Christmas is about the birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Christmas is about anticipation and fulfillment, tension……… and release. The baby in the manger in Bethlehem is the answer to God’s promises going all the way back to Genesis, the beginning of humanity, and our primordial rejection of our trust in God’s goodness. Jesus is the Son of the Woman who would crush the head of the Serpent who is the Father of Lies, who continues to tempt us, trick us, and enslave us, with his lies.

Jesus is the fulfillment of Adam; he is the New Adam, who will protect the honor of his Bride from the wickedness and snares of the devil. Jesus is the new Noah, who gathers and leads his family through the storm to safety and new life. Jesus is the new Melchizedek, the priest-king who offers the sacrifice of bread and wine to the glory of God Most High. Jesus is the New Moses, who frees his people from the suffering of slavery into covenant and communion with the true God, who leads us through the dangers of the wilderness on a New Exodus, gives us a New Law to guide us in truth, feeds us with New manna (bread from heaven), and delivers us to a New Promised Land. Jesus is the new Solomon, king and Son of David, who will build up the kingdom of God, and will rule in wisdom, and whose eternal kingdom will be the reign of justice, mercy, and love. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who will protect and lead the people of God, providing them peace in good pasture, with living water, and who will bind their wounds, heal the weak and sick, and gather the wandering and the lost. There are many, many images throughout the Old Testament that point to their fulfillment in the Messiah: the Passover Lamb, the prophet Elisha, the Son of Man, the child of the virgin, and on and on. What God had promised, God fulfilled in Jesus, the Messiah.

All of this expectation, all of this promise, all of this fulfillment of the images and hopes and dreams and cries for rescue and redemption—all the power of God’s infinite divine love, all of this—is signified and embodied in the meaning of this one tiny little baby, born of poor, humble parents, in a simple little village, on a still, silent night.

Isaiah sings of the glory of this child of promise, in a time of great darkness and anguish. In Isaiah’s time, Israel was being oppressed by powerful enemies, and the king was lukewarm and political, refusing to trust in God, but trusting rather in a powerful but dangerous ally. And Isaiah sees the birth of the royal child as the dawning of a new age of hope for the people of God, a light in the darkness, a joy in a time of turmoil, a brave new glorious dawn to end the night of fear and trembling. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone! You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing… For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed… For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace. His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over his kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever.”

Some of us gathered here on this night haven’t been here maybe since Easter, maybe since last Christmas, maybe years, maybe this is your first time. So welcome, or welcome back. You are very welcome and appreciated here, and we hope that you come back often, and that you might find our beautiful church to be inviting, perhaps enough be called your spiritual home, your place of finding God in the confusion and anxiety of the world.

Some of us, no doubt, are deeply troubled by the clergy-abuse scandal that’s been all over the news, and perhaps the decision to come to Church tonight was a difficult one. We have talked about it, and have been making our way through our anger and frustration, at the betrayal of so many supposedly holy men, and the suffering of so many innocent children and their families. I share in that anger, frustration, disgust, and disappointment. It’s a difficult time. But as we said this summer, the way forward is in truth and humility. We pray for the healing of victims, we pray for justice and mercy for all involved.

But most of all, we pray that we here might be better examples of what it means to be Catholic. We pray that as God shown his mercy in the darkness on Christmas night, so he might shine with his mercy through the darkness of these times, to restore his Church to her first love: coming together to minister to God with praise and adoration, to receive his grace and divine blessings through the liturgies, sacraments, and prayers, and to minister to others with generosity, compassion, and love. That’s what it means to be the Church, and we cannot let others try to redefine our story and our identity in terms of those who have failed to be who and what they promised to be. We pray and remain faithful and virtuous, which is what God’s holy people have done from the beginning, and will do until the end of time. The Church has had many scandals and periods of corruption in its…colorful…past, and she has survived, and even thrived, when they are met with courage, humility, and love, and she will so again. In the words of the Devotion to Divine Mercy, “Jesus, I trust in you.”

In our second reading, Saint Paul writes, “The grace of God has appeared… training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the… savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.”

This is the reality of Christmas in our lives: That God in his grace and mercy have come to us, to lead us out of the darkness of lawlessness, godless ways, and worldly desires, into the light of living temperately, justly, and devoutly, and being cleansed to be a people of his own, eager to do what is good.

Do you need to go to church to be good? For the most part, yes. Because sin darkens the intellect and weakens the will. We need to be taught and formed in mind and heart in what is good. Some things that seem good are not good. Many things promoted by our society as good are far from good. And some things we don’t want to do are very good. And also, the grace we receive from the Church—the Holy Word and Holy Eucharist of the Mass, the forgiveness of Sins in Confession, the grace of the sacraments of our vocation—these give us supernatural strength to do good, especially when it’s very difficult, and especially when we’ve created bad habits that dispose us more easily to doing what is not good.

