Augustine's Commentary on Hebrews

I went trawling around the internet last week to see if there were any public domain commentaries on the Letter to the Hebrews. My heart leapt when I saw in the search engine results a commentary by St. Augustine, apparently available through the on-line library at Ave Maria University.

Hooray, I thought. Augustine is a Father and Doctor of the Church. If I can trust anybody to explain the text to me, surely it is Augustine. I should have known that I was setting myself up for disappointment

First disappointment: the commentary only covered the first six of thirteen chapters. There would be no words of wisdom from the Doctor of Grace on that thorny section of Chapter 10 that the Lectionary skips over.

Second disappointment: I flipped ahead to see what Augustine had to say about paying careful attention in verse 2:1, and I found the language of the commentary to be extraordinarily dense. I don’t mean that in any pejorative sense. I mean that if you’re not used to reading this kind of writing (and I’m not), your eyes quickly glaze over and you start babbling in the corner. This commentary is not something that you’re going to pick up to get a quick read on the meaning of a particular passage. You (or should I say I?) would have to start several verses earlier and read several verses past and then really concentrate on thinking about what the words mean. It’s not a discipline that’s common in our culture of tweets and text messages and 15-second sound bites.

On the other hand, there is a section in the prologue where Augustine acknowledges that some scholars (even then!) doubted that Paul was the author of the Letter to the Hebrews. He then lays out his reasons for believing that the author was indeed Paul. I remain firmly agnostic regarding the identity of the letter’s human author. The question might have been important in deciding whether or not the letter belonged in the Canon of Scripture, but it was included and it’s not going to be removed. Folks far smarter than I can argue both sides – I’m content to trust the Tradition (capital “T”) of the Church. In the meantime, I’ll try to suppress my urge to shout, “We don’t know that!” every time a homilist asserts that Paul was certainly not the author.

[UPDATE 7/30/2014:  The hyperlink is broken, and it appears that the URL in the link pointed to a commentary by Aquinas rather than Augustine.  At the time that I wrote this post, I was certain that it was Augustine, but this would not be the first (or last!) time that I was mistaken.]

Called to Obscurity

Can any serious Christian say that they haven't at some point asked in prayer what it was that God wanted of them? Conversion is usually accompanied by a desire to serve - to surrender oneself to the will of God. This sentiment was clearly expressed by Blessed John Henry Newman:

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

The mission that He has for us is often not what we expect or desire, and those he chooses for a given mission are not always those that we, in our human wisdom, would choose. Why did He choose Simon the Zealot to be an apostle and not his friend Lazarus? Why James, the son of Alphaeus, and not Nicodemus? Why the tax collector Matthew and not the tax collector Zaccheus? Simon Peter felt unworthy: "Depart from my Lord, for I am a sinful man." Yet, he ultimately left his fishing business to follow Him. The rich young man just couldn't bring himself to do the same.

When we turn our life over to Him, we expect to make big sacrifices. We tell Him that we'll go wherever He wants us to go and do whatever he wants us to do, all for the greater glory of God. When we discern his will, though, we sometimes find that He is telling us to go home. It's not what we expected to hear, and at first, it's disappointing. After Jesus cast the demons out of the Gadarene demoniac, the young man wanted to follow Him, to become one of his disciples. Instead, Jesus sent him home.

We should not be disappointed to be sent home, for our mission there is no less important. St. Therese compared the obscure missions to the little violet flowers in God's garden:

I understood this also, that God's Love is made manifest as well in a simple soul which does not resist His grace as in one more highly endowed. In fact, the characteristic of love being self-abasement, if all souls resembled the holy Doctors who have illuminated the Church, it seems that God in coming to them would not stoop low enough. But He has created the little child, who knows nothing and can but utter feeble cries, and the poor savage who has only the natural law to guide him, and it is to their hearts that He deigns to stoop. These are the field flowers whose simplicity charms Him; and by His condescension to them Our Saviour shows His infinite greatness. As the sun shines both on the cedar and on the floweret, so the Divine Sun illumines every soul, great and small, and all correspond to His care—just as in nature the seasons are so disposed that on the appointed day the humblest daisy shall unfold its petals.

