Many years ago now, when I was a college student, I came across an interview with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The journalist was asking her about the Muslims and Hindus among whom she lived. Why hadn’t she tried to convert them? Didn’t it matter what religion we belong to? Shouldn’t she care about their souls? Her response has always stuck with me.

She told the interviewer - in so many words - that when people have no questions in their lives, then God must be reaching them exactly where they were. If they have not the least doubt about it, then this must be the way for their salvation. But, the moment that they have a question… that this was a grace from God, and the person was obligated to pursue that question, to search further. A question is an invitation, drawing the person on a journey closer to God. If the person doesn’t pursue a question given to him, then he goes astray.

A question is a grace.

In today’s reading from the book of Acts, Paul seems to have a similar insight.

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(Acts 7:51-8:1a & John 6:30-35)

This past weekend was a glorious weekend here in Saint Louis. It was perfect weather for a hike at the arboretum with a good friend. With all the rain we’ve had, the world was certainly coming alive! To begin with, it was daffodil weekend and it was the weekend for blood-root to bloom – a small daisy-like flower stretching about 2-3 inches from the wood’s floor. We saw the false and the “real” rue anemone, the pale corydalis, and the dogtooth lily. The blooms for trillium and Jacob’s ladder were both on the edge of bursting their seams. And not only were the woods a feast for the eyes, but a feast for the ears as well…

Pseudacris crucifer!

Kind of sounds like an incantation from a Harry Potter movie!

Pseudacris crucifer!

In Martha’s Vineyard they are called “pinkletinks”, in Boston they are known as “tinkletoes” and in eastern Missouri they bear the most popular name…spring peeper! One tiny frog –with one big voice – no bigger than ¾ to about 1 ½ inch in length with a very prominent “X” on its back. It can out-sing a chorus in the middle of the woods! It is the chorus in the middle of the woods! They call to the world by pushing air out of sacks in their throat, and then drawing it quickly back in to make two distinct notes: “peep out” and “peep in”. The sacs expand to about the size of a quarter – almost the size of the frog itself. Breathing deeply out and in…out and in…giving voice.

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we are drawn into the last moments of Stephen’s life and death. And for the many times that I read the readings, sat with them, reflected on them and studied about them, as one trained at Aquinas Institute of Theology is wont to do, I remained struck…or perhaps stuck on the silence of Saul…the palpable silence of Saul. Oh so very different from the very thick choral selection I heard over the weekend…

His silence stands in stark contrast to Stephen’s discourse which directly precedes today’s reading and which eloquently recounts once again for all to hear the story of our salvation history, our faith from Abraham to Joseph to Moses to Joshua to the house of David.

His silence stands in stark contrast to those silences with which I am quite comfortable: the silence necessary for reflection, the silence we move to in prayer, the silence I experience waiting on a response to a question offered in class to students, or the silence of someone in the midst of deep grief — all palpable and at times seemingly unyielding – yet with these I am oh so much more at ease.

But Saul’s silence is stark…and consenting…

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Taken alongside other Pauline passages where Paul clearly teaches that Jesus is the fullness of revelation and the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15 and 2:9) we have a remarkable bit of theological insight to tease out here.

Could it be that Paul is suggesting that the Triune Mystery offers itself in a kind of kenosis in the person of the Word? Is the footwashing Jesus demonstrating this profound stooping down on the part of the Godhead?

Usual theological thought connects this reference to Jesus in his self-emptying to the cross. Following this lead can take us to some remarkable fresh Trinitarian insights.

On the cross the Word of God, expression of the Godhead, is made mute. The particular form of capital punishment that is crucifixion executes its victims through eventual suffocation. The torso weighs heavily on the rib cage, preventing the lungs from filling with air. Air is need for speech. One dying in such a manner finds it hard, perhaps impossible to talk.

So the first observation is that the Word of God is being silenced. The general posture is remarkable. Many cultures know the parent-child game of “How much do you love me…?” Finally the child’s arms stretch out wide with the declaration “This much!” Seemingly emptied out of its very identity as Word, the body of the crucified Word speaks with a directness beyond speech.

