“At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” (Matthew 9, 34-38)
In every age, Jesus calls his disciples to speak to the troubled and abandoned crowds. In this 14th week of the year we have Matthew’s account of that first time Jesus called disciples to preach and enter his ministry. How should laborers in the harvest approach the troubled crowds today ?
In his 1977 novel “Lancelot” Walker Percy tells the story of Lancelot, a man confined to a prison hospital after setting fire to his beautiful ancestral home in Louisiana and murdering his wife and her lover. The man’s fed up with today’s world and turned against it, but he’s still trying to figure out what life’s all about. He’s on to something, one of Percy’s phrases.
An old priest visits him frequently in the prison hospital– his only visitor, it seems– and listens to him, but hardly says a word. That’s partially because Lancelot doesn’t think much anymore of the faith the priest represents.
Yet, the priest listens. Lancelot occasionally asks him if he understands. “Perhaps I talk to you because of your silence. Your silence is the only conversation I can listen to,” Lancelot remarks. Only as the book ends does he say to the priest: “Very well, I’ve finished. Is there anything you wish to tell me?”
In Pope Francis’ exhortation, “Gaudete et exultate”, there’s a wonderful exploration of holiness today. At one point, the pope says “Nor can we claim to say where God is not, because God is mysteriously present in the life of every person, in a way that he himself chooses, and we cannot exclude this by our presumed certainties. Even when someone’s life appears completely wrecked, even when we see it devastated by vices or addictions, God is present there. If we let ourselves be guided by the Spirit rather than our own preconceptions, we can and must try to find the Lord in every human life.” (42)
We’re sent as laborers for today’s harvest, but words may not be the only tools we have to use. Is silence, along with a persevering concern, ways to engage the troubled crowd today? The way of silence doesn’t mean we don’t have to search for the words to say today. We need to find out how the mysteries of the gospel speak in “new wineskins.”
Today, July 3rd, we remember Thomas the apostle. We’re tempted to think that belief does away with troublesome questions and shelters us from unbelief, making our way to God smooth and undisturbed. Not so, Thomas reminds us; he found faith through his questions and by placing his finger into the wounds of Christ.
Gregory the Great reminds us today of the importance of Thomas the Apostle.
“In a marvellous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.”
That’s an interesting statement, isn’t it? “The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples.” Is an unbelieving world strengthening our faith now?
We go to God through questions, and some troubles too. We’re healed by touching the wounds of Christ. How do we touch the wounds of Christ? Is it by touching those who are wounded like him?
Grant, Almighty God, that we may glory in the Feast of the blessed apostle Thomas, so that we may always be sustained by his intercession and, believing, may have life in the name of Jesus Christ your son, whom Thomas acknowledged as the Lord. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Today is the feast of the early Roman martyrs who suffered in Nero’s persecution along with the apostles Peter and Paul. The persecution began with an early morning fire on July 19, 64, that broke out in a small shop by the Circus Maximus and spread rapidly to other regions of Rome, raging for nine days through the city’s narrow streets and alleyways, where more than a million people lived in apartment blocks of wooden construction.
Only two areas escaped the fire; Trastevere, across the Tiber River, which had large Jewish population, was one.
Nero was at his seaside villa in Anzio when the blaze began, but he delayed returning to the city. They say that when he heard the news, he began composing an ode comparing Rome to the burning city of Troy. His absence caused resentment among the people. Rumors began that Nero himself set the fire in order to rebuild the city from his own plans.
To quell the rumors, Nero decided to blame someone else, and he chose a group of renegade Jews called Christians, who had caused trouble before, and had a bad reputation in the city. Earlier, about the year 49, the Emperor Claudius had banished some of them from Rome for starting upheavals in the city’s Jewish synagogues with their disputes about Christ.
“Nero was the first to rage with Caesar’s sword against this sect,” wrote the early-Christian writer, Tertullian. “To suppress the rumor,” the Roman historian Tacitus says, “Nero created scapegoats. He punished with every kind of cruelty the notoriously depraved group known as Christians.” Just how long the process went on and how many were killed, the Roman historian does not say.
The early Roman Christians came mostly from the 60,000 Jewish merchants and slaves with strong ties to Jerusalem. Even before Peter and Paul arrived in Rome, Jewish-Christians, clearly identified as followers of Jesus Christ, were counted among the city’s Jews.