Having a mission at home is not easy. We are called to be faithful in the little things and to instill in the most mundane chores an abundance of love. We trust that God gives us all of the grace that we need to accomplish our mission. And yet, it almost seems as though faithfulness in the small things is harder. The invisibility of obscurity makes it all too easy to adopt the prevailing morals and practices of the culture.

Every Christian is called to the apostolate. Those called to the apostolate of parenthood are just as much in need of prayers as those who have received high-visibility missions.

All you holy saints in heaven, pray for us!

Restoring the Queen

My home parish (not where I now reside) was recently featured in the local newspaper for the restoration of some artwork within the church. Holy Angels parish is where I became baptized, made by First Communion, received Confirmation, married my wife, and saw my first three children baptized. When I was a child, my family always sat on the left side of the church, and I can remember looking up the side aisle at the mural of Mary surrounded by a flight of angels. I don’t remember when it happened, but at some time, the mural disappeared and all the statues turned brown.

Now, after thirty years, the mural is back, and the color is gradually being restored to the statues. The original intention in concealing the mural was to avoid distracting the faithful from the sacrifice at the altar. Clearly, the experiment disproved the hypothesis – the art was not the distraction that some thought it to be, and removing is did nothing to focus the attention of the faithful gathered at mass on the primary work of the liturgy.

I am delighted to see the restoration taking place at Holy Angels and pleased to see it covered by a secular newspaper.

Pay Careful Attention

We are a week back into Ordinary Time. Every other year, the first four weeks of Ordinary Time feature readings from the Letter to the Hebrews during weekday masses. Again and again, the author of the letter makes his point by referencing the scriptures, which were for him what we call the Old Testament. In the first chapter alone, five different psalms are cited, plus Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel.

The second chapter begins with the exhortation, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away." (Hebrews 2:1) It is a caution that we are no less needful of hearing today than the Hebrews of 2000 years ago were. Catholics are infamous for not reading their Bibles. Even those that do can easily read the text in a superficial manner, glossing breezily over the knotty passages as if they don’t exist. We tend to have the attitude that the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has already figured all of that stuff out for us, so we don’t really need to bother. That’s true to an extent.

But (you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?), we’re talking about Divine Revelation here. The scriptures are the record of God’s self-revelation to us. They matter, because it is by studying them and coming to a better understanding of them that we arrive at a better understanding of the divine mind. Ignorance of scripture is similar to ignorance of history. It is only my knowing the mistakes of past generations that we can hope to avoid making those same mistakes.

Even more important is the idea of a divine pedagogy. The events of salvation history were not accidental. They built upon one another until, in the fullness of time, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The New Testament does not exist in isolation from the Old.

There are plenty of false prophets who preach a Christ that is at variance with what is recorded in the Word of God. If we hope to be able to spot the differences, we have to pay more careful attention, lest we drift away from what is authentic.

The Infancy Timeline

Last Saturday, my wife and I were driving to a nearby parish to attend mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. The next day, we would be observing the Epiphany, and I took the opportunity to share with her a theory that I have regarding the appearance of the magi in Bethlehem. She looked at me a bit askance, and accused me of trying to start my own religion. I assured her that I have no intention of doing that, and that if I ever veer from orthodoxy, I hope somebody cares enough to correct me.

The fact is that our conception of what happened at the birth of the Messiah is driven, in large part, by the popular devotion that is the nativity scene. Last weekend, just before the nativity scenes were removed from our churches and homes at the end of the Christmas season, we saw a scene in which Mary and Joseph were adoring the infant in the manger, surrounded by animals, shepherds, and royal magi. The theory that alarmed my wife so much was that I don't think the magi showed up until months or even a year after Jesus was born.

I've come to that conclusion because I'm trying to make sense of the differences between Matthew's gospel and Luke's. Like a detective in a modern-day police drama, my mind is trying to lay out the discreet scenes in the gospels into a timeline. Matthew's gospel really doesn't treat the Nativity at all, proceeding from Joseph's dream in 1:20-25 to the appearance in Jerusalem of wise men from the East in chapter 2. Luke, on the other hand, explicitly covers the birth, with the appearance of the angels to the shepherds in the field, and the shepherds proceeding that same night to the manger. Luke then relates that on the eighth day after his birth, Jesus was circumcised, and on the 40th day he was presented at the Temple in Jerusalem.