Christmas is about the birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Christmas is about expectation and fulfillment, tension, and release. Let us live the miracle of Christmas by making the most of the mercy made available to us: his light in our darkness, his mercy in our sin, his life in our hearts, his divinity in our humanity, his glory in our world, his fulfillment of our hope. Merry Christmas, and may God abundantly bless you.

In Catholic Digest some years ago, storyteller Maula Powers related an old German folktale about a creature called the Advent Devil, who tries to keep people so busy in rushing about that they lose sight of the real meaning of Advent and Christmas. The Advent Devil doesn’t want people to have time to really prepare to experience the rebirth of Christ within themselves. The temptations of the Advent Devil are diabolically clever. The Advent Devil’s business is to keep us so busy with the flow of the secular holiday hustle and bustle and holiday obligations that we forego daily prayer, reading the Scriptures, and Church services. Some of us have been fighting the Advent Devil this year. Just a couple more days! I hope you are in a position to use the little bit of time that’s left to focus on the real meaning of it all.

In our Gospel reading, Mary gives us the counter-example, the antidote, to the Advent devil. As soon as Mary had received the Good News that she would conceive and bear the Messiah, the Son of God, and that her relative Elizabeth, even in her old age, was in her sixth-month of her own pregnancy, it says, Mary “went with haste.” Not in haste in the sense of frantically or recklessly rushing, but in the sense of being focused on what she most needed to do: to visit Elizabeth, to minister her in her time of need, and to see that the sign that the angel had given her was true. She went with haste.

In the canticle of the Purgatorio, the second part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, those souls in purgatory who suffered the vice of sloth, or lukewarmness, distraction by earthly concerns, these souls spent their time in purgatory running the path around their level of the mountain repeating the refrain, “She went with haste.” It was to heal them of their distractions and to focus them, as Mary was focused on the one thing necessary. For Mary, it was the angelic message that God’s promise and the time of the messianic expectation was fulfilled, and that she had been prepared and chosen to be the mother of the Son of God and Son of Man, the Son of David, the light in the darkness, the long awaited Messiah.

Dr. Tony Esolen, in his commentary on Purgatory in the Divine Comedy, in speaking about sloth, quotes St. Thomas Aquinas in calling it “the sin against the Sabbath,” the sin against the joyful, feastful rest; the Sabbath not as a day of inactivity, but of the restful, peaceful, joyful activity of worship. He mentions the 20th century Catholic philosopher Joseph Pieper, who said that sloth is the characteristic sin of our world today, this hamster-treadmill society of constant work, but scant religious zeal. Dr. Esolen then quotes from Dante, describing the band of souls racing past them:

“Straightaway past us on the ring they swept,
for that great throng of spirits ever raced,
and the front runners shouted as they wept,
‘Mary ran to the hill country in haste!”

Nazareth, the home of Mary, is in Galilee, in the low-lying farm-land of the north. Elizabeth lives in the mountainous hill country of Judea, in the south. It took a week or so for Mary to make the journey, where she stayed for three months. This means that when these two holy children encountered each other—the unborn infant John, in his mother Elizabeth’s womb, and the unborn Lord Jesus, the fruit of his mother Mary’s womb—John was about 24 weeks old, and Jesus was barely more than 10-14 days old—neither of whom are considered persons with the dignity of human life by our own country’s laws. But we’re not going in that direction today… that’s a homily for later.

An interesting dynamic of this encounter of the Visitation is that while the specialness of Mary always relies entirely on Jesus her son, Mary here serves as the intercessor, or mediatrix, of her son’s blessings. It is not when Mary approaches Elizabeth that John leaps—it’s not his response to the Lord’s presence or proximity—but the moment Mary’s voice reached Elizabeth’s ears. Mary is the one who mediates the Lord’s presence to them. It’s a beautiful image of the role that Mary plays and the dignity of Mary. It’s Mary’s greeting that leads Elizabeth here to respond.

Although we often say those words of Elizabeth in the prayer of the Hail Mary, Luke is clear that Elizabeth doesn’t just say, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” She shouts it! “Inspired by the Holy Spirit she exclaimed with a loud cry.” So Elizabeth and her unborn son are overcome with joy when she hears the words of Mary.

Elizabeth says, “Why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Again, note the emphasis on Mary. It doesn’t take away from Jesus, but, sometimes people might say Elizabeth is humbled by the fact that Christ comes into her presence. And that’s true, but it isn’t just Christ. It’s the mother of Christ as well. Now that expression, “mother of my Lord,” is important.