At the time of the fire Jewish Christians had become alienated from the larger Jewish community and began separating from it. Where they lived and met was well known. The authorities, following the usual procedure, seized some of them, brought them to the Prefecture and forced them by torture to give the names of others.
“First, Nero had some of the members of this sect arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers were condemned — not so much for arson, but for their hatred of the human race. Their deaths were made a farce.” (Tacitus)
Instead of executing the Christians immediately at the usual place, Nero executed them publicly in his gardens and in the circus on Vatican hill. “Mockery of every sort accompanied their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.” (Tacitus)
Most thought Nero went too far. “There arose in the people a sense of pity. For it was felt that they (the Christians) were being sacrificed for one man’s brutality rather than to the public interest.” (Tacitus)
We celebrate the memory of the victims of Nero’s persecution, our ancestors in faith, on June 30th, following the feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
Further Reading
It would be good to have two New Testament writings in mind as we celebrate this feast– the Gospel of Mark and the First Letter of Peter.
Many scholars believe the Gospel of Mark was written in Rome following Nero’s persecution and before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. Roman Christians, reeling from persecution and fearing troubles ahead, learned from this gospel.
Most belonged to a Jewish community that enjoyed extensive privileges under Rome’s emperors; they felt safe and secure– until Nero’s reign. There were brave martyrs, but there were others who betrayed their fellow Christians.
Mark’s Gospel presents the Passion of Jesus as a stark, brutal martyrdom that can’t be explained. How appropriate for Christians facing absurd, unmerited suffering meted out by a capricious emperor. At the same time, more than other gospels, Mark portrays Peter as a disciple who fails his Master and then receives mercy. He seems to remind Rome’s Christians that not only the strong, but the weak are part of their church.
Mark’s Gospel is meant for hard times. Jesus Crucified calls his disciples to follow him to the Cross.
First Letter of Peter
Another New Testament writing offered a similar message to the Roman community and Christians beyond the city. Like Mark’s Gospel, the First Letter of Peter, written in Rome, calls for courage in suffering, even unjust, absurd suffering.
“Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. When he suffered he did not threaten; instead he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2, 21-23)
The followers of Jesus should stay the course when suffering comes, Peter says. Stay where you are, the letter says, and “maintain good conduct among the Gentiles,” (1 Peter 2:12) “give honor to all, love the community, honor the king.”(1 Peter 2:17)
Following the Neronian persecution, many Jewish Christianss fled Jerusalem before Titus’ advancing legions. Seeing a sign of the last times, they prepared for the end. Rome’s Christians stayed where they were, it seems, and with their neighbors rebuilt their burnt city, waiting in hope for God’s kingdom to come.
They must have wondered whether to stay in this city, an evil city like Babylon. Should they go to a safer, better place? The Christians remained in the city. I wonder if the “Quo Vadis?” story was a story prompted by questions like these ?
The martyrs of Rome strengthen us to stand where we are and do God’s will, inspired by the Passion of Christ.
Faith says great things in simple ways. Sometimes a few words say it all, like the few words of the Creed. Sometimes signs like bread and wine point far beyond themselves to an infinitely generous God.
How is it possible to sum up the love of Jesus Christ for us? Today’s Feast of the Sacred Heart expresses divine love, which cannot be measured, through the human heart. Pope Francis offered an important recent reflection on the Sacred Heart in his Encyclical Letter, Dilexit nos,
The Feast of the Sacred Heart is always celebrated on Friday, the day Jesus showed the depth of his love, the day he faced rejection and gave himself for us. On that day a soldier pierced his heart as he hung on the cross, and blood and water poured out. “Immediately blood and water poured out.”
See these signs with eyes of faith, John’s gospel says. They reveal God’s love for us and for our world. His pierced heart says it all. The heart can never be separate from the Person whose heart it is: Jesus Christ. He can never be separate from the Father and the Holy Spirit, so his heart represents the love of the Trinity for the world.
Consider
Consider who hangs on the cross for you, his death gives life to the dead, his passing heaven and earth mourn, even the hard stones split. Consider how great he is, who he is. He slept on the cross that the church be formed from his side and scripture might be fulfilled:
“They shall look on him who they have pierced, One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, blood and water flowed out paying the price of our salvation. He gave his blood that the sacraments might give grace, living water, eternal life.
