HUMAN DIGNITY AT STAKE?

I hear gun salges are up since last Friday! A colleague mentioned in his homily Sunday the need for gun control, and had to deal with some angry people as a result. The last person I want to see with a gun is an angry person. An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind, said Gandhi long ago. The strong current of individualism in our society has too many people thinking only of themselves. The common good appears to be as abstract and unreal to voters as it is to the candidates who get elected. Will the principle of the dignity of the human person go the same way?

Although a few Catholic bishops here and there asked for prayers Sunday for the victims and families of the tragedy in Sandy Hook, I haven't seen anything significant from our leadership as a whole about the need for better gun control. The same bishops where swift to issue letters and statements before the November elections to candidates running for office. They have been pretty silent after the last four massacres, as if human dignity and the fifth commandment of the Decalogue were of little importance to them. Their silence on our ongoing two immoral wars in the Middle East is stunningly dis-edifying.

Is the principle of human dignity in jeopardy? It looks as if it's being honored more in the breach than in the observance. As Christians, we see the human person as made in the image and likeness of God, the source and creator of all life. We see it as something we didn't earn. It's inherent and flows from our relationship with God. Our dignity is grounded in human freedom, our moral responsibility to do good and avoid evil.

As Americans, we are all equal. We are independent individuals with rights and responsibilities that are subject to legal limits. The role of the state is active but limited with regard to our freedom. It must protect our rights, promote the common good and insure public order. It cannot interfere with our faith.

That preventable tragedies, like last Friday's, occur now every few months is a clear and present danger to human dignity in our country. For Christians, we must again look seriously and in an informed manner at the transcendent and social nature of the individual. We need to ask what are the challenges in our society today that pose the greatest threat to human dignity. We need to stop and think about the news stories out of Connecticut, and ask our senators and representatives in Washington DC to take effective steps to stop the growing epidemic of shootings.

PASTOR EMERITUS

RELAX AND REJOICE

To whom shall we go, Dr. Phil or Jesus? Advent/December is a tough time for a lot of people. While the church tells us to be joyful because the Lord is coming, our smart phones remind us repeatedly to hurry up and shop before it's too late! Will it be peace and joy or will we drown in emotional and mental chaos? Someone called it the season to be schizophrenic. This Sunday is called the 'Sunday to Rejoice,' not because we've done our shopping and are ready to party but because the reason for the season has knocked us out of our slumber.

Many of us were raised to believe that Catholicism was about keeping the rules. John the Baptist's followers ask him in this Sunday's gospel for moral instruction. In every age people have gone to ask their religious gurus for moral guidance. Many of the world's religions offer moral answers to the fundamental question of how to live well as human beings. Every religion and culture has its moral teachers: Confucius, the Buddha, Moses, Mohammad, and today, John the Baptist - one of the best.

Many people would count Jesus among the world's greatest moral teachers. Jesus was, indeed, the best of them. But he was far more than that. Christianity is not principally about following a set of rules, obeying laws and moral preaching. Unfortunately that's what it has been reduced to, perceived by many to be, and even rejected because of. That debased version of Christianity amounts to nothing more than a religion of fear. Christianity is about who we shall become rather than what we shall do.

Jesus Christ came to establish a certain kind of relationship between us and God. This relationship is not based on keeping laws. We are not standing in the dock before God the judge. It is a relationship created for us by God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Good News of the gospel is the invitation from God to enter into Jesus' own relationship with God. It's a relationship that's based on God's love for us and not on our keeping of rules and directives. That's a relief! That's the Good News the church is so joyful about on this Sunday.

We have been loved into life by God, been saved by the gift of God's love as expressed in Christ's death and resurrection. It's out of our consciousness of that love that we live moral lives. When the rich man asked Jesus what he should do, he was told something that surpassed the law of Moses: 'Follow Me!" Christians are followers of Christ. That's who we are. With the divine life inside us, we learn to behave as Jesus did. That's our moral life. What we do is based on the foundational gift of who we are. Being tight with Christ we can say with St. Augustine, 'Love, and do what you will.'

Christianity is fundamentally different from other religions. It's hallmark is the gift of God's love, the divine spark within us which calls us to relax and to 'Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and holy one of Israel' - Isaiah 12:2 (Sunday's Responsorial Psalm). There should be nothing spiritually schizophrenic about an authentic Christian.

PASTOR EMERITUS

GOD IS INCARNATING

We attended church in Ireland as a family where one of the priests always began his sermons with the words, 'Dearly Beloved of Our Lord.' John the Baptist belonged to a different preaching school. He didn't fool around piously in the pulpit, but called his congregants a 'brood of vipers' - Luke 3:7. Shape up or be shipwrecked was his message.

Religious people in John's day were familiar with rituals of baptism and cleansing. John headed a group which appears to have been large and well known. At the heart of his message was the need for repentance, a word that indicated a change of heart - a new way of looking at life's values, openness to experiencing life in a different way. John shows up in this Sunday's gospel 'proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.' The closest analogy in the gospels to forgiveness of sins is forgiveness of debts - cf. Matt 6:12, 18:21ff, Luke 11:4.

How does this Sunday's gospel play in our world today as we get ready for Christmas? John's message of repentance and forgiveness of debts is an analogy of Christ's message of forgiveness of sins. I like to see Christmas as celebrating the mystery of God's unconditional love. God created out of love. His unconditional love was there before any creature could love God back. The very unconditionality of God's love escapes most believers. Jesus' love was unconditional. I believe we are in so much trouble in the world - and in the church - because we have failed to grasp this. Maybe our failure to accept unconditional love is at the root of the 'sins of the world.'

There have been from the beginning two traditions in the church about why Christ became human. One says Christ came as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. The other says he would have come even if there were no sins to take away, but his death on the cross gives clearer expression of a loving God. The former is the one most familiar to us. The latter, initiated in the early church by the Greek fathers and continued by medieval theologians like the Franciscans Duns Scotus and St. Bonaventure, has been gaining new ground since the early part of the 20th century. The tradition continues today through the fresh new voice of Ilia Delio, a Franciscan theologian and scientist, in her challenging and enriching book, Christ in Evolution.

Looked at in light of a God who loves us unconditionally, our Advent preparation for Christmas will have the character of struggling to accept God's unconditional love and its enormous consequences. In the words of New Zealand-born Jesuit theologian, Anthony Campbell, 'we cannot look at others without realizing the mystery of God's unconditional love for them too. There is no escape from social justice and respect for human dignity and integrity' - God First Loved Us (Preface). Surely the 'life in abundance' that Jesus said he came that we might possess becomes ours when this mystery takes hold of our hearts.

Are we ready to look with a contemplative eye at the coming of Christ as the conscious emerging of unconditional love and its consequences in our lives?

PASTOR EMERITUS

A SEASON OF CHARM

Super-storm Sandy hit the Bell Harbor neighborhood of New York City's Rockaway Peninsula like an atom bomb, leaving total destruction in its wake. Parish leaders of St. Francis de Sales Church threw open the school gym and organized meals and accommodation for hundreds of folk left homeless. A picture of the decorated gym filled with turkey-eating people flashed across the nation's TV screens on Thanksgiving Day and was seen by millions. Into the midst of a desperate and hopeless situation, God's presence rushed.

Can you imagine the fear that gripped the people of that place as the storm bore down on them? This Sunday we are treated to a 'roaring of the sea and the waves' gospel message. The story out of the parish in New York is a beacon of hope to a world of despair. The reading from Jeremiah, a 'salvation oracle,' offers hope where there's catastrophe: 'In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.' It takes Jesus in Luke's gospel to remind us, despite the 'dismay and perplexity' all around, to 'stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.' The coming of Christ at Christmas is something to be ready for.

The story of relief that the parish in Bell Harbor offered is what scripture scholars call a salvation oracle. Journalist E.J.Dionne said in the Washington Post (copied by the SF Chronicle) that the media coverage did more for the message of the gospel than did the divisive words of some of our Catholic leaders during the recent election cycle. Maybe a good way to prepare for Christmas would be to reflect, in the light of this, on the bottom-line message of Christ.

The symbolic imagery of this Sunday's gospel belongs to what scripture scholars call 'apocalyptic literature' - a fictional form of writing in the bible. It portrays the moral and spiritual mess of our world, and our need for moral and spiritual healing, salvation. CNN had a documentary the other evening on the infamous cult leader, David Koresh, and the tragic Waco debacle of a few years ago in which some eighty people burned to death. They were all waiting for the second coming of Christ.

Today we begin Advent, the church's season of quiet and peace that precedes the coming of Christ at Christmas and the coming of the Lord at the end of time. Here in Northern California it is a lovely charming time of the year. We take away the pumpkins and the golden horns of harvest-plenty from our sanctuaries, and replace them with the easy grace and elegance of the color purple. A simple wreathe with candles at home will remind us to watch and pray and use our imaginations to not allow the rush of Christmas hold us captive. Let us not just sit and wait for Christmas like the Waco people did for the second coming. Let us 'stand erect' and make sure to embody the meaning of Christmas, allowing the divine presence to seep into the tumult of our lives.

PASTOR EMERITUS

A COUNTER-CULTURAL KING

This Sunday's feast of Christ the King marks the end of the Christian year. It was created by the pope in 1925 so the year would go out with a bang. Throughout history, kings and emperors mounted their thrones amid spectacular pomp and circumstance. The irony of the feast of Christ the King is this past year we have seen and heard Jesus Christ in Mark's Gospel insist over and over again that he did not want to be addressed as a king. 'The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve' - Mk 10:45.

