The Resurrection: Eyes on Jesus

Excerpts from the gospel reading for the day is one of the most excellent:

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?”  They stopped, looking downcast.

One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”

And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”

They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him.  But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place.  Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his Body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive.  Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.”

And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.  As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther.

But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”  So he went in to stay with them.  And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.  With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.  Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”  So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”  Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Luke 24:13-35

In his homily, Monsignor made a couple astounding points.  "[The disciples'] eyes were prevented from recognizing him," Monsignor conjectured, because they were "downcast."  The disciples were not looking for Jesus in those darkest days of human history; they were looking at the ground.  They thought that He was done and that they were abandoned.  We must not focus so much on ourselves and on our own problems that we miss Jesus even while He is there with us, teaching us, and setting our hearts aflame - if only we will look to Him and listen.

 

I would like to point out that the disciples actually recognized Jesus for who He is in "the breaking of the bread," the Eucharist.  Hearing the Word of God explained to them prepared them to receive the Word of God into their fellowship and into their very bodies.  I would also like to point out that the disciples conversed with Jesus, frankly expressing their troubles and their doubts to Him.  That honesty is part of sincere faith for those who have troubles and doubts.

If we bring our even our dashed dreams and deepest despair to Jesus, who knows what he might make of them?  Keep praying.  After you have said your peace, listen in prayer.  Speak with other disciples.  Read the scriptures.  Confess your sins, if needs be.  Visit the Eucharist at church, hear Mass, receive communion.  Don't give up on Jesus, and try not to be downcast, but fix your eyes on Him and look for Him.  He is risen!

(Lastly, here's a link to the Men of Emmaus, a Catholic fellowship for men based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for those of you who might be looking for fellow disciples and who live in the area.)

Proverbs That Might Be True, pt. 6

Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

St. Jerome

A Few Words Packed With Meaning

Mark Shea just posted this stirring exposition of the Hail Mary.  It is reasonably brief, and loaded with beautiful reflection based on sound exegesis.  Enjoy!

How Religious Communities Heal Hearts

Anchoress, thanks for this video from the Boston Globe.

It got me thinking. That's always dangerous. A beautiful couplet of books, The Man on the Donkey, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, by H. F. M. Prescott, show a similar dynamic.  The pair of books unfold and draw together the lives of disparate historical and fictional characters living in the time of Henry VIII.  In them, a battered and abused girl is sent to a convent so that she will no longer burden her older sister by existing.  Previously, the convent had been portrayed as worldly and petty in its aspirations: life was filled, apparently, with bickering over rugs and boasting over which sister had the most gold pins to hold her veil upon her head.  As the abused girls moves into the convent, the reader begins to see another side.  In this world vastly kinder than the one into which she was born, the girl begins to blossom as a person, having encountered simple, untangled and unmanipulative love for the first time.  I myself was startled by the ease with which the author, without ever re-representing or changing the personality of the convent, shows it first from one perspective, and then from another: worldly than it ought to be, but a haven of sanctity compared to the world.

During my time in seminary I saw something of the same dynamic.  Many of the men, myself included, thought the place very much more worldly than it ought to be.  Yet visitors were always and uniformly amazed by its quiet warmth, friendliness, hospitality, and the ease with which a heart lapses into prayer in that place.  We did not live in a place of lollipops and sunshine, and there weren't love-bombs, either... which is probably a good thing.  But there was a place where genuine love could gradually, organically grow and bring about real healing and a real kind of new life in the men that arrived there.  I saw it happen.  I recall one man who was very poorly socialized, a bore and boor, and very quickly found himself nearly isolated in that house of 150 Christian men because of it.  I suspect it was not the first time people had a hard time saying, "Well, that's just So-and-so.  You know how he is," because for most people, even good people, at some point, enough is enough.

But I also think of a friend of mine, a man who lived across the hall from me - well liked and popular because intelligent, athletic, easy-going, responsible, and kind.  This man told me that he was not going to just watch So-and-so crumble and fall away.  He couldn't bring himself to think, "Good riddance."  I also know that the petty unkindness and gossip against the unpleasant man became so bad that a very popular, well-respected, and high-ranking faculty member addressed So-and-so's class in his absence.  He told them that the faculty were aware of So-and-so's problems and issues.  There was no need to keep pointing them out to the faculty or to each other.  It was best just to be a friend to So-and-so, and to pray for him.  At first, I thought it unprofessional or even reckless of the faculty member to address the class so openly about what would probably be considered their classmate's personnel matter.  At least, that's what it would be considered in the world.  But there, in that house of God, it was a personal matter - and personal matters sometimes require far more delicacy than personnel matters, and sometimes far less.

