Those two years since Jocelyn died went by fast, though not hurried, more like dragged, scraped along by a racing memory gripping a vein attached to our hearts. This is not bad news, nor good, just the description of relentless time being damaged as it furiously marches on. OK, so it’s mostly bad.

Then, there’s this:

She’s likely happy as a clam.

The family is still wrecked, distanced by the exhaustion of processing and dealing, as they say. Yet, a little less. Distanced also by blossoming new family structures, branched out from the two old folks who planted the tree 53 years ago. That development is all lovely. We’re marching forward rather than dragged. Dancing and singing are involved. It’s really good stuff.

I have happy days, and see happiness in each grandchild. Joanne holds onto me still. We smile at Josie/Jocelyn's memories now. Not quite as often as grief allows. Sheesh, it’s so relentless.

We treasure the hugs from Xander, which we get most weeks. God, that man is great. Judy reaches for us and holds on, and now Phil, a much-needed light in our family. Got one from Jill just weeks ago, in Denver. Twice. All the grandkids are huggers, even when they don’t really want to. You can tell they have good hugging skills, though.

Thank you, those who I see have similar pains in your eyes, who have many more years at whispy, emotional carriage. You know how to care, and we all appreciate it. None of us wants the ability to recognize deep, heavy loss, but it’s endemic. (Sorry for the “but” — poor writing, so Jenelle taught me — left it in anyway — maybe she’ll call me).

Shattered, but sturdier. Weepy, but unashamed, followed by a good gaze out the window, and things to do.

Xander gave me some 20 boxes of Jocelyn’s books to slowly go through. Five boxes have already been opened and perused, and she continues to astonish me. Anglo-Saxon Spirituality? Who knew.

I didn’t do a Christmas letter last year. This isn’t a replacement or an apology. It’s June 23.

I haven’t started talking to her. I’m thinking she’s still pretty busy getting acquainted with the unimaginable. Like when she went on a retreat or flew off to Taiwan. It’ll have to wait until I catch up to her. The Holy Spirit is talking to me about her, though. Not a report or anything. Just whimsical images. Giggles. The things I need.

God bless you.

You might think about the three things I’ve been holding onto, if you’re of a similar mind. First, Jesus is not nervous. That’s a good one to know. No matter what’s happened or is going on, Jesus is aware and locked and loaded. Second, the Holy Spirit is a big fan of Guardian Angels, as much as Jesus, actually. I didn’t know that until just recently. Third, the Father knows how to do that whole fathering thing so well. All of us, men and women, want to be so much like Jesus, but we men really want to be good fathers.

The thing about the Father is that he isn’t ashamed of us, or disappointed, or too busy. Ever. Never entered his mind. Isn’t that great?

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The journal of Ahab’s malicious reign, compared to the catalog of our many-faceted positions of authority, might not appear similar. Yet, as baptized Catholics and Christians, and as father/mother, son/daughter, friend/neighbor, supervisor, and so on, in both family lineage and anointed roles, we have as many responsibilities as this ancient man. His legacy is a warning signal for those of us who fail to recant, repent, reconcile, and influence those we love.

Tuesday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time
1 Kings 21:17-29
Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 11 and 16
Matthew 5:43-48

Today’s dramatic report of repentance in the scriptures portrays God as merciful and just. That justice shivers our timbers. We hear the rebuke that forced Ahab’s hand, and cringe as we follow the trajectory of these biblical reports with our own lives in mind. It’s difficult to position ourselves within the frame of Ahab, as if we are similar to his ilk. Yet, our similarities are not such a stretch as you’d think.

Indeed, no one gave himself up to the doing of evil
in the sight of the LORD as did Ahab,
urged on by his wife Jezebel. (1Kings 21:25)

That’s not a list of evil doers we want to be on. Ahab tops it. His wife, Jezebel, does him no favors. Can we imagine this for us?

He became completely abominable by following idols,
just as the Amorites had done,
whom the LORD drove out before the children of Israel. (1Kings 21:26)

The journal of Ahab’s malicious reign, compared to the catalog of our many-faceted positions of authority, might not appear similar. Yet, as baptized Catholics and Christians, and as father/mother, son/daughter, friend/neighbor, supervisor, and so on, in both family lineage and anointed roles, we have as many responsibilities as this ancient man. His legacy is a warning signal for those of us who fail to recant, repent, reconcile, and influence those we love.

Ahab served as one of the 19 kings of Northern Israel for 20 years. Scholars debate the exact timeline, but their combined research confirms his existence sometime between 869 and 853 BC, 150 years and six kings after the united Israel under David split after Solomon’s worsening reign at the end of his life.

His foibles and fraught behavior, marked by deception and anger, are not far from the relationship and authority skirmishes we have had. How often have we exhibited behaviors that rolled God’s eyes? Maybe we’ve stopped short of murder, but sin is sin.

Ahab wasn’t alone in his immoral and murderous rule. Practically every King of both Israel and Judah was a cad, and only a few recanted. Sins of pride, pleasure, and idols drove a wedge, rupturing the loving relationship between God and the authorities he anointed. By Ahab’s time, God declared that the gig was up.

I don’t think I’m the only one who has felt God’s disappointment, though this next verse and a half hopefully won’t fit God’s anger with any of us.

Because you have given yourself up to doing evil in the LORD’s sight,
I am bringing evil upon you: I will destroy you
and will cut off every male in Ahab’s line,
whether slave or freeman, in Israel. (1Kings 21:20-21)

Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, was a deceptive and horrifying woman, aligned fiercely with Baal, the devil’s mocked visage of evil in a god. Jezebel’s name is famously attached to the worst of the worst in a woman’s character. Her fate surpassed Ahab’s. Biblical commentary cites her as a harlot and sorcerer. No repentant was she. In a religious community, her and Ahab’s rule was an affront to God.

“The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the district of Jezreel.” (1Kings 21:23)

Elijah, the prophet who listened to God, proclaimed this horrifying condemnation. As with many Old Testament prophets, Elijah did not enjoy an easygoing relationship with the nation he was appointed to mentor. If you’ve run a company, been lord or lady of a household, or a member of a family of more than one person, you likely know what unhappy wisdom and counsel will bring you if you speak up when you’re supposed to. What’s worse? That we didn’t speak up, or we did?

Elijah had just returned from a self-imposed exile. He did not expect joy from this encounter. Still, he did what God asked. Amazingly, and out of the blue, Ahab repents.

When Ahab heard these words, he tore his garments
and put on sackcloth over his bare flesh.
He fasted, slept in sackcloth, and went about subdued. (1Kings 21:27)

Hallelujah, right? Well, as God’s forgiveness plays out and his knowledge of the future becomes evident, we find that mercy encounters speed bumps we erect. If not laid by us, they will be by our descendants.

Since he has humbled himself before me,
I will not bring the evil in his time.
I will bring the evil upon his house during the reign of his son. (1Kings 21:29)

The failures of Ahab’s lineage explain the resulting consequences that follow repentance. So too with us.

God will repair everything that we fret about when we cry out for mercy. But repentance leads to cooperation with God, and unfortunately, repairs are often violent and destructive. If you’ve ever remodeled a kitchen or renovated a deck off the side of your house, you know what I’m talking about. The new build looks great, but the process of getting there affected you and your family, your neighbors, and your friends. “Will this ever get finished!” Almost always forgotten is that renovations require ongoing maintenance.

In Ahab’s family, no, the repairs didn’t get finished, and no one kept up any renovations that began with Ahab.

Such was the effect of Ahab’s damage, a pattern that didn’t get adjusted. God wasn’t able to repair any of it. The next 12 kings of the Northern Kingdom seldom called upon God. Ahab may have repented, but few others did. Eventually, the dastardly lives of Ahab’s descendants end in disaster. When Hoshea’s line ended in 722, so did any further generations of Ahab. The entire institution of the Northern Kingdom cratered.

Some of us look to our pasts and our roles as fathers, mothers, brothers, wives, and friends. It’s a long list with multiple and intimate connections. We are charged with orchestrating a loving leadership of a family, as husband and father, wife and mother. We also attend to follower roles in the orchestra of siblings and friendships. We are led by others. How are we doing as supporting members of a cast?

Calumny, foibles, and errors of all kinds force us into a constant string of apologies and reconciliations. We’re not ‘perfect’ is an understatement. Do we follow Ahab’s lead and publicly reconcile? Not always. Often, we ignore the apology, wishing the infraction and embarrassment away. By doing so, we leave behind wastelands.

The lessons of Ahab’s humbled penitance speak volumes. It’s not so much how many times we failed as it is how ignorant we’ve been when burdened by our miseries and not paid attention to the needs and necessary love those around us both need and wish to express. How do we respond to the Elijah who calls us out?

The psalm today properly expresses our chagrin over this, followed by what should be our desire for reparation.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin, cleanse me. (Psalm 51: 4-5)

We can get mired down in thinking that God was unfair in passing judgment on Ahab’s offspring. It’s a poor positioning of scripture’s framing of Ahab’s tale. God knows what the subsequent leaders of the Northern Kingdom would do. We can take some happiness in Ahab’s reconciliation with God, but the weight of repentance falls on all of us, all the time.

As Catholics, we regularly confess. That’s important, but we need to pray that those who witness our faithfulness and constant return to God are encouraged to do so also. It’s a public confession that prompts others. Sans the ashes and pesky sackcloth, true shame and regret when wrong, and submission to God’s will when penalized for our faith, becomes fuel for God’s graces for those leaning toward him.

Our families need repair. It’s a lot of work left for us to do. Repentance and penance aren’t the whole story. We must operate in love by cooperating with God as he rebuilds our broken decks and renovates our neglected kitchens. It’s not about us. It’s all glory for him.

Our love, expressed as coming from a merciful God, is the only salve for those we touch and encounter. In our stumbling, the plea for forgiveness that we voice is the only influence that can calm the waves we sent crashing into those that we love.

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“Well, hello John.” Those three words might take Bob half a minute to say. By the time you reached out to shake his hand, time had slowed to the pace of a custom’s officer studying your passport, reviewing your history as he looked into your eyes and focused upon you and nobody else. But without the angst and worrisome indignation of a border patrol agent, of course.

Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
2 Peter 3:12-15a, 17-18
Mark 12:13-17

Seventy is the sum of our years,
or eighty, if we are strong,
And most of them are fruitless toil,
for they pass quickly and we drift away. (Psalm 90:10)

Some of us imagine conversations we’ve had with old friends that never took place. We wish we had said things we never really said. And when they die, our sadness is multiplied by the many things left unsaid.

That’s simply not so with Bob Schlut. From what I can remember, pretty much everything that needed to be said came right out in the open. He talked on any subject, from taking out the garbage to the price of tea in China.

“Why do we care about the price of tea in China?” he said, more than once. You couldn’t tell if he was serious, unless you knew him. He was a professional tease.

The psalmist, above, didn’t know about Bob Schlut. Fruitless toil? No, that’s not him. Pass quickly and drift away? In the larger scheme of things, perhaps, but Bob hung on longer than most, and when he died, he took an airplane to heaven. Bob was no drifter.

True to form, Bob beat the “strong” prophecy by one year.

The real problem we have about our dead friends is that most of us can’t replay those heartfelt conversations. Our friend has passed away, and we struggle to remember the gist of our conversations. What was it that Bob said?

Again, that’s not so with Bob. Bob had a way of bringing every important debate and deep thought down to the same conclusion.

“It’s a mystery,” spoken as he rubbed his forehead and pondered the thought, or jutted his jaw forward for emphasis. “It’s a mystery.”

He often reminded us that we’ll find out about all the mysteries later.

I’ve known Bob for round-about 35 years, along with hundreds of other close friends he’s gathered. He was unforgettable. Bob’s conversational tone and his vocal pace slowed you down.

“Well, hello John.” Those three words might take half a minute to come out. By the time you reached out to shake his hand, time had slowed to the pace of a custom’s officer studying your passport, reviewing your history as he looked into your eyes and focused upon you and nobody else. But without the angst and worrisome indignation of a border patrol agent, of course.

Bob would like that analogy. He’d laugh and call you clever. And he’d wait for you to say something else. He’d look in your eyes with a comfortable, casual, genuine interest in what was going on in your life. “What’s going on in your life, John?”

If you asked Bob the same question, he’d respond, “Oh, you know, the same ups and downs and comings and goings.”

He joked about his health problems and his disabilities, especially his traumatic near-death experiences. “I guess God decided I’m not ready, yet.”