Titles are important but they don't tell anyone who the titleholder really is. They are handy in that they offer a single-word description of what we do: doctor, teacher, lawyer, mayor, bishop, priest etc.. They are often deceptive, causing us to see ourselves as above or different from the common people. Our history books are filled with those whose titles caused them to do a lot of mischief - Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolph Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Osama Bin Laden.... Over the centuries we have associated character, integrity, fidelity, even holiness, with bearers of titles. And look how often they have let everyone down! Titles, royal, military or civil meant nothing to Jesus Christ.

The gospel this Sunday offers a curious conversation between Pilate and Jesus about what it means to be a king. Their dialog amounts to an exercise in tragic mis-communication. For Pilate, kingship meant wielding power without accountability. It meant autocracy, control, fear, oppression, injustice, disregard for human life and human rights and dignity. For Jesus, it was something different. From Mark's gospel, which we have had all year, we saw that Jesus embodied a mature vulnerability to love, compassion, forgiveness, and respect of people. On the other hand, he demanded, transparency, accountability and responsibility.

Pontius Pilate was a frustrated governor. He wanted to get out of this Palestinian backwater and back to Rome where he had a chance to move up the ladder. He seems to have wanted Jesus to go free, but was intimidated by the people around him. They pressured him to water down his values and his truth, to give in and have Jesus crucified. He was flummoxed by Jesus saying that 'my kingdom does not belong to this world.' Being a king in the sense Pilate meant could not have been further from Jesus' mind. Reigning with power and wanting dominion over others did not match the truth of who he was.

Christ's truth, the Christian way of life, is an ongoing struggle for justice, respect for life, dialog and human integrity - a whole way of life and a way of relating to others that would have been foreign to Pontius Pilate. To Pilate, Jesus was a quixotic figure who appeared to have aspirations to grandeur and power. In that sense, Pilate might have seen Jesus as someone who could block his moving up the ladder. Instead, Jesus was a prophet-like, counter-cultural figure. He was the quintessential mouthpiece of truth to power. He told his disciples that they were not to lord it over others, as secular rulers are wont to do. Their leadership was to be modeled on that of a servant-leader, one who serves.

Jesus talked about the kingdom of goodness within each person. He talked about mutual self-giving, interdependence and communion. Our love of God tends to become more real when we work on how we relate to one another as neighbors. We are here for mutual growth, not to pull each other down. Christ's kingdom happens when we discover the holy in one another and in the world around us - when we make this world a model of what we imagine the next world might be like.

Most of our newscasts this past year have been about nations and governments falling, and others trying to recover from wars of oppression and destruction. What's missing? The need for mutual human respect and the assumption that our neighbor is basically a good person, with whom we can discover permanent peace. Jesus Christ came, not so much to take away the sin of the world as to reveal God's unconditional love for all people - not so much to get us into heaven as to teach us that heaven is happening now, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Although Christ rejected kingship in Pilate's sense of the term, he has had more influence on our Christian way of life than any other authority figure in history. I like to see him as teacher; the one who makes complete sense of life and human values. It's up to us to be active participants in the human kingdom of Jesus Christ and to embody his values of being servants of the truth.

PASTOR EMERITUS

THE FINAL BATTLE

Mid-November and the advent of winter casts a reflective shroud over the bread and butter of our lives. Days are short and skies overcast. Trees seem to wither and leaves go blowing in the wind. The stars in the night sky above Ocean Beach shine brighter than ever. Early winter darkness makes the rise and fall of the ocean sound melancholy. Across the world, November rituals grapple with the mystery of decay and death. Grieving and rejoicing seem locked in mortal combat in our scriptures this weekend.

The book of Daniel is fascinating, strange and full of wonder as it describes, in code, the struggle to the death between native Israelite and Greek invader. Our Sunday excerpt from this book assures Israel of victory. Mark's Gospel, indeed the whole New Testament, tells of the great struggle between the powers of good represented by Jesus Christ, and the powers of darkness represented by the Jerusalem temple rulers. These rulers, the high priests and the scribes mostly, had placed at the center of Israel's life a god of their own making and not the God of the Covenant. For centuries they had misrepresented the God of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and David, twisting the God of their forefathers into something other.

The prophets were tireless in their rebuking Israel for departing from the God of the Covenant. 'What I desire is mercy, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings' - Hosea 6:6. 'I hate, I despise your feasts....Even though you bring me your burnt offerings I will not accept them.... Rather, let justice surge like waters, and righteousness like an unfailing stream' - Amos 5:21-24. 'With what shall I come before the Lord? You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God' - Micah 6:6-8. 'Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself untained by the world' - James 1:27. As Jesus saw it, Jewish life should be more about justice than a temple worship that had become inauthentic.

The temple had just been destroyed at the time when Mark wrote his gospel, and Jerusalem was occupied by Roman armies. To the pious Jew this was an intolerable state of affairs, the veritable end of his world. That the Roman Emperor, Nero, had launched a vicious pogrom against the followers of Christ marked, for the Christian, the end of everything Jesus had promised. This Sunday's excerpt from Mark is filled with darkness and foreboding. It depicts in symbolic terms the moral conflict that's at the heart of Christianity and the world.

In the ancient world, sun, moon and stars were symbols of navigation and provided illumination. The Jewish leaders had led Israel along the wrong path. With the disappearance of the sun, moon and stars, a new light was set to guide not only the Israelite people but all peoples of good will. Christ became a threat to the old powers. His death and resurrection offered his followers a new vision and way of life.

The apocalyptic literature of the bible, Daniel and Revelation especially, are stories of great battles and struggles. They show the sun, moon and stars failing, nation rising up against nation, and the Son of Man gathering his 'elect' from the four corners of the earth. Mark's version this Sunday contains all this in skeletal form. It is highly symbolic of the deeply and very real moral and spiritual struggle that goes on in the heart of the world.

This cosmic struggle should not be taken in a physical or astronomical sense. It is not about the physical end of the world, nor does it offer any clues as to at what point in the future Jesus Christ will return. 'But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father,' Sunday's gospel concludes. The scenario is meant to offer hope to believers who in Mark's day were being persecuted. Mark is telling us that Jesus came to reveal the real God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and thereby expose the sham that the temple and its leaders offered. The temple authorities knew their game was up; they had no option but to get rid of Jesus and put a stop to the movement he had started.

PASTOR EMERITUS

A SYSTEM GONE ROGUE

The gospel this Sunday has hypocrisy written all over it. We find Jesus in the great Temple of Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religious and commercial life. He is coldly watching the scribes, educated bureaucrats who had a monopoly on business and religious knowledge. Scribes could read and write, prepare and sign legal documents and explain the law. They ingratiated themselves with the rich and famous, and knew how to take advantage of the poor and ignorant.

As he continues to sit there watching people putting donations into the temple treasury, along comes a poor woman in mourning dress. People like her had been told by people like the scribes (who worked for the temple authorities) how much money they should put in the treasury. No wonder Jesus had a meltdown one day and chased the moneychangers from the temple. The God he came to reveal was not a God who would be bought off with money and expensive animal sacrifice

This widow 'contributed all she had, her whole livelihood,' said Jesus to his disciples who had drawn near to hear what he had to say. Whenever Jesus had something important to teach, he usually sat down to speak. Here was a important teachable moment. Jesus was not only commending the widow and recommending his followers to imitate her generosity; he was passing judgment on the temple's power to exploit her innocence. She was the ultimate innocent victim of a predatory system. To reveal the true God of Israel, Jesus had no option but to condemn the hypocrisy that had grown up around the temple and its concomitant exploitation of the poor. The divine presence of God in the temple had been flouted and forgotten.

God's signature judgment of Israel is classically summed up by the prophet Micah. After asking Yahweh about how pleased he was with burnt offerings - year old calves, thousands of rams and the firstborn of the flock - he says: 'You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice, love goodness and walk humbly with your God' - Micah 6:6 ff. So it's no surprise to find Jesus condemning the scribes who financially exploited widows while pretending to pray for them.

I grew up with a version of Christianity that was privatized, in which Christ was a Messiah who just wanted to get us to heaven while fulfilling our every want on earth. The Christ I have come to see now, more than half a century later, is one who confronted the unjust systems of his day, and wants us to advocate for justice in our day. Jesus is someone who not only wants us to be more spiritual but who calls us to work to establish justice in both church and society.

Sunday's gospel story about the widow's mite is often used by pastors as a way to drum up support for stewardship in the parish. That's a legitimate way to comment on it. But the message is deeper, more radical. Did Jesus break the corrupt power of the temple? While he was dying on the cross a week after this incident in the gospel, the veil of the temple was ripped in two, from top to bottom - Mark 15:38. That was symbolic of Christ's victory over the powers of darkness. It's his followers task to see to it that the veils of darkness, corruption, hypocrisy and injustice are torn away in our world today. In a world where systemic injustice rules, this can happen only through the power of God, and honest people who are committed to the gospel.

PASTOR EMERITUS

A VIEW FROM THE PULPIT

The preacher's task in the Catholic Church is not an enviable one. There are many aspects to preaching a good homily. For one thing, not every ordained priest or deacon is gifted as a preacher. The medium is the message. Thoroughly ineffective preachers should not be in the pulpit. They do more harm than good. But they are up there, and they're preaching! Gifted preachers should preach instead. Effective preaching demands effective and lengthy preparation, maybe three or four hours or even more over the course of the week.