Lastly, I think about how I watched, saw with my own eyes, the growth of So-and-so.  An irritating mannerism fell away.  A new friend was made.  Someone invited So-and-so to join in.  Another perplexing behavior was moderated.  So-and-so made another friend.  People stopped saying things harshly about So-and-so behind his back.  More people were willing to invite him to more things.  It became clear that he wasn't so stupid as people thought at first, even if a bit more uncouth than they liked.  People went from defending him on principle to defending him on the basis of his actual strengths.  It turned out he was athletic enough that, his abrasive characteristics diminishing, people didn't mind - no, actually wanted him on their team.  He started to enjoy his studies.  More prayers were offered up for So-and-so, doubtless, than anyone on earth will ever know.  For that matter, So-and-so went from being known for the amount of time he spent in front of the community television to being a man noted for the discipline of his prayer.  A man who looked like he wouldn't last the first year because he was so aggravating has since progressed well on the way to being a good and holy priest, certainly of great use to the People of God.  In that seminary, that house where seedlings are transplanted like stalks of rice, that man came alive in a new way.

So it is with the Church as a whole.  In the rock tumbler of our shared life in the Spirit, we are first to grind down sharp edges, then polish natural virtues, and at last glow like gems of holiness.  It is not a romantic thing, but a gritty thing.  Well, it is romantic in the sense of being adventurous, but not in the sense of being smooth or suave.  Temptations do not flee the life of holiness, but flock to it like moths.  We in the Church are called to live in a way different than that found in the world outside.

For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good, (Romans 12:4-21).

We will not always do it very well, but our company should be a place where people will encounter the healing touch of Christ made present in His people, in His priests, in His word and sacraments.  It might not happen all at once, and it certainly will not happen without bumps and bruises along the way... but the more we rely on Jesus to make it happen, the more surely we will see progress before our very eyes - the more we will see souls open and blossom in a way the world can barely conceive, let alone imitate.

For that matter, a Christian family is supposed to be very much the same sort of thing as a Christian church.

A Couple of Notes

Today is the feast of St. John Damascene. Last year on this date, I wrote a piece about him, and rather than repeat myself, I will just provide a link to it. Click HERE.

For now, I will just share a brief thought I had this morning after Communion.

What a blessed people are we Christians, who may break our nightly fast by feeding on the flesh of God himself! What an amazing mystery.

"For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?" (Deut 4:7, KJV).

"You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame," (Joel 2:26, RSV).

"He has not dealt thus with any other nation," (Ps 147:20).

The End of Days

Today, for the Catholic Church, is the last day of the liturgical year. This evening we begin a new year in Christ, the year of our Lord 2009, with the vigil of the First Sunday of Advent. The introit for the First Sunday of Advent, the first words spoken in the liturgy, are Ad te levavi animam meam, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul," (Ps 25). I hope I won't sound impertinent by saying that the various caretakers of our holy liturgy have, over the millennia, decided well by using verses from this psalm to open the liturgical year.

The liturgical year might be thought of as our life in Christ lived out over the course of a year. The first half of the year celebrates Advent and Christmas, the time in which we remember our Lord God's incarnation and entrance into the world as an honest-to-God human being. Then comes a liturgical pause, known as the Ordinary Time, in which all the regular rules and ordinances of Christian living apply. In this period, the Mass readings focus especially on the basic teachings of our Lord. During Lent, the next phase, we focus on renunciation of the things of the world and interior conversion. Faith, hope, and love, so prominent in the Christian life, crystallize into prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We remember the suffering and death of our Lord during the brief period known as Passiontide that comes at the end of Lent, followed by the Triduum, the three most sacred days of the year, in which the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are made manifest to us again in the liturgy. The explosion of joy at the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the God-man, at the Easter Vigil and the fifty days of Eastertide (to trump the forty days of Lent) is marked by baptisms, bonnets, confirmations, May Day, parish picnics, and the rest. So the first half of the liturgical year concludes. The second half resumes Ordinary Time and its weekly, daily reflection on what it means to live as a follower of Jesus, as one who wishes to follow Him even into eternity.