Over the last several years, Bob has asked his friends to pray for him. He did that in the most humble, non-pretentious, sincere way. Then, with an authenticity rare in any man, he’d thank us when he would recover. “You were all so kind to ask God to keep me here for a while longer.”

These are simple, rare expressions of one of the loveliest men I’ve ever met. I once told him he reminded me of Padre Pio. He was incredulous. “That’s all I need, John. Bleeding hands and feet to go along with all the other stuff I have.”

Then he’d laugh. And so would you. You couldn’t not laugh when Bob laughed.

And if you continued to compliment Bob, he would thank you and then embarrass you with something sweet he knew about you. The man was a treasure to be near.

We often worry about our friends who pass away, and worry more for the family left behind. Oddly, though, none of us worry about Bob, and our sadness for the family is couched in a certainty that the yet undeclared St. Bob Schlut is already hard at work praying for them. He’s likely visited the future mansion sites for his family, excited to know they’ll be within walking distance from his just-finished abode.

Oh, and he can already clap again*. Probably a whole lot of that going on.

*For those a bit confused, Bob spent most of his adult life without the use of his left arm.

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The Spirit led us from confusion to an awakening we knew came from a loving God. We would actually get excited and try to explain that to others. It was in those attempts that we knew the truth needed to come from God, not the mind or purpose of a human. “Ask him yourself” is where we end up.

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Acts 20:17-27
John 17:1-11a

Some of us were fortunate and properly groomed to deal with the oddities and realities of the Catholic faith. However, that history of formation didn’t plant the faith in us. It revealed it, but the planting needed to come from a divine source. The Catholic faith, both ancient and suffering, is impossible to grasp with human logic and commitment alone. It takes an all-loving, holy, clever God to do that.

Our formations educated us on the wonders and perils of our faith, but the ultimate sales pitch had to come from someone other than holy examples. We need an intimacy with the characters in this story to believe it is true. Thankfully, God gives us three persons who each, individually, can do that. And they do it as one.

(See? We can’t really sell that.)

You may remember the early hurdles of attending rituals, sitting still, keeping quiet, and performing reverent acts of bowing, kneeling, and responding “Amen.” God as Father, our parental kinship creator, nurtured us there. A number of us rebelled, but that loving Father’s hold touched both our hearts and bodies to be obedient.

Few of us knew what the dickens was going on, but we could acknowledge it had elements of the sacred. The sign of the cross marked us over and over again.

If we skipped, missed, or abandoned that fostering relationship, it remains available to us even as old men and women. Reverence stills our souls.

The Word of God had no less a pathway of gauntlets, an obstacle course of painful and even torturous turns. Remember the difficulties in the seemingly endless string of skeptical studies? We heard that a man became God, which was absurd. We finally spoke up and were corrected. “No, God became man.” That reset us, but was no less absurd.

When we finally read the scriptures on our own, do you remember the published plots of the Jews, which included apostles thrown in jail for preaching about the Messiah? Their disdain led to the executions of Christians, including Saul’s observance at Stephen’s stoning. How could that reporting inspire us to become Christians? How could a monster like Saul become the apostle Paul?

The Holy Spirit likely had a hand in our being inspired. A second lens appeared in our view. Stephen’s holy glow at entering heaven as his body was smashed is not an interpretation that we could manufacture. The words in verse after verse came alive, and we began to hear and see the truth.

The Spirit led us from confusion to an awakening we knew came from a loving God. We would actually get excited and try to explain that to others. It was in those attempts that we knew the truth needed to come from God, not the mind or purpose of a human. “Ask him yourself” is where we end up.

Seeing Jesus from the pages of scripture into our daily life may well be the height of surrender. Jesus spoke of being glorified, himself having nothing to repent, while calling us to cry out to him. We found out he wasn’t just a holy prophet, or a martyr, or an effective teacher. He believed and acted as if he were God. When we found that out, there was no denying the truth.

Folks had every right to ask. “Why the heck did he think he was God?”

Jesus wasn’t self-deprecating, which is one of the highest signs of a humble, intelligent, and genuine human being. That doesn’t sound right. He wasn’t brash, but he was bold. He corrected those who told him what to do, including his mother. He never walked back anything. That’s not a typical human being. Even a narcissist would question whether Jesus was a great human being.

Paul spoke that his life was of no importance, because it belonged to God. All of his apostles, except one, died as Jesus did. They bore witness to already living an eternal life with God, because the Spirit indwelt them. They were connected to Jesus in the Eucharist, and the Father loved them. They said all that was a good thing, and more than anything the world could offer.

Our 2,000-year-old Church, embodied by many knuckleheads, but more saints, gets hit with bad PR, devilish disasters, and intractable doctrines that butt heads with the intelligencia and the authorities. Yet, we’re staunch members, apologists, and sacramental witnesses that this is where all humanity needs to belong. That’s worthy of applause and respect, but it’s not all that convincing.

We can’t convince anyone that our faith is true, even with our example and our clarity as the Holy Spirit speaks through us, or as the Father gives us authority. No one really buys the pitch that Jesus walks with us. But pitch it we must, even though we look and sound like fools.

And that is good.

The intimacy of God, which continues to mold us, is not the message. Rather, we claim that God was born into our humanity, the humanity that he created. He lived, died, was buried, and was resurrected, conquering the finality of death. His Spirit gathers us for lives lived in holiness, as we await the second coming. That message must be told by us, but God does the awakening.

We, the fools, trigger God’s opportunities. Even, sorry to say, in our deaths.

Jesus exited creation in order to send his Spirit, not just available to us, but to live in us — to “temple” in us. Jesus does the will of his Father, still, and urges us to do the same. He’s here in the Eucharist, in the icons and imagery, and the holy words.. The three-in-one theology isn’t just symbolism. It’s perfection. It’s an overwhelming revelation hitting us from every realm.

We’ve got documents, encyclicals, miracles, rosaries, and holy sacraments. We’ve also got cosmic stuff that’ll knock your socks off, like saints praying for us, and angels guiding us. But none of these are enough.

It’s not humanity or any construct of created beings that converts, even though the Holy Spirit gathers us together for support, stewardship, witness, teaching, preaching, and testimony. That’s a lot we’ve got to be doing, with holy ones enveloping us, but that’s not the essential thing.

Surrender to God, repent for your sins, and live in His love (all the stuff above we’ve been talking about). That’s the faith. Only the Holy Trinity gives us faith, because God wants us to be his. Nothing makes sense until you do that.

I’d say, take it from us, but that misses the point. Take it from God.

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Like a vice, the rescuing grip of God’s creation begins with Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The squeezing of evil’s juice from our world has been tightening for two thousand years. Soon, it will be completed. Sin will be excised, and righteousness will prevail.

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 16:22-34
John 16:5-11

You also might turn your head a bit when hearing the last four verses in today’s gospel.

“And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation: sin, because they do not believe in me; righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned” (John 16-8-11).

John writes the words above, announced to the disciples in his last discourses before his arrest. Much has been said about the “he” identified here by Jesus as the Holy Spirit. So, we should be good at making that assumption. The visual reminder is that the Holy Spirit has been given the authority to grasp the universe with the ultimate authority of God.

Consider this teaching within a further context. This is a capsule summary from Jesus on Trinitarian authority. Jesus’ work is finished. He is returning to the Father, the person of the Trinity who exhibits all authority. Jesus has surrendered himself to the Father, setting aside his shared authority within the Trinity while he lives out his incarnation.

The Holy Spirit, whose profile in cloud and fire was translated into a dove-like entity at Jesus’ Baptism, foreshadowed the future for all of further human life. Instead of Jesus wandering within the confines of a space less than the size of Colorado, the Holy Spirit will alight upon and then enter, worldwide, into our bodily selves. No longer reserved as a prophetic anointing for the few, the Holy Spirit will be the authority of the living Church, anointed and exhibited in all of its members.

That’s an authority shift unknown by creation since the fall of Adam and Eve.

We shouldn’t get too twisted up in our thinking on this, because it’s likely we’ll get turned around on matters of three persons in one God. The theology on how the three persons interplay is a never-ending study — something our eternal lives can chew on forever.

But this we do know. Jesus is about to display his Lordship of the universe, his authority over all creation, as a holy preparation for Pentecost, the dramatic entrance of the Holy Spirit. The creation was built for Jesus, by the way, not as its only godly member, but as God incarnated. That makes Jesus the physical Lord.

In a day or two from this discourse, Jesus will finalize his submission to the wiles and weaselly ways of a creation run by satanic forces. He will then arise and conquer death, giving proof of life — eternal life — for those who want to and will know him.

He won’t perform his earthly physical function anymore in person, not quite yet, unless you count the Eucharist, as most of us do, as his physical presence. Again, it’s easy to confuse ourselves with the intricacies of God’s movements. So Jesus' real presence in the Eucharist is affirmed. We’re talking instead about the exercise of authority. A shift took place upon Jesus’ prophecy that the Comforter, the Counselor, would come to indwell the followers of Christ — “I will send him to you.”

And what does the Holy Spirit have on his task list? The Holy Spirit convicts the world regarding sin, righteousness, and condemnation. Jesus outlines this. Those are mouthful words, but worthy of our study.

In essence, the Holy Spirit reveals sin through the behaviors of those who do not believe in him. We each know this behavior.

The Holy Spirit reveals righteousness in Jesus’ upcoming Resurrection and Ascension when he officially exits from the boundaries of creation. In other words, by his unfettered travel from this realm into Heaven, he opens a portal unavailable before to everyone of us. Jesus will even go into the depths of hell to retrieve everyone of righteous nature to join him. He then would shatter the grip that death had on all who have already died!

Jesus tells the disciples this before the shift takes place. These cosmic changes have not yet taken place as he teaches them. However, one thing has been accomplished:

“… condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”

Unlike our existence, a tragedy of errors and repentance, we live in sin, and the angels do not. That is, those of us who survive long enough to grasp the personal choice of sin (not the aborted, certainly, or those taken in infancy or who died as a young child). Jesus has a message for us, but he also includes the consequences of another realm of creation. It’s important that we hear this because we must choose the righteousness of Jesus over the sin of the evil one and his minions.

The angels did not, and do not, experience time as we do. Their choice of holiness over evil was offered differently. They, as a host, chose the way of evil or to remain among the heavenly union in a cataclysmic event. One third balked at God’s plan for them. They were left to live in the universe as beastly barnacles and poisonous beings. God allowed them to take over the hierarchical stewardship of creation, a fallen world. This decision by the creator fits well into the realm of “God only knows why.”

Yet, here we grasp that Jesus declares the cosmic reality for these fallen angels under satanic rule in the same breath as he announced the Holy Spirit’s weaving into the fabric of every willing human life.

“… condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”

This is not a pithy dramatic phrase at the end of a fantasy novel. This is the vice of authority over the entity that offered, manipulated, and coerced humanity into choosing death.

Like a vice, the rescuing grip of God's creation begins with Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The squeezing of evil’s juice from our world has been tightening for two thousand years. Soon, it will be completed. Sin will be excised, and righteousness will prevail.

Our heads are supposed to be turned. We should be shocked. Each of us has our time to decide which entity we want to live in. There is no other bigger decision to make. Our decision is lifted up against the choices made by the angelic realm.

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The sinner’s lament is answered by the saint’s plea, because the sinner is he or she who becomes a saint. This is an important issue for Catholics — despite their holiness, the saints were human and capable of failure. The grace, mercy, and forgiveness of God led to their forgiveness.

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
Acts 7:51—8:1a
John 6:35ab

St. Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, was likely mentored by St. Paul. The very same St. Paul that used to be Saul and audienced — with some sense of pride and certainly with his approval — the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

How do we know this? Because Luke wrote about it in the book of Acts. Paul (Saul) knew St. Stephen, and applauded his death. Luke knew Paul well and interviewed him for the Book of Acts. Imagine the conversation, after Paul’s conversion, when Luke must have whispered to Paul. “Uh, what were you thinking?”

“Well, Luke, the rumors are true,” Paul might have said to Luke. “I’m the self-same murderer of Christians that is now an apostle of the risen Christ.”

Can you see Luke holding text in his hand, and worriedly asking, “Well, I’ve written the account as you confirmed it, Paul. Are you sure you want me to publish this?” He handed it to Paul, who read it out loud.

The witnesses laid down their cloaks
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
and when he said this, he fell asleep.
Now Saul was consenting to his execution.

