The Council of Jerusalem: Acts 15; 7-21

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Our reading at Mass  from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15, 7-21) brings us to a critical moment in the life of the early church– the Council of Jerusalem, which decided whether and on what terms gentiles would be accepted into the new Christian movement. Its decision to admit the gentiles led to a rapid expansion of the church as non-Jews from all parts of the Roman world embraced the faith.

Luke Timothy Johnson has a fine commentary on this crucial event. (Acts of the Apostles: Sacra Pagina, Liturgical Press 1992)

Did a meeting really take place? Johnson writes “we can state with considerable confidence that in the first decades of the Christian movement an important meeting was held concerning the legitimacy and basis of the Gentile mission; that participants included Paul and Peter and James and Barnabas; that certain agreements were reached which, in one way or another, secured the basic freedom of the Gentile initiative. The most striking agreement between the sources comes, in fact, at the religious level. With only very slight variation, both Luke and Paul agree that the basis of the mission to the Gentiles was a matter of God’s gift, (Acts15,11. Gal 2,9) and that God was equally at work in the Apostle Paul as he was in the Apostle Peter. (Acts 15,7-8.12; Gal 2,8)”

Notice the hesitancy of  the original Jewish followers of Jesus to accept gentiles into their ranks. That’s evident in Peter’s strong reluctance to meet the Roman centurion Cornelius as he visits believers of his own kind around Joppa. Not only are the disciples slow to recognize their Risen Lord, they’re slow to accept his plans for expanding their ranks. Peter must see signs of God at work in Cornelius before baptizing him and his household. Paul, James and Barnabas also must see God’s gifts in the outsiders they meet before they recognize that God is calling them to believe.

God sows seeds of faith, but we’re as slow to recognize the action of God in others as the first disciples were. We have trouble seeing God’s action in the stranger and in the unexpected. We need  enlightenment.

Johnson notes that the Church’s journey through time is marked by conflict and debate. We must accept those conditions today too. Those who follow Jesus will not always agree with each other; there are strong opinions and differences among believers.

One thing I would add. Besides conflict and debate, our reading today speaks of the “silence” that comes as they debate. We’re in the presence of our transcendent God, whose ways and thoughts are above ours. We need silence to discern God’s will. Too much talk can get in the way.

I Am The Vine: John 15:1-5

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Christ the Vine, Byzantine Museum

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:1-5)

In the Farewell Discourse Jesus prepares his disciples for his new presence among them–in signs and sacraments. Some of those signs come from the human world. Jesus is the Shepherd who forever cares for his flock. Other signs come from creation. The vine is a sign of life that feeds and nourishes other life. Water, bread, light are part of the signs that reveal God’s plan. Learning to appreciate signs is part of the sacramental age we live in. Today, we need a greater appreciation of signs, schooled as we are by a world disposed to science and scientific thinking.

This icon, Christ the Vine, was painted by a famous fifteenth-century Cretan iconographer Angelos Akotantos (d.1450) before the Byzantine Empire collapsed, leading to the separation of Eastern and Western churches. The icon is a call for unity of the churches.

The Second Vatican Council

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The Council of Jerusalem, recalled in our readings these last few days, (Acts 15:1-29}, opened the Christian church to the Gentiles, the peoples of the world. Over the centuries church councils, as instruments of the Holy Spirit, have guided generations of Christians on their journey to the Kingdom of God. We need to understand them when we hear, as we do today,  criticisms of the Second Vatican Council, which is the charter for the Catholic Church in our time.

  Early 4th century councils, like Nicea, Ephesus and Chalcedon explored the mystery of  the Trinity and the mystery of Christ. We still recite creeds that summarize their teaching. Churches like St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major in Rome recall their work. The importance of these councils were not immediately obvious, however. Only in time do councils unfold and reveal their gifts.

The Council of Trent (1545-63), gave us decrees and a catechism for renewing  the church following the Protestant Reformation. The basilica of St. Peter was rebuilt at the time under the leadership of the popes. The council’s calls for reform were not immediately or easily implemented.

The First Vatican Council  (1869-70) continued Trent’s efforts of reform, but was abruptly cut short due to the political situation of the time.  Fr. John O’Malley, SJ, an historian of the councils, gives a short history of the First Vatican Council. 

The Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was convened by Pope John XXIII to update church practices, foster the reunion of Christian churches and contribute to the well being of the modern world. Its decrees provide a path for the Catholic Church into the future, shaping its decisions and action today. 

There was much interest and hope among Catholics for the Second Vatican Council as it ended, but that interest declined. In fact some now see the council as a failure. Like all the great councils, however, the Second Vatican Council must be seen as the work of the Holy Spirit, who works in God’s time and not ours.  Here’s Bishop Barron: 

The Second Vatican Council shaped Catholic life through reforming the church’s liturgy, one of its great achievements. The renewed liturgy of Vatican II is now the primary prayerbook and the basic catechism of the Catholic Church. 

