During my recent visit to my sister and brother-in-law’s in North Carolina, my sister described their search for a parish where their faith would be nourished. The pastor of the local parish—about a ten mile drive away—is a nice enough fellow, but my sister reports his homilies are nothing but a bunch of unrelated strands of thought connected by “umm’s.”
Yet, my sister observed:
The congregation is mostly Hispanic and they have a truly reverential faith. It’s beautiful to see them come to Mass as families and, for the most part, their children actually worship alongside their parents. You can see it in the way they participate personally in the Mass and their great reverence for the Eucharist. I don’t know what happens on the other six days of the week, but what goes on in Church on Sunday is really beautiful. Many families even come one-half hour early to Mass and pray the Rosary. The kids even pray the Rosary!
What bothered my brother-in-law about the parish was the pastor’s never using the homily to teach him anything “Catholic.” Asking what he meant by that, my brother-in-law said:
He never answers questions like “What does the Church say about this?” and “What is the Church doing about this?” [meaning current events and morality], or “Why does the Church teach this?” He doesn’t give me anything to think about.
[An aside: I suspect many pastors don’t broach those kinds of matters if only because when people disagree, some grow irate, starting an argument on the way out at the door of the church, and some even threaten to leave the parish rather than respectfully disagree and perhaps set up a time to visit and discuss the matter with an open mind—to “learn more about” rather than “dictate to.” Some have said those pastors lack the natural virtue of courage (and they very well may very well lack it). Then, too, sometimes parishioners hear what they want to hear, not what was actually said…or meant. Equally true is that some don’t believe what the Church teaches and don’t want to be Pharisaical hypocrites. What many parishioners fail to grasp is the dilemma into which they put a pastor when they become irate with something said in a homily: The pastor’s role is to bring people to Christ and the Church, not to drive people away from Christ and the Church.]
With my sister and brother-in-law not finding their faith being nourished at their local parish, they decided to travel twenty-five miles to another parish for Mass. This church was small and, once again, populated but to a lesser extent by Hispanics…pretty much the same as their local parish. But, this pastor—again an older fellow—tended to make everything “about him.” In his homilies, there wasn’t much thought-provoking or instructive about the Catholic faith. In addition, the pastor changed many of the words of the Eucharistic Prayers, apparently attempting to make them more “relevant” to the people in the pews.
[An aside: Many people “feel good” when priests change the language of the Roman Missal, albeit “personalizing” the text to communicate better what they believe text means. Like the language or not, the problem is: A priest isn’t ordained to say as the Mass as he wants to say it but to say the Mass as the Church prescribes it to be said uniformly across the globe. In short: The priest is ordained to “say the black” (the words) and “do the red” (the rubrics) and is not empowered to change any of the words or engage in actions that are not specifically prescribed. The General Instruction on the Roman Missal is clear: “The priest must remember that he is the servant of the sacred Liturgy and that he himself is not permitted, on his own initiative, to add, to remove, or to change anything in the celebration of Mass” (#24). Furthermore, the Church instructs priests about the Eucharistic Prayer, in particular: “Only those Eucharistic Prayers are to be used which are found in the Roman Missal or are legitimately approved by the Apostolic See, and according to the manner and the terms set forth by it. It is not to be tolerated that some priests take upon themselves the right to compose their own Eucharistic Prayers or to change the same texts approved by the Church, or to introduce others composed by private individuals” (Redemptionis Sacramentum, #51). The Mass is not something priests can “tailor” to human whims and fancies but is to be enacted precisely as the Church instructs.]
So, my sister and brother-in-law then decided to sample a third parish, this one about fifty miles from their home. Bingo! Not only a similarly diverse community with a congregation that prayed the Rosary before and participated actively in the Mass. But, over and above all of that, the priest who assists on Sundays is a retired priest from California who moved to North Carolina to be near to his sister’s home.
Of this fellow, my sister observed:
His homilies are soooo good! Each Sunday he teaches us something about the faith and how it’s to be lived in a society that rejects the faith almost completely. It’s so refreshing…sort of like being fed some real food that nourishes an adult faith. He always gives us something to think and talk about during the week.
My brother-in-law also observed of this priest:
He’s not shy about laying it all on the line. He doesn’t seemed concerned about what the people will think or how they will respond. He just says it and moves on.
I asked about the sixty-mile drive.
Doesn’t matter. After the 11:00 Mass, we may head home for lunch. Or, we might go out for brunch and maybe visit the grandkids in the afternoon. On the way home, we may pick up a pizza, BBQ, or Mexican food on and have it for dinner at the house.
The important point: Leaving the crib behind, Catholics whose ardent desire is to become increasingly authentic Catholics identify with the Crucifix. They know full well that fulfilling this desire requires eschewing the swaddling blankets of a childish faith—which feel all so warm and comfy—and embracing different forms of suffering as they arise each day. Moreover, they learn what suffering requires by doing what it requires to nourish their faith…spiritual nourishment for the mind—the content of the Catholic faith taught definitively by Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)—and spiritual nourishment for the soul—the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in His Body and Blood. Authentic Catholics aren’t interested in calorie-ridden, high cholesterol fast food but in the spiritually organic food of the Word of God and the Truth of Christ…even if it means driving fifty miles for Sunday Mass!
Our life of faith as Catholics begins with the Sacraments of Initiation—Baptism and Confirmation—which immersed each of us in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ (CCC #1239). Saint Paul reminded us of how immensely important this initiation is and where it leads, asking the Christians of Rome: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” St. Paul then responded: “We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism unto death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead…we too might walk in the newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). An authentic, childlike faith doesn’t fear or run from suffering; no, it embraces suffering as the way and the truth to rise to new life.
This is how the Sacraments of Initiation walk us through suffering and death, opening the door to us to a life of resurrection. We’re not to live in, of, and for this world, as St. Paul taught, but to live in and of this world for the Kingdom of God by patterning our minds and hearts according to the Truth of Christ. Authentic Catholics live each day learning more fully and completely about the Truth of Christ by studying how Jesus lived each of his days. Yes, they actually read Scripture and enjoy contemplating its words! Like Jesus, what began in the crib then progresses toward its eventual fulfillment after death as these Catholics leave the swaddling blankets of infanthood behind and strive to live the Truth of Christ each and every day, just as Jesus embraced the Cross which becomes, for authentic Catholics, the Crucifix. How so? These Catholics identify their lives with the Cross and embrace it whether as spouses or single persons as they witness to the Truth of Christ by laying their bodies upon it!
In the Sacraments of Initiation, we buried the “old person” who will become dust and were reborn as a new person—a “saint”—in the Body of Christ, that is, the Church. Of this initiation, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem explained in the fourth century: “In the same instant you were dead and born, and the same salutary wave of the water becomes for you sepulcher and mother” (#20, Mystagogia 2, 4-6: PG 33, 1079-1082). The images of the tomb and the maternal womb express the great mystery that happens through the Sacraments of Initiations, an image perhaps best expressed in the Pope Sixtus III’s words inscribed upon the Baptistery of Rome’s Lateran Basilica:
Mother Church gives birth virginally, through water, the children she conceives by the breath of God. Those of you reborn from this font, hope for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Consider the Sacraments of Initiation this way: While our parents cooperated with God in giving us earthly life, the Church—in the Sacraments of Initiation—gives us spiritual life. In this way, the Church is our spiritual Mother—is the womb in which we are reborn as God’s children of whom God is proud to say of us as God said of His only begotten Son: “You are my beloved.” What many of us don’t oftentimes reflect upon sufficiently is how that indelible spiritual mark imprinted upon our soul cannot be erased or lost, even when we sin and prevent the Sacraments of Initiation from bearing their spiritual fruit (CCC #1272).
God’s voice—imperceptible to the ear but audible to the mind and heart of anyone who takes his or her Catholic faith seriously—accompanies the initiated throughout our lives. Yes, through sin, even authentic Catholics freely choose to abandon God. But, the Sacraments of Initiation remind authentic Catholics that God will never abandon or leave any one of them alone to their own devices and inevitable consequences. Each and every day, God continuously says to all the initiated—like a harping parent—“You are my beloved.”
Unfortunately, many Catholics don’t believe this particular Truth of Christ.