And it all begins with a psalm, and sung poem inspired by the Holy Spirit, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul." The world moans in exile from Eden, riddled with sin, mourning in death and death's fall-out zone: bickering friends, starving children, despair, frustration, suffering, and all the things that God never desired for us but that we have brought upon ourselves collectively by our collective sin. We lift up our soul to God, like a mother holding a dying child, like our Blessed Mother grief-stricken and holding her murdered Son. Our heart groans and cracks under the weight of the sadness we are expected to bear, our exile from Eden, our slavery in Egypt, our bondage in Babylon, our weeping in this valley of tears. And God, in his unfathomable love and mercy, stoops down to lift us up, to lift us from the dunghill and set us on a firm rock (Ps. 40), to live with us and to love us face to face. In Advent, we reflect upon our sinful condition, we remember what God has done for us, what God is doing for us, what God will do for us. We remember His first coming into the world, about 2000 years ago; and we attend to His daily return in the People of God, in the proclaimed Gospel, in our private prayers, and especially in the Sacraments and in our sufferings handing over to Him. We look forward to His final return in Glory, the Parousia, at which He will fully, finally manifest His Kingdom, His way of doing things, and set everything to rights.

In the Gospel reading for the I Sunday of Advent (Is 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7; Ps 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37), our Lord warns us to watch, to pay attention, because we do not know when the End will come and so we must stay ready. Moreover, if we do not pay attention, we will miss Him here and now as He begins and continues His saving work in our life. Emmanuel means "God with us," and He is truly with us, and He is coming. This year, lift up your soul to God and watch to see what He does.

The Readings for Today and Tomorrow

Today's Mass readings and tomorrow's have struck me like thunder. A hundred times I've heard them, and maybe this time for the first. That's how the Mass, the Scriptures, the Sacraments, and all the things of God are - even the whole world, in a way - if we have ears to hear.

These readings in particular strike me as crucial to the Christian life in some way that I cannot articulate just yet. I think God intends me to do something about them.

Encountering the Risen Christ in Prayer

Prayer is a touchy topic because it is always a personal one. As with all personal topics we expose our hearts and risk getting them mangled. The only way to avoid being personal in a discussion of prayer is to be sterile, and that is no improvement, for it certainly mangles the topic. As with the other installments of this series, I will start more objective, and work my way to the more personal.

First we have to ask what is prayer. Two definitions have been given traditionally by the Church, each given to her by one of her doctors:

St. Therese Lisieux wrote, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”

A bit more precisely, St. John Damascene wrote, “Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.”

Starting with these definitions, and incorporating some other saints’ experience, we can say something like, “To pray is to direct one’s heart or mind toward God.” Now, the first thing to note is that prayer is not thinking or feeling about God, but to God. Key difference. It is the difference between spending time with someone and doing a criminal background check on them. In the latter way, you get to know lots of facts, but not the person; in the first way, you get to know the person. The distinction is so important that the romance languages have two entirely different words for the different kinds of knowing.

Lest anyone think I am dismissing the importance of the catechism or the Deposit of Faith and the doctrines of the Church about God that the catechism summarizes, it is important to bear in mind St. Augustine’s paradox. We cannot get to know God without knowing about Him, and we cannot truly learn about Him without getting to know Him. So how can it happen – prayer? If we cannot pray and get to know God without knowing something of His nature, and we cannot learn more about His nature with getting to know Him, how can we get started? The answer that St. Augustine looks to is grace – the free gift of God’s life shared with us on His own initiative. God has to break the ice in this conversation, and even when it seems that we are making the first move, approaching Him, it is He working in us that has brought us to Him. The scriptures bear out this viewpoint, too: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words,” (Romans 8:26).

As we go about our life, God is constantly dropping prompts into our life to get us to spend time with Him. He is an almost insatiable lover; not like some needy “friend,” but like a parent who wants what’s best for his or her little kids. The kids think they are all grown up when they are just a few years old, but Mommy and Daddy and God know how much work we still need before we’re really there. So God is always hovering close to us, closer than we are to ourselves. He just wants us to respond, so He can give us what we need to spiritually grow big and strong. And what we need, know it or not, is Him.

