Bishop Thomas Gumbleton's blog

To delve deeply into the scripture lessons today, to hear them deep within our hearts, I think it's very important and really the key to understanding these lessons, to listen very carefully to that very first sentence that St. Paul proclaims in our second lesson: "Brothers and sisters, whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come."

If we listen carefully to the scriptures today, especially the gospel, we are enabled to do something really quite extraordinary, to really enter into the very thinking of Jesus. Into his prayer life. Into his struggle. To understand this, how this happens if we listen, we should remind ourselves of last Sunday's gospel, which was as it always is on the first Sunday of Lent, an account of the temptations of Jesus, where the devil is trying to get Jesus to turn away from what God has asked him to do. At the end of those three temptations, Luke in the Gospel says, "And the devil left him for a time." This implies that Jesus was going to continue to be tempted, just as we are. He was fully human, so temptations would possibly come back into his life.

As we begin our reflection on the word of God today, I think it's important for us to remind ourselves of why we have this season of Lent, this period of 40 days of prayer and fasting.

Most of us are very familiar with the beatitudes as they are proclaimed in Matthew's gospel. The first beatitude especially seems to be an easier way of hearing what Jesus is saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the reign of God." But Luke simply says, "Blessed are the poor," the poor -- those who are without, "theirs is the reign of God." Matthew also does not give the four woes as Luke does, "Woe to those who are rich." When we hear those words proclaimed by Jesus, I think it makes all of us a bit uncomfortable because we know that we have so many blessings.

So we really wonder, I think, well, for many reasons about these words of Jesus, but especially about "Blessed are the poor." How could Jesus say that in a world where we confront, if we have any awareness at all, an extreme degree of absolute poverty for over a billion people on our planet? Absolute poverty means they have nothing. They're living in misery, desolation. What word can you use to describe that situation for those who are absolutely poor? How can Jesus say they are blessed?

A couple of weeks ago, you may recall the gospel lesson told us about what happened after Jesus had spent the six weeks of prayer and solitude in the desert. He came back into Nazareth where he had grown up. He went into the synagogue. Remember, he was given the book to read and he unrolled the scroll to the book of the Prophet Isaiah, where it is written those powerful words that Jesus read, "The spirit of God is upon me. God will send me to proclaim good news to the poor, to give the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, and to proclaim God's year of jubilee."

As we listen to the first lesson this morning, I think perhaps we might not have really perceived the genius and the wisdom of Nehemiah and Ezra the priest. They were situated at a time when the chosen people had been dispersed, scattered, the unity of the nation was destroyed. They had been taken into a very difficult kind of exile. Many had betrayed their commitment to God that had been made, that covenant that had been made by God whereby God became their God and they were God's people. Now they had come back, found everything destroyed and over a period of years, they were trying to come together again, to rebuild their city, rebuild their temple, but most of all to rebuild themselves as a people.

Probably our first inclination as we hear today's gospel is to think of it in terms of a wedding and a joyful occasion, and how it certainly must have been a great blessing for that couple to have Jesus present at their wedding, and that's one of the reasons, I'm sure, why many people choose this particular episode from the gospel for their weddings -- a way of having Jesus show his blessing upon what they're doing.

As we were singing the response after our first lesson this morning, "God blesses God's people with peace," I thought how that could be true if we really listen to God's word. This morning, this is especially the case. This word that we hear today is a word that does show us the way to peace if we listen deeply and follow it. But to get the full meaning of the lessons today, I think it's important to remind ourselves of how this lesson today and this event in the life of Jesus fits in with what we have been celebrating over the past couple of months.

As we celebrate this Feast of the Epiphany, the manifestation or the showing forth of Jesus to all the nations, it’s important for us, I think, to hear the lessons and to celebrate the feast with the words of our Eucharistic Prayer in the forefront of our awareness, the prayer that we recite as we celebrate the Eucharist at the altar. You’re familiar with the words, I’m sure. We start out: “Yes, God, you are holy. You are kind to us and to all. For this we thank you. We thank you above all for your son Jesus. You sent him into this world because people had turned away from you and no longer loved one another. Jesus opened our eyes and our hearts to understand that we are brothers and sisters and that you are the one God of us all.”