The magi must have found the Holy Family some time after the Presentation. Matthew tells us that the wise men followed the star not to a stable or cave, but to a house. Therefore, Joseph and Mary must have decided to settle in Bethlehem, the city of David, in order to raise an heir to David's line. It was after the magi departed that the angel warned Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt. I very much doubt that, in fleeing Herod's wrath, Joseph would have led them on a detour to Jerusalem. Herod, in his rage, ordered the slaying of all male children in the region of Bethlehem who were two years old and younger, not just the infants. And it was only after Herod's death that Joseph led the family back to settle in Nazareth.

I'm not going to be changing my nativity scene anytime soon. When we set it up next year, we'll still have Mary and Joseph adoring the manger, which will be empty until Christmas Eve, when the Christ child is added. The ox and the ass will look on, while an angel hovers overhead and shepherds bring their sheep. Three wise men and a camel will be placed some distance away until the second Sunday after Christmas, when they'll join the party at the manger. Even though it didn't really happen that way.

Zephaniah and God's Judgment

I had to search through my Bible a bit to find the book of Zephaniah. He’s not one of the prophets that I can say I know much about, and the book of his prophecy is only three chapters long. Wanting to justify my unfamiliarity, I did a quick search of the Lectionary, expecting to find that today was the only day that his book is referenced. I was wrong. I found entries not only for Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Advent, but also December 21, the 3rd Sunday of Advent (Cycle C), the 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle A), and the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary on May 31. I have no excuse.

Zephaniah’s prophecies, we are told at the beginning of the book, were delivered during the reign of King Josiah, the last good king of Judah. Josiah’s great-grandfather, Hezekiah, was king of Judah during the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. Hezekiah was faithful to the Lord, but grew proud. Hezekiah’s son and Josiah’s grandfather, Manasseh, was wicked. He repented and was forgiven, but it was Manasseh’s reign that sealed the doom of Judah (2 Kings 21:10-15). Josiah turned back to God and instituted reforms throughout Judah, but God had already decided Judah’s fate, and Zephaniah’s prophecy seems to bear this out.

What piqued my curiosity was that, although Judah’s fate was decided during Manasseh’s reign, God’s hand was stayed during the reign of Josiah. It took two generations before God’s judgment was made manifest, first through Neco of Egypt and then through Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. That would be like America today suffering for the sins of the Johnson or Nixon administrations.

Lest you think the comparison is far-fetched, consider that we’ve been living for 39 years with a legal framework that makes abortion-on-demand a constitutional right. Marriage is under attack and the traditional two parent family is becoming the exception rather than the norm. Vague spiritualities are displacing doctrinal Christianity. Nevertheless, there are signs of light. They have stayed the hand of God all these years, and they are not going to vanish quietly into the night.

I cannot help but wonder, in my darker moments, whether the fate of our land has already been decided. America has had its moments as a shining city on a hill, conceived in liberty and blessed by the Almighty, but then so did Judah and Israel. It’s a nice country we’ve got here; it would be terrible if something bad were to happen to it.

I don’t mean to suggest that God is extorting us. What I mean to suggest it that the fate of our country is in our hands. We are in a continuing state of crisis, and the only thing that will stay the hand of God’s judgment is our fidelity. God promised Abraham that Sodom would be spared if only ten righteous men could be found there. Sodom was destroyed.

Advent Confirmation

It’s been over a week now since my oldest child was confirmed. Our retired archbishop came up from Cincinnati to celebrate the rite. For the last several years, ever since the last auxiliary bishop fell ill, our parish’s sophomores have been confirmed by the local dean, which makes it a bit awkward for those catechists who have taught that the ordinary minister is a bishop.

It just so happens that the maiden name of the archbishop’s mother was the same as my surname. However, in one of those ironies that is all too common in this neck of the woods, he is more closely related (through his mother) to my wife than to me. Before my wife and I could be married, I had to trace back the family tree to establish that I was fifth cousins with my future mother-in-law.

