Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun? One generation passes and another comes, but the world forever stays. The sun rises and the sun goes down; then it presses on to the place where it rises. Blowing now toward the south, then toward the north, the wind turns again and again, resuming its rounds. All rivers go to the sea, yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they go, the rivers keep on going. All speech is labored; there is nothing one can say. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear satisfied with hearing.
What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, “See, this is new!” has already existed in the ages that preceded us. There is no remembrance of the men of old; nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them.
Today the Passionists celebrate the feast of St. Vincent Strambi, CP (1745-1824). He was chosen to be bishop of Marcerata during the tumultuous years when Napoleon moved to take over Italy, the papacy and the Catholic Church. Strambi was an heroic supporter of the pope and fought for the freedom of the church.
To understand most saints you have to understand the times in which they lived. They’re antidotes for the poison of their time. Vincent Strambi lived in poisonous, challenging times..
In 1789, following the French Revolution, a Reign of Terror struck the church in France, religious orders were suppressed, priests and religious were imprisoned, exiled, put to death. Word of the terror quickly reached Italy and Rome; the defenseless Italian peninsula would be a likely target for France’s fierce revolution and Napoleon.
Pope Pius VI asked for prayers that Rome be spared, and he called on Vincent Strambi, then acknowledged as Rome’s best preachers, to prepare the people for a blow sure to come. In packed churches and piazzas in Rome Strambi promised that God would not abandon his people. The Roman people gained strength from his words.
In 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy demanding heavy tribute from the Pope and the Papal States. The murder of the French General Duhot in Rome gave him the pretext for invading the city, deposing and imprisoning the pope and declaring the Papal States a Republic. Religious houses were suppressed, their goods systematically confiscated. Strambi, a well-known opposition figure, fled to Monte Argentario, a Passionist sanctuary on the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1799 Pius VI died in exile. Some historians of the time saw the papacy ended. Pius VI was succeeded by Pius VII who, in 1801, appointed Strambi bishop of Macerata and Tolentino, two important cities in the Papal States along Italy’s Adriatic coast, poverty-stricken from years of political and military turmoil.
The bishops of the Papal States were largely responsible for temporal as well as spiritual affairs and Bishop Strambi became a champion of the poor in his diocese. He lived sparingly himself, without signs of wealth or position. The poor were constantly on his mind. “Don’t you hear the cries of the poor?” he said one day to the treasurer of his seminary, looking out his window.The education of poor children interested him especially and he urged his priests to care for them.
In sermons Strambi constantly looked to the Passion of Jesus for wisdom in the struggles of the time. His devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus was influenced, at least in part, from reflection on the bloodshed the Napoleonic Wars brought to millions in Europe. Almost 4 million died as warfare rose to a level never seen before. Their blood was precious to God.
On May 5, 1809, after occupying Rome and most of the Papal States. Napoleon declared the region under French control and the temporal power of the pope abrogated. On June 6, 1809 Pius VII placed notices on church doors throughout Rome excommunicating anyone cooperating with the French. July 6, the French general Radet arrested the pope and brought him north to Savona.
Napoleon then demanded bishops sign an oath of loyalty to his new government. Refusal meant exile and imprisonment, signing was an act of disloyalty to the pope.
“I am ready for prison and for death. I am with the pope,” Strambi declared. On September 28,1808 he left his diocese under guard for northern Italy where he remained for 5 years under house arrest.
After Napoleon’s defeat in 1814 the church’s exiled leaders returned. Bishop Strambi returned to his diocese in May, 1814; immediately the pope asked him to come to Rome to preach a nine day “retreat of reconciliation” in late July and early August. Not all met the French invasion heroically.
In 1816 a typhoid epidemic followed invading armies. Food shortages and inflation spread through the bishop’s diocese. He opened hospitals for the dying and sought supplies for his suffering flock.
Physically frail from birth, Bishop Strambi became increasingly ill and found it harder to manage his diocese. By 1814, the world too had changed. The Papal States had no bishops in the long chaotic period of the Napoleonic invasion and new forces demanding change came to power. Strambi recognized it was too much for him.
In 1823 he asked the new pope, Leo XII, to allow him to retire. The pope accepted his resignation on one condition, that he come and live with him as an advisor in the Quirinal Palace, then the pope’s residence in Rome. A local commentator said of the departing bishop: “ He was a man who lived a holy life, giving alms to all and content with only the necessary for himself. We are sorry to see him go, for we lose a good pastor. The cries of the poor are especially loud, for they lose one who cared for and sustained them.”
Vincent died in Rome on January 1, 1824, having offered his life to the Lord in place of that of the pope who was seriously ill.
Pope Leo ordered the process for his canonization 8 days after his death. He was declared a Saint in 1950 and his relics now rest in Macerata, the city where he was a zealous pastor for twenty-two years.