Of course, society throws up all sorts of obstacles to quiet time with a lover – look how busy and noisy our lives are. And God, though very much in love with us, will not force or manipulate us into spending time with us, although He is not above letting us learn the hard way that we need Him, and starting from there. To spend time with Him, we have quietly to set ourselves aside from the hubbub of the world, enough time to calm our thoughts, and then we have to ask Him to help us lift our heart and mind toward Him. Calm, leisurely reading of the Scriptures, praying the Rosary, or meditating upon some icon are time-honored ways to still our heart and mind so that we can hear His quiet whisper. Here again the spiritual life is like running: a prayerful relationship with God is just not going to happen with less than 20 minutes or so of practice at a time and frequent, regular goes at it. Running for 10 minutes twice a month is a complete waste. So is praying, if you are looking deliberately to build a relationship with God. Sure, you can toss up a request in just a few seconds, but what would you think of someone who only spoke to you when they needed something, and the conversation consisted entirely of requests, without so much as a please, thank you, or a by-your-leave? We wouldn’t hang out with such selfish losers for very long. It’s a good thing that God is more merciful and patient than we are.

Before too long we will begin to “hear” thoughts and feelings in our prayer. It becomes VERY important to examine these inspirations, especially ones that surprise us, seem to come from outside us or beyond us, ones that point toward a change in course or strengthening a resolve. St. Paul calls this examination a “testing of spirits,” to see whether this new inspiration is likely just our empty stomachs, propaganda from our culture, or even diabolical in origin; or whether it is perhaps truly of God. This testing of spirits requires a solid moral formation, because God will never tell us to do something immoral, that is, something against His will. (Let’s leave certain stories from the Old Testament aside – they complicate things for now.) Even with solid moral formation, it is very beneficial to have a Christian more advanced than oneself to whom one can refer in times of doubt. If one’s pastor is for some reason an unlikely candidate, another priest or religious is ideal, but not strictly speaking necessary.

A word about how prayers are answered, or more to point, when prayers are answered. God does not always answer a prayer when we want. He’s in charge after all, and He calls the shots. Usually, for me, the prayer is answered well after it is prayed. For that matter, He responds to my queries for guidance, consolation, etc., sometimes quite a while (I feel) after I’ve asked. And He does so sometimes by stirring things up in the heart, sometimes but providentially arranging experiences, sometimes by making something that otherwise would have been lost in the clutter of life leap out at us, as it were, vividly, in full color, demanding a response and presenting its own solution, making the signposts of life shout aloud, you might say.
My own experience of the process of prayer, as I have described it objectively above, is what led me to the seminary.

Toward the end of my time in college, I heard about a “holy hour.” I had no clue. Turns out, it is an hour spent in prayer, preferably in chapel or some other secluded, quiet place, and preferably before the Blessed Sacrament, where we can sit face to Face with the Lord Himself… or more aptly put, heart to Heart. At first I undertook the practice so that I could feel pious. I told all my friends how holy I was, lol. Gradually, though, I came to sense that my prayer “wasn’t working.” I spoke with a priest. He told me that prayer doesn’t work. Not the answer I expected to hear from a priest, and I told him so. He clarified that prayer no more “works” than a chat with a friend “works.” It shouldn’t be something we do in order to get something, but something we do just because, well… almost just because. Ultimately, we prayer because we care about God. That basic lesson of prayer, that it is not an opportunity to manipulate God or to impress our church friends, is one that I have had to learn over and over again.

But an amazing thing happened. God broke the ice. We started to get to know each other better. Well, He always knew me, but now, I started to get to know Him, too. I was feeling new feelings and thinking new thoughts, thoughts and feelings unlike the way I had previously thought and felt. I felt like God wanted me to go to the seminary. So I did.

The funny thing happened on the way to ordination, though. I was a good student, well thought of by peers and superiors, and actively involved in, contributing to, and benefiting from the life of the seminary. I had gone from getting to Mass late because I was playing video games, to spending a couple hours daily in the chapel in meditative prayer, prayer that I felt had been fruitful. I took to it like a fish to water, which is generally considered a good sign. One day, after a few years in, the vice-rector was giving a conference. I was only half paying attention, and the other half of me was doodling or thinking about warmer weather and the beach, or something. Amid the clutter of my thoughts, I heard the vice-rector speaking distinctly for the first time in twenty minutes: “All of you men have been called by God, in various ways, to come to seminary. Many of you will be called by God in various ways to leave the seminary, without being ordained.” I was hit in the heart as with an arrow. The seminary’s vice rector is an avid hunter, and he could not have bulls-eyed that shot deeper into my consciousness if his life had depended on it.