I'm sure that all of us are aware that Christmas is the one feast day in the year where we have actually three separate celebrations of the feast, and each celebration has its own Liturgy of the Word with three separate lessons for each one of these liturgies. I think most of us are very familiar with the lesson that was proclaimed last night at the first Mass of Christmas, one usually celebrated just at the beginning of the new day. We might also be familiar with the Liturgy of the Word, the sacred scriptures, that are used at what we call the Mass of the Shepherds, the Mass that usually would be celebrated at dawn. Now we have the Mass of Christmas Day, with the three lessons that we just heard.

Last Sunday when we were reflecting on the scriptures, we pointed out how John the Baptist in fact underwent a very significant kind of conversion as it became clear to him that he was to proclaim the good news about Jesus, and that he was to be one who would turn people from following him and those like him who were trying to reform the chosen people, to follow Jesus in an even more radical way. That understanding of John comes about because, in the Gospel as Mark presents it and then Luke follows after Mark, we find Mark and Luke saying, "The time has come; the reign of God is at hand. Change your lives. Believe the good news."

Last Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, our scripture lessons focused on the final coming of Jesus at the end of time and called upon us to prepare ourselves for that moment, the end of history, the fulfillment of the coming of God's reign into our world, transforming it into that reign of God. And throughout Advent, we are also preparing for the feast of Christmas, the time when we remember with great joy the birth of that child in Bethlehem, born of Mary, but later proclaimed son of God in power after his resurrection. So throughout this season, we wait hopefully to celebrate with joy a memory of that marvelous day 2,000 years ago.

It may seem strange that when we begin this season of Advent and we are looking forward to celebrating once more, the coming of Jesus into the world, his birth at Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, that as we look forward to that beautiful feast, we have a gospel lesson that speaks to us about the end of the world, the end of time, the end of the universe as we know it. And yet as we think about it more deeply, it's really not that much of a contradiction because we have the experience, don't we, that so often when something ends, something new begins.

I’m sure when I ask you that question about whether you wish to be confirmed or not, it seems very strange because as Father Schaffer made so clear, you’ve had a good program of preparation and followed it, participated in it, and you’re all here this morning. So it might seem strange to you, but it’s important that I ask that question and here’s why: Think about it -- when you are being confirmed and you answer that question yes, what are you saying yes to? Is it to a ceremony that will be over in 40 minutes or so, then we all leave the church and that’s it?

I presume if we were to choose lessons for the celebration of a peace Mass kind of Eucharist that we are celebrating this afternoon, we probably would not choose the ones we have just listened to. They're not quite the sort of thing we want to think about and pray about when we want to celebrate the gift of peace that Jesus has brought us. Yet if we listen deeply as we can to this word of God today, I think we can find a message that is very important and will guide us on the way to genuinely be the peacemakers we know we're called to be.

We celebrate this weekend and tomorrow, Monday, the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls. We celebrate these two feasts together because there is a deep connection between them, the feasts, and those we celebrate in these feasts and ourselves. When we think of these feasts of course, we have to be mindful of death, the death of those whom we loved and have gone before us into everlasting life, and our own death.

As I reflect on the scriptures today, I can't help but think how patient Jesus is, with the disciples as recorded in the gospel, but also with all of us. Three times along that journey, Jesus has challenged his disciples to follow him, be like him, live according to his ways, his values, follow him, and they really don't seem to get it. But today, kind of as a final attempt, Jesus wants us to try once more -- discover what it means to be a disciple, commit ourselves or at least beg God for the help to commit ourselves -- to be that disciple that Jesus calls us to be.

As we listen to today's gospel lesson, we might be excused if we think, 'Those disciples had to be very dense. They just could not understand what Jesus was telling them.' This is not the first time Jesus tells them about his death and resurrection; it's the third time, and each time, the disciples totally misunderstand or in a sense, reject what he's saying.

It goes back just before Jesus started this last journey of his life to Jerusalem and you probably remember this gospel lesson from a few weeks ago because it's so dramatic.

As we reflect on the readings this morning, I think it is important to remind ourselves of the context within which we are listening. First of all we go back to the fact that over these past weeks, Jesus and the disciples are on their way to Jerusalem for the final events of the life of Jesus, his suffering, death and resurrection. But along the way, Jesus is instructing them.

If you remember last Sunday's gospel, especially at the end of it, today's gospel is rather jarring. Last Sunday we heard about a Jesus who was very gentle. Who took a little child as a symbol of all of those who are vulnerable and suffers or are oppressed in our world and made that child, as Jesus embraced the child, the very presence of Jesus. He said I live in every one of these who are most vulnerable. If you welcome them, you welcome me. But today in the gospel we find a very harsh Jesus.

