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Daily Scripture

+ Feast of the Birth of Mary

We have the best and the worst among our ancestors>

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. [Romans 8:28]

You will recognize the gospel passage as the one we usually avoid, assuming it has nothing to offer contemporary Christians. However, it does have a purpose beyond tracing the lineage of Jesus to David. It is not a scientific genealogy so don’t attempt to ‘prove’ it scientifically.

It’s a mixed bag at best. There are saints and sinners among the list but they are all ancestors of Jesus through Mary. It’s odd that on this feast of the birth of Mary that we read the genealogy of Joseph because it is through Joseph not Mary that Jesus is connected to David.

I suppose we are all connected at least spiritually. The late great Seton Hall professor and convert to Christianity, Msgr. Osteriecher, used to remind us frequently that we are all spiritual Semites, i.e., we are Judeo-Christians and therefore trace our lineage through David to Abraham.

And that’s why we claim Mary as our spiritual mother. Indeed, she is.

Beyond that, it’s good for us to be reminded that few if any of us are of pure breed. We often refer to our family as a “Heinz 57” family because like the food brand, we have at least 57 different nationalities among our ancestors, not all of them saints, to be sure. But whenever we got together for a ‘family’ event, we were one. I hosted the last family reunion at St. Joseph several years ago for over 200 relatives comprising four generations.

It’s never too late to give thanks for our heritage.

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'B'

Sunday July 19, 2009

We are shepherds one to another.

It is our belief as Catholics that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and was written for all times, for all seasons and for every age. Moreover, although the biblical authors wrote with a particular purpose in mind called a ‘literary bias’ and even with specific intentional applications, Scripture scholars agree that God had other purposes and applications far beyond those of the inspired authors. This is called ‘sensus plenior’ or broader meaning. The broader truth gradually unfolds as we peel off the layers of meaning over time.

Nevertheless, biblical authors in both the Old and New Testaments were aware that new meanings and applications could be assigned to ancient stories and in fact did put a different spin or twist on old stories in order to instruct people of a later time, place and set of circumstances.

We do the same thing with our family stories. It’s not that we twist the truth. We expand the truth and tweak the details so that their underlying meaning and the perennial lessons of life are not lost.

This is called ‘redaction’ or ‘retelling’ the story “with a ‘sacred’ spin,” as it were. In the same way that contemporary writers are influenced by the circumstances in which they live, so too biblical authors were affected by what was going on around them and so they reached back into ancient literature citing past incidents of what they believed to be God’s intervention as examples of how God continually interacts with individuals, communities, governments and institutions both secular and religious. Moreover, Luther was not completely wrong in suggesting that individual believers can find in the inspired Scriptures, unique applications to their own spiritual lives. Saint Benedict called this ‘lectio divina, or a prayerful reading of the Scriptures.

That having been stated, the texts this weekend are both challenging and consoling.

God continues to have high expectations for the ‘shepherds’ who are charged with the responsibility to lead his people. No, God does not expect perfection. As St. Paul pointed out just two weeks ago in his second letter to the Corinthians, “I am content with my weaknesses in order that he power of Christ may dwell with me; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

But God appears not to be patient with mediocrity.

Jeremiah used very strong words in his ‘attack’ on the shepherds of Israel: “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pastures, says the Lord…. I will punish your evil deeds. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock… I will appoint true shepherds for them who will lead them…” And then he revisits the story of David’s unusual call — David, the young shepherd called out of time and order to be the shepherd-king of the united Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. We in the Christian era find a broader meaning (sensus plenior) in Jeremiah’s prophetic words and see in David, the prototype of Jesus, servant and shepherd not just of Israel but of all humanity. But even the great David had his ‘Achilles heal’ and succumbed to human weakness and his lustful urgings and even covered up his crime with murder.

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul elaborates on Christ’s role as the shepherd of shepherds, presenting him as the model for all times and every age. “For he is our peace, he who made us one and broke down the dividing wall of hatred… that he might create in himself one new person, establishing peace reconciling us with God…” In other words, it is Jesus who ultimately shepherds us and to the extent that our earthly shepherds identify with him and speak his words, they are to be honored and respected and challenged when they do not.

Notice in the Gospel how Jesus invites the apostles to a quiet place to review their ministry to hear about how their partnership with him was unfolding. Jesus held them accountable for their stewardship. Notice too how the apostles reported what “they” had done giving the impression that their mission and ministry was rooted in their own effort rather than in the power of Christ. They failed to recognize that they were sent in the name of Christ who empowered them to preach and teach and celebrate the sacred mysteries entrusted to them.

And yet the more things change, the more they remain the same. The Church is a work in progress. Even the Pope can lose his bearings, suffer a mishap and break bone now and then. It’s an apt metaphor for the popes in history who lost their scriptural bearings and balance. The shepherds of the Church are not perfect and are not exempt from the human weaknesses that have plagued humanity throughout the course of human history.

In recent years we have witnessed the devastating worldwide effects of sin in the abuse of innocent children by some clergy and religious, rightly called the slaughter of the souls of the innocent and the subsequent cover-up by church officials. Matthew records Jesus’ severe warning to those who would bring harm to a child: “Better for them that they had never been born!”

But much good can come from even the most heinous crime when good people take their own shepherding role seriously. We have awoken to the fact that at Baptism, each of us was invited into a unique partnership with God in Christ. Ultimately, God speaks the loudest in the human heart.

Institutional reform is necessary and long before Luther we find in ancient ecclesiastical writings the phrase, “Ecclesia semper reformanda est” – the Church is always in need of reform—but institutional reform is not enough. We need to be renewed internally in the Spirit of Christ the Shepherd who is our true pastor — pastor of the universal Church, the pastor of this diocese and the pastor of this parish.

There are movements and initiatives within the Church and outside the Church that seek to bring together believers from both sides of the aisle to reflect how we can remain faithful to our Christian call within the Catholic tradition. Church leaders need to take care lest the Church become spiritually totalitarian. This is why they must respect the ‘sensus fidelium,’ that is, the sense of how the faithful receive the teachings of our tradition. This is what Vatican II was all about – the Church in dialogue with the faithful. This dialogue exercised in charity in the pursuit of truth can lead to a new truth appropriate to a new set of circumstances.

As individuals Catholics, we need to keep ourselves informed. We do not leave our brains or our intellect at the door of the church when we enter. We need to listen to the voice of the Spirit in the depths of our hearts in prayer. We also need to watch our script. It is not just what we say or do that matters but how we say and do it. You come into this assembly week after week and some of you, day after day not to be harassed or hassled but to be challenged by the Word of God and to be empowered by it to go out and live your vocation in the world. This is the essential mission of the Church as shepherd.

We all need to be affirmed by and encouraged to speak to our leaders about the “hopes and joys, the anxieties and sorrows of the people of our age.” [Church in the Modern World, Vatican II, 1966] The Spirit lives within the whole Church not just in our shepherds but we need our shepherds to articulate our hopes and dreams and to empathize with our pain and struggles that we may indeed come to know and live the compassion of Christ the shepherd.

We are indeed partners with God in Christ in our common mission to transform the world into a place where truth and justice can reign in genuine charity. Christ is our true shepherd “for through him we have access in one Spirit to the God” who has called us together to show forth his goodness and love to a world estranged from itself.

May his peace reign in our hearts today and always in your heart and in mine.