Over the course of a year of prayer and guidance from my spiritual director, it became clearer that this course was the one to take: I must leave seminary because God Almighty, who I had thought had called me there for reasons I had thought had been obvious, was now commanding that I leave.

So in prayer, I made the most difficult decision of my life, and in prayer I was buoyed sufficiently, to carry it out with great determination. I left the seminary without a job or savings, and my sister’s guestroom/nursery to sleep in. She and her husband conceived their first child a couple weeks after I moved in, setting me on a timetable as well.

God continued, and has continued, to give me challenges practical and spiritual, moral and personal; and He has always given me the means to surmount them. When I have failed to, an honest self-examination has revealed the source of my failure: me. Each failure has been greeted by Him with renewed grace for a new go at it. Looking back in retrospect, I can start to see what He was thinking when He led me to the seminary. The healing and friendships I received from that place have already been so crucially beneficial that I do not like to image where I’d be without them. As with all of life’s stepping stones, they each lead naturally to the next. Nowadays I am starting to see, and feel, and experience, how the seminary prepared me for what has followed so far. I am starting to see God’s hand at work in the whole thing. I am getting better, in fits and spurts, slowly and with setbacks, at seeing God’s hand at work and responding proactively, rather than being and feeling bounced around like a pinball. My life is starting to have an order and a purpose like never before, even though I feel that I have less a clue where it is going than ever before. Before, I thought I knew but didn’t; now I know I don’t, and kinda do. My faithful confidence and commitment to God are slowly growing, my hope in Him and His good will for me is also slowly growing, and my dedication to serving Him and my neighbors in the details of daily life is also slowly growing. Jesus and I are getting to know each other, and almost despite myself, I find myself falling in love.

Maybe that priest was wrong after all. Maybe prayer does work.

Encountering the Risen Christ in the Scriptures

It’s fitting that I post about Encountering the Risen Christ in the Scriptures today, because today is the feast day of St. Jerome, a doctor of the Church and one of its preeminent biblical scholars of all times. In fact, St. Jerome was responsible for translating what was for over 1500 years the standard Latin text of the Bible, called the Vulgate. In this post, I want to look at three things: (1) the historical transmission of the text of the collection of books that are together called Bible; (2) the meaning and role of the Bible in the life of the Church; and (3) how I have encountered Christ therein.

The texts that became the Bible were written by a variety of authors over a period as many as a thousand years, the most recent being the Gospel, Letters, and Revelation of St. John, written toward the end of the first century after Christ. At the time of Christ, the standard translation of the Bible used in the Holy Land was actually in Greek, and it was called the Septuagint. It included the 46 books still found in the Catholic and Orthodox versions of the Bible. This Bible is the one used by Jesus and the apostles. After the Ascension of our Lord, the Christian community began to flourish and spread. The earliest books in the New Testament are actually letters written to these communities by St. Paul, St. John, St. James, St. Peter, St. Jude, and probably some of their disciples. It’s important to note that the communities to whom these men were writing already existed. It sounds like a no-brainer, but really, it’s important. The Bible and its books did not found the Church, and are not its foundation. The Church came before the Bible. These letters were mostly written between about AD 45 and AD 65, except for the letters of St. John and the Letter to the Hebrews, which probably came somewhat later – and the first Christians went out into the world to spread the Good News (the Gospel) in Jesus’ name sometime around AD 35. Apostles and their disciples later wrote biographies of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they insisted had risen from the dead, and a history of the earliest days of the movement that started around Him. These books, the gospels and Acts of the Apostles, were all written sometime between AD 60 and AD 90 or so.