Although alternate readings that emphasize the effects of the sacrament are approved for use during the Confirmation liturgy, the readings for the Second Sunday of Advent were used. The gospel was not entirely inappropriate for the occasion, including as it did this line from Matthew 3:11: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

The archbishop delivered one of his canned Confirmation homilies, in which he examines the candidates by asking questions, but provides the answers himself in a catechetical style. The archbishop has a subdued delivery. It’s not a monotone, but five minutes after he’s spoken, you have a hard time recalling what it was that he said. I would be surprised if any of the confirmandi was inspired by his words to take up sword and shield (metaphorically speaking) as a soldier of Christ.

I suspect that, for my sixteen year old son, the memory of the day has already begun to fade, just as my memory of my own Confirmation is foggy at best. Nevertheless, he is sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. He has been claimed, and he allowed himself to be. That is something that I have no intention of letting him forget.

Surprised by Faith

It's easy to think of Him as more than human, especially if you already subscribe to a high Christology. In one class that I took, another student admitted to thinking of Him as a kind of superman. First, of course, there are the miracles. Then there are the confrontations with the Pharisees, in which He seems to know what their thinking, like a comic book hero with telepathic powers. Padre Pio was said to have been able to read souls, and it's not unreasonable to assume that any spiritual gifts possessed by human saints would also be present, par excellence, in the incarnate Word.

It is also possible, however, that he came by this knowledge in a human way, through observation and deduction. Maybe Jesus "knew" what the Pharisees were thinking in the same way that a really good Republican strategist "knows" what a Democrat partisan thinks.

We are confronted by this human limitation, present in the human nature of Christ, in Matthew 8:10. In the middle of the account of the encounter between Jesus and the centurion is the statement that Jesus "marveled" (RSV), "was amazed" (NAB), or "was astonished" (NIV). The centurion's statement of faith was, apparently, not what Jesus expected.

The Church selected this gospel passage for us to hear on the first Monday of Advent, the day after we heard Isaiah proclaim that all nations would stream toward the mountain of the Lord's house. In the centurion, a gentile official of an occupying power, Jesus found a faith that was lacking in the tribes of Israel. Perhaps this was a sign to Him that the age of the Old Covenant was drawing to a close, and the time had come to initiate the New Covenant.

Facebook Temptations

Is Facebook a force for evil or a force for good? Am I being too much of a squish if I say yes to both? Joe Carter at First Thoughts provides both sides in commenting on a New Jersey pastor’s decision to ban Facebook for married leaders of his congregation. The pastor claims that over the last six months, 20 couples at his congregation have experienced marital problems due to the social networking website.

I’ve been on Facebook for two years now, and I’ve very much enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances. It is certainly true that some users do not seem to recognize any boundaries between what should be private and what should be public. Most status updates are innocuous enough, but there are also those that run the gamut from heartbreaking to sad to offensive to tantalizing. Some of my old friends live a life style that I, as a middle-aged husband and father of seven couldn’t and shouldn’t share.

Clearly, there are options for dealing with temptations on Facebook. We can ignore the posts. We can pray for the poster. We can block a person’s updates from appearing on our feed. We can delete the person from our list of friends. Yes, we can also go all the way to deleting our own Facebook account and decline to participate.

Christians, however, are not called to separate themselves from society. We are to act as a leaven. In terms of Facebook, that means that we should sail the waters but navigate within safe boundaries. It is similar to other media through which temptations enter our lives: cable and broadcast television, popular music, glossy magazines, the world wide web, etc. Where Facebook is different is that the flow of content runs both ways.

Others might see the stability, virtue, and dare I say, joy that is present in the life of a practicing Christian, even (especially?) when undergoing adversity and be led to question their own misconceptions. If the biggest barrier to conversion is the scandal of Christians behaving badly, then perhaps the best counter to that is the example of Christian’s living well. In many cases, the only exposure that the worldly are going to get to an authentically lived Christian life is through our status updates. If we all quit Facebook, then they won’t even get that.

