing them.

And what was the response of Jesus to Peter’s outburst that “no such thing will ever happen to You?” (Matt 16:22) “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matt 16:23) Wow! Talk about a quick fall from favor. One minute Peter is going to be the leader of (in Peter’s mind) a great revolution and in the next minute he is told to get behind the master because he doesn’t grasp the reality of who Jesus really is.

Jesus then goes on to tell His disciples that those who want to follow him must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him. (Matt 16:24) Jesus was very clear that following Him would entail sacrifice. The love that Jesus has for His Father in heaven and that Jesus has for us is a sacrificial love. Jesus gave his life up — literally and figurately — for the love of His Father and for love of us. Can we do any less?

Peter was not a bad person and was certainly dedicated to Jesus and to His mission. But, as Jesus told him, he was thinking as human beings do and not as God does. Jesus’ words and the prediction of His suffering and death did not fit Peter’s narrative, did not fit his image of who Jesus is and what Jesus ought to do.

Do we sometimes do the same regarding the Lord and other people? We pray, thinking that God needs to answer our prayers in the way we think He should. And should God not answer them in that way we become discouraged, disheartened, and maybe, just maybe, angry. We think like human beings and not like God Who always has our best interests at heart.

And what about our perception and expectation of other people? What expectations do we have of them. Do they measure up to the person we think they should be? Do they fit our narrative? And if they don’t, how do we respond? Do we try to change them? Do we write them off because they are not who we think they ought to be? And how would we feel if someone did that to us?

Jesus tells us that if we want to come after Him we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. That cross will take many forms. At times it will seem too much for us to bear. At times it will mean accepting people and loving them and caring for them where they are. It will mean accepting the Lord without reservation and making Him our first and only priority. It will mean denying ourself and becoming selfless instead of selfish. It will mean thinking as God does and not as human beings.

Possible? Certainly. For all things are possible with God. Difficult? Sometimes. Worth it? Without a doubt!

Most Rev. Roger J. Foys, D.D. is Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Covington, Ky.