Many others wrote works providing their take on Jesus and the early Church, but while their writings provide historical insight into the situation of the early Church, very early on, Church leaders became convinced that these other writings did not accurately depict Jesus or the Christian faith. As early as about AD 180, lists of which books belonged and which ones didn’t were already circulating among bishops, and these lists matched what is found in the Catholic Bible today. By about AD 400, there was nearly universal agreement as a number of local councils and popes had considered the matter with increasing unanimity. The works selected were chosen because they were clearly of apostolic origin, depicted the faith and beliefs of the Church, and were already in widespread use among Christians for the liturgy and in religious instruction. It is the constant Christian belief that these books, 73 in total, were inspired by the Holy Spirit as they were authored by their human authors in real times and places, and that the Church authorities were inspired to select them accurately.

The inspiration of the Scriptures guarantees their correctness, or inerrancy. This topic can be problematic if misunderstood. St. Thomas quipped, “If we understand the Scriptures to be wrong, it is because we wrongly understand them.” To properly understand what the intent of a passage is, it is important to know what sort of passage it is, because different types of writing use different styles to address different topics. No part of the Bible is a science textbook, for instance. So we should not take the Genesis creation stories to be rivals to scientific theories about the physical origins of the universe. That’s not what the Genesis creation stories are really about. It would be like reading a newspaper article for instructions on making a cake, and being surprised that the cake turns out badly, or using a financial ledger to woe a lover. That’s not what those things are for. The Scriptures are inerrant, without error, only in the way they were intended to be: the moral-of-the-story parts always tell the right moral; the historical parts always get the key historical details right; the praise and prayer parts rightly tell us how to pray to God; and so on. On the other hand, just because an account, say of the slaughtering of some tribe or another, is included in a historical description found in the Bible, that doesn’t mean that we are all to go out and slaughter some tribe. That’s not what that part was trying to tell us. Precisely because the Scriptures are difficult to understand, as St. Peter himself warns us (2 Pet 3:16), it is important to realize that they do not stand alone. The Scriptures themselves record the earliest Christian belief that the same Spirit inspiring the Church to write and select the books of the New Testament also inspires the Church to understand them correctly (Jn 16:13). On a natural human level, the Bible is not the foundation of the Church, nor is it exactly the rule of faith for the Church. Rather, taken together with the whole living and handed-down memory of the Church, of which the Scriptures are a part, we have the Deposit of Faith, which is our rule. Though the Scriptures are the most concretized expression of that deposit, but alone are insufficient because they do not interpret themselves, explain themselves, or enforce themselves.

Yet all the above in no way denigrates the Scriptures. Rather, it is written to put them into their natural, proper context: the life of the Church. The Scriptures contain in written form, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the whole Word of God, the same Word that created the world (Gen 1:1-3), and the same Word that took on human flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (Jn 1:14). The Word of God is God’s self-understanding, His self-articulation, His self-expression. The Word of God is the pattern upon which God crafted the entire universe, which is why the Scriptures, themselves the written Word of God, can always be applied in every human circumstance. Jesus Christ is the Word-Made-Flesh, which is why His Life speaks to every human life. If we cannot see His Life in ours, it is because we are blind and not because He has left us. If the sacraments are the lifeblood of Christ given to us, the Scriptures are the mind of Christ given to us. All Christian thought, and all thought about Christ, should have recourse to the Scriptures, should stand on them as on a rock, and should be built of out of the Scriptures as if out of building blocks.

In my own life, I have found great consolation in the Scriptures. When read as a book of platitudes and promises, the Bible is a complete waste. But when it is read prayerfully as a witness of faith, and under the guidance of the Church’s teachers, the Bible is an absolutely indispensible tool for growth in faith, hope, charity, and all the Christian virtues. St. Therese Lisieux, whose feast day is tomorrow (1 October), is also a doctor of the Church. She died very young, and was very photogenic. These facts seem to have led many to believe unconsciously that the Church added her to the ranks of St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the other doctors of the Church (there are 33 in total) because she was so cute. Anyone whole will read her writings, and especially her hundreds of letters, will see that this unconscious conviction is incorrect. Without any secondary or higher education, St. Therese intuited that the Bible is meant to be a living book, like a script for a play, which governs the details of our lives as medicine does – by digestion. Reading, rereading, and praying over the Scriptures led her to internalize their words so that in whatever circumstances, just the right words for the Word came to her heart, mind, mouth, and pen. She put herself into roles found in the texts, and put her friends and family into roles as well. By doing so, she was able to find sure guidance for how to live a loving, Christian life. You might call this interpretive key, or hermeneutic, that she developed the Hermeneutic of Love.