Paul surely paused for a bit, scratching his forehead, and might have said, “It sounds a lot worse when you write it down.”

Imagine Peter and Thomas standing nearby. They had been privy to Luke’s hankering for details. They may even have reviewed Luke's report on Stephen’s speech and death. Would Thomas have spoken up first? “Paul, John convinced me an honest portrayal of my insolence and doubt was important. Everyone else left me alone, but I think John’s got the goods on me. You should take it like a man, Paul.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that,” admitted Paul, “but my transgressions are a lot worse. Criminey.” Everyone certainly nodded in agreement.

“Yes, but look at the embarrassment of my cowardice,” Peter might have piped up. “For goodness sake, Paul. I’ve looked the fool, and the traitor! Matthew and that fellow Mark have been writing about me. They even bring up the fine details about me sitting by the fire. Sheesh. I don’t imagine that Luke, or John would hold back, now that everyone knows my faux pas.”

“OK, then,” Luke might have said, meekly shrugging his shoulders, “I’ve messed up, too,” though he assuredly didn’t think anything he did was akin to murder. The silence went on a bit too long. Luke broke the chill with, “Remember, though. Stephen said it best: ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’”

Enough of that.

The sinner’s lament is answered by the saint’s plea, because the sinner is he or she who becomes a saint. This is an important issue for Catholics — despite their holiness, the saints were human and capable of failure. The grace and mercy of God led to their forgiveness.

That’s not the important part, though. God’s grace and mercy are ‘necessary’ for us to become saints. Failures do not deny a person’s sanctity. They are required steps toward a growing and eventual total submission to the love of God.

St. Stephen identified the battle we undergo in that submission as a refusal to follow the leading and promptings from the Holy Spirit. “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the Holy Spirit …” He’s harsh, but hey, they were holding stones in their hands. Stephen’s lashing out is not a condemnation. He knew their bullheaded natures could still result in an awakening. His murder would have reverberations.

How, though, are we to know what the Spirit wants? That’s not an easy question to answer, but it is a vital one to solve. We begin by focusing on God and not our own calculations. Set aside all the noise coming at us from those who are not listening to the Holy Spirit. You can tell who they are. They are handing us stones to throw at the person who is submitting to the word of God. Translate “stone” for any weapon, including insults, lies, and defamation, as well as guns and rifles.

Stephen doesn’t give us much wiggle room regarding the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He said, “You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it.”

His introduction of angels speaks of God’s breadth of communication methods. Angels don’t seem to be an acceptable, modern method of God speaking to us. But consider all that God does to help us understand that, in our failures, he fights to offer us an eternal relationship with him, rather than the short-sighted mob mentality, deviants, and selfish options marketed as desirable options. The presence of evil spirits is actually proof that angels exist.

Angels prod us, in the same vein as they spoke to the prophets, to Mary and Joseph, to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, and so many other places in scripture. The overarching point about the angelic realm is that God created innumerable, unimaginable ways for us to know him, including through creatures beyond our cosmic boundaries. The great lengths he’ll go to, not just to get our attention, but to draw us to him. To make us his sons and daughters, his friends, and his compatriots in missions he’s designed specifically for us.

He allows the experience of pain, poor choices, and even ignoring him, so that we know the difference between true joy, glory, and forgiveness and the degenerate results of ungodly behavior. It’s a bizarre reality that ugliness sends us running into his arms, but God knows what he is doing.

In addition to his Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, which we must willingly allow or the Spirit will not enter our hearts; and, in addition to the Father who has also put into our hearts the notion of right and wrong and the love of us that no other creature can match, which we can accept or reject; and, in addition to the friendship, kinship, and leadership provided to us by Jesus Christ, whom we can ignore for other friendships; God also provides us with angelic personages to assist us in accepting God in so many ways. Do we reject the angels, too?

What else must God orchestrate for us? Miracles? OK, he does that. Change our very DNA, our spiritual makeup, with the Eucharist? Check, he does that. Give us the Church, stewards of the truth that dates back to the results of three years of ministry and confirmed at Pentecost? Yes, he did that too. Leave a written word, compiled by authors compelled to communicate the truth for all of history. Check, check, check, and check.

There is a tragedy in our misuse of all that God does for us, and that is our more ready willingness to sin. Acts tells us that Stephen gave the speech that led to his death, “to the people, the elders, and the scribes.” No one is left out in their complicity with Stephen’s murder. It’s surely at Saul’s behest, and the anger of those he seemed to condemn, but the stones were thrown by those whom Stephen called “just like your ancestors. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one …”

In John’s gospel, he writes in chapter six, “The crowd said to Jesus: “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?” Jesus referenced their example of God’s manna miracle in the desert, “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

So they said to Jesus,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

Each of us hears what we are willing to hear.

Drop the stones.

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The criteria for designating a 1st Century saint usually begin with martyrdom, followed by records of a personal association with Jesus and a courageous act in defense of Jesus, the Church, or the apostolic community. In a sense, Nicodemus qualified for all four.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter
Acts 4:32-37
John 3:7-15

It’s very likely that the first St. Nick was not St. Nicholas, the 4th-century Greek bishop and precursor to our two-century-old Santa Claus personality. Rather, the inquisitive, practical Pharisee, Nicodemus, might be called our first St. Nick.

The two saintly men, however, are similar to us in legendary status. Yet while traditions and myths surround St. Nicholas, we know little of Nicodemus beyond what is found in scripture. (That, however, means everything!)

As icons, they have been discussed and studied for centuries. Both men were from wealthy backgrounds, looked up to by their peers, and landed in the hallway of legendary Christians. We imagine them as icons, but while St. Nicholas became a patron saint of everything from toymakers to sailors (a list citing 20 different patronages), St. Nicodemus has no formal patron identification. None.

It seems an odd status for a famous saint, but not uncommon for a saint’s bench behind the big names. Instead, Nicodemus is known for his close relationship with Jesus, as proof that Jesus associated with the elite Pharisee community. The idyllic notion that Jesus only accompanied the poor and the diseased falls apart under the scriptural recognition of his affiliations with military Romans, the wealthy, and the Jewish hierarchy. Nicodemus opens theology to a broad-minded incarnated God.

Nicodemus, and likely many other Jewish leaders, were moved by Jesus’ teaching and his miracles. Nicodemus was ultimately convinced, as revealed in scripture, a man primed for sainthood.

Within the first five centuries of the Church, the practice of declaring saints shifted from popular acclamation to a more detailed process. The first saints were identified from a mix of Christ and apostolic credentials, especially when supported by scriptural records and nods from Church Fathers. The process was not formal. Historians note that the early saints were named by both God and the people (vox Dei and vox populi).

By the time of St. Nicholas, vox populi would build a “cult” around someone to be named a saint. Next, a bishop must name, decree, and then declare a person a saint. Folks from a Catholic community would request a formal decree of sainthood, then the pastor would approach the bishop. A biography and records of the person’s death were required. In most cases, remains (relics) were provided.

Martyrdom was, and still is, the common qualifier. Over time, confirming martyrdom required an appointed, dedicated body to conduct more rigorous investigations among a larger body of witnesses. By the 10th Century, a declaration went further — a papal acclamation.

The status of Nicodemus’ sainthood falls into the earliest of processes. Scripture told the story. He was also likely martyred because, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, his relics were discovered along with those of Stephen, the first saint; Gamaliel (the revered teacher of St. Paul); and Saint Abibas (a son of Gamaliel). All four were declared martyrs.

The criteria for designating a 1st Century saint usually begin with martyrdom, followed by records of a personal association with Jesus and a courageous act in defense of Jesus, the Church, or the apostolic community. In a sense, Nicodemus qualified for all four.

Besides being Jesus' debating partner during a nighttime escapade (John 3:1-21), Nicodemus defended Jesus at the Sanhedrin (John 7:50-52). Most lovely, however, was his assistance with Saint Joseph of Arimathea at the preparation of Jesus’ body in Joseph’s tomb (John 19:38-42).

Nicodemus has been honored in poetry, artwork, and tales over two millennia. He’s been portrayed in movies, Christian television series, and on the radio.

A website called Saint for a Minute describes Nicodemus’ impact. “While he does not have a specific patronage assigned to him, his life serves as an inspiration to all who seek to follow Christ faithfully and boldly. Saint Nicodemus’ story is one of courage, faith, and a willingness to stand up for what is right. His secret discipleship, nocturnal meetings with Jesus, and defense of Christ’s rights showcase his unwavering commitment to the truth. May Saint Nicodemus inspire us to be bold in our faith and unyielding in our pursuit of justice.”

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Why didn’t Jesus come as the King of the world among a powerful nation, and an exceptional throng of people that could influence a worldly empire, instead of riding upon a donkey? Perhaps the plan was to evolve differently, but the tribal people of God’s choosing weren’t up to that more expected, international, and glorious setting. The sorry story of a failed people and the violent death of their Messiah, though, sets up the background for what happened next. Death has been conquered.

Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Numbers 21:4-9
John 8:21-30

Why does scripture present us with God as Jesus, the Christ? An all-powerful and mighty God, a Father of us all, who made the universe and everything in it, isn’t enough? It’s logical, too, that the Spirit of God travels through the wind and whispers into our ears all that the Father wants us to do and accomplish. Isn’t that enough?

As odd as it is, no, that’s not enough.

It’s not so much that something is wrong with the reality of a God who created everything and lives with us all in his Spirit. God wants more than recognition. He wants to be among us in the flesh, to live and die as we do — humiliated, ravaged in age or some other horror. He wasn’t a contrived revelation or a creative addition to the universe. He is the true holy manifestation, a materialized person of the Father and the Holy Spirit who pre-existed creation itself.

The cosmic divinity of God is above my pay grade. Let’s just land on this: God decided all along (or, whatever you call “before time”) that he wanted to be one of us, among us, as shepherd, kin, king, victim, and redeemer.

“The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.”

God the Father and the Holy Spirit didn’t tack on a holy human trope, a puppet to delight us. This Jesus is an essential, existential character of God, tied to the sails of the Holy Spirit, and the engine of the Father, as a ship on wild waters. (Metaphors are less logical the more you review them.)

Jesus is our human and divine Lord. We must believe and follow a flesh and bones being like us, not for a season, a term, or an age, but for all eternity.

Not to skip over the fact that this reality came from the words and teaching of Jesus. It’s important to show the receipts, credentials, and provenance of this Trinitatian God. He clearly defined the person of God as Father, and the Spirit of God as Holy. No one else told us this, based on human calculations and concoctions. It sounds silly to attribute this to a notion made up by Moses or St. Paul, two fellas from over town.

In addition, the earthly manifestations of God had already been revealed in pillars of fire and cloud, a burning bush, and in incredible displays of warfare and miraculous rescues. Angels, too, announced God’s presence. They weren’t aliens from another planet, but “pre-time” (a waffly dating) creatures. God also spoke to prophets and called himself “I Am.”

From the earliest records of the Hebrew scriptures, the Messiah, the Christ, was foretold. But the shocking reality that Jesus was among the singular God, revealed in a trinity of persons, was not articulated until Christ himself claimed, “I am.” Until he said it, no one knew the assurance of Jesus’ divinity.

“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM …”

Unlike the God of fire and cloud, whose voice dropped people to their knees, spread the waters to free people, and drowned armies, Jesus healed outcasts and cured peasants. Unlike his Holy Spirit, who touched every living thing not just over the eons and around the globe, but throughout the universe, this Jesus bar Joseph led a regionally bounded and lackluster life growing up as a carpenter’s stepson. After 30 years of an ignominious existence, Jesus revealed his divinity and asserted his Lordship by spending a mere three years on a mission with a blue-collar band of unexceptional people in a place the size of a few Colorado counties.

This Jesus amazed and rankled a tiny portion of one tiny planet among bazzilions (innumerable billions) of interstellar environs. Basically, a place the size of a molecule on a gnat’s whisker. Jesus Christ ruffled the religious leaders of an odd-looking, ritual-obsessed, and politically and militarily failed small community of tribal origin. He didn’t conquer Rome. He was conquered and killed by an annoying, unruly people who no longer had land of their own, and their leaders had severely restricted powers.

The Jews were the conquered remnant of a dozen nomadic tribes. An unfortunate disintegration of the wealthiest ruler in ancient history, to be fair, but a testament to Jesus’ divine arrival among a weakened people held under the thumb of two pompous overlords — the Pharisees and the Romans.