For theological reasons the church allows only ordained men to preach. Purely theological reasons often make for poor pastoral practice. For pastoral and practical reasons I would hope the rule might be changed in the future to allow gifted men and women to preach, ordained or not. People listen to a good speaker - one who clarifies the gospel message, preaches it in a compelling way, and is not afraid to address the hot button issues. A poor or rambling speaker turns people off. Complaints about long homilies are usually aimed at poor speakers. People will stay and listen to an enlightened and inspiring homily.

Many people in the pew live busy lives during the week, and their understanding of moral issues is more or less confined to what they hear at Mass on Sunday and read in the diocesan weekly or monthly newspaper. This means that they are often confused about their faith and morals. Unless the homily is a darn good one on a weekly basis, and the diocesan paper doesn't confuse its readers with a smorgasbord of opinions and ideologies, they are for all intents and purposes like sheep without a shepherd.

When a bishop tells his people that they must vote in a certain way on election day, all he does is confuse his flock and positions himself for ridicule by thinking people. Many people in the pew don't know how to form their consciences, and the Sunday homily usually fails to address this issue. When pastors and bishops tell their people to vote according to their consciences, but fail to educate them about conscience formation, many will vote according to what they feel or according to what they hear others say. Vague as well as autocratic statements coming from the pulpit turn people off.

The New Evangelization, the Year of Faith, the Fiftieth Anniversary of Vatican II - what are they all about? They are about bringing people, including ourselves, to Christ. They are about giving us, and others, a better understanding of our faith. The serious preacher would do well to heed why the writer of John's Gospel sat down and wrote that Gospel: 'That you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name' - John 20:31.

A new level of faith, understanding and life-change is what the homilist tries to do in about ten or twelve minutes on Sunday morning. Can a fifteen-minute homily accomplish it? The more 'intentional' the congregation is, the easier it is for the preacher to connect. Sunday morning pews are usually made up of people who are there for a variety of reasons. 'I go because my wife wants me to go.' "I want my kids to get in the habit of going to church.' 'Church is part of my Sunday routine.' 'I go because I feel it's wrong not to.' 'I go to get a better handle on my faith.' 'To get closer to God.' These and many other reasons I've heard from people over the years when asked why they go to church. It's difficult for a good preacher to connect effectively with such diversity in the pew.

'The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not "What a lovely sermon," but "I will do something,"' said St. Francis de Sales back in the seventeenth century. Our Sunday Eucharist sends us out at the end to make a difference in the world. In an ideal church, after hearing an ideal homily, people would pour out at the end of Mass rubbing their hands, eager and impatient to bring the Good News they heard to the culture and marketplace. What really happens is that people smile, shake hands and whisper a quick word or two as they file out of church. Meanwhile the preacher is left to wonder in silence if his homily touched anybody.

PASTOR EMERITUS

FROM BLINDNESS TO FAITH

Questions around identity are on many minds. Who am I? What does it mean to be human, Christian? Why do I find life burdensome? The blind man, Bartimaeus, in Sunday's gospel may offer us a way to think about this. For some weeks past we have heard people approach Jesus and ask what it takes to be his follower, what it takes to make it into eternal life. To Jesus' responses there were various reactions.

Blindness in anything alive made ancient Jews shudder and recoil. No blind descendant of Aaron could serve as a temple priest; not even blind animals could be offered as sacrifices. Blindness reduced a person to beggary. There was no alternative; no other option. You either begged or went hungry and starved to death. There were no social security or disability checks.

Bartimaeus sat by the roadside in Jericho, a town which was home to hundreds of Jewish priests when they were not on Temple duty. John the Baptizer, son of Zacharias the priest, was probably born and raised here. The setting in the gospel story is ironic. As Jesus, the Light of the world, was leaving town the crowds of clergy who went out to look were still in darkness. The blind beggar was the only one who could see!

Bartimaeus had heard the miracle worker was in town. His begging skills had been honed over the years and he was tired of it; tired of sitting by the wayside as life passed him by. He had heard that one of the marks of the Messiah would be the healing of blind eyes. Could this be he? He took a chance, a leap in the dark, and cried out in the face of the crowds' disgust. 'Son of David, have pity on me,' he kept on shouting, despite being rebuked by the crowd and told to shut up.

'What do you want me to do for you?' asked Jesus. 'Master, I want to see,' replied Bartimaeus. Jesus asked the same question of James and John in last Sunday's gospel. The answer he got from Bartimaeus was profoundly different from the one he got from them. James and John asked for position and power. Bartimaeus didn't want any of that. He wanted mercy. He just wanted to see. 'Master, I want to see!' The word used for 'Master' here is the word used by Mary of Magdala when she recognized the risen Jesus at the tomb, 'Rabbouni.' Bartimaeus' need looked right into the essence of who Jesus was that day. His plea was heard and Jesus empowered him to make a veritable life-changing act of faith.

'Go your way; your faith has saved you,' Jesus told him. The man's faith began when he recognized there could be more to life for him than sitting and begging by the roadside. He was already beginning to have some insight about himself. This is true for all of us as we search for meaningfulness in life. It took Jesus' arrival in town for him to take the next step. Philosophical and economic meaningfulness is always good. It takes an intervention from Christ to bring that to the next level.

The word 'saved' is about healing and wholeness, restoring Bartimaeus to the condition in which he was created in the first place. The man's blindness is a symbol of all the defects we carry around with us, that dehumanize us and make life burdensome. Settling for life at the level of defective values and insufficient beliefs is usually why we feel unfulfilled in life. We are all in need of healing, of having insight and a faith that will lead us in the right direction. Bartimaeus' faith led him in that direction: 'Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the way.'

PASTOR EMERITUS

SERVANT OR MASTER?

There's a difference between a gospel and the biography of someone famous. A biography is meant to inform and maybe entertain the reader about someone. A gospel is meant to invite the reader to a faith relationship with Christ. "These things are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through this belief you may have life in his name," explained the writer of John's gospel - John 20:30. The biography is addressed to our hunger for knowledge, the gospel is addressed to our faith - our hunger for ultimate meaning as humans.

We are going through a series of stories in Mark these Sundays were people ask, in one way or another, what it takes to be in the kingdom of God. How should we handle someone outside our group? Which is the most important of the commandments? Who will have the best seats? May a husband divorce his wife? What must I do to inherit eternal life?

If Mark's gospel is the story of the disciples' obtuseness, and ours, as to who Jesus is, it is also the story of how he is recognized by the most unlikely people; sinners and social undesirables, those possessed by demons and irreligious Gentiles. The Jewish religious and social establishment, and especially his disciples, failed to see who he was. Only a foreign soldier, the worshiper of a pagan god, who stood by the cross when he died, recognized him. His disciples were nowhere to be seen.

This Sunday we find two of Jesus' closest followers asking him to give them top positions 'in his glory,' one of them to sit on his right and the other on his left. (What they didn't know was that Jesus' glory was his crucifixion, and that two thieves would occupy those spots!) What's going on here?

We live in a world where our job level determines how important we are. Managers and CEOs are deemed to be more important than janitors. We confuse status and rank with our identity. The once lowly fishermen, James and John, suffered from the same kind of confusion. They thought that important jobs would move them from being unimportant people to being important and fit to lord it over others.

Jesus turned this assumption upside down and offered himself as a model to them when he said, 'the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.' In the original language of Mark, 'for many' meant the rank and file of humanity, the riff-raff. In fact, the new translation of the Mass reminds us that it is 'for many' that Jesus shed his blood. Jesus tells his two ambitious followers that in giving his life for the rank-and-file of the world, he would be their servant.

Our identity comes, not from social status, our jobs or our wealth. It comes from God who created us, and continues to create us in his image out of love. Our true status is that of a servant; to serve rather than to be served. We become more fully our true selves when we pour ourselves out in service so that others might have a life worth living. It is to this identification with Jesus Christ that Mark's gospel invites his readers.

PASTOR EMERITUS

VATICAN II - Part 3

Is the church better off today than it was fifty years ago? A credible response can only come from those who were alive and awake during the years of the Second Vatican Council. Few of the council fathers, the bishops who were there, are still with us. Baby boomers were bouncing through Catholic high school and college while the council was in progress. Many of them have left the church and others have become disillusioned in recent years, as they observe what they believe to be a turning back of the clock of church progress.

We celebrate our liturgy in a language that people can understand, and congregants are invited to read the scriptures and minister holy communion. Priest faces people, and together pray as a community, and there's a better sense of equality between women and men in church; not yet the best, but definitely better than it was fifty years ago. There's a sense of gathering together to be nourished by word and eucharist so as to be strengthened to go forth and make a difference in the world. Preaching is always on the scriptures of the day, while the hymns and songs are scripture-based in word and sentiment. Most people have a better sense of what's happening during Mass. Not so many know why!

Bible study groups flourish in many Catholic parishes and Catholics attend Protestant bible groups. Indeed, Catholics and Protestants are usually seen at each other's baptisms, weddings and funerals. This was far from normal prior to Vatican II, when Catholics were forbidden to attend anything inside a Protestant church, and Catholic nurses were forbidden to call a minister to the bedside of a dying Protestant! Catholics no longer see the bible as a smorgasbord of statements that tell us what and what not to believe. Scripture is slowly coming to be recognized as one big invitation to know and to follow Christ into the family of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It took something like the Holocaust/Shoah to happen before the Catholic church at Vatican II reached out to Jews and condemned anti-Semitism.