While struggling to understand God’s plan for my life, and in great anxiety that I had entirely misunderstood His purpose for me, I came across a passage in Jeremiah, at 18:1-6. The passage shows Jeremiah going, under inspiration from God, to the house of a potter. At the potter’s house, Jeremiah observes the potter working clay into one shape, and then flattening it and molding it into another, until he comes up with just the right vessel. That was what God was doing with me, I realized. He was kneading and folding me, and though I could not tell where He was going, He still had a plan for me. In understanding that, I received a peace that had eluded me up until then.

And so it goes. If we think that we can test and judge the Scriptures, their meaning will evade us, because God’s ways are far above ours, and the Scriptures are a presentation of His mind. But if we will humbly submit to them, those sacred words will be like stars above us, illuminating our paths and providing just enough light to see the signs of our life. Before reading the Scriptures, we should pray for inspiration. If our understanding of some passage upsets us, we should humbly submit it to the teachings of the community that has given us the Bible, and to the teachers that preserve that teaching. When we finish with the Scriptures for the day, we should replace them reverently to their secure and accessible home, and thank God for having opened His mind to us thus.

Ordinary Does Not Mean Ho-Hum

So, Pentecost done, we resume of Ordinary Time. Ordinary sounds so, well, ordinary, plain, drab, boring. Why would the Church call it "ordinary." That's hardly inspiring.

I want to propose an alternate understanding for this time of year. At Pentecost the Church received the wind its sails that it needs to live out the comission it received from our Lord at the Ascension: to set out into the vast horizons of the world, preaching the Good News and baptizing the whole world. The Church has just re-presented that initial descent of the Holy Spirit in the Pentecost liturgies. Now it is time for us to turn our minds back to the task of evangelizing the world. We are like Jesus' army, or navy perhaps, and we have grown into quite a massive fleet. As St. Paul notes in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12) we cannot all just do whatever we like, but we must each find our role in the broader Body of Christ. Having found our role, we need our marching instructions for how to conduct ourselves. If we were all feet, who would think? If we were all eyeballs, who would walk? Likewise, if we were all teachers, who would pray? If we were all contemplatives, who would defend the teachings and reputation of Holy Church? Our leaders, the successors to the Apostles, have over time developed a set of methods, or procedures, or "ordinances" for figuring out who does what. Some are very exact: Everyone goes to Mass every Sunday and on other obligatory observances, unless grave circumstances intervene. Some ordinances are more vague: "Teach all nations," and we are left a great deal of discretion in determining how to work them out in our day-to-day lives. These ordinances are where we get the name Ordinary Time, I suspect. It is the time when the ordinary Ordinances, without special fasts or feasts, disciplines or dispensations, apply. It is these ordinances that structure our day-to-day life as Christians.

But the work of the apostolate is hardly boring - at least, not if we are putting our hearts and minds into it. Every apostolate has dimensions of prayer, service, and evangelization, although each apostolate will have varying proportions of each, and some dimension may be mostly implicit. Work at a soup kitchen is primarily about feeding the poor, though our love for them should draw them to Christ, and we should saturate all our work with prayer. Printing apologetic tracts is primarily about evangelization, but will be of great service to teachers of the Faith, and should be saturated from beginning to end in prayer. The apostolate is the outward mission of the Church, and is to be conducted primarily by the laity, in cooperation and guided by their pastors.

The apostolate is to be grounded in the spiritual life of each Christian, and every Christian is called to participate. Our spiritual lives, infused with the Faith, Hope, and Love of Jesus by the sacraments, are to be nurtured by solid time spent in prayer, healthy Christian community, and immersion in the Sacred Scriptures. Out of this soil grows a solid plant of apostolate: intercessory prayer, service, evangelization. There is a world out there in dire need of Christ, and only Christians can bring Him to it.

To aid us in our task, the Vatican II Council produced a document Apostolicam Actuositatem, on the apostolate of the laity. I highly recommend reading the medium-sized but easy document. Some people feel awkward about looking for ways to share their love of Jesus with others. Fair enough, and I don't want to judge them because I used to feel that way too. They might even rationalize it by saying that all religions are equal or that they don't want to force their beliefs on someone else yet. They might consider this point, though. If you don't want to share it, you probably don't get it, either.