Jesus’ interactions and miraculous activities took place under an unimportant umbrella in a concealed corner of one empire. During his lifetime, his efforts intrigued only a couple of local Roman officials curious about his parochial celebrity. Without much consideration and less legal weight, the local Roman landlords acquiesced to unreasonable clerics and a protesting horde of their supporters. They crucified Jesus like a common criminal, mocked as a King of not just Jews, but also the Romans and Greeks. His murder was assumed to be another annoying and forgotten execution.

Why didn’t Jesus come as the King of the world among a powerful nation, and an exceptional throng of people that could influence a worldly empire, instead of riding upon a donkey? The plan was meant to evolve differently, but the tribal people of God’s choosing weren’t up to the task. This story of a people of history selected to be the beacon of the God of the universe tells us they were unprepared to convince anyone that Jesus was the Lord of the universe or that he sat upon a throne as the second person of the Holy Trinity. The sorry tale of a failed people and the violent death of their Messiah, though, sets up the background for what happened next.

Because he was God, assisted in both influence and indwelling by the Holy Spirit, Jesus placed himself, as we should be, under the guidance and order of the Father. He did this with a dramatic and epic reveal.

Jesus then rose from the dead. Resurrection is our future.

His prophecy and promise during his missionary life came to fulfillment. This is all that matters to a world of evidentiary truth. Show me that this man is Lord, say the interpreters of history, and ardent study with the gift of faith will do just that.

To rise from the dead as a resurrected being with capabilities and powers that astound science stamps a divine seal on the conqueror of death. The risen Jesus countermands a decaying premise of creation’s design. Jesus turned upside down, or rather upside right, the foundation of creation. He rose so that everyone, for all time, will have a marker that distinguishes Jesus from any other man by exposing a better eventuality.

The original and only logical expectation of a holy creator is that all creation will have eternal life. To deny that, in the face of Jesus’ revolutionary exclamation of life forever under his tutelage, relegates us to a doomed, deadly end, left with eternal existence, but without the feasting and beatific vision.

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9

The simple truth of Jesus as Lord, shown in the dusty countryside of Jerusalem, is told today in the same parochial and insignificant fashion. We humans, in our leadership and worldview, remain a failed partner with Jesus, the Father of us all, and the Holy Spirit who yearns to live in us.

Regardless of the concentration upon the glorious Vatican compound and the remarkable cathedrals that dot every city on the globe, the truth of Jesus as Lord, as the risen Son of God, is primarily told on the streets, in the neighborhoods, on automobile bumpers, and in the common gathering places of the world. The vast majority of Christian testimony takes place beneath and outside the pantheons of government councils, executive boardrooms, and mansions of the wealthy.

And still, the testimony powerfully transforms the population.

We bless our meals in the name of the God who lives, offering up our thanks to “Christ our Lord, Amen.” We discuss our families and mention the ones that are sick, upset, lost, anxious, and maybe dying. We casually and sincerely add all these people to our prayers, mouthing “We pray to the Lord” and “Lord hear our prayer,” while we drink coffee and tea and enjoy each other’s company.

We are witnesses, testifying among each other, and in public. “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” In almost all such cases of shared faith, restaurant managers and serving staff, others around us on the beach, and those who hear us on the subway, all bow their hearts, encouraging us to be faithful.

Our thinking and attention must be formed and focused toward a singular relationship to one man, scripture tells us. We gather in faith, hold hands in prayer, and object to Jesus' insults by changing the reception on our radios, the channels on our televisions, and the images on our phones. The airwaves and digital spaces offer plenty of faithful options and opportunities. We have even chosen to teach our children at home when no other choices exist. The effect of eternal life is unstoppable.

So, many of us wear crosses to remind us, some attached to rosaries, and others hanging from our rear-view mirrors. Our churches display the cross of the man, and we enter in packs and droves to make our statement with our feet. Our churches are everywhere, whether common in their space or glorious in their steeples.

While many of us may struggle to grasp that an all-powerful and loving God exists, the seemingly complicated story of an obscure birth, life, and death has morphed into a perfectly good notion of the almighty that has crashed through the barrier of the invisible. We shake each other’s hands at our services and claim the Spirit’s urging. “Christ be with you.”

When someone curses, “Jesus Christ,” we murmur the added words and finish their sentence with, “is Lord.” When we see old friends, and they exclaim their shock at seeing us, “Jesus Christ, it’s you!” We answer, “No. It’s just me, John. But thanks for seeing him in me.”

God insists that the basis for everything we should believe rests on this single, central, recurring statement: Jesus is Lord. He’s the Lord of me, he’s the Lord of all. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy.

We are told that at the core of our being, in our heart, our acceptance must be resolute and confident enough to confess that belief out loud, and the simplest expressions are the ones that course through society where two or three are gathered.

We do this because “Their voice has gone forth to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

(Oh, and Jesus is returning, likely in the international and glorious visage that we think is more appropriate. However, the “how” will be just as unexpected.)

[A rewrite of my OMG reflection from 11-30-16]

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We each have one sin that tortures us, insisting upon constant repentance. Most of us have more than one, doomed under a Gatlin gun of sorrows. We cower and hide, paranoid, unable to request, yet again, a worn-out “forgive me.” How do you put up with us, God? It must be the combined power of a trinity. “I want to smote him,” says one. “I’ve got this,” says another. “Good,” says the third person. “I tried everything in my power, and I’m moving on.”

Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
Daniel 3:25, 34-43
Matthew 18:21-35

Forgiveness begins with sin. Without sin, forgiveness is moot. But not to worry. Sin is rampant, so forgiveness need always be handy. We should keep a storeroom full of forgiveness for others. They’ll need shelves of it for us.

Sin and forgiveness do not get wiped away, except in the eyes of God. Transgressions vibrate longer than the ring of one bell. Sins are not moments that pass. We call upon forgiveness for each sin over and over again because one sin can be decades-long, flashing in an unending stream of reruns. Sin after sin plays on all our channels at once, ad nauseam, in unrelenting, obnoxious cycles.

Confession works. It washes. But our memories grieve us.

We each have one sin that tortures us, insisting upon constant repentance. Most of us have more than one, doomed under a Gatlin gun of sorrows. We cower and hide, paranoid, unable to request, yet again, a worn-out “forgive me.” Forgiveness from those we love has a limit. We can see it in their eyes. 70 times 7 passed by long ago. God’s admonition to forgive seems absurd for them to do, but absolutely necessary for us to hope for. What must our family members think of us? I cannot forget. How can they? How pathetic we all are. How does God do it?

Thankfully and unfortunately, we are not alone. For every snowball of sin we throw, we get seven back in retaliatory clusters. After we brush ourselves off, we yell “I forgive you” to a host of people whom we don’t even know, while the one we hit lies comatose. We whisper to God and cry for mercy.

The daily infractions we encounter and cause can number in the dozens, dating back to when we were just teenagers. Sure, we’ve forgotten most of our sins. That’s frightening enough, considering the volumes of sins we can’t forget. Several times a day, many of us shudder and weep.

We all know the knucklehead who repeatedly offends. It is often us. Seventy times seven forgivenesses come to 490 for each repeated sinful act, per person. They struggle to embrace us at some point. We know more than one knucklehead like ourselves. We seldom remember to forgive them, an act required thousands of times a year. And that’s just for the crap that happens to us. How about the indecencies and calumnies we caused, that we pray have been forgiven?

Dear Lord, what a mess.

Science estimates that we blink 30,000 times a day. The older we get, the more forgiving acts (from us and to us) must reach saturation. Our blinking will come awfully close to the times we are forgiving folks and being forgiven. Cussing will surely be involved. The sinning-and-forgiving continuum, where sparks are flying, could fuel entire planets.

We also breathe nearly 30,000 times a day. Those are similarly daunting numbers. The sinful cadence of our lives catches our breath more often than physical exertion. Literally. If we’re not careful, we’ll stop breathing.

Sins are a tricky thing to compile because we humans have a propensity to find a sinful adventure in just about everything we do. Different sins seem to require different provisions of forgiveness. Some are easier to forgive than others.

Proverbs tells us about the incalculable breadth of sinful stuff we can accomplish, but in one stretch of verses, the author highlights the worst of the worst. In true biblical form, God specifically hates seven things. I’ve thought other things were worse, since I’ve practiced most of these for 70 years. We are doomed.

“These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him:
A proud look,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that are swift in running to evil,
A false witness who speaks lies,
and one who sows discord among brethren.”
(Proverbs 6:16-19)

How do you put up with us, God? It must be the combined power of a trinity. “I want to smote him,” says one. “I’ve got this,” says another. “Good,” says the third person. “I tried everything in my power, and I’m moving on.”

God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ life hints at how we should forgive. We would be wise to consider his example. The sins that God hates require immense forgiveness. Judas pulled off almost all of these sins against Jesus by himself. Though forgiveness was within his reach, it apparently never reached his closed heart. When he took his last breath, eviscerated and hanged at his own hand, he refused God’s power to restore him. Our refusal to face the music, choosing self-harm instead, sadly mirrors Judas’s stubborn rejection. “Alas, Judas. I know him well.”

We know the great lengths to which God went to establish permanent forgiveness for our egregious sins. His vocal command would be enough, we think, but he chose dying on the cross, took a dreaded gurney ride into hell, and then rose from the dead to a shocked, unbelieving retinue of the very folks who needed his forgiving self.

Pope Gregory I, who served the church at the beginning of the 7th century, catalogued seven “deadly” sins, or infractions that can block the redemptive forgiveness of Jesus altogether. As with Judas’ self-destruction, the list matches the Proverb list. The deadly sins of pride, greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, and sloth fall away under God’s forgiveness. Who among us wouldn’t provide the necessary participatory remorse? Forgiveness expects a plea for mercy. We plead 70 times 7.

It all sounds quite complicated. We’re tied up like pretzels in the cycle of these things. We return to the washing machine like dirty clothes, get cleaned up, only to be immediately dirtied again. And just like our dirty hair, we have to wash, rinse, and repeat this exhausting theatre for the rest of our lives!

Gregory offers some help for all awful and dreadful sins. To delay our normally quick return to the laundry room, Gregory implemented countermeasures. These are activities of the heart that help us to stall our activities of the flesh — faith, hope, charity, justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude — the seven virtues. They counteract the deadly sins. The virtues appear at first to be acts of forgiveness but are better defined as acts of love. The proper grasp of forgiveness is to understand that to forgive means to love.

We bow to God’s mercy. We accept God’s grace, get washed again in the confessional, and in our socially available acts of repentance. And then, we love.

We most likely express our love as faith, hope, charity, justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude, but we practice love in waves of blinking and breathing. These are the autonomic parts of our lives. Although they occur automatically, we can exercise them manually. We can manually inhale/exhale and stare/blink, an exercise that trains us to refrain when we can, and repent when we can’t.

Blinking and breathing 30,000 times a day constitute the proper amount and actions of our love for each other. They fulfill the countermeasure to 30,000 acts of sin, forgive everyone we encounter, and meet our necessary pleas for mercy.

Consider that closing our eyelids expresses our remorse. The opening of our eyes extends our plea for mercy. In the breaths we take, we inhale our forgiveness, and our exhales mete out God’s mercy for all to share.

Set aside the compilations, calculations, considerations, and conundrums of chaotic causality. It’s an unnecessary exercise of probable futility.

All we have to do is blink and breathe. Just blink and breathe.

[A rewrite of my OMG reflection from 8-11-16]

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Further study will help us go deeper into the Our Father prayer, a pure, rich, and divine treasure for Christians. Catholic theologians organize the Our Father into seven petitions, following the opening phrase — Our Father — which recognizes us in the presence of God as the Father of all. That’s the proper position to take in all prayer. “Our Father.” He is our protector and our intimate guide.

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Isaiah 55:10-11
Matthew 6:7-15

A huge part of the Our Father prayer is the protection of our souls from evil. Our bodies will be crushed and ultimately destroyed. But our souls, our spiritual natures, will remain forever.1 Jesus structures this prayer of petitions for our salvation. But this prayer is not for us alone, as if we were singular planets in the universe. No. We are members, relational beings, tied to a world of both animate and inanimate beings. And God wants to protect us.

We find our membership in the Body of Christ, gathered by the Holy Spirit into the Holy Catholic Church, and bound up — if we are willing — into the Communion of Saints at the behest of the Father. We call upon the Father in this Our Father prayer, but it is given to us by the Son, and prayed at the prodding of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The entire purpose and urgency for creation is embodied in this one, short prayer.