As one who was ordained priest during Vatican II, and impassioned by its vision, I know we have a better church today than the one in which I grew up in the 'forties and 'fifties. The pre-Vatican II church focused on making Catholics out of Protestants at home, and making Catholics out of pagans in the developing countries. Vatican II invited the church to reach out into the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of all people, especially the poor and marginalized - no matter who they were and without pressure to 'convert' them. Rules and laws became less central and fearsome after Vatican II, as the sacredness of the individual's conscience came more to the fore.

Would all this have happened if there hadn't been a Vatican II? Probably not. A vision, such as we have in the documents of Vatican II, would not have been hammered out and become a powerful resource for individual dioceses and parishes. A vernacular liturgy, for example, would have been left to the taste of each individual bishop, who wouldn't have had the backing of the whole church. There would have been massive confusion. Bishops would be running to the pope from all directions, much like branch managers would feel they couldn't do anything without approval from head office.

Is the clock being turned back by the Vatican? I think so. Is the papal curia back to telling the bishops how to run their dioceses? It sure looks like it. I'm not hoping for too much from the current Synod of Bishops in Rome as they talk about the 'new evangelization,' and take a cursory look at how Vatican II is being interpreted by the papal curia.

Are we celebrating the funeral of Vatican II? No! But there's a lot of redaction and textual criticism of the council documents going on. The Pope appears to be worried that Vatican II may not have been in direct continuity with the early councils of the church. So he is engaged in all this hermeneutical examination of two conciliar documents: the Constitution on the Liturgy, and the Pastoral Constitution on the church in the Modern World. Hopefully, while all this intellectual stuff is going on, the people of God won't be left to go to hell in a hand basket!

PASTOR EMERITUS

VATICAN II - Part 2

After barely four months as pope, John XXIII announced that he wanted a General Council of the church to take place. The Second Vatican Council opened on October 11, 1962, amid much papal pomp and circumstance. It was the 21st General Council of the Church, the first being the Council of Nicea in 325. The Greek Orthodox Church recognizes only the first four councils, and mainline Protestants the first seven. The first eight councils took place in the East, and were convoked by emperors, not by popes. They were conducted through Greek, the official language of the church, and not in Latin. The next 13 took place in the West (Italy, Switzerland and France), were convoked by popes, and Latin was their official language. All of them were influenced by kings, emperors and secular nobles. Vatican II was the first to have been free of secular interference.

Vatican II met for ten to twelve weeks during the Fall of each year from 1962 through 1965. Some 2,500 bishops from 116 countries discussed and produced during that time 16 documents that covered a wide range of topics. The official documentation of the council comprised 53 folio volumes. If you add up newspaper reports and magazine articles, radio and television coverage that came out during the council, you might be right in saying that Vatican II was the biggest meeting in the history of the world! If you don't agree, prove me wrong! The official documents of the previous twenty councils amounted to about one-third of Vatican II's documents.

John XXIII lived to see only the first session of his council and died of cancer in the early summer of 1963. He was succeeded by Paul VI who lived out the remainder of the council but attended its sessions only on special occasions, watching its daily proceedings on CCTV. There was some confusion as to how the pope should relate to the council, as various groups of bishops tried to get his ear in private. Whoever it was who got to him, Paul VI removed four items from the council's agenda: reform of the papal curia, clergy celibacy, artificial birth control, and the question of bishops' synods and regional conferences.

As soon as John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council, the old guard in the Vatican plotted and planned to control its outcome by stacking the preparatory committees with their own kind. It didn't work. The bishops of the world were given a big say and they called the shots as to what the agenda would be. When the Council eventually got off the ground there emerged a large majority of bishops who stood together, 85% to 92% on any given vote. The old Cardinals of the Vatican Curia managed to garner a small number of outside bishops to their side - such as Cardinals Spellman and McIntyre. The one hundred or more accredited journalists who attended from the world's media were not slow to point out the anomaly of a Spellman or McIntyre or McQuaid (of Ireland) lamenting the loss of Latin in the Mass (which couldn't be understood by the people) and favoring the vernacular in the Divine Office, for priests who understood Latin!

If the 19th century church feared, and fought tooth and nail against, the new world of the Enlightenment, Vatican II reached out and embraced science and reason, democracy and new ideas. Certain issues kept coming up in different ways on the council floor which gave a coherence to the council. Unlike the two previous councils (Trent and Vatican I), Vatican II reflected on the nature of the church, seeing it as a multicultural world church, and no longer a church in Italy lurking behind the Alps and peering out with suspicion at the world beyond. This council embraced the world and saw the church as a communion of believers before being an hierarchical institution. The latter is meant to serve the former, not the other way around.

Another issue that kept raising its head was the relationship between the center (the Pope and his curial officers) and the bishops and people back home. How much authority is needed at the center in order to make the church vibrant and not stifle it? The Council ended by deciding that the church was collegial rather than monarchical. We are God's people, his flock. A diocese is not a branch office of the Vatican, nor is its bishop a branch manager. Each diocese contains, and is a sacrament of, the whole church. Each bishop receives his authority not from the pope but from Christ. The pope and bishops together have responsibility for and to the entire church, and are supposed to act as such. This way of acting, called Collegiality, which was the way of the early church, had somehow gotten lost in recent centuries. Collegiality became the lightning-rod issue of Vatican II.

How should the church behave, do business, present itself to the world? The council called for a more collaborative and less autocratic style than in the past: one that would eschew secret oaths, anonymous denunciations, and inquisitorial tactics. The very language and style of its documents reflect this spirit; not a single verdict of 'guilty-as-charged' can be found in them. The language is pastoral, human and dialogical, not legal and dogmatic as it was in previous church councils. Vatican II set the church on a course from an idiom of anathama to an idiom of dialogue.

Vatican II sees the liturgy as the source and summit of all we do as Christians. It is a community activity whose nature calls for participation by all. Scripture, instead of being a smorgasbord of texts that tell us what to believe is, for Vatican II, the revelation of the living God calling us to faith in Christ. Prior to Vatican II, ecumenism was a Protestant movement. I remember the days when Catholics were forbidden under pain of excommunication to attend a funeral in a Protestant church, and when a Catholic nurse was forbidden to call a Protestant minister to the death-bed of a Protestant patient. Vatican II, recognizing that what joins us together in baptism (Protestand or Catholic) is greater than that which divides us, encouraged us to see our separated sisters and brothers in a new light. And whereas the Council of Trent called for a crusade against Muslims, Vatican II recognized that Muslims, Jews and other non-Christian people are in some special way called to the kingdom of God.

If you want to get a feel for Vatican II, I would suggest you get a copy of its final document and mull over it - The Church in the Modern World. There you will find a vision of human life in the world that is singularly rich and compelling. While the minority voters at the council may have lost out, they were quietly loading their guns for the years to come even before the ink of the final document had dried. ( To Be Continued)

PASTOR EMERITUS

THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL (1)

Someone said that there are three groups of Catholics who go to Church today: Pre-Council people, Post-Council people, and What Council? people. As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council I thought it would be useful to take a look at that dynamic event which took place in our church between October 11, 1962, and December 8, 1965. I was ordained priest right after the third of its six sessions. I am one of the rapidly disappearing generation of people who lived through it and followed it eagerly.

One of the Council's leading lights, the late Fr. Karl Rahner SJ, said, 'In 2000 years, the three most important events in the life of Christianity were the Council of Jerusalem, the Council of Trent, and the Second Vatican Council.' The Council of Jerusalem (49 AD) decided that Gentiles could become Christians without becoming Jews. You can read about it in Acts 15 and Galatians 2. Not everyone accepted the decision and a small group of dissenters tried to make life difficult for St. Paul for a long time afterward. The Council of Trent in the middle of the 16th century addressed the fallout from the Protestant Reformation. Due to a lack of historical perspective, the Catholic Church became the Papal (and Latin) Church as a result. Vatican II concerned itself with how the church should see itself and present itself to the world; how to make the message of the Gospels meaningful; and how pope and bishops should work together in collegiality.

The roots of the Second Vatican Council stretch back to the Enlightenment (c. 1650-1800), when reason and science came to the fore and people began to discover the natural laws of our world and universe. The foundations of belief systems were questioned, monarchies and inherited privilege were repudiated, and the idea of the church having authority over human affairs was rejected. As democracy came to the fore, patriarchy went out the window.

Church authorities became exceedingly alarmed, and popes were not slow to react with a string of condemnations aimed at the new ideas of free speech, free thinking and freedom of the press.

For some 800 years before the Enlightenment, popes had been busy administering and defending the papal states - a swath of territory that took in more than half of Italy and its some 3 million people - sometimes personally leading armies against invaders from without and quelling revolts from within. The triumphalism of the Medieval church turned into defensiveness as papal authority placed itself at odds with the new culture of the Enlightenment. Unable to deal with it, the church dug in and circled the wagons against the world.

While church leaders outside Italy tried to adapt to Modernity, especially in the years following the French Revolution and throughout the 19th century, they were constantly rebuffed and silenced from Rome. The voice of Rome became the voice of the church. This attitude came to be called Ultramontanism, a term that referred to the geographical fact that Rome lay beyond the Alpine mountains. Ultramontanism became synonymous with conservative Catholicism.

Ultramontanists demanded uniformity in theology and worship and denounced teachers and clergy who advocated otherwise. This resulted in a "neo-scholastic" theology being taught in the seminaries of the world up to Vatican II; a second-hand and impoverished version of the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Marian apparitions of the 19th century were quickly espoused by the ultramontanists, and pilgrims to Lourdes and elsewhere were encouraged to support their Rome-ward looking agenda.

Some good things happened in the church during the long night of the 19th century. The European missionary movements to evangelize the New World and the Third World were accompanied by a surge in vocations to the priesthood and Religious life. Catholic Action and the lay apostolic movements were born and bore much fruit in bringing solace and the faith to the poor and ignorant.