To listen carefully and deeply to today’s scriptures, it’s important, I think, to remind ourselves of the context in which these lessons are given to us today. A couple weeks ago, Jesus began this last journey of his life in the gospel we heard a couple Sundays ago, and just before that happened, you may remember, Jesus had challenged the disciples about “Who do you people say I am?” and so on, and finally, Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Messiah, the son of the Living God!” Jesus said, “You are blessed.”

First of all, it’s important for me this morning to say with how much gratitude I come here to the parish church of St. Radegund, the village [in Austria] from which Franz Jägerstätter went forth to give his life in witness to Jesus. I was able to be at his beatification last year when he was declared to be among the saints in heaven, one whom we now call blessed. It really is an honor to be here in this church with people from St. Radegund to be in the presence of the spirit of Franz Jägerstätter, and to celebrate the Eucharist with you.

Peter was saying "We're going to follow you," Bishop Gumbleton says in his homily for Aug. 30. "That means that we are going to live according to Jesus' way, according to his values. ... With the readings for the few weeks, we will be trying to discern more deeply and carefully what it means to follow Jesus. What are his teachings? How do they differ from what we hear in the rest of the world around us?

As I just mentioned to you, you have to be committed to wanting to be confirmed, so that’s why I ask that question: “Do you want to be confirmed?” When I ask you the question, I always look for a very clear and strong answer that you say with confidence, “Yes, I want to be confirmed.” Why is that so important? After all, you have prepared for a number of months for this moment and obviously if you didn’t want to be confirmed, you probably would have dropped out a long time ago.

This is the fifth Sunday of Easter, so now for the fifth time, we hear again and are asked to reflect upon the Easter truth: Jesus is alive. Jesus is alive and he's living in our midst, even at this very moment. That's what we've been hearing Sunday after Sunday. That Easter Sunday itself, the first women who went to the tomb were told, "He is alive, he is risen, he's no longer here." Well, it took those first disciples a long time to really begin to sort all of this out and to accept the reality that Jesus is alive.

Probably most of us haven’t noticed the slight change in the way we designate the Sundays after the Feast of Easter. We used to talk about them as the Second Sunday after Easter, the Third Sunday after Easter and so on until we get to the seventh Sunday. But now it’s simply the Second Sunday of Easter that we celebrate today. It may not seem significant, but it is.

What we’re being taught is that this period of seven weeks, the 50 days after Easter, is a continuation of the one feast, the one event, this extraordinary, unbelievable almost, event: Jesus being raised from the dead and living among us. During this seven week period, the church is taking time to instruct us. So we must listen carefully each week to grow in our understanding.

I sense, as I’m sure you do, great excitement in the church this morning as we gather to celebrate this feast of Easter. We sing out with great joy, we clap, we rejoice, and that’s the way it should be, because we celebrate the most extraordinary event in all of human history -- a unique, one-time-only event. And even though we have the spirit of excitement and joy, I think that very often, we really do not reflect on how extraordinary it is, what we celebrate.

The most important part of the scripture message for us this evening that I hope we will take away with us as we leave this church and go back out into our daily lives are those words that the disciples hear from God: "This is my beloved son. Listen to him. " Listen to him.

If only we would do that. All of us. Each of us. Listen to Jesus. Listen not only to his words but listen too by watching what he does, how he acts. He speaks through his actions too. But listen to him.

I think we will understand and learn best form the gospel today if we start our reflection with the first reading and reflect on the covenant that God renews after that flood. Covenant is a word that is very important in the Catholic-Christian tradition. It wasn’t a word that was important in other ancient religions. A covenant means an agreement. It means something that happens between two people -- or it can be a large scale too -- as a covenant of marriage when two people promise to each other they constant faithful love.

Sometimes I think when we hear incidents described such as the one in today's gospel, where Jesus heals someone, performs what we think of as a miracle, we think that that's put in the gospel to prove that Jesus is God, but that's not the case. You see, when the gospels were written, by that time, sometime after Jesus had died and risen from the dead, they were written by communities of people who were convinced simply by their experience that Jesus is God; they didn't need any other proof. They had experienced the risen Jesus in their life. So these stories are not given to us to prove that Jesus is god, but rather to show us what kind of God we worship.