There are two general controversies in the wording of the prayer, both at its finishing phrases. First, there is a historical translation debate (well, not really a debate) over “temptation” and “final test.” Second, is a doxology added on — “For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen.”

The “sort of” debate addresses the traditional, “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” with which we are all familiar. However, this prayer in Matthew ends in many translations with, “and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.” Hear that one more time: “and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.” That is an entirely authentic ending to the Our Father, by the way. It’s not a mistake in scripture translation nor a confusion about what Jesus taught.

In essence, there are two endings.

This is an apologist’s delight. God allows such things to happen, cementing the details to reveal slight differences in his intent. He does this to further study, but also to draw us into the contrasts of what seems like a multi-headed truth, but is really two (or many more) perspectives on the same theme. Roll these over in your head. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” plus “and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.”

The two phrases sound at first blush like the same thing, but “final test” is a rather disconcerting phraseology from “into temptation.” Also, “evil one,” or Satan, is quite specific from the fiery, general category of “evil.”

“Final test” in Jesus’ day could refer to the end times, and may just as well refer to saving us from our slow descent into partnership with evil.

I like the scholars’ and apologists' teaching on Matthew’s Chapter [6:13] “final test” wording, especially the folks who worked on the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). These heady folks refer us to John Chapter 17:15, and 2 Thessalonians 3:3. The gist of these two scriptural references balances two dictums about God. “The Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” His faithfulness is where we must place our trust. God’s faithfulness follows us through the broken world, strengthening and guarding us. Which means, we remain in a broken world.

In John 17:15-17, the apostle John captures a dialogue, a prayer from Jesus to the Father. “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.”

The more traditional words of the ending Our Father petition — “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” — might miss the more pointed trajectory of Jesus’ emphasis on living with temptation by relying upon God’s protection of our souls. That is, we may interpret God as leading us into temptation, and we plead with him to change his mind. Rather, God allows us to be tempted, certainly, but his warnings, if we are in synch with the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ teachings, and the Father’s love, will win out.

One theologian describes the understanding of temptation that the Our Father intends. Peter, following Jesus as he was carried off by the Roman soldiers, is an example of our intimate relationship with God as we encounter evil. Rather than stand outside with the rest of the disciples, away from prying eyes, Peter entered the gate, sat with the guards, and put himself in danger. He went to “see.” Jesus had already warned the disciples, specifically after Judas had betrayed him. “Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels?”

Peter was confronted by the guards’ friends and succumbed to fear, denying Jesus three times. He had no business being there, but did not listen. Still, Peter was restored.

You might be familiar with the phrase, “fools rush in.” That was Peter. (That is us.) The full proverb, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” is from Alexander Pope’s 1711 work An Essay on Criticism. We do not need to go where God warns us not to go. Of course, when we are “taken” where we do not want to go, he will give us the courage and words. Peter was warned that he would betray Jesus, that he would fall prey to a temptation, a hubris of his rank and power, and that he would misunderstand what Jesus was doing.

“As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” There is an important distinction between our curiosity and impulses, and being sent into the world by Jesus. Peter acted on his impulses. Temptation is often seen too simply, as a clear choice between good and bad. Au contraire.

Further study will help us go deeper into the Our Father prayer, a pure, rich, and divine treasure for Christians. Catholic theologians organize the Our Father into seven petitions, following the opening phrase — Our Father — which recognizes us in the presence of God as the Father of all. That’s the proper position to take in all prayer. “Our Father.”

The Catholic Catechism aligns the prayer and the seven petitions into two major sections. “The first series of petitions carries us toward him, for his own sake: thy name, thy kingdom, thy will!” See the repeated pronouns — thy, thy, and thy. The second set of 4 petitions focuses on us, us, us, and us. “In none of the three petitions do we mention ourselves …” (Part 4, Article 3). In the last four, we are the focus.

The first three:

1. Hallowed be Thy name — We give God praise to strengthen our faith.

2. Thy kingdom come — We have hope, shown in our desire for God’s reign in the world.

3. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven — We accept God’s divine will over our will.

   The second series of petitions (4-7) offers up our expectations with four intercessory verbs: “give us … forgive us … lead us not … deliver us …”

4. Give us this day our daily bread

5. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

6. Lead us not into temptation

7. Deliver us from evil.

The catechism tells us, “the fourth and fifth petitions concern our life as such — to be fed and to be healed of sin; the last two concern our battle for the victory of life — that battle of prayer.”

The Catechism then summarizes all the petitions, saying, “By the three first petitions, we are strengthened in faith, filled with hope, and set aflame by charity.” Our pleas admit we are creatures and sinners. In the last four, Jesus instructs to petition for “us.” We are not alone, but as the Catechism submits, “bound by the world and history, which we offer to the boundless love of God.”

To see these petitions, and their deep wells of meaning and supplication, the repetitive nature of prayer makes sense. We instill not just the words into our minds and hearts, but we also ingest them. God works them into our spiritual marrow, tying us to him like cars on a train or creatures no longer needing a leash.

One last issue left to the Our Father is the doxology “For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen.” These words are not in the original text of Matthew. Several non-Catholic translations tack the words at the end, but most identify them as “amplified” and “extended” phraseology. Their reasons are sound.

For centuries, and even millennia, doxologies, or exalting the glory of God, have been used at the conclusion of prayers. It was very common in Jesus’ time. The Didache, likely the first catechism, dating to the 1st Century, hinted at this very doxology. In the 5th and 6th Centuries, St. Jerome and Gregory the Great both included a doxology at the end of the Our Father.

The English version, our current doxology, dates to 1525, when King Henry VIII of England was still a Catholic. It’s falsely framed as a compromise between Catholics and Protestants, though a part of that politically was surely in the minds of both religious expressions. You’ll find the addition of the doxology improperly used for two reasons: as a cudgel and a peace pipe.

Instead, the added doxology reveals the Church's prerogative and should not be a political or misguided liturgical tool. We pray as a Church, rightly incorporating the ancient Jewish faith and adopting the wisdom of the saints into our spiritual language.

In a lovely way, the doxology used by the Protestant and Evangelical communities reflects the broad nature of the larger Church and the savvy willingness of our Catholic scholars and stewards of the faith to recognize the Holy Spirit's influence.

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The call for his apostles to be fishers of men was Jesus’ central metaphor, rather than riffing on accountants, lawyers, carpenters, or well diggers. He could have come up with a great analogy for a baker of bread (nothing great comes to mind), but he chose men of boats instead. Jesus used boats and sandals like anyone else, and he morphed into God from within the same reality as us. It confirms to us that his promise to return and resurrect us is assured.

Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
James 1:12-18
Mark 8:14-21

I had to rewrite my reflection this week after reading Ron Bruni and Steve Hall’s articles. Good on them. They’ve chewed on two of the most difficult top-of-mind theological conundrums in our Catholic faith — why does God allow trials, and what does God really have in mind for us in the next life? Heady, personal, and well-explained studies on their part. Bread and trials are covered. I ash-canned my less worthy work.

Instead, I went aquatic and dredged up a seemingly inconsequential but curious issue— why does Jesus wade through so many encounters with the apostles on boats?

He preached to his initial circle of disciples for the first time from a boat just off the shore. Next, he performed his famous “that’s too many fish!” miracle off the side of Peter, James, and John’s fishing boat. A year or two later, he wandered about, walking on the sea — apparently as Jesus is wont to do — and climbed into the apostles’ boat when they panicked in a storm. He rescued Peter, who attempted to defy physics, and helped him get back into a boat. On, it seems, a separate occassion he slept in a boat while they panicked again, and Jesus yawned and calmed the seas. He ran from the crowds at one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other, specifically not on the boat that they all took, and they wondered how he did it. In Tuesday’s gospel in Mark, Jesus used their lack of food supplies as a reminder of who he was — yes, on a boat.

One might argue, citing Jesus’ various opportunities to teach, that boats are yesteryear’s buses, airliners, space ships, trains, and minivans. That’s too easy. It’s likely true, but not the stuff of a potentially heady review of what God is up to.

Of course, there is Noah’s Ark bobbling about on the drenched earth. Jonah got tossed out of a boat before the giant fish swallowed him up. Paul’s journeys on two boat rides ended in crumpled wood and some apparent deaths. All are exciting venues of dramatic turns in the challenging events of human travel. Great adventures that keep us cleverly attentive to historic biblical tales.

Is it just that boats were a primary mode of travel from pre-Jesus through post-Jesus? Yes. That’s probably as deep and watery as it gets. He mostly walked everywhere else and may have only ridden a donkey that one time.

Granted, the call for his apostles to be fishers of men was Jesus’ central metaphor, rather than riffing on accountants, lawyers, carpenters, or well diggers. He could have come up with a great analogy for a baker of bread (nothing great comes to mind), but he chose men of boats instead.

Think about the natural/supernaturalness of it all, though. He had the capability to walk on water. We could say that’s no big deal, because he was God. He performed unbelievable and wholly impossible miracles, too. He wafted through an angry crowd set on tossing him off a cliff by divining invisibility or some other superhero trait. Was his unseen escape a precursor to the Flash, maybe?

No matter his methods, the amazing feats are a big deal. Jesus used boats and sandals like anyone else, and he morphed into God from within the same reality as us. He spoke like us, but his words exhibit wisdom, knowledge, and insights beyond the reach of any human. Can there be any question about who he was? How many mechanical and philosophical magic show explanations must we manufacture to hide the fact that Jesus was God in every way a human is not? All that, while being every bit a human being, just like us?

Even Jesus’ resurrection took place by exiting our broken human reality into the supernatural realm, rescuing millions from Hades, opening the gates of Heaven for them, and returning here, waving to his forlorn apostles (they were on a boat) and cooking up some fish. Now that’s some irreducible boldness of God being a fully hungry human while orchestrating cosmic Godly events.

Jesus firmly and intentionally awakened us to his divine capabilities because he wants us to know that the spiritual realm not only exists but pokes, lives, and thrives in our existence. He was tortured, killed, and buried. Then, ta da! His restored/raptured/illuminated rescue from death performs as no more unreal than walking on water and unwrapping a 4-day-old dead Lazarus. OK, it’s a lot more unreal, but Jesus used our same realm to reveal all three divine endeavors.

When Jesus returns in his glory, there will be trains, airplanes, rocket ships, wi-fi, and likely the common use of nuclear fusion. That is, if he waits another decade or so.

Jesus didn’t dismiss boats. He used them. He used plates and cups. Forks and thermoses came later, but I’m sure he’ll be scarfing up a meal in the future on a boat with both of them. What else would he do?

It’s an exciting, paranormal expectation we’re sure to see. Even we, in our transformed, resurrected, and immortal bodies, will be part of a whole new normal.

I think Jesus used boats just like he used clothing, carpentry tools, and language. It’s all practical proof, physical evidence that he was here, and it confirms for us that his promise to come back and resurrect us is assured. He’ll be waving at us, cooking up something that we’re familiar with — maybe on a cooking surface we’re most familiar with.

Are we hungry?

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Frank and Ralph are the most fascinating angels in all of creation. They have no shame, which you would expect, but since they’re bumping up against the rest of the angels, you’d think they would crumble from the disdain. I suspect that when you meet them, you’ll want to write a story about them, too.

Excerpt from Chapter One of Frank & Ralph: The retired Guardian Angels of Jesus

I was not short when I lived on earth in my Olmec tribe 500 years before Christ. At 5’2”, however, much of Heaven towers over me—especially the angels. They stand not as tall as they are and stare for long periods at invisible spiritual landscapes. I still have little idea what they are pondering.

Frank and Ralph, as angels do, pick a physical size for their human form but adjust their bodily presentation every few hundred years. Today, Ralph stands 6’3” and bends his back and shoulders forward, with his knees slightly bent and his left foot forward. No other angel that I know of does this. Akin to a boxer’s pre-fight stance, he carries his two overly hairy appendages at the ready, which he necessarily covers in long-sleeve shirts.

Since he began wearing cuffed, creased slacks in the 19th Century, Ralph has favored mahogany colors to match untucked red plaid shirts. He is not a trendsetter, but he likes it. He often grips his left pant’s pocket with his thumb, a stylistic bad-boy stance not far off the mark.

Ralph recently added staccato movements with his right hand as he talks. He emphasizes words with a tap of his right thumb, pinched with the pointer finger, making hard thrusts in midair. He has difficulty mastering affectations like this, annoying Frank in his persistent attempts to match human quirks with his cranky, angelic demeanor.