For one, the Greek word there is kyrios, which is the standard Greek term for a king or gentleman. But the majority of its use in the Greek Old Testament is as a translation of the Hebrew name of God, as it was revealed to Moses. By the First century, kyrios in the Greek scriptures, almost exclusively meant God, who of course is the true king, of Israel, and of the world, the king of kings. So Elizabeth cries out, “Why is it granted to me that the mother of my kyrios should come to me?”—the mother of my king, my God! In human flesh! In your womb! Here! It’s hard to imagine her excitement—and humility!

And secondly, Mary was the younger relative, so she was lower in esteem than Elizabeth. It normally would have been Mary deferring and honoring Elizabeth. But not only does Luke have this unexpected reversal, where Elizabeth exclaims the honor of Mary, but the older unborn infant, John, honors his younger unborn relative, Jesus. So again, we as Catholics can take some heat from non-Catholics about the honor we give to Mary, but it’s completely based in Scripture. After all, it says “Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice.” So shouting the praise of Mary as the Mother of the divine king, the mother of our Lord: that’s from the Holy Spirit.

At the end of our gospel reading, we have Elizabeth blessing Mary a second time, saying, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Mary is the one who lives a constant “Yes” to the will of God, with all her mind, all her heart, all her soul, and all her strength. She gives us the example of the life of the beatitudes, which are based on the life of her son. She is the first Christian: the first in time, in that she was the first to receive and accept the the Good News of the Messiah; and the first in priority, in that she lived out her Christian vocation perfectly, without sin, without any imperfection in following God’s plan in Christ.

She not only complied, but did so with joy, and with urgency. With alacrity and foresight. In these last few days of the Advent season, let’s make sure that we are not falling victim to the Advent devil, getting distracted and stressed, and missing the real meaning of this time of preparing to receive our king and our God. Let us make some time to also be collected and quiet, with prayer, peace, and gratitude. Mary gives us our example. She was focused. She obeyed the Holy Spirit. “And she went with haste.”

 “Chaire, kecharitōmenē, ho kyrios meta sou!”

“Ave, Gratia Plena, Dominus tecum.” 

“Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you.”

The feast of the Conception of Our Lady was celebrated during the 7th century in Palestine. The feast spread as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to Italy by the 9th century, in England by the 11th century, and in France by the 12th century.

One notable 16^th century theologian said, “It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin.” That was actually a quote from Martin Luther (his sermon, “On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God,” 1527). The Christian faith in the Immaculate Conception was well established long before Martin Luther, and long, long before it was declared as an essential article of the true Christian faith—a dogma of the faith—by Pope Pius IX in 1854.

Catholic writer Stephen Beale says the Church had always believed in the sinlessness of Mary. St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus, from the 2^nd century, identified Mary as a second Eve, as the one whose humble obedience reversed Eve’s disobedience. In the third century, Origen, one of the earliest Church Fathers, called Mary “immaculate of the immaculate.” St. Augustine, in the 4^th century, skirted around the question of sin in Mary, out of reverence for Christ. The dogma was implied, but not defined. Why did they stop short of declaring Mary conceived without sin? Because they couldn’t figure out how Mary was saved by Christ if she didn’t have sin, and therefore wouldn’t have need of a savior… and that didn’t seem correct.

Resolving this difficulty took a big step forward in the 11^th century by a Benedictine monk named Eadmar. Eadmar provided an arsenal of arguments in support of the belief in the Immaculate Conception. For one, he said, St. John the Baptist was purified from sin in the womb, and Mary is far greater than any other saint, including St. John the Baptist. In another argument he says, God preserved the angels from sin from their first moment of creation, and Mary is the queen of angels. And building on the earlier work of St. Irenaeus he says, Mary is the “new Eve,” in a unique position to restore humanity from the Fall by her perfect obedience in place of Eve’s disobedience, and so that parallel requires Mary to begin with the same original innocence that Eve enjoyed before the Fall. The Church always had a sense of, but struggled to articulate, Mary’s particular privilege of divine favor—that the angelic greeting “Hail, full of grace” held a special mystery that was not yet fully understood.

It was the brilliant 13^th century Franciscan, Blessed John Duns Scotus, who discovered the key of how to affirm the sinlessness of Mary without excluding her from the need for the Savior. He argued that Mary was “preserved” from original sin, rather than freed from it. It is one thing to have someone be soiled by sin and to cleanse and redeem them, but it is a greater thing to preserve them from the stain of sin from the beginning. In other words, if I found you stuck in a big mud puddle, you would be thankful if I got you out of it. But you would be even more thankful if I preserved you from falling into the big mud puddle in the first place. It is the normal human condition to be conceived, born, and live in sin until we are rescued by the grace of Christ in baptism. It is a special privilege to be the one whom Jesus inoculates from the stain of sin from the first instance of her existence. Mary is still saved from sin only by the grace of Christ. She is immaculate only because of her savior. But in her unique privilege, she was not washed, but rather kept clean, from the stain of sin.

So I’ll end with these two questions. First question: Mary was conceived long before Jesus, her son, was crucified. How could Mary be the Immaculate Conception as a result of the Paschal mystery of Jesus? The answer is that Jesus is God, and his Paschal Mystery transcends time, and its grace available to all of time. From our perspective within time, the Immaculate Conception was, you might say, purchased on credit, and was paid for along with all the sins of humanity by the Paschal Mystery.

The second question is, so what? Good question; glad you asked. It was in wrestling with this question about Mary’s privilege of being the kecharitōmēne, the person who is the Immaculate Conception (and also with the question about why the Church has always baptized infants), that it was understood that it isn’t that people are born with sin, but we are born lacking saving grace. Sin isn’t a thing, it’s an absence of a thing that ought to be there. When we commit a sinful choice, it’s not that we get a thing that is sin stuck to us, but that we lose the thing that is grace that we need to have. And so this affects the whole understanding of sin and grace. We talk about the Immaculate Conception as Mary conceived without sin, which is true, but as the angel said, it’s really Mary conceived with the fullness of grace.

Another point is that, in the modern philosophies of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, which are still influential today, the concept of original sin, the default lack of saving grace in the human soul, is completely rejected. The belief is that, it is the disorders of society that corrupts the human person, and not the other way around. And from that came the idea of the noble savage, the human person uncorrupted by the sinful effects of society. This idea is very active, for example, in how Thanksgiving has been treated lately: Imperial Christian Europe, with all its sins, corrupted the pure noble humanity of the Native American (as though the Native Americans hadn’t been involved in centuries of brutal wars among themselves long before the first European explorers). But individually speaking, this error would also lead one to think that everyone is immaculately conceived; that we just need to legislate away the sins of society, like bigotry, racism, and greed, and then all humanity is returned to its original noble sinlessness. Yes, we truly do need to avoid social and personal sins, but we as humanity still need the grace of Christ and his Paschal Mystery to be saved and have a hope for heaven. We cannot get there on our own efforts, without grace. Score another one for Martin Luther.

In 1858, a few years after Pope Pius’ proclamation of this dogma, the Blessed Mother appeared to a young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in Lourdes, France. Bernadette asked this “beautiful Lady,” who appeared before her, who she was, and the Lady responded, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Bernadette didn’t understand these words, and she went to the priest to repeat what the Lady said. The priest was convinced Bernadette couldn’t have understood what it meant, and would not have been able to have made it up. Mary herself thus confirmed the dogma of her Immaculate Conception, the truth that Pope Pius IX defined when he promulgated the 1854 decree Ineffabilis Deus:

“We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”

I have a guest priest from Cross Catholic International coming to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation and all the Masses this weekend, so I have a reprieve from preparing a Sunday homily this week. So I thought, rather than skipping my blog for this weekend (which was very tempting!), I decided to read through my usual commentaries and sources, and put something together. As it happens, there were some interesting thoughts I wanted to comment on. So rather than offer a homily for the Sunday Mass, I would like to share my thoughts about our Gospel Reading. 

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him,
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 
He replied, “What do you wish me to do for you?” 
They answered him, “Grant that in your glory
we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” 
Jesus said to them,
“You do not know what you are asking. 
Can you drink the cup that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” 
They said to him, “We can.” 
Jesus said to them,
“The cup that I drink, you will drink,
and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;
but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.
Jesus summoned them and said to them,
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

This reading for Sunday follows immediately upon Jesus giving his third prediction of his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, which fell in the gap between last Sunday’s reading and today’s reading. In today’s reading, Jesus asks James and John, “Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” Jesus brings together two images very important in Christian Tradition.

Can you drink the cup that I drink…

When does a cup come up? Well, it came up the night before the crucifixion at the Last Supper, when Jesus took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples, and said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Dr. Scott Hahn has an excellent reflection on the concept of “The Fourth Cup.”

“There are four cups that represent the structure of the Passover. The first cup is the blessing of the festival day, it’s the kiddush cup. The second cup of wine occurs really at the beginning of the Passover liturgy itself, and that involves the singing of psalm 113. And then there’s the third cup, the cup of blessing which involves the actual meal, the unleavened bread and so on. And then, before the fourth cup, you sing the great hil-el psalms: 114, 115, 116, 117 and 118. And having sung those psalms you proceed to the fourth cup which for all practical purposes climaxed and consummated the Passover. Now what’s the problem? The problem is that gospel account says that after the third cup, Jesus says, “I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until I am entering into the kingdom of God.” And it says, “Then they sang the psalms.” 

So what happens with the fourth cup? First, look at Gethsemane:

He fell to the ground and three times said to the Father, “Abba, Father… All things are possible to Thee. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” Remove this cup. What is this cup? 

And then:

Jesus, on the cross, knowing that all was now finished said, in order to fulfill the scriptures, “I thirst.” Now, he’s been on the cross for hours. Is this the first moment of thirst? No, he’d been wracked with pain and dying of thirst for hours. But he says, in order to fulfill the scripture, “I thirst.” “They put a sponge full of the sour wine on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine he said the words that are spoken of in the fourth cup consummation, “It is finished.” In Latin, “Consummatum est.” What is the “it” referring to? The “it” is the Passover sacrifice. 

The Passover Sacrifice is now the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The Last Supper and the Crucifixion are joined by the Fourth Cup into the single event of Christ’s self-sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. I said in an earlier post that Christ always predicted his crucifixion joined to his resurrection, as a single event. And so we have a triptych: Last Supper, Crucifixion, Resurrection. And every Mass is all three, the entryway for Christians of all generations to participate in this singular triptych event of the Bridegroom’s consummation once for all with His Bride. And it is at the celebration of the Mass that the Bride consummates throughout time with her Bridegroom, uniting herself to Him.

In the case of Jesus, the Fourth Cup, the “Cup of Consummation” is the consummation of the nuptial covenant of the Bridegroom with his Bride. There is an image of the cup of God’s wrath that Isaiah’s Suffering Servant must drink. By “drinking this cup,” Christ pays the price for the redemption of his Bride, winning her from Satan’s claim on her for her sins, so that she is free. She now belongs to Christ. For Christians, the question, “Can you drink the cup that I drink” is the “bitter cup” of suffering, of sacrifice, of persecution and rejection, the cup of the consequence of sin (ours and others’).

…or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”

In the blessing of the baptismal font, the priest or deacon recounts the many ways in which water was a sign of baptism throughout Salvation History. At the end of the blessing, he puts his hand into the water, and says, “We ask you, Father, with your Son to send the Holy Spirit upon the waters of this font. May all who are buried with Christ in the death of baptism rise also with him to newness of life. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.” That’s a striking image: “buried with Christ in the death of baptism.” What is the “death of baptism”?

Adam and Eve had the vocation to be the parents of all the living, and to pass on to all humanity their relationship of peace and one-ness with themselves, with each other, with God, and with all Creation. But because of their sin, their vocation was corrupted, and instead they handed on to all humanity their broken relationship within themselves, and with each other, with God, and with all Creation.

Jesus came to give us life, and life abundant, by giving us participation in his life, and his relationship with the Father: to restore to us what we lost, and more. We always have to remember that uniting ourselves to the life of Jesus is not just the resurrection, but the cross as well. So Christian baptism is the death of that disordered spiritual life we inherited from Adam and Eve, the death of sinful habits, disorders, desires, attachments, and scripts of reacting to circumstances sinfully, to be replaced by new ways of living, seeking first the Kingdom of God, and responding to circumstances with grace. It is the death of the broken communion within ourselves, and in our relationships. So the “death of baptism” is the death of all that is from Satan, through Adam and Eve, that is not from God.

So when Jesus asked James and John, “Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” he was asking them if they were prepared to even pay the price to enter the Kingdom–to accept the bitter cup of suffering and the death of baptism–much less be seated at places of honor. Were they prepared to endure their passion and death, spiritually for certain, and physically perhaps, that is part of the Christian vocation, and required for being part of the Kingdom?

“They said to him, ‘We can.’ Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.'”

Jesus just before this told of his own Passion. Here, probably not understood by James and John, he foretold of theirs! Of course, it is held by Tradition that John was not martyred as were the other disciples, but he was exiled, a “living death” as his share of persecution, a “white martyrdom.”

So who sits at Jesus’ right and left in the Kingdom? We’ll have to wait until we get there to see. But here are two thoughts to consider. First, in the ancient Kingdom of God under King Solomon, the Queen Mother sat enthroned to the right of her son, to carry out her privileged role of interceding with her royal son on behalf of his humble people who implored her help to receive his grace. So perhaps we know who sits to Jesus’ right. But here’s another thought. When Jesus entered into his glory–his “hour of glory”–who were at his right and at his left? Two criminals, who were paying the debt for their crimes. I’m not presuming to say that these two are at the right and left of Jesus at his heavenly throne. But while St. Dismas—the name Tradition gives to the “repentant thief,—is traditionally portrayed as being on Jesus’ right (because good was on the right, and bad on the left), the Scriptures don’t say which side was which. Perhaps St. Dismas is on the left, and the Blessed Mother is on the right. Or perhaps you will be on the left! St. Chrysostom drops the whole question: “No one sits on His right hand or on His left, for that throne is inaccessible to a creature.” Again, we’ll just have to wait and see!

Before I leave the subject of the (Eucharistic) cup and Baptism and move on with the rest of the Gospel reading, I want to note that there is a tradition of another association between them.

Before the Jewish wedding ceremony, there was the tradition of the ritual bridal (or nuptial) bath, in which the bride would cleanse herself in preparation for the wedding feast (which ended with the wedding consummation!).

In Brant Pitre’s Jesus the Bridegroom: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, he describes each new member of the Church being incorporated into the person of the Bride as she enters into the nuptial bath of baptism, which cleanses her of her sins, to prepare her for her consummation with her Bridegroom in the wedding feast of the Eucharist. So in baptism, we receive the washing of forgiveness of sins, and become members of the Church, the Bride of Christ, and we are prepared to participate in the Eucharist, the communion of the Bride and the Bridegroom.

And of course, the Church fathers were quick to draw the connection between the blood and water that flowed from the pierced heart of the crucified Christ and the sacraments of the Eucharist and Baptism. The Book of Revelation introduces the saints as they who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The Baptismal water is both a nuptial bath and the forgiveness of sins. The Blood of Christ both cleanses us of our sins and is the cup of salvation of the wedding feast of the Lamb and the Bride.

“The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Christ drinks the cup of suffering that becomes the cup of our salvation. Christ is baptized into death, which becomes our baptism into new life. We do drink the cup that he drinks, and we are baptized with his baptism, because through Christ, his suffering and death become our communion with him and the life of grace!

“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve…”

No doubt most people have had to suffer under someone in authority who was all about themselves and their exercise of power and will. History, including the present, has more than a few tyrants and despots and dictators and corrupt leaders. But Christian leaders are called to be leaders who act in accord with Christ, who have both Christian conduct in their person and in their exercise of authority. And the greatest of these, of course, is love. There is an old maxim that a rich man should think of himself as a father of a large family, in terms of his generous, responsible stewardship of his wealth. Likewise, a Christian leader should think of himself as the father of a large, complex family, where the goal is the common good, the flourishing of every individual, and of the whole community, both at the same time. There may be times when the good of the many is stacked against the good of the one, but the one still has certain inviolable rights that must be regarded and protected.

After the minister (deacon or priest) baptizes a child, and as he prepares to anoint the child with chrism on the crown of his or her head, the minister says, “The God of power and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has freed you from sin, given you a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and welcomed you into his holy people. He now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.”

When we are baptized into his life, and into his relationship with the Father, we are also baptized into his job. I mentioned a few weeks ago about Christ in the role of Priest, Prophet, and King. What does he show us about living out these roles?

• As priest, He offers prayer and sacrifice, He glorifies the Lord and intercedes for the needs of the people, He blesses the world by His example of virtue and wisdom, and He calls the world to repentance and conversion.
• As prophet, He speaks the divine truth, in season and out of season, He invites others into life in the Truth, into life in relationship with the Father; He suffers, He endures ridicule and shame, He turns the other cheek to those who insult Him.
• As king, He shows us that divine power becomes poor that we might become rich; as One who is great He becomes the least and the servant of all; He lifts up the lowly, He feeds the hungry, He welcomes the stranger, He clothes the naked, He cares for the sick, He gives to the poor; as the greatest He becomes the smallest, and concerned about the smallest, the weakest, and most vulnerable.

Today’s gospel has to do with that last part. We are sons and daughters of the most high God, we are princes and princesses of all of Creation, our father’s realm. And we are expected to carry out our royal duties with diligence and grace. Christ gave us the example of what it means to exercise divine power… from his throne of the cross. This is where he showed his great love for creation, and humanity in particular. He didn’t need to have a heavy hand, because divine power is merciful. He didn’t need weapons and violence, because divine power is gentle. He didn’t need to defend his rights or shout his commands, because divine power is humble. He prayed for the forgiveness of his persecutors, and laid down his life for his friends, because divine power is love.

“…and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The Greek word at the end of that sentence is pollōn. It’s the same word as in the phrase, “you are more valuable than many sparrows,” and “I wrote to you with many tears.” It is literally and truly the word for “many,” and not the word for “all.”  In Latin, it is translated the same: “pro multis.” It is the same word in the Institution narrative: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” And now, as of the 2011 updated English translation of the Roman Missal, it is the same translation in the consecration of the Precious Blood on the altar in the Mass, “…poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sin.”

You might remember that there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the correction of the translation from the earlier version, “poured out for you and for all.” That might sound wonderfully inclusive, but it’s not what Jesus said in the Gospel. But there are two good and valid ways to handle this.

First, the scriptural and linguistic way. It is unfortunate that the attention was on the contrast between “many” and “all,” because that really was the wrong question. The contrast is between the one and the many. The commentary in the New American Bible (the translation that is the basis for the Lectionary), has a note that says, “Many does not mean that some are excluded, but is a Semitism designating the collectivity who benefit from the service of the one, and is equivalent to ‘all.’” The Catechism says in paragraph 605,

“He affirms that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many”; this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us. The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”

Second, the consequential and free-will way. While it is true that Christ died for all, not all will choose to benefit by this gift. Some will refuse the gift, and choose hell. Some will not be saved. Not because Christ’s sacrifice was restrictive and not meant for them, but because they restricted themselves out of being saved by Christ’s sacrifice by their own choice. God wants that all be saved. But not all want themselves to be saved. And so we have in the preface of the fourth Eucharistic Prayer, “yet you, who alone are good, the source of life, have made all that is, so that you might fill your creatures with blessings and bring joy to many of them by the glory of your light.” That sounds much more like a restrictive use of the word “many”—as opposed to “all.”

So before I sign off, I wanted to make a little announcement, particularly because I evidently have a little audience. Last weekend I wanted to reference at dinner something I wrote, and accessed my site for the first time using a cell phone, which wasn’t logged into WordPress, and I was appalled by how it looks to a viewer, to you. Shocked, I tell you.

So I went ahead and paid for the subscription service that knocks out all the ads, and opens up some new options. I explored every one of the free themes they offer, and I didn’t really like any of them enough to change the layout. I would prefer a side bar of widgets, but I’m not willing to give up what I have to get it (or pay more to be able to modify the current theme).

Also, you might notice that the website changed. I have my own domain!! How cool is that!? You might not have noticed, but you are now at http://www.snarkyvicar.com! And if that weren’t the bees knees, I got a new email address: steve@snarkyvicar.com (which works like a gmail suite pseudo-business account, with half the bells and whistles). So I’m pretty excited, and I want to thank YOU for the likes, the loves, the shares, the comments, and the support and encouragement. And of course, the friendship!

The word “Philosophy” comes from two Greek words. “Philios” or “Philia” means “loving, fond of, tending to.” “Sophia” means “wisdom.” Philosophia, or Philosophy, literally means, the “love of wisdom.” The wisdom literature in the bible, we could say, also speaks of the “wisdom of love.” The Wisdom books in the bible personify Philosophia as “Lady Wisdom,” who man should pursue and court as a lover, as the way to living the virtuous life. Our first reading says, “I… deemed riches nothing in comparison with her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her; because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand… Yet all good things together came to me in her company, and countless riches at her hands.”

The Book of Wisdom, or Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, was originally written in Greek in the Jewish diaspora, the Jews living in the context of the greater Greek culture. Because it did not belong to the Hebrew Pharasaic canon, it was excluded from the Jerusalem canon of the holy scriptures, and thus also from Martin Luther’s version of the Old Testament. But the Book of Wisdom, and the other Old Testament books of Greek origin, were well-known to the Christians outside of Israel, and were well-quoted by the Church Fathers.

In the Incarnation of the Son of God—the perfect self-expression of God—the divine Word of the Father—many aspects of biblical wisdom (of biblical philosophy) are met in the person of Jesus. Our second reading easily substitutes the Wisdom of God with the Word of God: “Indeed the Word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.” God’s wisdom penetrates deep below the appearances, the flesh, the temporal order, and penetrates into the spirit, the true person, the heart and soul. “Everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.” And Jesus in the Gospel says the same thing as Lady Wisdom in the Old Testament: beware of the temporal trap of appearances and wealth; seek instead the way of wisdom and holiness.

Jesus and his disciples were walking and “a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.’” Skeptics often point to this verse, Mark 10:18, to say Jesus himself here denies he is God. But it’s bad biblical interpretation to take one verse out of context and use it as a proof-text. If you look at the verse in context, Jesus is speaking to a man who is bowed, face-down at his feet—an act of worship—who just called him good—an attribute of the one true God of Israel. What does Jesus then do? He gives the man the law of God—actually, the second tablet of the law, having to do with love of others. And then what does Jesus do? He adds a particular commandment for this man, and by analogy, for us. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, ‘You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’” Jesus is not denying that he is good, he is saying that he is good. So if Jesus is good, and only God alone is good… then… Jesus is acknowledging that he is God, that he is divine. He’s trying to help this man unpack the faith he already demonstrates by his act of worship.

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Jesus emblepsas him… beheld him, considered him, gazed at him with special concern… and ēgapēsen him… loved him with agape, self-giving, selfless love. “At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” God does not hate sinners; God can only love. God loves those who walk away from him, who persecute him, who reject him. He is always calling everyone into a deeper participation in his own divine life, whether a person is a politician on the world stage, or a Sister of Mercy ministering to the needy in the streets, or a convicted murderer on death row, or a suburban parent trying to take care of his or her family. All are called to conversion, to repentance, to divine love, and all have the choice between surrendering themselves more to God’s love in their life, or to go away sad, unwilling to surrender the many things they are concerned about for the sake of the one thing necessary.