Bride of Christ, arise and like the dove, like the sparrow finding a home, drink from the wells of your Savior. He is the spring flowing in the midst of Paradise. from him four rivers flow to every heart, watering the whole world and making it fruitful.
Run with longing, cry out from your inmost heart: Beauty of God most high, Shining everlasting light, Life that gives life to all life, Light that illumines every light, Water eternal and unseen, clear and sweet, flowing from a spring hidden from all, A spring whose depths can’t be plumbed, whose height can’t be measured, whose shores can’t be charted, whose purity can’t be muddied. From him flows the river that makes glad the city of God.
So with songs of thanksgiving, we sing hymns of praise. With you is the fountain of life and in your light we shall see light. Adapted from St. Bonaventure.
Almighty God and Father, we glory in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, your beloved Son, as we call to mind the great things his love has done for us.Fill us with the grace that flows in abundance from the Heart of Jesus, the source of heaven’s gifts. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.
June 24, three months after the angel announces to Mary that Elizabeth is six months pregnant (March 25) John the Baptist is born.
From his birth John the Baptist was destined by God, not to follow Zachariah his father as a priest in the temple, but to go into the desert to welcome the Messiah, Jesus Christ. John is the last of the Jewish prophets, the first to recognize Jesus. His birth and death are celebrated in our church calendar.
It may have changed, but there’s an interesting Sunday walk in Rome I’d recommend. Go out the city gate at the Porta di San Sebastiano and walk south along one of the oldest roads in the world, the Via Appia, to the catacombs and church of San Sebastiano. Outside the city gates, you’re in what the ancient Romans called the “limes,” the limits, the world beyond the city, a different world altogether.
To the ancient Romans the “limes” was the end of civilized, reasonable life. No place to live, they thought. Get where you’re going as soon as you can. “Speed limit” comes from the word. Go beyond the limit and you can lose your life.
Few people today are usually on that road, deserted fields all around. The only sound you can hear is the sound of your own breathing and your footsteps.
The last line of St. Luke’s gospel for today’s feast says of John:
“The child grew and become strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.”
How did John become strong in a desert? Centuries before, God told Abraham to go into a land he would show him. He led Jews from Egypt into the desert, and with no map or provisions, to a world unknown. They were in the hands of God, their strength.
Most of us stay within our limits; we don’t go to live in physical deserts. Yet, try as we may, we face them anyway in things we didn’t expect, like sickness or death or separation or divorce or the loss of a job or lost friends or lost places we know and love. The desert’s never far from any of us.
The Via Appia brings you to the catacombs, the great underground tunnels where early Christians buried their dead. They buried them there, I think, not to hide them, but because this place was an image of a new unknown world. The “limes,” marked the end of this life and foreshadowed a new life. The dead no longer belonged in the city; they were going to a new city.
Life holds its doubts, fears, uncertainty. But we don’t face limits alone. In the “limes” God alone has you in his hands. God gives you strength and brings you where you’re meant to be. God is there. God is there.
Like other ancient church feasts, the Nativity of John the Baptist, June 24, is tied to cosmology. Three months after the angel announces to Mary that Elizabeth is six months pregnant (March 25) John the Baptist is born.John’s birth coincides with the summer solstice. He begins to decrease to make way for the one who will increase. Jesus will be born December 25. The Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist is celebrated by all the ancient Christian churches. The Orthodox Church celebrates it June 24.
Birth of John the Baptist. Orthodox Church of America.
In Matthew’s gospel today, Jesus speaks of treasures in heaven. Usually the treasures we think of are gold, silver, works of art, gems, degrees from school, signs of achievement. They’re the “treasures of earth” Jesus speaks of in the gospel. Thieves can steal them away; they can be eaten by moths and forgotten. They don’t last. (Matthew 6,19-23)
Other treasures are for heaven. St. Paul sees some of them in his trials for the gospel that we read today in his 2nd Letter to the Corinthians. God won’t forget his sufferings: the beatings, imprisonments, brushes with death, the long journeys over seas, rivers, and wildernesses where robbers waited. Paul lists dangers he faced, both from enemies and his own people. God wont forget any of them, down to his sleepless nights and bouts with the cold.
