July 3, 2011 - 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time [Cycle A]

July 3, 2011 - Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 - Zec 9:9-10
Thus says the LORD: Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; the warrior’s bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Responsorial Psalm - Ps 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14
R. (cf. 1) I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.
I will extol you, O my God and King, and I will bless your name forever and ever.
Every day will I bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever.
R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.
The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.
R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.
Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD, and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might.
R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.
The LORD is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works.
The LORD lifts up all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.
R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Reading II - Rom 8:9, 11-13
Brothers and sisters: You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. Consequently, brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Gospel - Mt 11:25-30
At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
Reflection
What does it mean to live “in the flesh,” and why is it so problematic? We are, after all, physical embodied beings with muscles and bones and arteries. Surely Paul is not suggesting that it would be possible to live as disembodied spirits, liberated from our physical selves, is he? Wouldn’t that require us dying? He’s not arguing that we should all liberate ourselves from the finitudes of physical existence by ending our biological lives, right? Besides, Jesus promises us, and we profess belief in, the Resurrection of the Body on the Last Day, i.e. even though we die to this mortal life, we will eventually be resurrected in some bodily form. So what exactly is Paul talking about here, and what does it look like to live not “in the flesh” but “in the spirit”?

One of the quickest ways to divide a room of Biblical scholars is to ask them what, precisely, Paul sought to convey in using the Greek word sarx, universally translated in English as “flesh,” in his Letter to the Romans. Some have asserted that Paul wished to describe only those physical urges of the human person that lead towards sins we tend to categorize as of the physical body, e.g. lust and gluttony. Others have advocated a more expansive reading of this term, “flesh” that incorporates proclivities towards non-physical types of sin, e.g. pride and envy. Perhaps the best way to understand this concept of flesh is as all those tendencies congenital to us as human beings that can lead us to sin.

Many of the major philosophies, theologies, and political theories of human history can trace their initial point of departure back to a fundamental disagreement over the essential nature of the human being. Metaphysics is the name of the discipline that studies the true nature of things in the universe, and philosophical anthropology is the sub-discipline that focuses exclusively on what-it-is-to-be human. (Theological anthropology is an adjacent branch that explores the nature of the human person vis-à-vis the nature of God, thus the testimony of Genesis that human beings are formed in the image and likeness of a loving, reasoning, creating God is the starting point of Judeo-Christian anthropology.)

If one takes as premises that (1) we are created in the image and likeness of the God who made us, and (2) that this God is a benevolent, loving, just, merciful sort of being, then we, too, ought to possess those qualities. And yet, even a cursory examination of human history reveals that, in addition to our capacity for those qualities of love and mercy, humans behave in a matter wholly at odds with those characteristics. Ineluctably, all of us make decisions that could be classified as selfish, mean, and vindictive. So if we’re made in the image and likeness of an unfailingly and unqualifiedly good God, where does our sin come from?

From “the flesh,” as Paul tells us. The flesh here referring to those tendencies that come naturally with being a finite creature. The theological term concupiscence refers to the natural, inordinate urges of the human person. We are, after all, animals—rational animals, but animals nonetheless. Evolutionary biology has programmed us to want to eat voraciously so as to store calories for leaner times, and it has hardwired us to reproduce so as to continue our species. Such intrinsic tendencies are not, of themselves, sinful, but they can lead to sin when we allow ourselves to become, as Paul describes, “slaves to the flesh.” It’s quite natural—indeed, inevitable—to be physically, sexually attracted to other human persons, but it is problematic to allow ourselves to be consumed by these desires, e.g. if our primary motivation in pursuing relationships with others is not mutual well-being, but the desire to gratify our sexual appetite.
It is not hard to understand why Paul would use so dramatic an analogy as “slavery” to describe those whose daily preoccupation is the satiation of such longings. Be it a chemical addiction, a sexual obsession, or any other sort of attempt to satisfy a potent urge, the experience can lead one to feelings of being powerless and unable to take control of one’s decisions—to feel enslaved.