How is it our prayerbook? We celebrate the mystery of the Risen Christ each Sunday and every day of the year in prayer and sacraments. To know the Risen Christ the council called for a liturgy enriched by the treasures of the scriptures. It accepted insights into scripture that modern studies provide. From a church strongly tied to devotional prayer, the council provided a liturgical prayer rooted in God’s word, which nourishes believers to engage wisely in the modern world. 

How is it our catechism? The council affirmed the faith found in all the councils of the past. At the same time, It called for a church that is the people of God, united under its pastors, and so asked for a church where all its members have their voices heard and their gifts accepted.

If we look at the history of previous councils, a council’s work is never immediately evident or fulfilled. A council takes time to unfold. This blog is a humble attempt to follow the path of Vatican II.

Mary, the Dawn

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13 century England

Father Justin Mulcahy, CP, a beloved teacher and musician who taught generations of Passionists in my province, wrote a hymn anonymously “Mary, the Dawn” under the name “Paul Cross” – St. Paul of the Cross is the founder of the Passionists.

It’s a wonderful hymn to begin the month of May, a month Mary is honored. It’s a wonderful hymn and prayer for praying in our Mary Garden, a garden that recalls Mary’s role in the life of Jesus through simple earthly images. She’s the Dawn, he’s the perfect Day, the root, he’s the mystic vine, the grape, he’s the sacred wine, the wheat, he’s the living bread, the rose, he’s the rose blood-red.

I hope we can sing this song in procession to our Mary Garden this month. Here it is,, with a few added stanzas at the beginning. I’m adding an organ melody by Greg Martinez

Prayer

Mary, full of grace,
Mother of us all
All sing your praise,
Pray for us all.

Mother of Jesus,
Mother of us all
Show us your Son
Savior of us all.

Mother of seasons,
Earth and sky and sea,
In all our ways
Help us count our days

Mary the Dawn,
Christ the Perfect Day;
Mary the Gate,
Christ the Heav’nly Way!

Mary the Root,
Christ the Mystic Vine;
Mary the Grape,
Christ the Sacred Wine!

Mary the Wheat,
Christ the Living Bread;
Mary the Rose,
Christ the Rose Blood-red!

Mary the Font,
Christ the Cleansing Flood;
Mary the Chalice,
Christ the Saving Blood!

Mary the Temple,
Christ the Temple’s Lord;
Mary the Shrine,
Christ the God adored!

Mary the Mother,
Christ the Mother’s Son.
Both ever blest while endless ages run.
Amen.

5th Week of Easter: Readings and Feasts

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Spanish

The Acts of the Apostles, read this week, describes  the church’s growth after the Resurrection of Jesus as Paul and Barnabas bring the gospel tos the gentiles in the Asia Minor cities of Lystra, Derbe, and Pisidia. Yet, the mission raised questions in the Jewish Christian community at Jerusalem. Are the gentiles taking over?

To meet what some considered a threat,  a council was called in Jerusalem, which had enormous consequences . Councils are usually important events in the life of the church. The Second Vatican Council that took place in the 1960s was an important event for the church in our time.

The Council of Jerusalem is described on Wednesday to Saturday of this week.

The gospel readings for the remainder of the Easter season are from the Farewell Discourse from John’s gospel. They help us understand the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the other sacraments.

“I will not leave you orphans,” Jesus says, yet he will not be with them as he was before. The Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, will teach them all things; Jesus will be present to them –and to us– in signs.

5th Sunday of Easter: Signs

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For this week’s homily please watch the video below.

St. Athanasius: Creation Speaks of the Word

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May 2nd is the feast of St. Athanasius, the 4th century  bishop of Alexandria in Egypt, an important figure in the early Christian disputes about the Trinity. He defended the divinity of Christ against the Arians who claimed that the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, was created by God the Father and so was not eternal.

The Word was God, eternal, consubstantial, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Athanasius taught. Humanity and all creation were brought into being by the Word.  We are made in the image of God, the saint says in his treatise “Against the Arians”; we are made in the image of the Word of God who became flesh.

“Our Lord said: ‘Whoever receives you, receives me.’ The image of the Word through whom the universe was made, the Wisdom that made the sun and the stars– is in us.”

The  saint carries this thought further:

“The likeness of Wisdom has been stamped upon creatures in order that the world may recognize in it the Word who was its maker and through the Word come to know the Father. This is Paul’s teaching: ‘What can be known about God is clear to them, for God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature has been there for the mind to perceive in things that have been made.’”

All creation has been stamped with “the likeness of Wisdom.” The universe can be traced to the Word; and it draws us to the Word. Creation is hardly secular, divorced from God, an entity of its own, or to be seen as worthless. The Word of God, Jesus Christ, came among us that we might discover the divine image not only in ourselves, but in the things that are made. Creation leads us to its Creator, and to Jesus Christ.