He believes his look is timeless, but said the same about the rough woolen red scarf he wore in the 15th Century, which clashed with his 5th Century sage gray robe and linen white outfit, both of which angels wore in the days after the Ascension. Timeless means anywhere from 500 to 1000 years.

“I blend well.”

“Of course you do,” said Frank. “Blending is your moniker.”

“That’s an intent, not a moniker,” I correct Frank. I am a linguist of average ability, and I often remark on their word choices. To humans, I am annoying. To Ralph and Frank, I’m helpful.

In truth, blending in is more of a hope than a reality for Ralph.

“Yes, of course, dear Ipomoea,” Frank told me. “Thank you for the clarification. Ralph intends, indubitably, to blend and wants dearly to do it well.”

“Oh, cut it out,” Ralph said, chopping his pinched fingers too late. I don’t think he’ll ever get the hang of it.

Frank’s clothing contrasts with Ralph’s, but not by much. Fashion sense escapes them both. Frank’s tastes accent a stretched height of 6’5”—sleek, regal, and distinguished. Just accents, to be precise. They’re not accomplishments.

Frank wears grays and beige common-man suits, nothing too posh, vaguely appropriate to every era’s standards. He prefers to fold his arms when he stands and sits, slowly crossing his legs one way and then the other. He favors a cupped pipe, a cigarette, a cigar … anything that produces long wisps of soft white smoke. He never inhales, which anyone can tell. He twirls his fingers when he’s not toying with some tobacco implement.

Their movements are wooden, self-conscious, stiff parodies of human sways and turns. However, in the extremes—delicate or brutal engagements—they’re remarkably adept.

Both have sported facial hair from their days with Jesus—Fu Manchu for Ralph and a European professor’s full beard for Frank. Depending on the company they keep or the country they inhabit, they can look like any race. I’ve advised them to be more consistent in their choice of nationality following a roiled exchange four hundred years ago. They entered a 17th-century German coffee shop dressed as Asians. A confusing outcry charged with curses of bigotry rushed them into the only empty seats smack dab in the middle of the establishment. Amid the noise, they decided to morph into something they thought would fit better, confusing everyone. Two rather tall, Mongolian-accented Asians in button-down shirts instantly became long-robed Nigerians. The crowd was silenced, frozen in shock. My dark-skinned bush-dressed friends stood up, dropped some coins on their chairs, and loped out of the shop muttering wasted apologies in the long-lost staccato of the African tongue (literally clicking of tongues) called Centúúm.

“I think the barman fainted,” Ralph told me. We’ve never been back there, for obvious reasons.

Ralph talks in common pithy phrases and loves the dialectical addle of the day. He held on to “Gimme a break” for over 70 years. Today, he says, “Oh, cut it out.” His timing is always clumsy.

Frank uses long words like “penultimate,” “absolutely,” and “exasperated.” “Indubitably” is new. Since they don’t fit into the angelic host network like everyday angels, my dear pals lack much of the smoothness of Spirit-filled beings. Their communication with other angels crackles, like that of humans when first facing God (except for St. Jerome, who exudes unrivaled confidence). Their memory banks are rather unorganized. Again, like us. It’s probably why the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit spend so much time with them—redirecting, prodding, and keeping them busy with duties the angelic hierarchy either ignores or purposely wants to avoid.

When walking in plazas, malls, or on any street, the three of us look like weirdly dressed actors taking an intermission break from a questionable Broadway play to catch a smoke and a coffee.

Frank and Ralph’s deployment as retired angels—an unprecedented full-time angelic assignment on earth—placed me with them. Since their deployment to earth soon after Jesus’ Ascension, and my subsequent recruitment of their help, I’ve spent as much time with them on earth as I do in the realm of Heaven.

More bulbous physically than they are, I habitually walk to their right holding a satchel of scribblings. Baseball caps, tennis shoes, and jeans have only recently replaced my preference for robes. Robes of all sorts have been found fashionable as masquerades for centuries. Because of our Spirit natures, if we’re too much of a distraction, we go invisible. We lose the smells, the beating of rain and sun, and the sharper colors, of course. So we don’t do that unless we simply must.

If you didn’t know, saints and angels share a similar state of invisibility on earth. We humans, when allowed through Heaven’s portal to the confines of creation, are what we are, but angels can portray any visage that suits their fancy.

Frank and Ralph are the most fascinating angels in all of creation. They have no shame, which you would expect, but since they’re bumping up against the rest of the angels, you’d think they would crumble from the disdain. I suspect that when you meet them, you’ll want to write a story about them, too.

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We tease the Pharisees about their poor grasp of Jesus’ divinity. How did they not see it? Consider, however, that the divine natures evident in Jesus rattled them to the core. A man cannot be God. This was their understanding, a foundational definition of who God must be, and who we are not.

Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
1 Samuel 1:9-20
Mark 1:21-28

When a point is made in scripture, especially when it is repeated, we Christians should pay attention. We should never allow ourselves to be “ho-hum” about emphatic teachings. One such statement shows up more than a dozen times — several times in every gospel and at least three times in other New Testament books.

“The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22).

It’s almost too obvious to hear. Of course, if Jesus is God, then he’d be amazing. Ho-hum. Yet, the writers of the post-resurrection scriptures, over and over again, identify the shock at Jesus’ demonstration of the Spirit’s power, wisdom that could only come from God, and his divine miracles, healings, and raising folks from the dead.

Astounded folks are quoted so many times that we accept Jesus’ remarkable presence today on faith, a faith that translates into a common-sense-like ho-hum. But hear the surprise behind the words of those who encountered Jesus. Astonished Jews and Gentiles ask, “Where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?” They are apoplectic, gobsmacked, and find everything about Jesus beyond understanding.

The many aspects of divinity we attribute to Jesus aren’t found in any other human beings. Of course, we say. Duh. However, consider the cumulative effect of his divinity and what that means.

Only a few knowledgeable scribes know the scriptures and ordinances of the law with uncommon skill. A holy prophet receives visions and insights that few can duplicate. The wisdom of a just and merciful king comes to a population with rarity. The channeling of God’s power in healings and raising people from the dead is even more rare. Miracles that manipulate the order of the universe emanate from God through the words of humans even less often.

Each of those categories, as awesome as they are, registers only a limited view of divine powers exhibited by Jesus, the Christ. They are icing on the cake, and do not cover the full range of Jesus’ capabilities, touching on only a few of the astonishing elements of divinity. “Where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?” (Matthew 13:54).

We tease the Pharisees about their poor grasp of Jesus’ divinity. How did they not see it? Consider, however, that the divine natures evident in Jesus rattled them to the core. A man cannot be God. This was their understanding, a foundational definition of who God must be, and who we are not. Then Jesus tells them that “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18).

The religious leaders and legal minds of Israel knew the power of God. They had studied the testaments and learned the precepts handed to them, stewards of teachings from God. They sat in Moses’ seat. According to their calculations, the holiness of God was beyond human grasp.

Astonishment is the correct reaction. The Word was alive on scrolls they studied, yet Jesus claimed to be the Word made flesh. Their land, gifted to them, a chosen people, would disintegrate in order to convert the world, Jesus told them. The Temple would be torn down, demolished in 40 years, and the presence of God’s Spirit would instead live in Christ-followers. Leaders of a Gentile Church would form communities in lands they did not even know existed.

More importantly, further to astonish us, is what is coming next. Most likely, none of us will see the restoration of creation from our places here on earth. Even if our progeny should travel to other planets, they may not be here for the return of Jesus either. If they do, they will see the Son of God, partnered with the saints and angels, fly by them while the hosts repair the universe.

We will see all this, though, if we are willing to surrender to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — from the mezzanine in Heaven when our life here has ended. Perhaps we’ll be among the restorative crew of saints?

At no point in our existence should “ho, hum” be appropriate. Our faith is one of constant astonishment, beyond the most amazing of imaginations.

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The young have new passions and are excited when the Spirit fills them. Their primary task is conquering the misdirections of the Evil One. This is the time to win this battle. It’s much harder if youth are poorly formed as adolescents and struggle to become God-fearing and holy men and women later in life.

The Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas
1 John 2:12-17
Luke 2:36-40

John tells us we need to separate the love of the world, or the things of the world, from the love of God. It’s not a startling claim, but it does need some details, which John provides.

He separates the love of the world from the love of the Father, saying that if we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us. Let’s think about what it means — to love the world.

John is precise. He cites sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life. These things are not from the Father. While these are obviously distractions from God and drive us toward immortality, the point John makes centers on their temporary nature. The things of the world — what he calls enticements — are passing away.

Focus on the world, and you get endorphin jolts, caffeine kicks, and a host of fading pleasure highs. Yet, whoever does the will of God remains forever. The world can’t offer anything but temporary pleasures.

The definition of pretentious is very telling, an excellent word used by the English translators of the NAB. Newer versions translate the Greek to “pride.” That’s a good word, too, but pretentious has more meat on it.

Pretentious means claiming, or behaving as if one is important or deserving of merit when such is not the case. Pretentious, by the way, is an adjective, and it’s not even a strong enough word to merit being called a noun. The noun is pretend, unfounded, or false. That’s so much deeper than mere pride, which focuses upon riches, honors, or pleasures.

To claim a greater excellence or importance than the truth warrants is to be pretentious, lifting our chins with faked distinction. To lay claim to more than is one’s own. That’s a fairly horrendous thought, something we laugh about when a child says it. “That’s mine,” a child would say. “You can’t have that.” “You don’t own me.”

John begins by saying, “I am writing to you children, because your sins have been forgiven for his name’s sake.” He then writes to the fathers, because they’ve known God from the beginning. And he spoke, then, to the young men, “because ye have conquered the Evil One.”

He repeats a message, then, to all three. So interesting. The children, because they know the Father. To the fathers, again, since they’ve known him since the beginning. And to the young men, encouraging them because they are strong and the word of God remains in them. They have conquered that Evil dude.

Commentators say that John recognizes the strength of youth as distinct from that of children and their fathers. Young men are envigorated, energized. We see that in sports. The young are the champions. John ties their youthful strength to the Holy Spirit. We see that in the youth movements, too. The young have new passions and are excited when the Spirit fills them. Their primary task is conquering the misdirections of the Evil One. I like how John places this essential growth path upon the young. This is the time to win this battle. It’s much harder if youth are poorly formed as adolescents and struggle to become God-fearing and holy men and women later in life.

Children are challenged in everything. They have to deal with making mistakes. They’re fragile if their fathers and mothers berate them for not knowing the right way to go. God forgives them, even if their parents do not. He tells them they can know the Father.

We know this because John says the fathers have known God from the beginning. It begins as a child, grows in the young, and remains in the adult. If they don’t follow this path, a pretentious life may fill that void.

So how does this fit into the gospel, which is about the prophetess, Anna? Luke slides by that word rather quickly — the prophetess Anna. I think of the women in our church. How many of them are prophetesses? How many of them are fortelling, whether they’re talking to an individual or to a group? We can identify true prophecy, I think, by the lack of pretentious behavior.

Anna was advanced in years. She was 84. She was a member of the rather unfamous tribe of Asher, the eighth son of Jacob, so one of the ten tribes. Asher appears to have been, throughout its history, fairly disconnected from the other tribes of Israel. Together with Reuben and Gad, Asher is one of the only tribes of which no person has ever been identified by name after the conquest, when the Hebrew nation was taken to Babylon. Asher and Gad are the only tribes not mentioned in the list of heads of tribes. This Asher connection harkens to God’s continual use of the lesser people, the poor, and those set aside.

John‘s letter speaks specifically to men. It’s interesting how the lectionary authors match this gospel about a woman. Anna was married and widowed after only seven years. She lived in the temple, fasting and praying. She basically lived there. A mix of legend and partially approved apparitions positions Anna as Mary's teacher, who also lived at the Temple. She already knew both Mary and Joseph when they visited the Temple.

Anna's entire life was a setup to announce the child Jesus when he was brought to the temple. She correctly grasped that purpose, giving thanks to God and speaking about the child, telling everyone who had been awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem, that here he is.

The parents, Mary and Joseph, had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord. They sacrificed doves, what they could afford, and they brought their child to the temple for the circumcision. All this to proclaim their love of God. When they had done that, they returned to Galilee to their home town of Nazareth, and the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.