The intensity of such desires varies from person to person, but it is the exceptionless experience of the human condition to discover within us a constant tension, an irresolvable conflict between what a particular appetite impels us to do, and what our rationally-informed will directs us toward. To be human—to be beings OF the flesh—is to struggle ceaselessly with our desires. What Paul warns us about is becoming beings IN the flesh, whereby we concede to these urges, rather than aligning our behavior with what God wills for us, i.e. what is actually in our best interest. So why would God imbue us with this perpetual internal struggle, and how on earth are we supposed to come out victorious?

It might be posited that fulfillment in any dimension of human life is meaningful only if it required some degree of effort. The reason we extol Olympic athletes or applaud virtuous violinists is the fact that we recognize how immense must have been their sacrifice and perseverance. Put simply, the reason we admire achievement is that it IS hard. It’s not easy to master an instrument or run a marathon. Such accomplishments are worth pursuing precisely they demand so indescribable a commitment to discipline and immeasurable an investment of energy. The same could be said of the moral life, of living an authentically human existence. The reason it is so fulfilling is precisely that it IS so hard, that it DOES require so much effort. Virtue is worth attaining BECAUSE it’s a struggle, not in spite of the fact.

But the key to success in this undertaking is an honest acknowledgment of our deficiencies and need for God’s help. Pride—the belief that we can accomplish this feat on our own, that we do no need anyone else’s assistance—is a non-starter. If we are of the mindset that we are equipped already with the tools to conquer our inherent human imperfections, then we have doomed ourselves to inevitable failure. Only when we concede, before God and the community, that we can’t do it ourselves, can we begin to make progress. Once we do, we open ourselves up to living “in the Spirit.”

The Greek word here translated as spirit is pneuma, and it literally means “breath or wind.” It is shorthand for “that which is of God,” and it calls to mind God’s infusing the clay of Eden with his life-giving breath. It is this same pneuma of God that Jesus breathes upon his disciples, endowing them with the Holy Spirit, empowering them to carry out their mission of bringing the Gospel to all peoples. Put another way, the spirit here referenced is God’s grace. God’s freely given, wholly transforming spirit that permits us to transcend our human finitude and overcome our limitations. Thus, to live “in the spirit” as Paul articulates, is to live in such a way as to candidly acknowledge our inability to do it alone, and to open ourselves intentionally to receiving God’s assistance. St. Augustine describes the human experience, the internal conflict referenced above, as such: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you, O God.” This restlessness, this existential agitation, that afflicts us as we go about our day can be abrogated only by accepting the balm of God’s grace. And while our initial step to “live in the spirit” is to be a receptacle of God’s unmerited and sanctifying grace, our newfound peace will not result in a perpetual passivity. Rather, this infusion necessarily will compel us toward action, to live lives of love and community, a way-of-being that constitutes human flourishing.

To summarize: Paul is reminding his listeners that all of us struggle with the natural, unavoidable tendencies of the human condition, and he exhorts us not to allow ourselves to become consumed by them. Rather, we are encouraged to accept God’s offer grace, and thus to flourish. The consoling part is, we’re all in this together, and that is the point of Church. That’s why at Mass, before we even get to the readings or the Eucharist, we pause to acknowledge to God and to the rest of our sisters and brothers, that we are sinners. (The Kyrie, or “Lord have mercy” is one expression, and the Confiteor is still more explicit: “I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters…”) Perhaps the next time you are at Mass, during the Penitential Rite, look around and notice everyone confessing his/her inadequacies together, and recognize that each of us is acknowledging the need for God’s grace. Indeed, if we are willing, God will often use us to be that grace to one another.

Questions for Reflection
1) What sorts of tendencies do you think of as innate to the human condition and predisposing us to sin? Are they mostly of a physical nature, or can you think of some spiritual ones as well?
2) Have you ever felt as though you were, at a particular moment or in one area of your life, enslaved by a flaw or consumed by a struggle? Do you feel as though you were able to surmount it? If so, how? If not, what is left to be done?
3) Have you ever explicitly invited God’s grace into your life? Did you experience any result? What do you think it would feel like to live “in the spirit” rather than “in the flesh”?

26 June 2011 - Body and Blood [Cycle A]

June 26, 2011 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Reading 1 - Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a
Moses said to the people: "Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD. Do not forget the LORD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery; who guided you through the vast and terrible desert with its saraph serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock and fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers."

Responsorial Psalm - 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
R. (12) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates; he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has granted peace in your borders; with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth; swiftly runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. He has not done thus for any other nation; his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

Reading II - 1 Cor 10:16-17
Brothers and sisters: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

Gospel - Jn 6:51-58
Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."

Reflection
Bread was the central food staple of Ancient Near Eastern society, with the majority of the population receiving the preponderance of their daily caloric intake from some form of bread. It was the domestication of wheat and the cultivation of fields that allowed the earliest civilizations to develop along the fertile riverbanks of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates. The introduction of agriculture and the ensuing ability to store and transport calories in the form of bread ushered in a new era of human history, as previously itinerant tribes of herders and hunters could harvest a consistent source of food from the soil. This more permanent sort of settlement gave rise to the first cities, which in turn resulted in kingdoms and empires, all along permitting a flurry of human activities, from visual arts to music to philosophy and science.

Put simply, because of bread—that is, because humans now could count on an assured source of nourishment and did not have to consume their entire daily existence with foraging and hunting simply to survive—all other aspects that we consider essential to a full human life, e.g. time with friends and family, opportunities for leisure and play, enjoyment of the arts, became possible.

The term “bread,” then, is and was shorthand for nourishment, sustenance, and life itself. Moroever, it represents the whole range of human experiences made possible by its availability. Having access to bread means that we are able not merely to survive, but to flourish in all that it means to be human. Thus, when Jesus instructed us to pray to God, “Give us today our daily bread,” a paraphrasing might be rendered, “Give us today that which we need to nourish us, to provide us with the opportunity to live fully human lives.” Thus, when Jesus tells us, “I am the Bread of Life,” He is claiming that He Himself is that which we need to live. He, Jesus, God become human, is the source of our daily sustenance, our ongoing nourishment that makes a fully human life possible.

The importance of bread to the life of the ancient Jews was unmatched, save for water. And yet, in the first reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, we see that God intentionally allowed the people to be deprived of this most basic necessity. The book of Deuteronomy recounts the agonizing experience of the people as they wandered through the desert, wondering aloud, “Did God lead us out of slavery in Egypt simply to let us die of hunger in the desert?” But if God loved His people so much and had gone to such great trouble to care for them, why would He allow them to suffer the pangs of hunger?

The cardinal sin of the Jewish people, as delineated throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, is that of pride. Indeed, the Christian Church continues to assert that the sin with which we struggle most ceaselessly as human beings is that of pride. Pride permeates our daily interactions and poisons even our accomplishments. This proclivity towards pride is epitomized in the production of bread, and it is this mundane item of human life that God uses to teach the people Israel—and us—a lesson about our relationship to God and the cosmos.

Before eating bread, the Jewish people say a blessing known as the Hamotzi. It goes, Baruch Atah Adonai Eleheinu Melech Haolam Hamatzi Lechem Meen Haaretz, or, “Blessed are You, Oh Lord, Our God, King of the Universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth.” (This is the formula upon which our own Catholic Eucharistic prayer is based, “Blessed are You, Lord God of all Creation, through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made, it will become for us the Bread of Life.”)

What is made unequivocally clear in the formulation is that it is God who brings forth the bread, and that humans are the recipients of God’s goodness and generosity in the form of nourishment. But the Jews had a tendency to forget this reality, much as we, today, often fail to acknowledge God’s role in providing the many good things in our daily life.

The repeated offense of the ancient Israelites—and our contemporary ubiquitous tendency—is to fail to recognize that all good things come to us as freely given, unmerited gifts from God. Bread, which is the result of sun, rain, and soil, had come to be viewed as a human creation, the product of human ingenuity and industry. After all, humans planted the seeds, humans tilled the soil, humans harvested the grains, humans ground the flour, and humans baked the loaves. God didn’t spend 14 hours behind the plow, and God certainly didn’t knead the air bubbles out of the dough. So bread, understandably, came to be viewed as something humans produced. And, in a sense, of course, they were right—bread was the result of much human labor, and inasmuch as God invites us to be co-creators and stewards of the earth, humans can justifiably boast of their accomplishment.

But it is important to remember that no amount of tilling will make up for a lack of rain, and no strain of seed will prove fruitful if a parasite blights the crop. Bread, though it be the work of human hands, is undeniably the product of factors entirely outside human control, and the very possibility of cultivating the earth at all is itself a testament to the goodness of God. As was the case so very often throughout the life of the people Israel—e.g. when they had gained peace, stability, and wealth in their kingdom by way of conquest, then had quickly forgotten that it had been God who made possible their success—the Prophet, in this case, Moses, reminds the people that all good things come from God, as tempting as it is to see them as products exclusively wrought about by human effort.

Thus because the people had become self-satisfied and proud, God chooses to deprive them of the bread they took for granted in order to demonstrate to them the reality that they were, in fact, wholly dependent on God for their existence. To hammer the point home, when God eventually does feed them, it is not with bread, but with an un-earthly substance called manna that literally drifts down from Heaven. There could be absolutely no mistaking where this sustenance came from—the people did nothing to cultivate or harvest it; it quite literally dropped from the sky, a physical (edible) manifestation of God’s grace.

The message is every bit as much intended for us as it was for the people in the desert. All that we have, and all that we produce, is possible only through the grace of God. We are not, despite our ardent wishes, the masters of our own destiny. So often, over the course of our successes, we gradually de-emphasize the role of God in the goodness we attain. The top-rated surgeon may come to see the results of his procedures as primarily the product of his great talents, his years of hard study, and his countless hours spent perfecting his craft. How quickly he forgets that his intelligence was given to him by God, and that all the hours of study in the world would have been for naught had he not been endowed the brain to handle this undertaking. How easily he overlooks the fact that his ability to wield a scalpel and see the monitor are gifts from God while so many lack the dexterity (or even limbs) to manage such movements and countless others lack the eyesight necessary for such precision. All of which is not to mention the fact that the organs of his patients continue to hold life only by the will of God, and that he could do every thing in his power to perform a successful procedure—and still lose the patient.

Again, an elite athlete may come to see her success as the result of innumerable hours honing her skills and training her body. And while this is unquestionably true, it is also the case that she has been gifted a genetic makeup that allows her to train for hours on end, not to mention the unmerited opportunity to be born in a country where women are permitted to participate in sports and the chance to compete is even a possibility, while many young women her own age spend those same hours toiling away in the windowless factory of a developing country.

God may choose, at any moment, to deprive us of some good thing in order to remind us that, for as hard as we work, and as much as we “deserve” the good things in our life, we are not, ultimately, the source of this goodness. Nor are we nearly so in control as we may like to think. The surgeon’s eyes could fail, and the athlete could be in a car accident rendering her unable to walk, much less compete. Such personal afflictions can serve to bring us closer to God, for people are rarely so eager to pray and willing to acknowledge God’s power over the cosmos as when they have suffered some major setback.

The point of saying grace before a meal, of crossing oneself after hitting a home run, or of reciting a Hail Mary before surgery, is to acknowledge, for ourselves and in front of God, that as hard as we work and as much effort as we put in, all such things are possible only because of God’s goodness. We may never have food float down from Heaven, but grace works the same way—it is an unearthly substance sent by God that we might live, and we have done nothing to earn it. All we have to do is acknowledge where it, like all good things, comes from. In celebrating Jesus as “The Bread of Life,” we attest that He is the “daily bread,” God’s grace become human and offered to us as nourishment for our survival and flourishing. And for this we say, “Blessed be God!”

