About 6 years ago, Pope Francis met with representatives of the American Bible Society at the Vatican. It was more than a courtesy visit. The American Bible Society  had conducted a study on how Americans connect with the Bible,  and American Catholics were part of the study. 

The study’s results are on the American Bible Society website. Though it’s 6 years old,  I don’t think the study’s results have changed much. Let me summarize two things it said about American Catholics. About 50 percent of American Catholics saw themselves engaged in the Bible which they hear at Mass or read privately or online. They saw the scriptures having an impact on their thinking and the way they lived. 

Another 50 percent saw themselves not engaged at all in the scriptures; they had no impact on their thinking and the way they lived. 

When you consider that the Second Vatican Council set the Catholic Church on a course of greater involvement in the scriptures, you see the catechetical challenge those statistics present. The council directed that the treasures of scripture have an increasing role in our liturgy, our Mass and our sacraments. They should be at the heart of our catechesis and have a more important place in our devotional life. “To be ignorant of the scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ”, the council document on revelation said, quoting St. Jerome. 

How do we bring the scriptures to so many Catholics who don’t see them as important? How can we help them engage in the scriptures and see them influencing the way they think and the way they live?

The American Bible Society has promoted the bible and bible study for many years. in the ecumenical climate that developed after Vatican II its relationship to the Catholic Church has grown closer, and so the society now distributes bibles carrying church approval;  its resources and catechetical tools try reach a Catholic audience. It recognizes, for example, a lectionary-based reading of the scriptures and liturgical feasts and seasons as one way to pray the Bible. ( cf. Reading Guide 2024) 

What I like especially about the American Bible Society is its emphasis on helping people to use and pray the scriptures on their own. Though the society provides reflective material on the scriptures, it encourages each person to find in the scriptures what God is speaking to them. You don’t find that personal approach emphasized enough, in my opinion. We may wait too much for “experts” to tell us what the scriptures mean.

One encouraging note from the study of the American Bible Society: Catholics expressed an interest in the scriptures. The scriptures have become a promising meeting ground for the various Christian churches for whom Jesus prayed, “May they all be one.”

Our first reading at Mass this week is taken mostly from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. St. Luke describes Paul’s mission to Philippi, ” a leading city in the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony”, in the 16th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. “We spent some time in that city” , Luke says, indicating he’s describing something he knows firsthand. It was a dramatic and fruitful stay.

Paul encounters Lydia, “a dealer in purple” at the place along the river where women prayed. She listened to his message and asked for baptism for herself and her household. She also convinced Paul and his companion to stay at her house, which became a house church. Women play a major role in the spread of the gospel.

Paul also encountered persecution in Philippi when he was accused of causing businesses to fail because of a cure he worked. ” The magistrates had them stripped and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely. When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and secured their feet to a stake. ( Acts 16:22-24)

An earthquake broke the walls of the prison and the jailor, fearing the prisoners had escaped, was ready to kill himself. The earthquake led to his conversion along with his household – another house church in Philippi. It also led to Paul’s exoneration by the fearful magistrates of Philippi.

Commentators describe Paul’s warm relationship with the Philippians. It looks like a lot of important people there were on his side, or at least very respectful of his mission. They say he wrote this letter– to Lydia’s house and the jailor’s household– from prison, either in Rome, Ephesus or Caesaria.

Paul had his share of prisons during his ministry. That experience and others like it convinced him to see his life in the light of the suffering Christ. He told the Philippians they were granted “for the sake of Christ, not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him. Yours is the same struggle as you saw in me and now hear about me.”  (Philippians 1, 29-39)

Have the mind of Christ, Paul tells them– and us– in this important passage, probably from an early Christian hymn:

Have among yourselves the same attitude 
that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and, found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2, 6-10)

This passage occurs often in the church’s  prayer tradition. On Palm Sunday, it’s read as Jesus enters Jerusalem to suffer and die on the cross. In the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church’s daily prayer, it’s read each Saturday evening. The passage even appears before Christmas, a reminder that from the beginning Jesus accepted the weakness of “human likeness.” Unlike Adam who grasped for equality with God, Jesus humbled himself. 

We follow Jesus from birth to death and then to resurrection. It’s not a grim unhappy journey. Commentators on the Letter to the Philippians call it a “Letter of Joy.” Having the mind of Christ make life a journey to glory. 

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

We’re reading today from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 6:10-20 (Thursday Wk. 30) He’s writing as an ambassador of the gospel, but an “ambassador in chains” asking for prayers that “speech may be given me to open my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel.”

“Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power,” Paul writes to the Ephesians and possible to the church at large. But he’s also asking for himself,  for the strength of a warrior, for the “armor of God”. “faith as a shield”, “the helmet of salvation”, “the sword of the Spirit.” Battle language, for sure.

No ordinary battle either. HIs enemies are not flesh and blood, but principalities and powers, world rulers of this present darkness, evil spirits in the heavens. 

I’m not a scripture scholar, but this sounds like the persecution of Nero that startled the Christians in Rome after the fire that burned much of the city down in 64 AD and sent an unknown number of them, including Peter and Paul, to a cruel death. It was an absurd persecution that went beyond what flesh and blood could conjure up. 

I’m adding a video on that persecution, told by way of an old Roman church, the traditional storyteller of Christian history. It’s the church of St. Peter in Chains. 

we are “being built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord…” (Ephesians 2: 19-22)

That picture of the church is brought before us every month with a feast of an apostle, We celebrated two apostles yesterday, Simon and Jude. On a feast of the apostles we look back and look forward. We belong to a growing church meant to embrace people from every nation, time and place. It’s a church bound for glory. That’s the church we belong to.

We belong to a church described as a building, not a complete building, but one “being built.” The foundation is the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, holding everything together and ensuring it grows to the “sacred temple of the Lord.”

Yet, in our part of the world, is our church growing? It looks like it’s falling apart. Perhaps we don’t see how big our church is. It’s bigger than we think. Some weeks ago Pope Francis was in Southeast Asia and commented on the growing church he saw there. A youthful, enthusiastic church, he said. We see only a part of the church.

The apostles brought their message to all the earth. They do not just report their memories of Jesus; they brought their message to others, to the ends of the earth. Accounts of their missionary journeys may not all be historically true, but their conviction of a universal mission was certainly true. They call us to this same mission;  a great church is being built and we are part of it.

“We have inherited heaven along with the apostles,” our morning prayer says. “On the foundations stones of the heavenly Jerusalem, the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are written,” we read in morning prayer. That’s where we are headed. We see only so much..