The First Vatican Council in 1870 was packed with ultramontane bishops who voted in favor of papal infallibility. Bishops and theologians on the wrong side of the Alps, like John Henry Newman, had to bite their fingernails and suck it up. The church of the first half of the 20th century was dominated by rules and papal encyclicals. Pius XII, 1938-1958, dashed off an encyclical every couple of months and offered public addresses every couple of days - all with a hint of infallibility to them!

Angelo Roncalli, an historian and world traveled papal diplomat, quietly watched all this from the sidelines and kept his thoughts to himself. When they made him Pope at seventy-six years old in the Fall of 1958, good Pope John the 23rd said it was time for some change. When a few months later he announced that a Second Vatican Council of the whole church was sorely needed and would take place, the old guard of the Vatican circled the wagons against him. (To be continued)

PASTOR EMERITUS

IS RELIGION CHILDISH?

A letter appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle a few days ago accusing religion of 'blinding us and making us stupid.' Religion has often been accused of that and, if you hear this Sunday's gospel, you could be forgiven for thinking that Christianity is just for children. Jesus drew his disciples' attention to the virtues of childhood on a number of occasions in the gospels - check Matt 19:13, Mark 10:13 and Luke 18:15 for example.

What did Jesus see in children that caught his attention? Why did he so often tell his disciples that unless they accept God's kingdom like a child they will not enter it? Being God's only child, the one who came to do God's will, he must have seen in children something that was spiritually rich and powerful. It was more than just their powerlessness and lack of sophistication. It was that in a child what you see is what you get! What you see in a child, apart from their being bundles of selfish desires, is that they are unable not to be themselves.

Kids don't know how to be other than who and what they are. They have not learned to dissemble or be phony. Like the trees and flowers of the forest, they are what God made them to be. Like the stars in the night sky, they reflect the glory of their Creator by being true to what God intended them to be. There's an innocence and directness about them that's very compelling. We lose much if not all of that beauty as we grow older. The word 'innocence' means to be without injury. We become injured, distorted, to the extent that we drift from the Creator's intention for us.

I was more spontaneous, and less affected and complex as a kid than I am now, some seventy years on. A few dozen years ago an ageing aunt commented on how cute I looked in my first communion picture. Then, glancing in my direction, she quickly added, 'What happened?' We change a lot both externally and internally as time goes by. We lose that spontaneity and self-forgetfulness of childhood and begin to look critically at ourselves, often wondering where we are in life's pecking order. We seem to spend a lot of time and psychic energy worrying about how we are perceived by our peers and those we serve. Too much of that can drive us off course, much like a ship that has lost its compass and rudder and is drawn along by capricious wind and current.

Mark paints a piteous scene in this Sunday's gospel. Jesus is telling his disciples about what lies ahead for him - betrayal, execution and resurrection - while some of them are wondering which of them is the greatest. Talk about switching off on reality! Do we somehow lose our way and imagine we'll be happy and fulfilled only by shaping our lives and values to fit the views, prejudices and standards of the world around us?

Jesus took a little child into the center of his disciples and announced that to 'receive' a child was to 'receive' Jesus himself. Jesus, being God's unique child, remained throughout life totally faithful to who he always was. He never worried about his image or where he stood in life. He came to accomplish God's mission, to be all God intended him to be. That's the package the image of the child was meant to convey to his disciples and to us.

A child lives the truth of who he or she is. Most of us become obsessed to be the kind of people others think of us and expect us to be. The gospel constantly calls us back to be the people God intended us to be from the get-go. We drift from the path all the time. Our meaning, our fulfillment and our happiness lies in staying the course. When you hear the gospel this Sunday, pause and think about the 'innocence' of children, and muse over whether you feel Christ is calling you back to innocence, vision and sanity - or to blindness and stupidity.

PASTOR EMERITUS

LIFE'S BIG REALITY LESSON

I hate pain. If I could avoid it, I would. But I can't. This Sunday's gospel shows Mark at his starkest: if you want to be a follower of Christ, take up your cross. Burdens, problems, sometimes even outright hardship, are a reality for everyone, Christian or not. Christians see in their daily setbacks not a random series of curses, but the cross of Christ.

We believe the cross was the gateway to the resurrection of Christ. Did it have to be? Peter didn't think so. In hindsight we see its necessity in the wider vision of all we now understand about Jesus Christ. As believers, we have to get beneath the surface of our experience of hardship and see something good in it, some meaning to it. Nothing means simply what it feels like. For the believer, everything means what Christ says it means.

In the light of faith, hardship is not simply a burden, one more bad hair day. It's a cross. The cross is a mysteriously Christian burden; hardship with a point. Suffering that leads somewhere and means something. The suffering that Jesus endured led to his resurrection and to our salvation. If he had not accepted the cross unto death, he would never have healed or consoled or taught or saved. Sunday's first reading from Isaiah describes how God's Servant would encounter resistance, persecution and martyrdom, and how God would stand by him in all his trials.

'I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly,' said Jesus, meaning that his job description was to make salvation available to those who would believe in him. Fidelity to this mission was the heart of what the cross meant for him. The meaning of the cross was more important for him than how it felt. Christ began to carry his cross the day he decided that the value of his mission far outweighed any consideration of whether or not that mission made him popular, acceptable, powerful - or made him an outcast, a figure to be scorned, ridiculed, and finally killed.

What's you favorite image of Jesus? Good Shepherd, teacher, storyteller, healer, merciful and forgiving friend, advocate for the poor....? How about seeing him as one who tells us if we want to follow him we might have to suffer? 'Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.' That's not a user-friendly image of Jesus. 'With friends like that...' you might say. Most of us would prefer a Messiah who, with a word, would take away our problems - not one who had to suffer and tell us to take up our cross if we want salvation and abundance of life.

Involved in his acceptance of the cross was Christ's acceptance of the woundedness of the human condition. For most of us, that's wherein the cross lies; dealing with the woundedness of the human condition. The widespread use of drugs and the abuse of alcohol in our society suggest that we are not very good at facing the wounded reality of who we all are. Using drugs and overdosing on alcohol have a way of taking away the pain of facing the truth, even altering our very perception of reality. Each of us has to discover the painful path to life's meaning for ourselves.

For Christ to have avoided the pain of the human condition would have been a betrayal of God's design for the life and salvation for which we are all hardwired. He could have avoided the cross by using his power to rid the world of suffering and evil by simply using a word to do so. But God's design is for our salvation not through power but through choice and conversion of mind and heart, through our engaging society's unfairness, its systemic injustice, its violence and greed. That will often involve us saving our lives by losing our lives - our time and even our treasure. Acceptance of pain is the condition of human existence, the nature of the game of life. A sense of humor might well stand to us as we walk through our valleys of darkness.

PASTOR EMERITUS

HOW'S YOUR HEARING?

My audiologist recently promoted me from one hearing aid to two. I am the recipient of deafness through my mother's family, upon all of whom impaired hearing was thrust. But I listen up, so to speak, when I read in the gospels about Jesus restoring to deaf people their long lost hearing, and try to catch the symbolic tones in these stories.

This coming Sunday's gospel tells how the ears of a deaf mute were opened and his tongue loosed. If you are familiar with the geography of the place, you will recognize that the incident happened way up north, in a land that the bible sees as godless and deaf to God's word. When this man's friends brought him forward for healing, Jesus, instead of offering him a hearing aid or two, performed a number of symbolic actions. He placed his finger in the man's ear, put his saliva on his tongue, looked up to heaven, groaned and said, 'Be opened.'

I wonder if the man whose hearing was so suddenly restored had some catching up to do as regards identifying the meaning of different sounds. Did he have far to go to being able to listen? Did his new found ability make him more sensitive to family members? Is there anything worse than losing your hearing? Yes, losing your ability to listen, to catch the overtones and undertones of human voices, to hear what's going on beneath the surface. It sometimes happens that people who are blessed with good hearing find it hard to be good listeners.

We've been given two ears, but it often happens we're deaf to the people we love, deaf sometimes to the Gospel of the Lord. Our society encourages talking rather than listening, despite the anatomical fact that we have two ears and only one tongue. We multi-task with our tongues! Too often have I heard a wife say, 'He doesn't listen to me.' Her husband will admit that he has been deaf to her for years. And the poor deaf and dumb priest will say, 'Why don't you just pray together and say - 'Lord, open our ears, let me not blame her, let her not blame me.' Simply say you've been puzzled, hurt, wounded - then be quiet and listen in silence....'

Maybe somebody reading this will say, 'I'll give it a shot. I'll try it for someone I love and care about - a kid, or even somebody at work, maybe somebody under my roof. Maybe I'll try it and see if it opens my inner ear. I've been so quiet, so off focus, so deaf for so long.....' That's why we need to take quiet time to read the Scriptures and to pray. There is so much noise around us and God usually speaks in a very quiet voice.

Like the deaf mute in the gospel, we need friends to bring us to Christ: good books, inspiring speakers and teachers, good and wise friends, maybe a spiritual guide, the experience of a retreat or renewal day, and especially people in our lives who can lead us by their values and their faith. Sometimes we have to be the person who will lead another to God. But I think there's no substitute for quiet time away from the maddening crowd. Notice that Jesus took the deaf mute aside, away from all the people.