Three times in this year’s readings, Jesus says something bold, which people question, and then he affirms his teaching with stronger words. In John 6, Jesus was teaching about eating and drinking his flesh and blood. The Pharisees murmured against him. And Jesus then said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” Last week, Jesus was teaching that marriage is until death. “In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this. He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’” In today’s reading, “Jesus… said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’”

Before I go into Jesus’ strong words today, I want to go back and revisit Jesus’ strong words from last week.

I spoke last week about the Theology of the Body—that each person is body and soul united, and that man and woman together in the nuptial consummation, the complementarity of their bodily personhood, is a share in (and revelation of) the self-giving love of the inner life of God. I was told that while the Theology of the Body was appreciated, that I should have said something to comfort the divorced.

We do want to be comforted… we also want approval for all the choices we make that we see as good, that God call them good, too. Because that’s God’s job—to approve of what we approve of, and condemn what we condemn. Well, not really, no. Our job is to approve of what God approves of, and to condemn what God condemns. Jesus says that divorce-and-remarriage is adultery, and I am not going to correct Jesus.

But I concede the point that I knew that there were many in the congregation who were divorced, and I missed the opportunity to help them interpret their experience in light of Jesus’ words of Truth. The truth is that I presumed that everyone already knew that divorce is contrary to the Catholic Faith, that marriage is until death, and that annulments are possible for those who can prove that their marriage was sacramentally invalid. And so rather than harp on that point for another year, my choice was, instead of making the divorced feel bad, I wanted to point forward to the beauty of God’s truth of marriage, to build up those who are already married, and inspire those who look forward to marriage. So here is the bit about annulments that I elected to forsake last week to allow time to present the splendor of the Theology of the Body.

Marriage is a public event in the Christian community, not a clandestine arrangement made in secret. Catholics must be married in view of the community of the Church, which validates that the couple is potentially able to enter into marriage, prepares them to live out their marriage promises, and publicly blesses their marriage promises with sacramental grace. So when two people promise before God and the Christian community that they are uniting until death do they part, come what may, it is not God’s plan that they divorce. Like all Christian life, marriage is the call to be selfless, humble, forgiving, and holy. It’s the cross. It demands unconditional commitment. We are not promised a happy life; we are promised the paradoxical joy of the cross, which, if persevered through, will lead us to salvation. That’s why you promise to be faithful: because there’s a lot of times and situations tempting married couples to give up.

Now, the exception. First, no one has an obligation to be a punching bag, physically or emotionally. The Church tells spouses who are being abused to separate to safety. Separation is fine—as long as separation is oriented toward healing and reconciliation, if possible. The second exception rests on Jesus’ words, “What God has joined together,” and the exception in Matthew’s gospel, which is, “unless the marriage is unlawful/sinful.” God joins together those who worthily exchange their promises of life-long fidelity (remember… the effective reception of a sacrament requires the “necessary disposition” to receive it). But… if, at the time of that exchange of promises, one or both of the persons are too emotionally or spiritually immature; if they lack the intention or ability to make and keep their promises; or due to other obstacles to the sacrament of marriage, then one or the other can take their exchange of promises to the Church to say that God did not join this union together. And if the Church agrees, the couple is given a declaration of nullity (an annulment). But this is not divorce. Divorce says that a contract of marriage existed for a time, and then ended. An annulment says that the covenant of marriage had never been formed, and the persons were not (and are not) sacramentally married. God does not will divorce—he says “Let your yes be yes.” But God’s plan accommodates human sinfulness and weakness, and He can and does bring good out of it. I know of many good marriages that abound with free, total, faithful, and fruitful love, which followed after earlier failed marriages that had been annulled.

So that’s the second ending of last week’s homily. Just a few sentences to finish up this week’s homily. A few weeks ago, the second reading from Saint James said, “Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries…you have stored up treasure for the last days.” That’s the key to the biblical teaching on wealth… not that it is intrinsically evil or in opposition to the Christian life, but the sin of trusting that one’s wealth will matter on judgment day. Jesus, and his Church, have relied on the generosity of the faithful who have wealth. It is not a sin to be wealthy. But one must also answer on judgment day for their Christian use of their wealth.

St. Augustine in the 5th century tells of a tradition that there was a small door next to the main city gate of Jerusalem called the “Eye of the Needle.” A camel was too large to enter, especially carrying a load, unless the camel was first unburdened, and then passed through the gate kneeling. A rich person cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he strips himself of the burden of his wealth, and humbles himself on his knees. The rich person investing his wealth in the needs of the Christian community, humbling himself to enter the gate, understands the spiritual dangers that comfort and reliance on wealth fosters. St. Paul wrote to Timothy, “Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and a trap…The love of money is the root of all evil. Some men in their passion for it have strayed from the faith, and have come to grief amid great pain.” It is King Solomon, clothed in royal splendor, who wrote, “I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her.” It is not the love of money, nor even the love of wisdom, but the wisdom of love, that leads us to salvation.