They had come into the city of Jerusalem, and they weren’t going back to Bethlehem, where the children were killed in Jesus‘s name. Instead, they went to the town of Nazareth, where he grew up. Jesus became strong, filled with wisdom in the Father's favor. The Holy Spirit was upon him. This is a summary of John’s messaging in his letter. A non-pretentious upbringing, exhibiting “whoever does the will of God remains forever.”

We’re not sure about the timeline of Bethlem, Egypt, and Nazareth from this scripture reading. But the connection between the first letter of John, speaking about growing in knowledge of the Father, does have a special meaning. We have known the Father since childhood. The devil challenges us in the extreme during our adolescence. And in our adulthood, we have a history of relationships with the one who made us, the one who lives in our hearts, and the one who joined us as human beings.

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Suddenly, the Lord whom we seek will come to dwell in us. The Holy Spirit is the messenger of the covenant we desire. We yearn for a community of faith, a gathering of faulty people accepting the friendship of God and the forgiveness of our sins. None of us is deserving, but all of us are sought after by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent
Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24
Luke 1:57-66

Thus says the Lord GOD:
Lo, I am sending my messenger
to prepare the way before me;
And suddenly there will come to the temple
the LORD whom you seek,
And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. (Malachi 3:1)

This messenger prophesied by Malachi turned out to be John the Baptist. Malachi — which means “messenger” — is likely a nom de plume, a pseudonym for another author, perhaps Ezra, or a couple of scribes. Let’s stick with Malachi, since the biblical tradition does too.

The storyline of Malachi is well outlined by the USCC (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) in their introduction to the book of Malachi. The following explains a pattern we’ve seen many times in the Bible—an expected reply from God to societies gone awry.

God loves Israel (1:2–5), but the people return that love poorly. Taking advantage of the negligent attitude of the priests, they withhold tithes and sacrificial contributions (3:6–11) and cheat God by providing defective goods for sacrifice (1:6–14). People divorce their spouses and marry worshipers of other gods (2:10–16). Sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, and people who take advantage of workers and the needy abound (3:5). Priests, who could strengthen discipline by their instruction, connive with the people, telling them what they want to hear (2:1–9). Underlying all this is a weary attitude, a cynical notion that nothing is to be gained by doing what God wants and that wrongdoers prosper (2:17; 3:14–15). God condemns the wrongdoing and the underlying attitude, issuing a challenge to immediate reform (3:10–12), but also announcing a general reckoning at a future moment (3:16–21).

“Sure,” you may be thinking. That also describes our times. We fit the faulted folks of Malachi’s period under the Persian overlords, 500 years before Christ. We don’t tithe, allow (and even celebrate) divorce, take advantage of workers and immigrants, abuse the needy for political or economic purposes, are counselled by sorcerers, and hail leaders who tell people what they want to hear. To be blunt, it’s a repeated refrain. We could similarly accuse the populations of every decade over the last 2,000 years.

Look closely, however, at that last phrase regarding God’s condemnation in the message given for Malachi to preach — but also announcing a general reckoning at a future moment (3:16–21).

Our minds go first to the good news, which is appropriate for dealing with God’s reckoning.

And suddenly there will come to the temple
the LORD whom you seek,
And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.

Lots of marvelous stuff packed into that verse. The temple. The temple used to be the dwelling place, pinpointing the Lord’s presence in our realm. That changed at the splitting of the veil at Jesus’ crucifixion. Even before that, the temple of the Hebrew nation was destroyed forty years later, and the temple housing of the Lord became the Christ's followers.

The message is still valid. Suddenly, the Lord whom we seek will come to dwell in us. The Holy Spirit is the messenger of the covenant we desire. We yearn for a community of faith, a gathering of faulty people accepting the friendship of God and the forgiveness of our sins. None of us is deserving, but all of us are sought after by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And now to the reckoning, the consequences of not accepting God’s friendship and dismissing the need for forgiveness.

We huddle together for that very reason. Someone among us calls out a reminder, repeating the message of God’s friendship and shared desire that we need him in every moment. “Do not be afraid,” we tell each other. “Let’s pray,” the courageous ones say.

The Temple drew people to God after he formed them in the desert to enter the promised land and fixed that holy place in Jerusalem. Now, God gathers the holy temple people in homes and churches worldwide. We await the reckoning with pleas for mercy for our nations. Some of us will go as martyrs, but all of us want our loved ones to join us.

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The sins of Christians look just like any other sin. We don’t necessarily appear to be retaliating against a holy relationship within the Body of Christ. When Christians sin, though, we join with the world. In a very real sense — a frightening recognition of our participation in evil — we too often prioritize our worldly relationships over our relationship with God.

Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop
Wisdom 2:23-3:9
Luke 17:7-10

Christians recognize temptations for what they are, because we are sinners. Some of us have decades of experience. We realize, eventually, when we have fallen for that which we know is sin.

We are sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, and temples of the Holy Spirit; we belong to God amid a throng of fellowship. A community that sins and then calls out for repentance. We need to repent because we’re sinners. Rotten fruit can look good to eat until you examine it.

Aligning with God’s wisdom comes with greater discipline than aligning with other wisdoms. We know we are “made” perfect. Except for a few rare individuals, we are not made perfect here. God’s will and direction for us provides great delight and spiritual comfort. Still, we sin.

God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made them.
But by the envy of the Devil, death entered the world,
and they who are in his possession experience it.

Other people operate from a different foundation of faith. Our citizenry to God is not the same as our citizenry to country, to religion, and/or to some other global entity. Christians step into a holy relationship, extremely personal to God and attached to the fellowship of believers. Our religion is the gathering of us, not some behaviour modification. Ours also is not just a legal contract, a ritualistic process, or a philosophy. Christians are deeply and eternally bound to God.

As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.

The sins of Christians look just like any other sin. We don’t necessarily appear to be retaliating against a holy relationship within the Body of Christ. When Christians sin, though, we join with the world. In a very real sense — a frightening recognition of our participation in evil — we too often prioritize our worldly relationships over our relationship with God.

Bondage to Christ means to turn our lives over to Him. We bind up our will to his will. It’s quite a complicated thing, in reality, but the gist of the decision means that we believe God’s will is the better thing. We turn back to him more immediately as we grow in faith. We choose to follow God’s leading, and not our own.

The “more immediately” notion is telling. We hope to progress in our faith as God molds us. That means we’re likely not aware of much of the sinfulness that needs attention until it rises to the top of our minds. We work on ourselves with a steady sense of frustration, constantly relieved that God loves us anyway.

A lot is involved there, obviously, like hearing God’s voice, agreeing to belong to a loving community of faith that isn’t always so loving (mainly because its members are like us), and trusting that God will repair and restore everything.

We can argue, and we do, that some of the sinful behaviors condemned by our faith are “not black and white.” For instance, one argument says that compassion is more important than a strict rule, which is a poor framing of the exercise of compassion. Compassion applies comfort to the consequences of evil’s damage. It does not condone evil. It addresses the victim’s circumstance with love.

Some call condoning a minor infraction a slippery slope, when it’s simply a poor application of attending to someone’s pain.

Several believers waffle on the sin of divorce or plead that we allow active homosexual partnerships. Even more believe that abortion is a valid option for pregnant mothers. The proper assignment of categorizing a faulty marriage (annulment) aside, repentance calls for reparation when possible. When impossible, the sin lives, but the sinner is cleansed. The sin of sexual relationships outside of marriage is not solved by pasting a marriage certificate on a sinful union, or sticking a new certificate on top of one we already signed up to live. And to complete the notion of misplaced compassion, aborting a human being is never logical, even if one thinks that mercy allows it.

The issues of sin aren’t addressed by changing the parameters of sin, but by restoring the sinner. In fact, the more egregious our sin, the closer to God we become when we condemn the sin and live a new life in Jesus.

That’s because the closer one sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to the Holy Spirit, the more one tends to agree with the Church’s identification of holiness and sin. Life seems complicated no matter which way you go, but after you take a bite out of unexamined rotten fruit, the yoke of Jesus is the lighter burden.

Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him.

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Yes, the loss of Jocelyn remains raw. I see much of life through a different lens since she shuffled off this mortal coil. Death will do that to the living. I hear the daily readings with a mind’s eye upon memories of her life. I am told this is how grief works its way. Memories of my lost friends and other family members appear in scripture constantly. It’s both lovely and painful.

Memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo, Bishop
Romans 12:5-16ab
Luke 14:15-24

I’m not sure anyone in the family has made, or even imagined, the connection between our late daughter Jocelyn and St. Charles Borromeo. I didn’t see it until today.

Jocelyn died on June 23, 2024. She was born on November 4, 1977. Nov. 4, today, is the feast day for Charles. Charles died on November 3, 1584, at the age of 46. The Church selected November 4 as his feast day. Jocelyn was 46 when she died.

Feast day for Charles and now our Jocelyn, both dead at 46.

It’s a coincidental connection, at best, I suppose. Jocelyn, though, likely checked on this fella, looking up the saint’s feast on her birthday. She was fascinated with these kinds of details. Borromeo and Jocelyn were the older ones in families with six children. Besides being a theology nerd, like Charles, the comparisons with Jocelyn probably stop there.

However, the two share an uncommon character trait. Borromeo was a severe man and an eventual heavy-handed archbishop. It doesn’t sound good, but the biographical details reveal the necessary courage and stability that come with the leadership gene. The priest-cum-bishop was an uncompromising leader, which at the time was of great benefit to the Catholic Church. Without his determination, the Church would have been overrun.

Jocelyn possessed this uncompromising character trait as well, although her heavy hand dealt less with Borromeo’s worrisome wars and terrorism and more with the fundamentals of right and wrong—a welcome check and balance feature in a family.

Fueled by Charles’s similar stance on ethical issues, Jocelyn held the unapologetic reins of authority over her five younger siblings. Both of these heaven-sent souls were loved for that kind of leadership. She was frustrated at times with those outside of her control, but respectfully appreciative (though dismissive of those who should know better). God gave her a remarkable conviction. In her inner circle, her children and husband were protected fiercely.

Charles fell ill with “intermittent fever and ague,” and died from an unidentified disease, according to his biography in Lives of the Saints. Jocelyn was taken out by cancer, recorded only in family epitaphs.

The laundry list of seven gifts in Romans 5, which Paul then associates each with their subsequent responsibilities, reminds me of Jocelyn. She possessed the gifts of hospitality, ministry, zeal, sincerity, and hope, and had a deep affinity for the lowly. She graced many family and friends with them. However, the gift of “teacher” eluded her. Teaching took more patience than she was given. “That I cannot do,” she once said with emphasis. “Six out of seven isn’t bad,” she might have commented. (Or, maybe that’s just me.)

I am also reminded of Jocelyn in watching Jesus’ orchestration at the meal with the elite from Jewish high society, as told in today’s Gospel from Luke. The way Jesus handled their stuffiness and arrogance fit our daughter and sister, Jocelyn, to a “T.”

“But they were unable to answer his question,” wrote Luke about Jesus’ responses to the haughty Jews who foolishly tested him. Our Jocelyn had the same knack for rhetoric. Parables would not have been a tool for her, but the blunt truth she could deliver.

Yes, the loss of Jocelyn remains raw. I see much of life through a different lens since she shuffled off this mortal coil. Death will do that to the living. I hear the daily readings with a mind’s eye upon memories of her life. I am told this is how grief works its way. Memories of my lost friends and other family members appear in scripture constantly. It’s both lovely and painful.

I like to think of this communion with the dead as akin to the Father’s love and mercy. It’s essential to strive for what we yearn for — reuniting with those we've lost by praying for them and honoring their memory. We barely meet the basic requirements of love here, and so depend mightily upon his mercy. That’s why Jesus took every broken trust, angry word, and heinous intention upon himself. He brought the ancient dead to Heaven by claiming them as righteous, for goodness’ sake.

Paul knew from our failures what we must do:

Let love be sincere;
hate what is evil,
hold on to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
anticipate one another in showing honor.

Jocelyn mirrored well God’s purpose for graced gifts, though like many of us, she didn’t realize that fully, until now, gazing upon the source of all good, the model of mutual affection, and the epitome of honor. Her view of the beatific vision of God at this moment is one we can hardly imagine.

In the meantime, until we join our loved ones in that gaze, we want to do the right thing. Let us, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

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Imagine that the Paradise God carved out of the universe, as it was blockaded from all of creation, now unhinged and out of order, as a kind of cornerstone in the restoration of the heavens and earth coming in the next age. Our imaginations are a playground for God, if we accept his boundaries, that is.

Tuesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Romans 5:12, 15, 17-19, 20-21
Luke 12:35-38

For just as through the disobedience of one man
the many were made sinners,
so, through the obedience of the one
the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)

Angst over an original Adam and Eve, bouncing between myth and reality, metaphor and literal truth, distracts us from the relationship between man and God so essential in the theology of Paul’s verse above. Not that our angst is unfounded. In fact, consternation and confusion are the very marks of our existence. The angst is our veil. We see through a glass darkly, as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 13:12.

The issue for Paul is God and us, not the pain of the murky window through which we attempt to peer into Heaven.

Paul had already set the stage earlier in this chapter for a different frame for us than our confusion. “But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come.” (Romans 5:13)

Granted, Paul can sound more confusing than the truth he struggles to explain.

Let’s fit a placeholder right up front. The word “Adam” in Hebrew is both singular and plural, allowing the word to mean “mankind.” We have a similar use in the word “man.” So, for those who consider Adam purely mythical, go with mankind. For those who insist upon a literal Adam as the first in creation, you and I and Paul will get along just fine.

The framework for Paul’s theology of Jesus rests on Adam’s entrance into sin. That sin was disobedience in his relationship to God. It wasn’t a traffic infraction or a social blunder. Adam’s was a sin of high command.

“The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it, you shall die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

Since we’re a procreative bunch, the progeny of Adam and Eve were subject to this disastrous sin. “The many were made sinners.”

How to fix this? Frankly, there is no fixing it. We can, however, be repaired. “… so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.”

The relationship of God with Adam and Eve was personal and likely a physical reality. They abode, lived together in Paradise. That wasn’t heaven. It was, and likely still is, a created segment of the universe, with God already there with them. “When they heard the sound of the LORD God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”

Imagine that the Paradise God carved out of the universe, as it was blockaded from all of creation, now unhinged and out of order, as a kind of cornerstone in the restoration of the heavens and earth coming in the next age. Our imaginations are a playground for God, if we accept his boundaries, that is.

In that horrific breaking of the goodness of Paradise where both man and God lived, Adam and Eve, in their sinfulness, could no longer be physically with God. They hid from him. The repair to this detachment, Paul insists, was for God to enter the world as one of us and reattach, as it were, creation to him. We needed to be made righteous by a righteous man’s sacrifice and conquering of death—a new Adam.

The story, true inasmuch as we can place the intention of the scriptures, places God back into creation and us back into God’s presence. It’s a relationship bundle, not a court-ordered visitation. We’re physically re-aligned with God if we both desire it and are willing to accept it.

Even in that exercise of our will, though, God assists us. Paul explains. “Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We still die, but we are not dead. We will shuffle off this mortal coil, as Shakespeare coined it in Hamlet, clearly identifying a life eternal afterward. Our exit shuffle, which I envision more as a dance than a doggerel march, includes several elements of the grace Paul points out. We are filled with the Holy Spirit, fed by the body and blood of Christ, and formed in the Word placed upon our hearts by the Father.

The glass darkly and the shuffling off this mortal coil aptly reveal to us the path we’re on. We, in exquisite transformation, have a truly good news ending, or rather, beginning. “In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so, through one righteous act, acquittal and life came to all.”

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Some of us find Jesus’ use of the Jonah story as a prophetic connection a strong clue to its veracity. Why would Jesus wrap such an essential reference to three days in a whale by Jonah to his upcoming three days in the “heart of the earth?” Would he use a critical piece of scripture that is fulfilled from a made-up story?

Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary
Jonah 3:1-10
Luke 10:38-42

Today’s reading from Jonah skips over the anger of a reluctant prophet, his obstinacy in the face of a God he knew to be immovable, and the frightening reframing of Jonah’s need to go to Ninevah through an experience of a giant fish that spewed him out of its gullet after three days onto a beach.

Instead, we get the happy conclusion, a successful command from Jonah that the Ninevites would be killed if they didn’t repent. Actually, it doesn’t appear from the text that Jonah offered repentance. Quite the opposite. He was a mouthpiece describing Nineveh’s upcoming demise and was angry with God when the people were spared.

It’s the king who fostered the behavior of a repentant people. “Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish,” said the King, imploring God to save them.

The unholy people then did what the king asked — rather, commanded. “Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand.”

This remarkable tale ends like a fairy tale, with God relenting his hand, stopping “the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.”

I say fairy tale, because theologians have argued over the origin of this scripture. Like the story of Job and many other Old Testament documents, the stories present fanciful, legendary fireside drama.

Yet, some of us find Jesus’ use of the story as a prophetic connection a strong clue to its veracity. Why would Jesus wrap such an essential reference to three days in a whale by Jonah to his upcoming three days in the “heart of the earth?” Would he use a critical piece of scripture that is fulfilled from a made-up story?

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher,* we wish to see a sign from you.” He said to them in reply, “An evil and unfaithful* generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights,* so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here. (Matthew 12:38-41)

In fact, Jesus identifies the men of Nineveh as present on the judgment day. Of course, if we take Jesus seriously, and we layer the power of God upon the miracles and preposterous-sounding healings during Jesus’ earthly life, Jonah’s story assuredly is true.

The symbolism of the story isn’t in the details of events. The symbolism refers to the very nature of kingship, which is connected to God through both inherited and appointed authority. Jonah’s attentive king was perhaps the King of Assyria, or simply a local, provincial ruler, say the scholars. In any case, his leadership was that of a servant who finally hears and takes the proclamation of God to heart.

We more often place ourselves in the shoes of Jonah, for good reason. Obstinacy and avoidance better reflect our natures. Our roles as authorities present more opportunities for sin, but we may not recognize that. God, in most cases, must force our hand to obey him. The King of Nineveh, however, has performed worse evils than Jonah, allowing and surely participating in the sins of Nineveh. We, too, have authority roles very similar to those of this man who wisely, and just in time, garnered God’s favor.

I’m reasonably sure that we’ve all, at one awful time or another, called for punishment by God for another person. Indeed, we’ve played this card on entire nations.

God’s response to Jonah reminds us of our place within and in collaboration with God’s divinity. These are the last words in the short 4-chapter book of Jonah.

“And should I not be concerned over the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot know their right hand from their left, not to mention all the animals?” (Jonah 4:11)

God didn’t say to Jonah that the people were innocent, but they were certainly ignorant. Likely brainwashed and coerced into sins slowly and methodically. Most fascinating is God’s back-handed mention of the dumbest elements of creation, the animals, as examples of the people’s sinfulness.

Jonah had no right to be angry. The king had no right to be subordinate to evil. We don’t know if or when Jonah realigned his attitude toward God, but we like to think he woke up to God’s correction. We do know that the king’s response is a treasure for all of us in authority, which is likely everyone of us in some fashion.

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Jesus sent us each the Holy Spirit, where our bodies serve as living temples. The sacrifice has been made, and it will not be repeated. Now churches gather us to a treasured meal of Jesus’ body and blood in the consecration of bread and wine. We confess our sins to one another and repent, absolved from our sins by the ordained representatives of Jesus.

Memorial of Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Zechariah 8:20-23
Luke 9:51-56

We have in our histories both literal and figurative homes. Our literal homes are the places where we were born, grew up, got married, raised a family, and, of course, will be our final resting place. For most of us, those may all be different locales.

I was born in Boise, Idaho, and raised in Idaho and Colorado for a few years before becoming an adult in California. For the past 50 years, following a short stint with Joanne after we were married in California, I’ve lived in Colorado.

My hometowns have been Boise, Coeur d’Alene, and Shoshone, Idaho; Los Alamitos, Westchester, and Inglewood, California; Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, and Woodland Park, Colorado. There are other places, too.

The Church provides us with several connecting points in today’s readings, and they all point to a home we think of as Jewish — Jerusalem. It is, however, an iconic locus, a religious center for most of the world's major religions — Jewish, Muslim, and Christian peoples, the three primal Abrahamic faiths.

Today is also the memorial of St. Jerome, the 4th- and 5th-century scholar and theologian who translated the scriptures into Latin. He took the Old Testament collection of Jewish texts in the original Hebrew, forgoing the Greek translation done around 280 B.C.by 72 Jewish scholars. That Greek translation was necessary because few Jews spoke Hebrew after the building of the Second Temple. They knew Greek and Aramaic, instead. Jerome sought after the texts that the 72 used as sources.

Today’s reading from Zechariah was noted by St. Jerome in his second collection of commentaries on the biblical prophets. He traveled to Jerusalem and lived on the outskirts, landing in Jesus’ birthplace, Bethlehem, for 38 years of his scholarly life. His fascination with the historical center of Jerusalem led him from his home in Rome and his studies in Antioch.

Jerome said some controversial things (according to his day’s notions) about Jerusalem. “We must live not in Jerusalem which is now, but in the Jerusalem which is above.” — (Letter 14). He said, about pilgrimages to Jerusalem, that they are “Valuable but not necessary for salvation; spiritual life is more important.”

Jerusalem has long been a magnet for the Catholic and Christian world, drawing folks for two millennia. Zecharia’s words echo in the pilgrim’s ear: “Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to implore the favor of the LORD.”

Zechariah’s prophecy is one for the ages, telegraphing the Pentecostal feast in the Temple of Jerusalem after Jesus’ Ascension: Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men of every nationality, speaking different tongues, shall take hold, yes, take hold of every Jew by the edge of his garment and say, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

To Americans, Jerusalem holds both that literal attraction, the region that birthed our Lord and crucified him, and its figurative grip on the bulk of the world’s religions. It’s the place where our Lord cleansed the Temple in preparation for his death, and predicted its violent demise 40 years later.

The figurative hold of Jerusalem also has a strong negative influence. The Samaritans, broken from the rule of Judah’s claim to Jerusalem during the split of the North and South in 900 BC, named Samaria their capital and built a replacement temple in the Northern Kingdom. Called Israel when the Assyrians conquered the North, the non-Jewish overlords adopted the Torah. They grasped its import but rejected Jerusalem’s centrality.

The Samaritans — which loosely compares to the split of Protestants from Catholicism — considered Jerusalem a fraudulent and disreputable center, a place conquered like themselves. Samaria adopted many aspects of Jewish culture and traditions, but merged them with their own polytheistic beliefs and practices. That’s why a thousand years later, we hear in Luke the disdain from Samaria’s people. “On the way, they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.”

Catholics are taught that the Temple of Jerusalem, no longer a center of ancient animal sacrifices and contested by a litany of wars and shared ownership, has been upgraded (in a genuine, revelatory sense) to our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, the temple in Jerusalem was the heart of worship for the Israelites. This sacred space was where Jews encountered God. They offered sacrifices there and sought forgiveness.

Jesus sent us each the Holy Spirit, where our bodies serve as living temples. The sacrifice has been made, and it will not be repeated. Now churches gather us to a treasured meal of Jesus’ body and blood in the consecration of bread and wine. We confess our sins to one another and repent, absolved from our sins by the ordained representatives of Jesus. Jerusalem has morphed into a living body of priests, prophets, and kings, the Body of Christ.

The figurative importance of Jerusalem, however, remains tied to its physical location. St. Jerome is credited with promoting the notion of Jerusalem’s historical importance.

“Tradition has it that in this city, nay, more, on this very spot, Adam lived and died. The place where our Lord was crucified is called Calvary, because the skull of the primitive man was buried there. So it came to pass that the second Adam, that is the blood of Christ, as it dropped from the cross, washed away the sins of the buried protoplast, the first Adam.”

Jerome explained the place of Jerusalem in our Catholic teaching. “Everyone is judged unto the righteousness of God, not by which land he dwells in, but by the merits of his faith. True worshipers do not worship God in Jerusalem, nor on Mount Gerizim; “God is spirit,” Christ said, “and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” … Look, my brother, because you have not seen Jerusalem, and yet faith is lacking in nothing for you; because, living anywhere, you are with us. Be assured that whether you live here or elsewhere, the reward is equal for good works with the Lord.”

Each of our stories of birth, life, and ultimately where we die has an importance to our physical trajectory. As temple people, the residences of the Holy Spirit, we witness and testify to God’s presence in creation and His promise for the coming Kingdom. We cover the globe, authentic Jerusalems on parade.

As Psalms said today, “They shall note, when the peoples are enrolled: “This man was born there.” And all shall sing, in their festive dance: “My home is within you.”

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