Jesus plugged himself into this man, helping him to hear. His primary mission was to bring our hearing to the deeper level of listening to God's word. The stories about Christ that we hear at Mass act a little bit like films we see and novels we read; they help us recognize who we are as people - as husbands and wives, parents, academics, cops and firefighters. When we hear God's word, listen to it and respond, 'Here I am,' our identity becomes enriched, like that of Moses, and Samuel and Mary who heard God calling them to transformation.

With two brand new hearing aids, I've been hearing the grass grow lately and, living just seven blocks from the ocean, I think I can hear the breakers on the beach at night! All of that is cool, but am I listening any better? Am I connecting to people and to Christ any better?

PASTOR EMERITUS

MOSES OR CHRIST?

The readings this Sunday focus on the Law - the Mosaic Law and its interpretation by Christ. The Pharisees took exception to Jesus' disciples eating without observing the ceremonial washing of hands. They complaind to Jesus, 'Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?'

They had germs in Jesus' time but they didn't know what they were. My understanding is that germs were only discovered about a century ago. The Pharisees and their ancestors didn't know about them, but they realized that there was some kind of connection between what they touched with their hands and what happened when they used their hands to eat. Their experience of eating without washing their hands after coming in from work and getting sick, and maybe even dying, made them put together some rules and regulations for health and hygiene.

Because they couldn't see the microbes, a lot of it came from mystery. The cause of their illness remained a mystery. And, in the ancient mind, whenever there was a mystery, it must be from God. All mystery was lumped together with God. Eventually all these rules about bodily cleanliness worked their way to become religious dogmas.

In the Book of Numbers you'll find laws, for example, against eating pork and shellfish. We know today that pork, which contains trichinella, will make us very ill if it's not properly cooked. We know also that there's a lot of bacteria in coastal waters where shellfish live and, if we're not careful about cleaning shellfish before eating it we can become ill. When ancient peoples suffered illness and death from eating these things they simply made a rule: no pork, no shellfish etc.. The same can be said for the Bible's prohibition about touching blood, which was why many of Jesus' Jewish followers abandoned him when he talked about drinking his blood.

The many dietary laws, and laws about touching and doing things, to be found in the Old Testament, got to be there because people didn't understand how such things made them ill, and simply said it was God's way of telling them it was (morally) wrong to consume or touch or do certain things. Much of the Law of Moses had to do with externals: don't do this, don't touch that, don't eat the other.

Jesus comes along and says that it's not what goes into our mouths that harms us, but what comes out. Jesus came and said that true religion, or the lack of it, is primarily an inside job. Jesus could not believe that something in God's creation could enter into a person and defile him/her, making that person evil in the sight of God. 'Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile, - Mark 7:15.

Moses said in this Sunday's first reading, 'You shall not add to what I command you or subtract from it. Observe them carefully....' But we've changed a lot of it. We don't observe much of it at all. We're no longer afraid to have bacon and eggs for breakfast; and we all love a shrimp cocktail! Life is an adventure, a journey of discovery that leads us away from 'the law that was given through Moses, to the freedom of the grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ' - cf. John 1:17.

PASTOR EMERITUS

HALLMARKS OF CHRISTIANITY

This is the sixth and final Sunday about the Bread of Life. Last Sunday, we saw the Jewish followers of Jesus arguing among themselves because he said they must eat his flesh and drink his blood. Drinking blood was a no-no - unthinkable - for any self-respecting Jew. Every trace of blood had to be eliminated from any meat they would consume. They liked hearing Jesus preach. But ...to drink his blood???

Things are going downhill this Sunday. Jesus' own disciples get into it and many of them decide not to follow him anymore. They leave. Eat his flesh? Drink his blood? 'Does this shock you?' Jesus asks them. Turning to his executive staff, the apostles, he asks, 'Do you also want to leave?' It was a dark day for Jesus and his mission.

Does anything shock us today? Are we becoming immune by watching on TV so much destruction of human life and property; tsunamis, fires, hurricanes, massacres by white supremacists....? Is there anything about Jesus Christ and the gospel that shocks us today? Have we come to take Christianity for granted - something into which we were born and socialized?

Back during the time of the Apostles, when the Gospels were being written, Jews who became Christian were ostracized by their families and expelled from the synagogue. Opting for an illegal religion they were treated as criminals by Roman rulers, society deemed them to be atheists, and they were shunned by friends and neighbors. They ran the risk of losing their property, their limbs by torture and even their lives by execution. To choose Christ was a dangerous swim against the social and political currents of the time. It was to stick out like a sore thumb.

In 313 CE, the Emperor Constantine issued an edict of tolerance and Christianity became legal. From being legal it became socially acceptable, then expected, and finally mandatory for all Roman citizens - the known Western world. It became honorable, safe and accepted for everyone to be Christian. But it didn't mean a thing!

How do we see our faith today? Being Christian is acceptable here in the U.S. In fact, it may have become so acceptable that it can be difficult to tell the difference between a believer and an non-believer! What makes us Christian? A baptism certificate? Catholic schooling? Church on Sunday? Wearing a decorative cross like Madonna or Lady Gaga? Jesus-talk is still so much part of our culture; just listen to some of our prominent public servants who claim to be Catholic or Christian! Remember Jesus' harsh words to those who say 'Lord, Lord...' but fail to do anything else?

I would suggest that four criteria mark us off as genuine followers of Jesus Christ. The first is an active concern for the poor and needy of society. The unforgettable words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 25 offer the gold standard, the criterion for membership of his kingdom. 'I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me.....' We belong to the kingdom because we have compassion in our hearts and in our hands.

The next should be forgiveness. Jesus Christ offered a special kind of forgiveness. It was more than the forgiveness of the Mosaic law, more than the forgiveness the Koran would eventually offer, more than Confucius or Buddhism offers. The way of Jesus Christ calls us to perform an inside job on ourselves: let go of resentment, bitterness and anger in the heart, and replace it with gratitude. Christians are meant to be a people who aim at that. We probably won't get there until the very end! Australian novelist, Morris West, said in his 'A View From The Ridge' (written for his 75th birthday), that there should be only one meaningful word remaining in a 75 year-old's vocabulary: gratitude; a gratitude that's intertwined with all-round forgiveness.

A third criterion would be to look at life from an angle other than what we usually do; look at the world, society and the church differently. Jesus was good at that. He stirred it up by seeing socially undesirables and sinners in a different light. He blessed the poor, the mourning, the meek and the merciful....and all the rejected and cursed of Jewish society. He had a multi-dimensional view of people. By holding on to a one-dimension view, a fundamentalist perspective, and never letting go of it, we learn nothing. Jesus Christ was always turning it over, looking at life like he was turning over and over between his fingers a prism of glass. Genuine Christianity invites us to let to and listen, and change.

Finally, a warm and cheerful heart should be the hallmark of a true Christian. Remember that powerful little story in Ron Rolheiser's 'The Holy Longing,' about the Sister from the Third World who attended a religious congress in Brussels? The organizers had arranged for the conventioneers to go shopping on the final day and have dinner at a nice restaurant. The Sister in question was shocked and angered at this idea and, when the time came, she refused to leave the coach to shop or even enter the restaurant. Instead, she sat in the back of the bus sulking and pouting - contrasting her people back home who were dirt poor, hungry, naked and starving, with this restaurant. Alone in the bus while the others were having dinner, a light switched on. She asked herself what would Jesus do? And she saw herself aligned with that old crank, John the Baptist, and with the mad-as-hell elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son.

Her anger and resentment disappeared in an instant. Bounding from the coach, she grandly entered the restaurant smiling and greeting everyone in a most warmhearted manner. 'God loves a cheerful giver,' says the Book of Wisdom. Even the portly Cardinal Archbishop of New York said recently that joy is the hallmark of the follower of Christ. If I may, I would like to quote that great Catholic apologist of the twentieth century, the late Mr. Hilaire Belloc: 'Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, there is laughter and good red wine!'

PASTOR EMERITUS

A DOUBLE MEANING MOVIE

Woody Allen is in San Francisco these days making a movie. I think this might be his third offering to come out of the City by the Bay. In recent years, his movies feature the big cities of Europe: 'Vicky Christina Barcelona,' 'Match Point' (London), 'Midnight in Paris,' and 'To Rome with Love.' The title of his current production has not yet been released.

I went to see 'To Rome with Love' a few weeks ago and came away feeling there was more to the movie than meets the eye, just as there was to his 'Midnight in Paris' last summer. You either like Mr. Allen or you don't. Most of us would never associate him with moral values. But when I saw 'Midnight in Paris' last summer, I felt he might be starting to walk away from shallowness and hedonism. 'To Rome...' is another step toward healthy values, but dressed up in European goofiness. I loved the whole seductive atmosphere of Rome that breathed through the movie - the sun, the narrow alleys of Trastevere, outdoor dining, the old world surround, the crowds, couples strolling about....

I remember reading a few years ago an interview that Time magazine did with Allen, in which he said he tended to be sad because life appeared to him to have no meaning. He said he envied those who believed in an afterlife. Maybe that explains all the nostalgia that runs through 'Midnight in Paris,' and his attempts to take a deeper look at life's meaning in this summer's 'To Rome with Love.' The movie is an anthology of vignettes about true and false love, where people fall for the lure of wealth, fame, honor and pleasure. And eventually return home to family and reality.

One of the most farcical of these is where Italian actor, Roberto Benigni, a gifted clown if ever there was one, becomes a short-lived celebrity. A happily married man and father of two, he emerges from his home one morning only to find himself surrounded by paparazzi. He has no clue why this has happened, being told only that 'you are famous because you are famous!' Day and night the Roman crowds follow him around. Having been given celebrity status, he is ferried by limousine from one event to another, media outlets breathlessly jostle for a soundbite, women flock to him from all sides, he endlessly appears on the evening news and late night chat shows answering such questions as 'What shampoo do you prefer?' Eventually someone else gets all the attention and a hapless Benigni is left all alone, until his wife finds him in the middle of a street, lost and confused about his fall from popularity, and takes him home where he lives happily ever after. This story is obviously lampooning our celebrity-obsessed Kardashian culture.

Then there is this lovely Italian couple, Milly and Antonio, who arrive one morning in Rome from Pordenone for their honeymoon. Milly, played by the drop dead gorgeous Alessandra Mastronardi, goes out in the afternoon in search of a beauty salon and gets lost in the big city. She finds herself on a movie set where the director, a celebrity whom she has admired for years, invites her home. Overwhelmed by his attentions, she succumbs to his desires. Meanwhile Antonio is waiting for her return at the hotel when a hooker (Penelope Cruz) forces her way into his room and he succumbs to the inevitable opportunity...Eventually Milly finds her way back to the hotel and, with her new husband, goes back home to begin life with him.

A final goofy chapter is where Woody Allen persuades the father of his daughter's fiance, who sings opera in the shower, to go on stage. With a voice that's somewhere between Caruso and Pavarotti, he can only sing in the shower, and a special shower travels with him from opera house to opera house. He becomes famous, singing onstage while showering, until he tires of it all and simply decides to go back home to his wife and family.

These past few Sundays, the gospel at church and its homilists have been trying to get people to sit up and smell the roses, and go figure out where the true bread of life is to be found. 'To Rome with Love' unmistakeably highlights the brick wall at which the pursuit of pleasure, fame, honor and wealth arrives and ends, and points to where life's true bread lies. Some simple summer food for thought is here, with a few good laughs thrown in for good measure.

PASTOR EMERITUS

BREAD THAT NOURISHES

The lady with the box of crouton-like bits of bread in Golden Gate Park the other morning was feeding the birds. And they flocked to her. We humans love bread, especially freshly baked and in the morning. Sad was the day for San Francisco when Parisian Sourdough closed its doors and windows on Evans Avenue. It was a must to open my car window when driving past and to breathe in the life-giving aroma. Though Wonder Bread is also gone, Boudin is still baking it's savory French sourdough in town. The flavor of fresh bread - Boudin, Parisian, Wonder Bread - is life-giving.

As a kid, I often walked in home after school to the unforgettable smell of Irish soda bread baking in the kitchen. I loved it and couldn't wait until it was ready to eat. I wanted to eat it hot out of the oven! I walk past the bread section of the supermarket very quickly, failing to resist a lingering glance at the bewildering display of breads - alluring, seductive, hypnotic, aromatic.... Ah, wonderful mouth-watering staff of life! How quickly and easily these tempting goodies put on the pounds where it hurts most - possibly and paradoxically shortening life itself! And then, driving home, I repent when I see an emaciated someone searching a trash-can for something to eat, maybe a discarded stale crust. And I wonder if he or she remembers the taste of fresh Danish pastry.

A letter-writer in the SF Chronicle this week invites the new Archbishop of San Francisco to come and 'break bread' with him. Breaking bread is symbolic of communication, friendship, life. Bread stands for life in general - for whatever gives nourishment, whatever satisfies our deepest longing. It's a sign that life itself is special and not to be taken for granted.

Spiritual writer Rabbi Abraham Heschel says, 'Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement....to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal, everything incredible. Never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.'

How often do we appreciate the gift of life - of mind, of thinking, seeing, hearing, feeling? Shame to say I have spent much of my life taking these things for granted, as if life owed them to me and God had a duty to give them to me. As I follow the presidential campaign and all the political talk in Washington, I tend to forget that human communication is meant to be the bread, the nourishment that holds the human community together and not divide it. The ability to communicate and dialogue is what keeps us healthy as a parish, a church, and as a nation.

Would that we could always have the nourishment for our church and nation that Jesus talks about, instead of the stale bread we seem to have turned it into! Would that we might make our own the desire of the crowd in the gospel, 'Sir, give us this bread always.' They knew which bread was important. Do we 'get it' that we humans do not live on bread alone, be it Boudin French Sourdough or Danish pastry, but on the flavor of the Bread to which our earthly bakeries point?

PASTOR EMERITUS

A SIGNIFICANT LITTLE BOY

I like to think of the little boy in this Sunday's Gospel about the multiplication of loaves. Was the kid on his way home from the market with some bread for the family, or had his family packed a hamper for the day? Did he protest when two grown-ups relieved him of his bread and fish? As he handed them over, did he feel that the towering Andrew and Simon Peter were losing their marbles? 'What? My little pieces of bread to feed a whole mountainside of hungry grown-ups!' The significance of this socially insignificant kid was that his little contribution was blessed by Christ and made unbelievably effective. Twelve very large doggie bags were left over for everyone, including his family, to take away.

Catholicism is about three things: Word of God, Eucharist and Service of others. The little boy who gave away his bread and fish is an image of us all. The Word of God called, and continues to call us into life. We celebrate the gift of life and all it entails in the Eucharist. And we leave church renewed in faith, strengthened in hope and generosity to go and give life to others. We are here in order to serve one another and to promote the common good, however small and insignificant our service may be.

Psychologists tell us we need four things for a happy life: Something to do, something to believe in, something to hope for, and someone to love. Reaching out in service to others brings happiness and wholeness. When we pause to look at the boy with the loaves of bread we witness the meeting of the death-dealing power of fear and the life-giving power of faith. Being asked to hand over his loaves of bread and dried fish probably filled him with fear and doubt and a sense of isolation, at least momentarily.

It's easy for us to feel we have little to offer that will make a difference. The kid must have felt that way. Was he being asked to hand over the family dinner? He gave it away hoping against hope that he was doing the right thing. And - Hey Presto - look what happened! Had he insisted on being his own judge as to how many mouths his bread could fill, and not given it, an awful lot of people would have gone home that evening feeling very faint and hungry. But he didn't. He simply made the effort. Jesus Christ did the rest.

Here's something worth looking at. What's important in life? To be cool, ambitious, successful, famous, wealthy....? All are important. But what really counts in life is to be significant. Success adds value to our own lives; being significant adds value to the lives of others. 'I help others so as to maintain my own sobriety,' someone in recovery said. In a very true sense we are all in some kind of recovery, seeking completion and wholeness. And sanity. To become more human is to reach out to others. To be all God created and hard-wired us to be we need to invest in others; believe and care for them; bless them and wish them well.

The boy in the gospel is an image not of fear but of faith. He took the risk, made a choice. No longer trapped by fear, his choice set him free so others would thrive. 'Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted.' In that moment of generosity of his isolation was transformed into hospitality and community.

What do we seek in life? Success, fame, popularity, eternal youth.....? Or to be significant? It takes only two things to be significant: To do the right thing, and to show other people that we care. That kid with the five barley loaves and two fish looked for all the world to be insignificant. In his case, looks deceived. He teaches us a lesson today about what really counts in life.

PASTOR EMERITUS

MASSACRE IN COLORADO

Why did God allow last weekend's massacre in that movie theater to happen? I don't know. But I offer this week a couple of things from scripture that might help us get a positive handle on human tragedy. No words can describe the anguish and pain of those affected by what happened. Theological explanation is the last thing the families and loved ones of the victims need at this time. But readers of these blogs may appreciate the chance to stop and think about where God might be in human pain and suffering.

Apart from last week's tragedy, many people suffer serious illness, abuse, broken relationships, betrayal, sorrow, depression, injuries, disappointment, heartache, crime, violence.... And all of us will eventually suffer death. Why? The 'Why' question goes back thousands of years. Look at Job in the bible and the psalms. They are full of it. The question is especially relevant to all of us today, especially when we think of the 20th century with its two world wars, the holocaust, the genocides of the Soviet Union and China, the devastating famines of Africa, the killing fields of Cambodia, the emergence of AIDS, Rwanda, and the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Our 21st century doesn't seem to be doing any better when we look back at 9/11, all the suicide bombers and the current slaughtering of defenseless women and children in Syria.

If I were to ask God one question it would be, 'Why all this human suffering? Why did you allow that lone gunman to spray a movie theater with bullets?' I don't know. I cannot stand in God's shoes, I don't have God's mind, I cannot see with his eyes. Some day I'll see it fully. 'At present we see indistinctly...but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully...' - cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12. As a believer, I offer a reflection based on bits and pieces of scripture that appear to raise a corner of the divine veil.

If Genesis 1:31 is to be taken seriously ('God looked at everything he had made and found it very good'), then it looks like God did not create evil. So, if all the immorality and pain and suffering and tragedy in the world did not come from God, where did it come from? Love is the deepest reality about God - 1 John 4:8. Made in God's image and likeness, we were created to love. In order to love we need free will; to love is a free choice. God gave us a tool called free will in order to decide whether to love or not to love. When we choose not to love it would seem that we disturb the divine order of things. Maybe that has a ripple effect throughout the cosmos, impacting the planet and even our human bodies.

Much of the world's suffering comes from using our freedom in the wrong way - using it for things other than love and promotion of the common good. People look at famine and wonder where God is. But the world produces enough food for each of the 7 billion persons on the planet to have 3,000 calories per day. Our irresponsible and self-centered use/plunder of the earth's resources prevents everybody from getting fed. My hand can hold a gun and shoot people - or it can give food to hungry people. The choice is mine. As good old Pogo is supposed to have said: 'We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us!'