He ends his list with what might be the biggest treasure of them all; “the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led to sin, and I am not indignant?” He’s tried to be responsible everyday with the people around him, whether they’re the weak or the trying. That’s the lasting treasure God holds in heaven. (2 Corinthians 11,18 ff)
We might not be able to match Paul’s of missionary travails, but let’s keep Paul’s last important achievement in mind. If we do what we have to do each day as well as we can, if we are faithful to our daily duty, if we bear our daily cross, if we bear with the weak and the difficult, won’t that be our treasure?
God counts it so.
Before he was executed St. Thomas More. wrote to his daughter Meg:
“ I trust only in God’s merciful goodness. His grace has strengthened me till now and made me content to lose goods, land and life as well, rather than swear against my conscience. I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and being overcome with fear. I shall remember how St. Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray for his help. And then I trust he shall place his holy hand me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning. “
Does ordinary time, the days after Pentecost, mean that every day is the same? They’re not. Graces, challenges, joys and sorrows, hints of things, “our daily bread” are all there. We have to notice them. The Carmelite nun, Jessica Powers, ends a poem calling the day “my beautiful unknown.” We just need eyes to see and ears to hear
There’ s surprising range of pictures of St. Anthony of Padua. In some he blissfully holds the Christ Child in his arms, which is how someone saw him one day towards the end of his life. At times he’s pictured holding a book in his hand. Some pictures and statues portray him holding the Child and the book together and giving a loaf of bread to a poor man.
Pictures and statues say a lot about him.
Anthony was born in Portugal in 1195 and died near Padua, Italy in 1291, acclaimed for his preaching and virtues. Canonized shortly after his death, he’s invoked as a miracle-worker, especially good at finding something lost. But Anthony’s more than a miracle-worker.
His world was the complex, changing world of the 13th century when Europe’s economy was expanding, military crusades against the Muslim powers were in full swing in Spain, Sicily and the Holy Land, and new religious movements like the Franciscans were bringing reform and new vigor to the western church.
Anthony entered the Augustinian community in his birthplace, Lisbon, and studied at the renowned theological center of Coimbra. Just decades before, Portugal had been freed from the control of the Moors, but then, unfortunately, the victors started fighting among themselves for power and spoils from the crusades.
Anthony rejected the violence and avarice he saw in feuding leaders of church and state; he was a crusader of another kind. When the bodies of some Franciscan missionaries martyred in Morocco in 1219 while preaching the gospel were brought back to Portugal, Anthony decided to join the new community. He became a Franciscan and went to Morocco, hoping to preach the faith to the Muslims there, but illness caused him to leave, first for Sicily, then to Italy, where he became a Franciscan missionary and teacher.
Only a few years before, in 1206 in Assisi, young Francis Bernadone stripped himself of his trendy, stylish clothes and put on the dress of a poor man, to follow the poor Man of Nazareth, Jesus Christ. Thousands followed him and the movement he began quickly spread through the Christian world. Like others, Anthony was attracted to this movement, eager to bring the gospel “to the ends of the earth.”
The Franciscan movement began with a dedication to absolute poverty and a simple life, but as church leaders requested them to preach the gospel throughout the world its members needed books, education, training and places of formation. Anthony emerged as a model Franciscan preacher and teacher.
Through northern Italy, then through France, Anthony’s vivid, down-to-earth preaching stirred people’s hearts and minds and showed other preachers how to preach. At the time, the Franciscan movement was not the only movement attracting the people of Europe. Through northern Italy and especially in France, Albigensian teachers were preaching a message of simplicity and release from the burdens of life to believers dissatisfied with the church. They denied that Jesus was divine, they questioned the gospels and painted the world as an evil place.
“Wise as a serpent and simple as a dove” Anthony disputed their message in his preaching. Gifted with an extraordinary memory for the scriptures and an ability to illustrate his talks with homey examples simple people understood, he spoke “with a well-trained tongue.” Thousands came to hear him. The world was not evil, Anthony taught, Jesus, the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us.
Artists capture Anthony’s spirit in their portraits of him. As a preacher and teacher, he carries of book, most likely a psalter holding the Jewish psalms. St. Augustine, whom Anthony studied as a youth, always carried this one book of the bible with him, as a summary of the scriptures.
Some say this book is also clue to Anthony’s gift for finding lost things. He probably kept his notes for teaching and preaching in it. If he lost it–some say one of his students stole it– he lost something valuable to him. He found it, so he knows what it means when someone loses something too. “Good St. Anthony, come around, something’s lost and can’t be found.”
The Christ Child Anthony holds in his arms was more than a momentary vision he had. Anthony was deeply attracted, as St. Francis was, to the mystery of the Incarnation. The Word became flesh. God became a little child, who grew in wisdom and age and grace in the simple world of Nazareth. He died on a cross, accepting it as his Father’s will. Then, he rose from the dead.
Human life and the world itself has been blessed by this mystery. Because of it, life can never be small or inconsequential. Even suffering and death have been changed. “The goodness and kindness of God has appeared.” We hold it in our hands.
I suppose this is why a picture of St. Anthony is down in our laundry where we wash sheets and towels and clothes. He speaks to this world.
I’m sure Anthony, a man of words, worried about being captivated by words. That’s why he wrote this:
Someone filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages, different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience and obedience. These are the languages that reveal who we are. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. When we’re full of words but empty of actions, we’re cursed by the Lord, as once he himself cursed the fig tree when he found no fruit but only leaves. Gregory says: “A law is laid upon the preacher to practice what he preaches.” How useless if you preach about the law yet undermine it by your actions.
Saints share their gifts, and recognize the gifts of others. That’s what St. Barnabas did. He was a gifted teacher of the Gospel; he also recognized the gift of Paul of Tarsus. His feast is June 11.
After his dramatic conversion on the way to Damascus, Paul preached the gospel in Damascus and then in Jerusalem, but his past caused some in Jerusalem to be suspicious of him. “They were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.”
“Then Barnabas took charge of him and brought him to the apostles, and he reported to them how on the way he had seen the Lord and that he had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus.” (Acts 9, 25-27) Barnabas recognized the grace of God in Saul.
Then, as gentiles in Antioch became increasingly interested in the gospel, the leaders of the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to see what to do. “When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart, for he was a good man, filled with the holy Spirit and faith. And a large number of people was added to the Lord. Then he went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a large number of people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.” (Acts 11,23-26)
Barnabas recognized Paul’s gifts once again and sought him out to bring the gospel to the gentiles. Previously, the Apostle Peter encountered the gentile Cornelius in Ceasaria Maritima and baptized him and his friends. Now, Barnabas chooses Paul to come to Antioch, and the two embark on a mission to the gentiles. The Acts of the Apostles refer first to “Barnabas and Saul”, then gradually it becomes “Paul and Barnabas.”
Paul emerged as a gifted apostle. The Acts of the Apostles follows him all the way to Rome, while Barnabas is hardly mentioned at all. There are indications he returned to Cyprus where he came from. Did he get sick, or was he too old to embark on something new?
Whatever it was, Barnabas first recognized Paul and his gifts. I noticed on his feast, Paul is quoted in his letter to the Corinthians. “I handed on to you what I myself received…” Part of that was from Barnabas.
“I pray for them,” Jesus says in John’s gospel as he looks at his disciples in the supper room and also at us who are his own today. We’re so conscious how poorly we pray. We need to remember Jesus is praying for us and in us.
Is it possible to speak to God, we ask ourselves? We’re so easily distracted, so weak in faith, so bound to life as it is. How can we approach God in prayer?
“Let the Son who lives in our hearts, be also on our lips,” St. Cyprian says in his commentary on the Our Father. Jesus joins our weak and stumbling prayers to his own. He prays in and for us and assures us we will be welcomed and heard.
“I pray for them,” Jesus said in the supper room. He prayed for his disciples there in the supper room. When they left they entered the Garden of Gethsemani where they fell asleep, forgetful of everything. A stone’s throw away, Jesus prayed. His prayer was not only for himself but for them as well.
“I pray for them,’ Jesus says in our liturgical prayers. We speak to God the Father “through Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen.”
Whenever we pray, whether with others in public prayer or praying alone, he enters our prayer. “Let us pray with confidence to the Father in the words our Savior gave us,” we say as we begin the Our Father at Mass.
Our confidence in prayer comes, not from our own wisdom, or holiness or faith, but from Jesus who says “I pray for them.”
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