Conceiving of God as treating them in the same way they treat others, these “crib” Catholics believe sin makes God love them less, if at all…to the point that God eventually disowns them...just as they have disowned people in their lives. Then, these Catholics also believe, the indelible spiritual mark of the Sacraments of Initiation is erased or lost. However, shameful as sin is and provoking embarrassment as it does of “crib” Catholics, that mark doesn’t go away as each continues to be a child of God.
In this way, crib Catholics are heretics. How so? They believe that God disowns His beloved. Yet, Isaiah reminded us, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” All that crib Catholics who practice a childish faith have to do if they want to become more authentic Catholics who live a childlike faith, the Psalmist also taught, is to seek the Lord while he may be found and to call him while he is near. All that crib Catholics have to do is forsake yesterday—their past way of life and thinking—and continuously return to God when they fail...because God is generous in love and mercy.
Having been purified, sanctified, and justified in the Sacraments of Initiation, all of us form from the many, as St. Paul wrote, “the one Body in Christ” (1 Corinthians 6:11; 12:13). We are God’s holy people, consecrated in God’s Holy Spirit to leave the maternal womb of the Church to reveal the Truth of Christ to others as we witness to the Catholic faith through authentic works of charity…meaning, “good works that hurt and exact a cost,” just as it did of Jesus. This is how initiated become authentic Catholics—continuously dying to themselves on the Crucifix by continuously turning away from sin and continuously rising once again to new life in Christ—and through God’s grace what St. Paul called “a pleasing offering to God” (Romans 12:1).
Today’s readings direct our attention to the Sacraments of Initiation—Baptism and Confirmation—as the Church “our spiritual Mother”—once again reminds us to leave that childish “crib” Catholic faith behind by contemplating the Crucifix and grasping its mystery in a more childlike way: It’s by dying to self that we rise to new life in the Truth of Christ. No matter what our age, stage, or state in life, no matter how far we’ve strayed from the Truth of Christ, no matter what…each of us always remains God’s beloved…in the same way that a parent always loves a prodigal child.
Realizing our thoughts and actions of the past don’t matter and what matters for God is today is the first step in leaving the crib of childish faith behind. Taking that first step is how authentic, childlike faith begins to grow and mature especially as we become “a light for the nations...to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness,” as Isaiah prophesied of God’s holy people.
What’s that mean? Through the Sacraments of Initiation, each of us—if our ardent desire is to be authentic Catholics who live a childlike faith as Jesus taught—are to be a “light in the darkness.” As God’s holy people, we are to heal the blindness of those around us who don’t “get it,” unlock the door of the cell in which they’ve imprisoned themselves, and leave their sin in the past so they can live in the light of a new life. We are to “do this, in memory of me,” as Jesus taught, not crying out, not shouting, or making a spectacle out of ourselves so our voice is heard on social media. Instead, we realize each of these people is like a fragile, bruised reed and don’t do anything to break them down in their weakness.
While we may wish it would be easy and we could spend all day, each and every day in the swaddling clothes of the crib, it isn’t easy and won’t be easy, as the Crucifix teaches. Yet, St. John reminds us, what God commands of us isn’t burdensome because “whoever is begotten by God conquers the world and the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Each of us has been baptized with water and the Holy Spirit, and a voice came from the heavens saying of us “You are my beloved…with you I am well pleased.”
That is the challenge this week’s Scripture presents each of us: To mature as God’s beloved by realizing the Truth of Christ—that each of us is God’s beloved—requires leaving the crib of a childish faith behind. The first step requires us each and every day to call to mind our Baptism and Confirmation.
Last Pentecost Sunday, I suggested “doing this in memory of me,” as Jesus taught, by starting each day by lighting a candle in the darkness of the early morning to call to mind the light we have been commissioned through the Sacraments of Initiation to bring into the darkness of each day. It’s a very simple daily ritual—I use a battery-powered votive light—that possesses immense power to move us from the crib of the bed and to embrace the Crucifix during the upcoming day.
The only question is: Is that too much of a sacrifice for any of us to make to become more authentic Catholics who move “from the crib to the Crucifix”?
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