Couldn't God have foreseen the Colorado tragedy and done something to prevent it? That looks a lot like asking parents to foresee all the problems their as yet unborn kids will get into and take appropriate action ahead of time. I think God must have known that many people would misuse their freedom and reject him. He must also have known that many would choose to use their freedom the way the Creator intended it to be used, as a tool with which to love. God took a chance with us when he gave us the gift of free choice. Would we use it to enhance his creation or destroy it?

Tragedy is an awful thing, but it looks like God can use it to accomplish good. Paul in Romans 8:28 says, 'We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.' Note well that Paul doesn't say that God causes evil in order to bring good out of it. God promises to take the evil that strikes us and, if we're committed to his purpose, bring some good out of it.

What if we feel a situation is too big and too awful and too evil for any good to emerge? Look at the very worst thing, the greatest evil that ever happened; deicide - the death of God on the cross. If God can take the worst and turn it into the best situation - salvation, redemption, eternal life - God can also take some of the worst things that can befall us (e.g. the loss of a child) and cause something good to emerge.

God can use our pain and suffering to mold and sharpen our character - give us wisdom and depth - influence others for better. God can draw something good in myriads of ways if we trust and live according to his purposes. I believe all suffering has some potential good, at least an opportunity for good. What do you think?

PASTOR EMERITUS

WHO AM I?

Vatican II took place during the 'swinging sixties' - a time of optimism and hope, when Western people were celebrating humanity's new-found freedoms. One of its best known documents was called 'The Church in the Modern World' - in Latin 'Gaudium et Spes' (Joy and Hope). In it, the Church sought to understand for the first time in its long history what it means to be human. I will refer to this document as GS.

The great thinkers of the world had for thousands of years wrestled with such questions as, 'Who am I?' 'Where have I come from and where am I going?' 'Why is there evil?' 'What is there after this life?' These questions represent the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. Such quests for truth (and goodness and beauty) define us as human.

In his entertaining book, Bad Science, Dr. Ben Goldacre asks the question, 'Why do clever people believe stupid things?' He says it's because we fail to understand the kind of people we are; we fail to grasp what it means to be human. I, too, struggle and try to use the gospel stories in these blogs to throw some light on the mystery of who we are. After all, God became human to show people what it means to be human. 'It is only in the reality of the Word made Flesh that the reality of humanity becomes clear' - GS 22.

Imitation of Christ means growing into the mind and heart of Christ. 'In order to discover ourselves we must appropriate and assimilate the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption,' wrote John Paul II in his first letter to the Church, 'Redeemer of Humanity' (10). That means that we cannot fully understand ourselves through scientific research alone. Science doesn't answer the question about the meaning of human life. Scientific knowledge comes from the interplay of mathematical and physical elements, not from human wisdom.

Wisdom is expressed in poetry and religion, music and literature, in human relationships and reflectiveness, in the ability to see beyond the superficial and the immediate, and in a particular way in religious faith. These are some of the sources from which comes our understanding of what it means to be human. The observation of of Vatican II is even more pressing today than when it was written in 1965: 'Our age needs such wisdom.....Indeed the future of the world is in danger unless wiser people are forth coming' - GS 15.

You may find this a bit philosophical and feel tempted to say, 'Just tell me what to do, when to do it and how to do it - that will be enough!' Thinking Catholics are moving beyond that kind of pragmatism, and are seeking today a deeper understanding of human life in the light of the Gospel. We need to read the Gospel today with imagination - much like we would read a poem or a piece of literature, listen to good music, or simply gaze in wonder at our pet dog or cat, or at the sunset or night sky. Our sixth sense for wonder and beauty is often underdeveloped.

British writer Karen Armstrong's recent book, 'Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life,' is a journey into the meaning of human life, and a great read. A compassionate Christ comes before us in this Sunday's Gospel. He emerges from the silence of a deserted place and his eyes rest with compassion on the hustling and bustling crowd. Like sheep without a shepherd, they were aimless and without focus or direction. We are that crowd; Jesus is the one to give us meaning. Listen carefully with your heart to the Gospel this Sunday.

The Gospel from the New American Bible says 'his heart was moved with pity for them.' Most other bibles use the word 'compassion' instead of 'pity.' There's a difference. 'Pity' has the dimension of 'looking down,' whereas 'compassion' is about feeling-together with people who are hurting or lost. Pity has a superior-inferior quality; compassion is about being at the same level. Compassion acknowledges and creates a link between people. It's a bridge-building attitude, an acknowledgment that we are all in the same boat. It turns the question, 'Who am I?" into the question 'Who are We?'
PASTOR EMERITUS

IS THE GOSPEL BELIEVABLE?

Jesus' healing miracles helped to make his message believable. In this Sunday's gospel we find him empowering his disciples to heal and cast out demons as part of their preaching. St. Luke tells us (but not St. Mark) that they returned rejoicing at the large numbers of people who 'got it.' Much of today's world doesn't seem to get it - functioning as it does in politics, economics and social structures with little or no reference to God.
Is the gospel, the age-old message of Christ, believable anymore? In order that the message be accepted there must be a connection between how it is presented and the mentality of those who are listening. The listening mind must be disposed to receive the message; the messenger needs to tune into his listeners' level. Our world has changed so much within one generation that it has become very challenging to make the pulpit connect with the pew. Many people today claim that the gospel feels irrelevant to their lives.

Our society is often called individualistic and narcissistic. While these are often seen in a negative light, there is something very positive about them too. We need to slow down and feel a sense of wonder about ourselves as human beings, get to that 'level of amazement at human worth and dignity that is called the Gospel' (John Paul II) - the good news that Jesus preached. Looked at in this way, the message of Christ is not all that irrelevant. It's deep in our own hearts waiting to be discovered by us.

Sunday's gospel story sees Jesus sending out his disciples to heal and to cast out demons. Demonic possession and physical illness or deformity can distort the reality of who we are, greatly diminish our sense of personal dignity and self-worth. Sin and society tell us that our value and worth come from achievement, brains, svelte physiques, other people's impression of us etc.. Christian revelation tells us that this is not so; our value and worth come from God: 'I praise you because I am wonderfully made,' says Psalm 139. We were 'chosen (loved) before the foundation of the world...so that we might exist for the praise of his glory' - wrote St. Paul in Ephesians 1:4-12.

God did not have to create us at all. He was and is completely happy and fulfilled without us. He made a free decision to have us around. That was/is a loving decision. His free creation of us goes on from moment to moment. Therein lies our dignity. We are here to be fully alive and to act so those around us come to have more life.

Our celebration of the Eucharist is the source and summit of who we are and how we are called to live. We are the people who are meant to live and celebrate the very meaning of life. St. Augustine says that when we say 'Amen' upon receiving holy communion, we are not only saying, 'Yes, I believe this is the Body of Christ,' but we are also saying, 'Yes, I believe we are the Body of Christ.' 'You are saying yes to your own mystery' - Sermon 272.

The gospel this Sunday is a call to awake from slumber, smell the roses and celebrate who we are - our dignity and our meaning, our value and our worth.

PASTOR EMERITUS

PRAY, PAY AND OBEY

The current trend among church leaders to turn the clock back to a time before the Second Vatican Council is a bad idea. We are being told that the Council has been misunderstood and misinterpreted over the past half century. I'm tired hearing about how those of us who lived through Vatican II have led the church down the wrong path. Most of the finger-pointing comes from church leaders today who were children at the time of the Council, had no experience of the pre-Vatican II church and were unaware of what the Council was accomplishing.

I was ordained priest during Vatican II and, like my peers at the time, felt the Council was the real ticket the church needed. Looking back over the past half century, I can see three major issues that Vatican II addressed. The first was how to modernize the church without upsetting the applecart of the age-old deposit of faith, the ancient message of Jesus Christ. The second was to clarify who runs the church: the Pope together with the bishops of the world or the Pope with the Vatican curia. The third concerned the manner by which the church should communicate and operate. Each has become a bone of contention in the church today.

First, the message of Christ is not an abstraction above and beyond the human beings who first received it and the generations of people who handed it on through the centuries. It is a message that is meant to be life-giving and meaningful to women and men of all times and cultures. The message makes the church. The church is a relationship between persons. Some of the Council bishops didn't see it like that and didn't want any change. The majority, however, saw it this way and voted for change. Today, there is a move in the Vatican to legislate in favor of the minority view. And so we have an emphasis on a doctrinal certitude today which is in danger of losing the message of Christ and the gospel in the geometrical absolutisms of 'orthodoxy.'

Second, a lightning-rod issue of the Council was the relationship that should pertain between the Pope and the bishops of the world. It came to be called 'collegiality.' What kind of authority did the bishops have over the church at large when they acted collectively? How was that authority exercised in relation to the Pope? Conservatives at the Council saw no authority role for bishops outside their own dioceses, contending that anything else would be incompatible with papal primacy. Bishops, they said, were nothing more than branch managers of local offices of the Holy See. The majority vote was in favor of the bishops together with the Pope being in charge of the church, and not just the Pope with the Vatican curia. Sadly, this vision of the Council has all but been lost.

Finally, the Council wrestled with the question of how should the church do business? Up to the time of Vatican II, the style was autocratic - characterized by denunciations, secrecy, and inquisitorial tactics. The majority voted in favor a style that would be more collaborative, that would eschew secret oaths, be more open and transparent, and respectful of those who disagreed. Over the past two decades or so autocracy has been on the rise again in the church. In certain ways, the church is starting to feel once more like the church of my Irish childhood: pray, pay and obey!

PASTOR EMERITUS