Bring Them Here . . .

Did you catch that second-to-last verse from today’s gospel (Luke 19:11-28)? We’ve often heard different versions of this parable, but Luke’s version doesn’t appear to be read at any Sunday mass, even in Cycle C, which draws mainly from the gospel of Luke. If I were a betting man, I would be willing to wager that most Catholics have never heard this gospel passage. Jesus is telling this parable because some of his followers think that he is going to Jerusalem to establish his kingdom. It is as if he is saying, through the parable, “No, not now. I have to go away for a while first.”

In the parable, what happens to those who rejected the authority of the king while he was gone? “But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me.” (Luke 19:27). Lest a reader think that the harshness of this passage is an isolated case, I note that the agreement with the Book of Revelation’s letter to the church at Sardis (read at mass yesterday) is chilling: “Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life…” (Rev 3:4-5). None of us should be willing to risk having our name blotted out from the book of life.

Oh, yes, the Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger and generous in forgiveness. But he is also just. Love of God is paramount, but a little fear (the proportionate awe that keeps our pride in check) is a good and necessary thing.

Today, Zacchaeus

Most of us, I think, are familiar with the story of Zacchaeus. It’s a popular tale for sharing with children because of the imagery. Zacchaeus was the curious, but short, tax collector who climbed a tree in order to get a glimpse of Jesus. Jesus spotted him and, much to the scandal of the Pharisees (for tax collectors were considered by the Pharisees to be great sinners) invited himself to dine at Zacchaeus’s house.

What struck me on reading this passage today was the urgency of Our Lord’s response. “Zacchaeus, come down IMMEDIATELY. I MUST stay at your house TODAY.” (Luke 19:5, emphasis added) Zacchaeus had received an extraordinary grace that led him to climb the sycamore tree. He had responded to that grace, but it was a brief moment that wouldn’t last. Jesus recognized that he was looking at a soul on the cusp of conversion. We have phrases in English that fit the moment: “strike while the iron is hot” and “make hay while the sun is shining.” In other words, seize the opportunity of the moment before it passes.

Jesus seized the opportunity to step through the opening and pull Zacchaeus out of himself, and Zacchaeus responded with an act of great generosity and renunciation of sin. “TODAY salvation has come to this house,” Jesus declared (Luke 19:9, emphasis added). We can imagine the joy of the occasion.

As Christian disciples, we must strive to be prompt in responding to the gentle prods of the Holy Spirit. Zacchaeus was open to the good news on that day in a way that he would not have been later in the week. Collecting his contact information and promising to follow up in a few days would have delivered the hammer strike after the iron had cooled and was less malleable. Annanias had to respond promptly to complete Paul’s conversion. Ambrose had to be there to complete Augustine’s conversion.

We have to respond TODAY, both for ourselves and for others. Zacchaeus was saved on the day that he opened the door of his soul because Jesus came through that door on the same day. We are both Zacchaeus and bearers of Christ’s love. Our response is required TODAY. Tomorrow might be too late.

{Disclaimer: My own response record is pathetic. That doesn’t discredit what I’ve written above. It just means that I need to open myself up more than I have in the past.}

Malachi 3/4

Late last week, I decided to look ahead to the Sunday readings. I was using my NIV pocket bible at the time, and I couldn’t find Malachi 3:19-20. After verse 18, chapter 4 started. “Darn Protestant bible,” I thought to myself (being the arrogant Catholic that I am. “I didn’t know that they cut out part of Malachi, too.”

So I pulled out my Ignatius Bible (RSV-CE), and it, too, went from Mal 3:18 to Mal 4:1. OK, I can’t blame the Protestants for excising parts of Malachi. This time, though, there was one of those tiny little footnotes informing me that the verses of chapter 4 were part of chapter 3 in the Hebrew. I was getting confused, so I checked my Catholic Youth Bible (NRSV), which had in the past given me details on such mysteries as Chapter C of Esther. No luck. All that I got was the same tiny little footnote as was in my RSV.