Before becoming a bishop, Vincent was a forceful preacher and catechist of Passionist missions and retreats. He was also the first biographer of St. Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists.
St. Vincent Strambi’s room, Saints John and Paul Monastery, Rome
With the help of the Holy Spiirt, I on my part will do all I can that the living image of Jesus crucified be imprinted in the hearts of each of you. I do this gladly, not counting the cost. I consider myself fortunate to give my lifeblood so that Christ might be formed in you. I can say, like the apostle, that because of my love for you, I want to share with you “not only God’s message, but our very lives, so dear have you have become to us.”
I urge you, then, to look attentively on the Image of the Crucified, the bishop of your souls, on his throne of grace. In that way I shall fulfill my obligation to announce to you the death of the Lord, an obligation arising from my profession in the Congregation of the Holy Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. I shall do all I can to urge you all to fulfill your duty to love him who first loved us, who offered himself on the altar of the cross for us, who shed his blood for us.
( Letter to the people of Marcerata on becoming their bishop)
September 23 is the feast of Padre Pio, the Italian Capuchin friar and a popular saints of modern times. I would say he’s a saint who’s a catechism. He was a stigmatic, who carried the wounds of Christ in his body. Church officials were wary of him;investigation after investigation questioned his credibility, but ordinary people recognized his holiness. To them he was a striking sign of God’s presence in an ordinary human being. Padre Pio taught, not by a book, but by himself.
People were the first catechism. They still are. Where do our printed catechisms come from? They’re recent instruments for forming people in their faith. Martin Luther was the first to compose a catechism in question and answers for ordinary people in the 15th century. In response to Luther, the Dutch Jesuit Peter Canisius composed the first Catholic catechism in 1555 followed by three others afterwards. The Council of Trent directed a catechism be written as a resource for the clergy and that appeared in 1556. Robert Bellarmine later composed an important catechism requested by Pope Clement VIII and after that bishops from all over the world composed catechisms for their people. I can still recite questions and answers from the Baltimore Catechism of my youth.
In earlier times, catechesis was done without relying on catechisms, through preaching, sacraments, the feasts and seasons of the year, and popular piety. People, like Padre Pio, are the most important catechism.
The Second Vatican Council changed the language of the liturgy from latin to the language of the people and revised the liturgical prayers and rites that they better serve as catechesis. Some today want to maintain the primacy of the catechism in catechesis but, while they’re still important, we need to catechize more through the liturgy, sacraments, feasts and seasons, and popular piety. It’s a task of the Second Vatican Council remaining to be done.
Don’t forget people.
In 2006 the bishops of the USA published the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, which interspersed stories of saints and others as examples of the faith expounded in the book. They were acknowledging what we all know: people are better catechisms than books.
This week’s lectionary readings from Luke’s Gospel, chapter 8, focus on the formation of disciples. Luke repeats the parable of the Sower from Mark and Matthew, but instead of the mystery of the rejection of the Seed of Truth, Luke concentrates on the formation of “those who have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.” ( 8:15)
“Lamps on a lampstand; those who see them must see light. They need to take care how they hear.” (Luke 8: 16-18)
Who are the disciples who must care how they hear? The Twelve or the 72 disciples sent out to preach are not the only ones. Jesus preaches the good news of the Kingdom of God through Judea accompanied also by “ the Twelve and some women…” ( Luke 7:51) And there are others too.
In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s church is a community of disciples who “devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
In this week’s readings Luke recalls Mary and some family members coming from Nazareth to see Jesus. ( Luke 8:18-19) Early in his gospel, Luke reports that the angel called Mary “blessed among women”. From the beginning she kept “all these things in her heart” . She would “hear the word of God and keep it.” ( Luke 2:51)
This week the compilers of the lectionary have paired Luke’s readings describing the formation of Jesus’ disciples with readings from 1 Corinthians, the struggling church at Corinth.
Jews usually turned away as they passed the customs place where Matthew, the tax-collector, was sitting. But look at our gospel for today:
“As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.”
To celebrate their new friendship, Matthew invited Jesus to a banquet at his house with his friends – tax collectors like himself – and Jesus came with some of his disciples. They were criticized immediately for breaking one of Capernaum’s social codes. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus’ answer was quick: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Hardly anything is known of Matthew’s part in Jesus’ later ministry, yet surely the tradition must be correct that says he recorded much of what Jesus said and did. Tax collectors were good at keeping books. Was Matthew’s task to keep memories? Did he remember some things that were especially related to his world?
The gospels say that wherever Jesus went he was welcomed by tax collectors. When he entered Jericho, Zachaeus, the chief tax collector of the city, climbed a tree to see him pass, since the crowds were so great. Did Matthew point out the man in the tree to Jesus, a tax collector like himself, who brought them all to his house, where Jesus left his blessing of salvation? And did tax collectors in other towns come to Jesus because they recognized one of their own among his companions?