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And as he writes once again, with hope that it has not all fallen apart in the meantime, he thinks of the motley crowd he has left behind and whether they may already be at one another’s throats. His sparkling words with mysterious meanings by which he wishes to inspire confidence and cohesion will probably miss their mark and lead to confusion and disenchantment. How will a coalition of down-and-outs and rejects be able to link with the idealists and do-gooders from the upper class? Can such a mixture of oil and water keep a flame alive for the time in-between? His words begin to flow again onto the page, his own and yet not his own, as if someone whispers directions from the back of his over-active brain. Darkness and light, can they see it; can they grasp what they are being offered? More than flesh with god-like potential. A promise that will take them beyond the suffering and unfulfilled desires of this world. He pauses for a moment and asks himself, now who am I writing to in this letter? What city; what country? What’s the difference? They will probably not read it anyway. It will be used as scrap to start the cook fire. Why bother? Can it all matter in the end? Ah well, I must nevertheless write; I must try to give some guidance. They have listened to me and heard something. They need to understand more. They are still in the dark about so much. Sometimes they seem like lost sheep, without a shepherd.

Listen:
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Based on 2 Timothy 1:8-10

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

The provisions of the motu proprio of Benedict XVI, Summorum pontificum, to enrich the worship of the Church through the universal permission of priests of the Latin rite to celebrate Mass (as well as the Divine Office and the other sacraments) according to the books in force in 1962, have been in many places across the world warmly received. There have been, however, some reservations and concerns, and most pointedly as regards the prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the liturgy for Good Friday. While some of that anxiety was misplaced or based on false notions of the wording of the prayer, much of the concern was directed to its actual text. Does it make sense, some wondered, to speak of the blindness of the Jewish people, or of a veil over their hearts, since the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with non-Christian religions? Is it not more in keeping with contemporary thought to pray, for the promises to Abraham and his posterity in light of God’s faithfulness to his covenant, as does the Missal revised under Paul VI after the Council?

On February 5, 2008, Benedict XVI declared that, for those using the 1962 Missal, the prayer for the Jews is to be revised. Now the faithful are called to pray for the Jews that God our Lord should enlighten their hearts so they might recognize Jesus Christ, the Savior of all men, and that God, who wishes that none be lost and all come to the knowledge of the truth, would grant that when the fullness of the peoples has entered into the Church, all of Israel might be saved. While the revision has only just been announced and so remains untested in practice, this has not prevented a flurry of public reaction, some quite negative, whether by traditionalists who mourn the further alteration of this ancient prayer or by those who regard the changes as merely cosmetic and not in line with the Church’s current teaching on the Jews and salvation.

While people of good will might well differ on these matters, what seems to be lost in much of the debate is how deeply Pauline all three of these prayers are. Read the rest of this entry »

Since the Pauline readings are, thematically speaking, unrelated to the Gospel for any given Sunday in Ordinary Time, many preachers tend to ignore them. This is, to my way of thinking, inadvisable. If we believe that Paul is indispensable — that we think the way we do about God, Christ, the Spirit, grace, charism, ministry, mission, and community because Paul has taught us how to do so — then, our failure to interpret his words means we risk misinterpreting them.

For I do believe that proclamation is never enough, whether we are proclaiming selections from the Torah, the Prophets, the Gospels, the letters of Paul, or any other Biblical text. Differences in language, culture and context make the task of interpretation absolutely essential. An uninterpreted text will be — mark my words — a misinterpreted text.

So what’s a preacher to do? Read the rest of this entry »

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Based on 1 Corinthians 2: 26-31

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’

The privileged venue in which most Catholics encounter the writings of Paul is the Sunday liturgy during Ordinary Time. And, over the course of our three-year cycle of readings, we do read a great deal of the Pauline literature in the second reading.

In Cycle A, for instance, we read chapters 1-4 of 1 Corinthians over the course of seven weeks, followed by sixteen weeks of selections from the Letter to the Romans, four weeks from the Letter to the Philippians and five weeks from 1 Thessalonians.

In Cycle B, we read selections from 1 Corinthians 6-11 over the course of five weeks, then eight weeks of selections from 2 Corinthians, followed by six weeks of readings from the Letter to the Ephesians, with the remaining weeks of the year given over to Hebrews and James.

In Cycle C, the year begins with seven weeks of readings from 1 Corinthians, followed by six weeks of lections from Galatians, and four weeks of readings from Colossians. Cycle C includes at this point four weeks of readings from Hebrews 11-12, and then resumes its Pauline reading with one week of Philemon, three weeks from 1 Timothy, four weeks of 2 Timothy, and three weeks of selections from 2 Thessalonians.

From one point of view, this is quite comprehensive. Catholics are exposed to selections from every letter either written by Paul himself, or subsequently attributed to him (save, curiously, for Titus, which receives no attention in the Sundays of Ordinary Time). Preachers thus have ample opportunity to address issues that come up in the Pauline or deutero-Pauline letters.

So what’s the problem?
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