I mentioned this on Saturday morning at our men’s fellowship meeting, and a friend checked his bible (NAB), and sure enough, it had the verses at the end of chapter 3. I didn’t think at the time to ask whether his bible had a tiny little footnote.

Here’s the big cause for my massive confusion: I was always led to believe that the chapters and verses were added by St. Jerome when he compiled the Latin Vulgate. Were the verses of Malachi numbered in the original? If so, then why don’t all of the translations that are based (to the extent possible) on the original languages follow the Hebrew numbering?

In the grand scheme of things, the numbering of the verses in one of the books of the minor prophets is a trivial thing. Whether they’re in chapter 3 or chapter 4 has no effect on the meaning of the words, it just makes them harder to find. However, it leads to one more head-scratching moment, of which I already have way too many.

Running Ahead

Peter wrote (2 Peter 3:16) that Paul could be hard to understand. I don’t know why he didn’t say the same thing about John. In 2 John 9, we read, “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”

Obviously, there is a development of doctrine that takes place over time. It took over four hundred years for the Church to hammer out the doctrines related o the Holy Trinity and the dual nature (human and divine) of Jesus Christ. We believe that this development is guided by the Holy Spirit.

What I want to be able to say is this: that the development of doctrine does not introduce new elements in to the deposit of faith, but rather clarifies the doctrine to exclude incorrect (i.e., heretical) interpretations. Belief in the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Mary can be traced back to the apostolic age; belief didn’t suddenly begin when the dogmas were defined in the 19th and 20th centuries. Doctrine might be developed by using schools of philosophy to explain theological truths in new ways, such as when St. Thomas Aquinas used Aristotelian metaphysics to explain the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (transubstantiation).

Christ himself promised to send the Holy Spirit to lead his Church into all truth. Over time, we have discovered that this works in a negative rather than a positive way. The Spirit does not inspire the Church to proclaim the truth; rather the Spirit prevents the Church from teaching error. This charism of infallibility is focused in the person of the Supreme Pontiff and those bishops who teach in union with him.

Again, as long as we follow the Pope, we should be on pretty safe ground.

As you can probably guess, I tend to look askance at anything that claims to have a new teaching. There are people very dear to me who are involved with a group promoting ideas that are new and supposedly better than anything that has been taught in the 2000 years of Christianity. When asked about this newness, the claim is made that it’s all right there in the scripture (isn’t every heresy?). Amazingly, it took a special revelation for this teaching to be discovered. The Holy See is reviewing it, they claim, and will approve it any day now.

Right. Until that day (I won’t be holding my breath), I think I’ll stick with what I can trust.

Among or Within?

I’d like to make one more comment on Luke 17:21, and that’s related to translational ambiguity. I usually use the Revised Standard Version, but I also reference a pocket-sized New International Version. One translation has Jesus telling the Pharisees that the kingdom of God is “among” them (with a tiny little footnote that says “or within”), while the other translation has the text reading “within”, while a footnote provides the alternate “among.”

I doubt that the alternate choice of words is due to ambiguity in the meaning of the ancient Greek. More likely, I think, is that multiple texts of antiquity have been discovered, and come use on Greek word, while others us a different Greek word, and we simply don’t know which is original. There’s also the possibility that the original gospel was not in Greek at all, but rather Aramaic. (This possibility is endorsed by a very small minority of scripture scholars, based on work done in back-translating the Greek into Aramaic and discovering some interesting word-plays in the resulting text.) No knowing the languages involved, I don’t even know how close the Greek words might be to one another or how likely a transcription or translation error from the Aramaic might be.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) argues that “the kingdom of God” should be interpreted as referring to the person of Christ, based partly on the “among” translation of Luke 17:21. Other commentators have argued that “the kingdom of God” is internal to the individual believer – an assertion that would be supported by the “within” translation of Luke 17:21.

It’s one little word, but the type a spirituality that a person follows could be flavored by the word choices used in the Bible that person reads. Unfortunately, we apparently don’t have any way to know what Jesus actually said to the Pharisees. Where the heck is that Q fragment when you need it? I think that I’m on pretty safe ground if I use the same translation as the Pope.

Signs of the Kingdom

The similarities and contrasts between today’s gospel (Luke 17:20-25) and Sunday’s gospel (Luke 21:5-19) is interesting. Today, we read of Jesus telling his disciples, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation” and “the Son of Man in his day will be like lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.” On Sunday, we will hear him tell his disciples what signs to watch for: wars and revolutions; earthquakes, famines, and pestilence; fearful events and great signs from heaven.

Do these statements all refer to the same thing? Are we moderns to see these as applying to a past event, our current circumstances, or some time in the future? All three could be true.

The first, about the kingdom defying observation, seems apt in two senses. For approximately thirty years, the Son of God lived among us without appearing extraordinary. Surely, he would have been known as being unusually virtuous, but purely in a human sense. It wasn’t until after his baptism that he began his public ministry, performing miracles in testament to his authority. But he is also present in the Eucharist in a way that defies observation. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote (as translated), “What the senses fail to fathom, let us grasp through faith’s consent.”

What of the lightning in the sky? Lightning flashes briefly, illuminating the darkness and providing a brief moment of stark contrast. Certainly this could apply to the second coming, but it seems to me that it would be equally applicable to the three shocking days of Our Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection. Those three days were like a lightning strike in the history of the world.

As for the wars, earthquakes, and famines, doesn’t the text imply that these are signs of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple? I have heard apologists argue from historical records that these things did indeed precede the destruction of the temple.

Interpreting these sayings as referring to the hidden life of Jesus, or the Eucharist, or the Paschal Mystery, or the Siege of Jerusalem does not rule out other interpretations. They could be interpreted as references to the second coming of Christ at the end of time. We cannot know the date, and looking for it won’t hasten it or make it immanent. When it happens, we’ll know it. It will not be a secret; rather, He will come in glory. Reading the signs of the times can be a risky business. Paul, without contradicting Christ, wrote to the Thessalonians that the second coming would occur at a time of peace and complacency.

Leo the Great

Today is the memorial of Pope St. Leo the Great. Not only is he recognized as one of the great popes, he is also one of the Doctors of the Church. Leo was bishop of Rome from 440 to 461, and he is responsible for defining the papacy as we've come to know it. Not only did Leo provide much of the theological basis for papal authority, he exercised that authority in governing the Church, resolving disputes between contentious bishops, and establishing the principle that the Church is separate from the state.

Leo famously rode out to meet Atilla the Hun, convincing him not to sack and pillage Rome. He was not so successful with the Vandals, who did enter Rome, but pillaged in a more gentle manner than was their typical mode.

Leo forcefully combatted Christological heresies, such as Nestorianism (that Christ was two persons, one human and the other divine) and Monophysetism (that Christ had only a divine nature and not a human one). He called the Council of Chalcedon to affirm that Jesus Christ was one person with two natures, fully God and fully man. Leo also did all that he could to make life miserable for the non-Christian Manicheans.

It is because of Pope St. Leo the Great that we see the bishop of Rome today as the successor of Peter, the vicar of Christ and the human head of the Church on earth.

Pope St. Leo the Great, pray for us!

The Spiritual Life is Like a . . . Pimple?

Here's one that I'd never heard before. Fr. Stan Fortuna, CFR was a guest on last week's Life on the Rock. About 23 minutes into the show, Doug asks him about overcoming difficulties in the spiritual life, and Fr. Stan proceeds to say that it's like getting a pimple on your nose. Really? The inner life is like a zit?

Grudges and Mustard Seeds

I like to think that I’m not the grudge-holding type. That’s not to say that I don’t observe a person’s behavior and make future decisions accordingly. For example, I once asked a certain friend for help moving a heavy appliance. I will never ask for his help again, even though he remains a friend. That’s not the same thing as holding a grudge.

Judging from the reaction of the apostles in today’s gospel (Luke 17:1-6), grudges were not so easy to let fo of in the Mid-East culture of 200 years ago. For all I know, the problem might persist to this day.

Jesus says something in today’s gospel that shocks the apostles. He tells them first that temptations to sin are sure to come; then that the one through whom the temptation comes is doomed; finally, that they must forgive any sins committed against them. The first two seem reasonable, but the third causes the apostles to beg for more faith.

As I sit here thinking through the meaning of this passage, three possibilities come to mind. First, the temptation and woe verses could be tied to the story of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), which they immediately follow. The problem here is that it’s hard to tie the source of temptation to any figure in the Lazarus tale. Second the temptation and woe verses could be a stand-alone aside. Such an interjection, however, would seem to interrupt the flow of Luke’s narrative. I have no doubt that some scholars who subscribe to the theory of Markan Priority and the existence of the mysterious Q document probably see this as the most likely explanation.

A third option, however, is that Jesus is drawing a connection between the temptation and its source to the one offended by the sin. In that case, did my brother sin against me because I tempted him to, or is his sin against me a temptation to me to sin in retribution? Is the forgiveness that I extend to my brother for my benefit or his? Is this one of those cases where the answer is not either/or, but both/and?

When the apostles object that their faith is insufficient, Jesus responds that they only need a little: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” Was it a statement of encouragement or frustration? Letting go of the grudge was more than the apostles could imagine.

Even if I can extend forgiveness to others more readily than the apostles , that gives me no cause to look down upon the them. I have my own obstacles that keep me from fully embracing the holiness that is the human vocation. In my imagination, I can picture Him telling me sadly, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed,…”

Planning for the Future

I have a daughter with Down syndrome who is integrated into the first grade at our local school. The intellectual impairment that comes with Down syndrome can range over a fairly wide spectrum. I would estimate that Erin’s intellectual ability fall in the upper middle of this spectrum – I believe that she’s a little more capable than most children her age with Down syndrome, but she’s still considerably less capable than her typical peers, and she has a stubborn streak that causes occasional difficulty.

My dear wife has great hopes for the amount of independence that Erin will eventually achieve. I, on the other hand, have resigned myself to the expectation that Erin will always be dependent upon us to a significant degree. Naturally, I wonder what will happen as we, and Erin, grow older, especially if a time comes when we are unable to provide Erin with the assistance that she needs. Two recent stories related to this concern caught my attention.

First was a segment that aired October 8 on NPR’s All Things Considered. The report told the story of how Al Etmanski, the father of a daughter with Down syndrome, helped to create, and is now the president of, the Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN). PLAN’s mission is to “help families secure the future for their relative with a disability and to provide peace of mind.” The organization works to help parents plan for both the social and financial future needs of their special needs children.

The second story was featured in the October 20 issue of the Arlington Catholic Herald. Gabriel Homes is a private nonprofit organization with seven homes in the Arlington, Virginia area. Their mission is to promote “independence through residential placement, training, and community integration for adults with mental retardation.” The biggest problem for Gabriel Homes is that their waiting list is twice as large as their capacity, and they typically have only one opening per year.

PLAN is in Canada and Gabriel Homes is in Virginia. With Erin in only the first grade, I haven’t seriously looked at what might or might not be available here in west central Ohio.

Two Cents on Midterm Election Recriminations

In the wake of the midterm elections, there is some renewed discussion out there regarding the Buckley Rule and the perceived weakness of the Republican Senate candidates in Delaware and Nevada. I wish to contribute my two cents.

Penny one: the Buckley Rule. William F. Buckley famously remarked that his vote in a particular election would go to the most conservative viable candidate. I happen to think this rule should be applied to the actual vote at hand – a primary vote should not be projected forward to the general election. I refuse to cast a primary vote based on a candidate’s “electability” as proclaimed by mainstream media pundits. Isn’t that how the Democrats ended up with John Kerry as their presidential nominee in 2004?

Penny two: voting for weak candidates. Sometimes, a vote is cast not because of enthusiasm for Candidate A, but out of revulsion for Candidate B. If I lived in Delaware, I would not have wanted to vote for Christine O’Donnell, but she would have nonetheless been the recipient of my votes against Mike Castle in the primary election and Chris Coons in the general election. If she was unable to expand her support much beyond her opponents’ negatives, the question that really ought to be asked is why no better representative of conservative ideals stepped forward to challenge Castle for the Republican nomination. She at least had the courage to enter the arena.