Probably so. Jesus always looked kindly on outsiders like Matthew who were targets of suspicion and resentment. True, they belonged to a compromised profession tainted by greed, dishonesty and bribery. Their dealings were not always according to the fine line of right or wrong.
But they were children of God and, like lost sheep, Jesus would not let them be lost.
Pope Francis said he got his vocation to be a priest on the Feast of St. Matthew, when he went to confession and heard God’s call, a call of mercy.
Matthew’s Gospel?
The gospels themselves recall little about Matthew, an apostle of Jesus. We have his name, his occupation and a brief story of a banquet that took place with Jesus and some of his friends after his call. ( Mt 9: 9-13; Mk 2:3-12; Lk5:18-26) As it is, the gospels concentrate on the ministry and teaching of Jesus.
In the early centuries, those who knew Jesus told his story and brought his message to the world. As they died, writings about him gradually appeared, but there are only scarce references to who wrote them. St. Justin Martyr in the early 2nd century speaks of the “memoirs of the apostles”, without indicating any author by name. Later in that century, St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, writing against the Gnostics who claim a superior knowledge of Jesus Christ attributes the gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are eyewitnesses who really know Jesus firsthand; they have given us their “memoirs.”
Scholars today are less likely to credit Matthew’s Gospel to the tax-collector from Capernaum whom Jesus called. Some of his memoirs perhaps may be there– after all he came from a profession good at accounting for things. But too many indications point to other sources. Why would Matthew, if he is an eyewitness, depend on Mark’s Gospel as he does? Language, the structure of the gospel, the circumstances it addresses, point to a Jewish-Christian area beyond Palestine as its source, probably Antioch in Syria, probably written around the year 8o, after the Gospel of Mark.
Traditions says that Matthew preached in Ethiopia and Persia, but they have no historical basis.
He is remembered as a martyr who died for the faith, but again there is no historical basis.
Better to see Matthew as the gospel and the prayer at Mass sees him: one of the first outsiders whom Jesus called. And he would not be the last..
O God, who with untold mercy were pleased to choose as an Apostle Saint Matthew, the tax collector, grant that, sustained by his example and intercession, we may merit to hold firm in following you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
For this week’s homily, please watch the video below.
In today’s gospel, the owner of the vineyard is a mysterious figure. The workers he hires for his harvest can’t figure him out. They can’t figure out the way he pays his workers, they can’t figure out his generosity. He’s a mystery to them.
Of course the owner of the vineyard in today’s parable is God, and we’re the workers who labor in this world for whatever years that God calls us. God is a also a mystery to us. Isaiah says that in our 1st reading:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.
This is a good parable for reflecting on a big question we face today: how is God related to our world today. It’s an unstable world today isn’t it? The times are so unsure. We’re looking at a multiple of wars that don’t seem to end, political problems that only increase, climate change. Some smart people even speak of Doomsday in the light of developments in AI. They say everything, even ourselves, are coming to an end..
For some, God has nothing to do with all of this. God doesn’t exist, some say. Others say if God does exist he doesn’t have anything to do with this world. Jesus Christ? He’s irrelevant —- someone from the past.
Even with faith, these are scary times. What can our parable tell us?
For one thing, the owner of the vineyard has the last word. He owns the vineyard. God is the creator of all things. Creation is his vineyard; he called it into being.
Where do we come from and what’s our role? We’re workers in God’s vineyard.“We are his creatures. He made us. We belong to him.” We were called for a time to live and labor in God’s creation. God is our Lord.
Our world is described in the parable as a vineyard. It’s not meant to be a place of wars or strife. Certainly it’s not meant to be destroyed. It meant to be a place of harvest. The parable suggests that every generation of human beings is called to work for that harvest. Each generation and each one of us individually has something to do to make this world fruitful.
We are meant also to work together in this world. We are not individual fortune seekers grabbing all we can get for ourselves.
This month of September up to the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4th, our church and other churches celebrate the Season of Creation, a time to recall what this parable teaches. Our world is a precious gift of God and we should care for it.
Don’t leave Jesus Christ out in the Season of Creation, for he reminds us of God’s plan for our world. He is not just Jesus of Nazareth, from in a little corner of the Middle East long ago, rejected by his own people and put to death. He is not just a teacher who tells us how to get along with one other.
Jesus is “the image of the invisible God…in him were created all things in heaven and on earth.” “He holds all things together” , for 4.5 billion years and beyond. He is the Cosmic Christ, who brings peace through the blood of his cross. He lives and reigns with Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.
Our celebration of Mass reminds of his place in creation. As we bring bread, wine and water to the altar we bring fruits of the harvest to the Lord of the harvest, who blesses them and gives them back to us for the work we have to do.God is present in these gifts. God is present in our world, leading it to harvest time.