We make Jesus Christ too small if we see him only as a human being, the saint argues. We also make creation too small if we see it separate from its Creator. Jesus immersed himself in the waters of the Jordan at his baptism and he was proclaimed God’s only Son in the waters. At the last supper, Jesus took bread and wine, blessed them and gave himself to us through them. He gave himself to us through these signs of creation. Water brings life to creation; bread at Mass is the “fruit of the earth” and the wine “fruit of the vine.”  Creation brings the Word to us; Creation brings Jesus Christ to us.

Pope Francis asked for this same recognition of the dignity of creation in his encyclical “Laudato Si.” Creation brings us to Jesus Christ.

Father, you raised up  St. Athanasius, to be an outstanding teacher of the divinity of your Son.  May we grow to know and love you through his wisdom and through the world made in his image. Amen.

Saint Joseph, the Worker, May 1

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Brother Michael Stromber, CP,  a member of the Passionist community in Queens, New York, produced this sculptor of St. Joseph the Worker some years ago while he was a missionary in Jamaica. Brother Michael is a fine artist as well as a worker who fixes almost anything, cars, toilets, broken light fixtures, chairs. Not much he doesn’t know how to do. He also flew planes in Guyana and Papua New Guinea carrying missionaries to their isolated mission stations.

I pass this sculpture regularly on my way up to my room on the 3rd floor in the monastery. The faces on the statue are blank, you can see, which is the way it is with so many ordinary workers in our society, isn’t it? We hardly notice them. We only see what they do.

In this case, that’s clearly shown in our sculpture. The most defined thing in it is the hammer in Joseph’s hand which he’s sharing with the young boy standing with him. He’s teaching the young boy how to work with it. They are absorbed in what they’re doing.

The people of Nazareth dismiss Jesus when he speaks in their synagogue! “Where did he get this wisdom? Isn’t he the son of Joseph, the carpenter?” The man who fixes things and goes unnoticed..

Our feast encourages us to see Joseph, the Worker, who went unnoticed and unappreciated in Nazareth and at the same time, to see the many like him who also do so much and are unnoticed. It calls us to recognize the dignity of work and so many things associated with it– the right to a just wage, equality of wages for women and men, the right to a job, the right to join other workers to seek good working conditions.

How important to pass on to the young what Joseph is passing on to Jesus. It’s a wisdom the people of Nazareth, unfortunately, don’t see.

The End is Only a Beginning

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We begin reading the Farewell Discourse from John’s gospel along with the Acts of the Apostles this 4th week of Easter. Facing their loss of Jesus the disciples seem helpless as he says farewell. “I have a lot to say to you, but you cannot bear it now,” he says. The Lord recognizes their paralysis.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, on the other hand, Paul and his companions are not helpless at all. They’ boldly make their way to places that may not seem impressive to us now, but were impressive places then: Pisidian Antioch, Philippi, Athens, Corinth. Important Roman colonies, strategic cities on the Roman grid, steps on the road to Rome itself. Athens, of course, was a key intellectual center of the empire, though maybe a little down-trodden when Paul got there.

Paul welcomed people into his growing ministry. Meeting Lydia, the trader in purple dyes at the river, he baptizes her and her household. How many did she bring to the gospel? Priscilla and Acquila, the two Jews that Claudius expelled from Rome during the Jewish riots of AD 42, became his trusted partners.

Maybe it’s good that we read these two scriptures together.

The Acts of the Apostles tell of a church confidently on its way to the ends of the earth to fulfill its mission.

The Farewell Discourse, on the other hand, says that sometimes a church can be paralyzed in its thinking and acting. But the Lord is the shepherd of both. What seems like the end is only a beginning.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way.”

The Farewell Discourse of Jesus

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From this Thursday until the end of the Easter Season, our gospel readings are from the Farewell Discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper. (John 15-17) His disciples experienced him as they ate and drank with him at the Last Supper and after his resurrection. Their experience indicates how we meet Jesus in the Eucharist and the other sacraments. We know him in signs.

They were troubled at the supper when told he would leave them physically. They feared becoming orphans. Now they were to know him in another way. “Do not let your hearts be troubled and afraid… I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” (John 14:1-6)

 “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me,” Jesus told them. ”So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ [of which he speaks]? We do not know what he means.” (John 15:17)

Our experience of Jesus is similar to theirs, a “little while” experience. We know him in signs like bread and wine, through a faith that accepts his presence in signs. He called those blessed, who believe and do not see.

“In the sacraments Christ himself is at work” the catechism says, “ it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies.” (Cat. 1127)  Yet it’s the Christ of faith at work. “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,” Peter says. (1 Peter 1:3-9)

John’s Farewell Discourse is the church’s basic source for learning about the world of signs that Jesus left his disciples after his resurrection. We read from it the last weeks of the Easter season. Reflecting on it refreshes our faith. He assures us and he assured them: he is the Vine, we are the branches. He will strengthen us.

When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master
nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.
If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it. (John 13 )