Reflection Questions
1) What sorts of things do you see yourself as need to survive? What sorts of things to live a full life and flourish (which is more than mere survival)? What role do you play in procuring these things, and what role does God play in providing them?
2) Do you ever struggle to see what God is trying to teach you at a given point of suffering or affliction in your life? Are there any times when you feel that you have been deprived of some basic good, and you have cried out to God asking, “What is going on here?” Was it resolved? How do you view the experience?
3) What does it mean to you, personally, to say to God, “Give us each day our daily bread?” What is YOUR daily bread? What do you, uniquely, mean when you say those words to God? Are you getting your daily bread?
4) What does it mean to you when Jesus says that He is the Bread of Life? How does that, in a strictly practical sense, work for you?

19 June 2011 - Holy Trinity Sunday [Cycle A]

John 3:16 - God is willing to move to Seattle for us.

June 19, 2011 - The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Reading 1 - Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9
Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets. Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name, "LORD." Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out, "The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."

Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own."

Responsorial Psalm - Dn 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56
R. (52b) Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever;
And blessed is your holy and glorious name, praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you in the temple of your holy glory, praiseworthy and glorious above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you who look into the depths from your throne upon the cherubim,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!

Reading II - 2 Cor 13:11-13
Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the holy ones greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Gospel - Jn 3:16-18
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.




Reflection
Why does a 9th grade boy give his crush a box of chocolate hearts on Valentine’s Day, and why does an investment banker purchase a diamond solitaire for his law school fiancé to propose? Why would parents hand their high school graduate the keys to a new car, or shower their expectant daughter with blankets, pacifiers, and strollers? Why do we give gifts?

Certainly it’s a nice thing to do, but plenty of things are nice to do. Too, there might be a financial consideration—many times, we give items that the recipient either could not afford or would not buy for herself—but it can’t simply be that “it’s a nice thing to do,” and “the person could use it.” Using that logic, we’d presumably be compelled to walk around town gifting half the people we meet—it would be a nice thing to do to purchase a laptop for the young college student who lifeguards at the fitness center, or to hand the keys of that new car to a single mom who takes public transit to her job as a hotel maid each day.

The bottom line is that we don’t just go around giving out random gifts—so why do we give the ones we do?

We give gifts as a form of communication. The simple act of a man handing a woman a bouquet of flowers (to take one common example) is loaded with meaning. First of all, the gift itself is significant. Flowers symbolize life and vibrancy—the open blossom represents a moment of actualized potential, a moment in which the full beauty of the plant is on display. Too, the flower embodies beauty and epitomizes sensual appeal—its colors, aroma, and touch all elicit a potent response on the part of the recipient. The message, though implicit, is unmistakable—just as the flowers are thought beautiful, so too the man finds the woman beautiful and wishes for her to know his feelings.

But why flowers? Why jewelry? Why can’t the man simply TELL the woman about his love? Why the gifts?

At a certain point, words are insufficient. Where spoken sentences leave off, other forms of communication pick up. One such type of communication is body language, and another is the language of gifting. When a best friend has spent a year studying in Europe, or a parent returns from military deployment overseas, it is inadequate to express the depth of our emotion by simply walking up to that person and articulating, “I have missed you very much.” Instead, we run up, wrap our arms around the person, and squeeze her close in our embrace, for where the words, “I missed you,” fall short, this rib-crushing hug attempts to fill in. A hug is a form of nonverbal communication that seeks to convey what words cannot. The quarterback chest bumping his wide receiver following a touchdown in the endzone, or the dugout clearing to pile on top of a baseball player after his walk-off home run, are used to express an excitement and energy that simply saying, “Great job!” and “Gosh, this is exciting!” simply couldn’t do justice.

Demonstrations of physical affection serve the same purpose. A kiss is far more adequate for expressing, “I think you are pretty and I have romantic feelings for you,” than would be that same uttered sentiment, and the purpose of a honeymoon is for the newly married couple to go tell one another using body language what they’ve just declared verbally before family and friends.

The same with gifts. When a man says to a woman, “I want you to wear this ring,” he indicates that, not only does he love her, but that this particular instance of love is so profound that he desires to put her in a different category from every other woman he has ever met. Flowers and jewelry are a way of setting someone apart—we simply don’t go around giving people bouquets of roses, much less offering them diamonds. To give a woman flowers is to say, “As beautiful as I find the hundreds of women I come into contact with each week, YOU are the one I find most beautiful.” And to give a woman an engagement ring is to articulate, in a powerful and palpable manner, “Of all the women I’ve ever given flowers, you are unique. You alone are the person I wish to devote myself to in an unequaled and unreserved way.” Gifts elucidate what words cannot. In a sense, they answer a question that occasionally gets posed, but usually remains unspoken: “How much do you love me?” Or, “How proud of me are you?” Or, “How much have you missed me?”

Couples will sometimes engage in playful banter—“How much do you love me?” the one begins. It is then the other’s task to delineate some wildly exaggerative explication. “So much that I would drop out of grad school, marry you, and steal you away to an island in the South Pacific, forsaking friends and neglecting all earthly responsibility save to make you happy.” And, not infrequently, this fanciful exchange turns serious in the course of a lived human relationship.

“How much do you love me?” the recent grad may say to her groom. “Enough to move to Seattle, where I was offered a job?” At this point, words no longer suffice—attesting in spoken form, “I love you so much that I would move to Seattle,” is nice, but actually making that personal sacrifice and moving to Seattle demonstrates the full extent of that love.

Such is the point of today’s Gospel, of the famed Scripture passage John 3:16, of the Incarnation itself. The event of God-become-human is a gift to the human race, a palpable, embodied articulation of incomprehensible love. Throughout the Old Testament, God attested to the people how very much He loved them; in the Person of Jesus, God communicated the reality of that truth more fully in the form of a gift. Put another way—God’s words to the people in the Hebrew Scriptures were God’s verbal insistence that He loves us so much that He would move wherever for us. God becoming human in the person of Jesus was God actually moving to Seattle.

The gift of Jesus is like any other gift from one person in a relationship to another. It answers the question, “How much do you love me?” John here captures God’s response to our question in the famed verse: “God SO loved the world, that He gave His only Son.”

Young couples SO love their fiancés that they put aside a couple month’s salary for a ring, or agree to move to a new city, or make great personal sacrifices for the sake of the marriage.
Every day, throughout the world, parents SO love their children that they work long hours, neglect their own health, and go without many of life’s little luxuries, that their children might have a better life. God SO loved the world that… He took on our humanity and suffered for our sins. Each of these is a gift meant to demonstrate to us the depth of a person’s love for us.

If we are tempted to question a parent’s love for us, we might think back to the many times she picked us up at practice or made our favorite meal when we were sick. If we doubt how very much our girlfriend/boyfriend, fiancé, or spouse loves us, we may be able to call to mind the number of times when s/he has been patient with us, even as we had a complete meltdown and were probably pretty unbearable for a few days there. And if ever we find ourselves questioning how much God loves us—especially when He seems conspicuously absent from recent happenings in our life—we would do well to read John 3:16.

Questions for Reflection

1) Have you ever asked a parent, sibling, friend, or romantic partner, “How much do you love me?” What was his/her response?
2) Have you ever given or received a gift that you felt better captured the depth of your feelings for someone (or someone’s feelings for you) than words ever could? What was the gift? Who was it to/from, and what, precisely, do you think the gift communicated?
3) Do you ever question God’s love for you in your current life? Is this Scripture passage any consolation? If not, what do you think could serve as a message from God indicating how much He loves you?

Supplement for Pentecost [Summer Reading]

Supplement: The Church
“Church” is a rendering of the Greek ekklesia, which means “assembly.” The early Christians met secretly in homes or underground locations for fear of persecution. Though many of the first disciples continued to identify as Jewish—they were a particular iteration of Judaism that lived according to the moral teachings of Jesus—they were not welcome in the synagogues. Nor could they practice their faith openly throughout the Roman Empire, where the official state religion required them to participate in sacrifices and public displays of devotion to the Roman gods. Moreover, the early disciples refused to acknowledge the supposed divine nature of the emperor, and they clung to an absolute pacifism that contravened the practice of Roman military conscription.

Because of this inhospitable socio-political environment, the first communities of Christians gathered in small groups, reading the Scriptures and celebrating the Lord’s Supper together. When a missionary, e.g. Peter or Paul, would come to a new city, he would preach in the home of a friendly local—usually the wife of a relatively economically/politically powerful individual. The missionary would stay for a period of time, explaining the teachings of Jesus and baptizing new followers, before leaving for another city. Upon departure, the missionary would place a local individual in charge of that city’s ekklesia. It was this person who came to take on the role of what we now refer to as a bishop, and the entire community of followers in a given city would become the ekklesia, the Church, of Corinth, or Tarsus, or Philippi. This is what we mean when we say that the Church is “apostolic”—we can trace the succession of leadership directly back to those first apostles who then ordained others to oversee the growth and governance of a local Church.

As the Church expanded, these local leaders, known as presbyters, the Greek word for “elder,” or “old man,” would appoint additional ministers (diakonos) to assist in the administration of the local community and celebration of the sacraments. Before long, there were local ekklesia, led by presbyters who were assisted by diakonos, all over the Roman Empire, and these local Churches came to be organized in much the same manner as Roman municipalities, i.e. as Diocese. Thus, an individual living in Damascus would be said to belong to the “[Christian] Church of Damascus,” and to this day, our canonical status is as members of the “Church of Philadelphia” or Detroit or San Francisco. But because each of these local Churches inevitably would grow in unique ways, according to regional custom and the distinctive personas of their local leadership, the early Christians recognized the importance of unifying all of these various city Churches into a single, larger, more universal community. Since Peter, the first leader of the disciples had gone to Rome, and Rome was, at the time, the capital of the Empire, it made sense for the leader of the Church of Rome, the direct successor of Peter, to serve as this unifying figure. Therefore, the leader of the Church of Rome would call his brother bishops together from time to time in order to resolve disputes, share ideas, and ensure a uniformity of doctrine across the multitudinous communities. These gatherings, known as Councils, resulted in explicit, dogmatic statements articulating the divinity of Christ, the real presence in the Eucharist, and other foundational tenets of the faith. Two such Councils, at Nicea and Constantinople, saw the composition of the Creed that we still say at Mass each Sunday.

It is thus that we say the Church is “apostolic,” inasmuch as those called personally by Jesus to carry on his mission of spreading the Good News appointed successors in each local region and commissioned them to do the same. And “one” insofar as these many local Churches are unified by a common creed under the service leadership of the Bishop of Rome. Too, the Church is “catholic,” a word meaning “universal,” because the Church is not restricted by race, age, sex, or any other demarcation, but rather is open to all. So what does it mean to say that the Church is “holy?”

When we say that the Church is “holy,” we indicate that, although it is composed of humans, it has a distinctively divine dimension. It was founded by God himself, in the Person of Jesus, so it has a holy origin. Moreover, it continues to be imbued by the grace and guidance of the Spirit of God, left to the first disciples at Pentecost. Thus in describing the Church as holy, we assert that, when the Pope issues a statement, it is not simply the individual human being who occupies the chair of Peter releasing his personal thoughts on a subject, but rather that he is speaking in unity with his brother bishops, on behalf of all the faithful, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

At the most recent gathering of all bishops, the Second Vatican Council, which took place 1962-1965, the leadership of the Church released, among numerous groundbreaking documents, two Constitutions—one, Gaudium et Spes, sets forth how the Church is to engage the wider world, while the other, Lumen Gentium, elucidates the internal structure of the Church itself. Lumen Gentium attests unambiguously that “the Church” is all of us—the entire community of believers, the “people of God.” All too often, whether in newspaper articles or casual conversation, people use the term, “the Church” to refer to the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. But this is inaccurate. It can be put no more plainly than in our own Constitution—WE ARE THE CHURCH!

Pentecost, a celebration of the birthday of the Church, is therefore a celebration for all of us! And Jesus’ words, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” are not addressed only to the disciples present in the upper room with Jesus, but are meant for each and every one of us who continue the mission of bringing the Gospel to the wider world.