“In him we live and move and have our being.”
“Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him.He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the Body, the Church.He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the Blood of his cross through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.” (Colossians 1, 15-20)
Mary Garden, Passionist Monastery, Jamaica New York
On Thursday we begin reading in our lectionary from Chapter 15 of the 1st Letter to the Corinthians, an important source about the resurrection of the body. “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”
Some Corinthians denied the resurrection, and so In response Paul quotes a basic summary of Christian teaching that he and others received regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus. “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” ( 1 Corinthians 15, )
Our preaching is empty, meaningless if there is no resurrection, Paul continues. To deny it means “ those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished…If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.”
It’s going into fall in the Northeast USA now. Flowers are beginning to shrivel into dark balls, losing their beauty and going to seed. Flowers in our Mary Garden are falling to the ground and dying. But their seed says “We’ll live again.”
Good to spend awhile in a garden now, because seed is the analogy Paul uses in speaking of the resurrection of the body. Like the flower, we have our time, then we die. But we will live again.
We’re children of Adam, from dust, returning to dust. Yet, we’re members of Jesus Christ, who through the mystery of his death and resurrection gives us life, Paul says.
We’re children of the flowers too, let’s not forget. We came after they evolved 140 million years ago. Without the food, medicine and beauty they provide we cannot live. Is that why, I wonder, we call on them in times of death and celebrations of life? Maybe too, in times of uncertainty, like now, they give us wisdom.
Paul used them as a teacher, reminding the Corinthians that what “ is sown corruptible is raised incorruptible; what is sown dishonorable is raised glorious; what is sown weak is raised powerful; what is sown a natural body is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one.”
Not only will we rise, but creation itself will rise again.
Commentators say that the 7th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, our lectionary readings this week, is where you can see Luke’s theology best expressed. He is not following Mark or Matthew in his presentation of Jesus. His arrangement of stories about Jesus and his teaching is entirely his own. In fact, Luke adds a story in this chapter found nowhere else in the gospels– Jesus raises a widow’s son to life.
It happens at Naim, not Capernaum or the other towns around the Sea of Galilee where Jesus ministered. Not Nazareth, his hometown. Not Bethany, where Jesus responded to friends like Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus died. We are not sure where Niam was.
The woman has no name, no influential friends or family connected to Jesus; she is a widow with no resources. She is a nobody. Yet Jesus performs this great miracle for her. He raises her only son from death and gives him to her.
Monday’s reading is the account of the centurion, whose beloved servant was cured by Jesus and whose faith amazed him. The story emphasizes Jesus call of the gentiles.
On Thursday we will read of the sinful woman who anoints his feet weeping and dries his feet with her hair in the house of a pharisee. Again, Luke presents Jesus reaching with mercy to someone, a woman, whom his society rejects.
Jesus prefers the poor and welcomes all in Luke’s Gospel. Surely, Luke wrote his gospel for a community like 1 Corinthians, which we’re reading now with Luke’s Gospel, where the poor seem excluded and only the well-off are welcome at the Table of the Lord.
On Friday Luke again mentions women as he describes Jesus evangelizing one town after another in Judea. (Luke 8:1-3) He’s accompanied by the Twelve, but also some women. They’re obviously not women like the poor widow, but women with resources and talents. One of them is even connected to the court of Herod. They are vital to the mission, Luke insists. They stay with Jesus through his passion and are witnesses of his resurrection.
Today the church celebrates two early saints and martyrs, Cornelius, a pope who died in 253, and Cyprian, a bishop who was martyred in Roman Africa shortly after in 258.
At the time barbarian tribes in the west and the Persians in the east were invading Roman territory; the Roman emperors Decius and Valerian called for absolute loyalty from their people. The empire was imperiled.
To prove their loyalty, Roman citizens lined to offer sacrifice in honor of the emperor. Christians refused, and so at first church leaders were executed or imprisoned, wealthy, influential Christians lost their property, their positions and possibly their lives. Finally, all Christians could expect punishment for not performing the rites of sacrifice.
Not every Christian remained loyal to the faith at the time. Many offered sacrifice, betraying their faith, then afterwards sought to return to the church. Hard liners called for them to be banned for life for their lack of loyalty. Let God judge them when they die, they said. Others, like Cornelius and Cyprian, called to reconcile them after a time of penance, since God is all merciful.
Mercy and justice are always hard to reconcile. The gospels come down on the side of mercy. So should we.
In the persecution, Cornelius, bishop of Rome, was executed first, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage in Africa, was executed a few years later. The two men were from different social backgrounds and not always on good terms, historians say, but they found support in their common faith, as this letter of Cyprian to Cornelius, written shortly before Cornelius’ death, reveals:
