Engaging the Gospel – Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C): Gospel – Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Today’s Gospel is much more than just a description of historical events. Rather, it reveals a divine reality still at work in the world now — indeed, until the end of time.

Jesus’ commissioning of the disciples Whom He has chosen, and entrusted with His own power, endures through the ministry of the Church, governed by the bishops who are themselves successors to the apostles.

The Catechism teaches:

The Lord Jesus endowed His community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved…The Twelve [apostles] and the other disciples share in Christ’s mission and his power…By all His actions, Christ prepares and builds His Church (paragraph 765).

“The Gospel was handed on in two ways” – not only in writing, but

orally, by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received (76, quoting Dei Verbum).

In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church, the apostles left bishops as their successors…The apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time (77, quoting Dei Verbum).

As a result, “the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church” (862).

Since the apostles (and disciples in today’s reading) were chosen together and sent out together, this ministry has ever had a “collegial character.”

Every bishop exercises his ministry from within the episcopal college, in communion with the bishop of Rome, the successor of St Peter and head of the college. So also priests exercise their ministry from within the presbyterium of the diocese, under the direction of their bishop (877).

Question for reflection: How do I support those who dedicate their lives to the Lord’s service?

Engaging the Gospel – Mark 6:30-34

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B): Gospel – Mark 6:30-34

Jesus’ invitation to the apostles, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while,” underscores the proper value of rest:

God’s action is the model for human action. If God rested and was refreshed on the seventh day [of creation], man too ought to rest and should let others, especially the poor, be refreshed. The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money.

— Catechism paragraph 2172.

“Work is for man, not man for work” (2428).

In the early Church, the Jewish sabbath precepts of worshiping God and refraining from work were transferred to Sunday, the Lord’s Day (2175-76, 2184-85).

St John Paul II set out to reclaim this authentic understanding of Sunday rest in Dies Domini:

‘The Lord’s Day’ is ‘the lord of days.’…

I would strongly urge everyone to rediscover Sunday: Do not be afraid to give your time to Christ! Yes, let us open our time to Christ, that he may cast light upon it and give it direction.

He is the One who knows the secret of time and the secret of eternity, and he gives us ‘his day’ as an ever new gift of his love. The rediscovery of this day is a grace which we must implore, not only so that we may live the demands of faith to the full, but also so that we may respond concretely to the deepest human yearnings.

Time given to Christ is never time lost, but is rather time gained.

Question for reflection: How well do I set aside time to rest in the Lord?

Engaging the Gospel – Mark 6:7-13

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B): Gospel – Mark 6:7-13

Jesus bestows authority upon the Apostles and sends them forth

As today’s Gospel makes clear,

Christ is Himself the source of ministry in the Church. He instituted the Church. He gave her authority and mission, orientation and goal. In order to shepherd the People of God and to increase its numbers without cease, Christ the Lord set up in His Church a variety of offices which aim at the good of the whole body.

— Catechism paragraph 874.

Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to His apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry.

— paragraph 1536.

Ordination configures the priest to Christ as the Head, marks upon him an “indelible spiritual character” (1581-82) and “confers a sacred power for the service of the faithful” (1592).

Through the priest, “it is Christ Himself who is present to His Church as Head of His Body, Shepherd of His flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth” (1548). “Called to consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to the affairs of the Lord, [priests] give themselves entirely to God and to [us]” (1579).

St. John Vianney, patron saint of all priests, summed up the gift of the ministerial priesthood:

If we really understood the priest on earth, we would die not of fright but of love. The Priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus.

— quoted in paragraph 1589.

While those in Holy Orders have especially grave obligations, the laity are also called to proclaim the Gospel, and provide faithful witness to Christ, in every sphere of life:

The whole Church is apostolic, in that she remains, through the successors of St. Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin: and in that she is ‘sent out’ into the whole world. All members of the Church share in this mission, though in various ways.

— paragraph 863.

Since, like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth.

— paragraph 900.

It is from God’s love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism, for the love of Christ urges us on.

— paragraph 851.

Question for reflection: What priests have been most helpful to my spiritual life?

Engaging the Gospel – Easter Sunday

The Resurrection of the Lord: Gospel – Mark 16:1-7; John 20:1-9; or Luke 24:13-35

The Resurrection is a literal truth, a real historical event, of Christ being raised from the dead.

It cannot be dismissed as merely a nice metaphor for how the disciples were inspired to carry on after Jesus’ death, or a pious myth to recover from the horror of the Crucifixion (Catechism paragraphs 639-44). Such a dismissal doesn’t comport with the facts that the disciples were terrified, in hiding, crushed that their Messianic hope had apparently failed in the most gruesome way under Roman torture.

The transformation of the apostles – from this demoralized and cowardly crew, into fearless missionaries and ultimately martyrs – is inexplicable in purely human terms.

As Benedict XVI observes, their preaching “would be unthinkable unless the witnesses had experienced a real encounter” with the risen Christ (Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 2, p. 275).

Nor was the Lord just brought back to our ordinary human life, in the way that He had raised others during His ministry.

“Jesus’ Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life” that lies beyond our earthly existence (ibid., p. 244). In truth, His Resurrection marks a “leap” into a new order of being, “opening up a dimension that affects us all…a new space of being in union with God” (p. 274).

“It is a historical event that nevertheless bursts open the dimensions of history and transcends it” (p. 273).

Question for reflection: How does the radical reality of the Resurrection transform my life?

Engaging the Gospel – Mark 1:14-20

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B): Gospel – Mark 1:14-20

Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God, and His calling of the apostles, are profoundly interrelated:

The seed and beginning of the Kingdom are the ‘little flock’ of those whom Jesus came to gather around Him, the flock whose shepherd He is. They form Jesus’ true family.

–Catechism paragraph 764.

Every human being is called into this gathering (542).

First, “there is the choice of the Twelve, with Peter as their head.” Because the number of apostles represents the twelve tribes of Israel, Jesus is signifying that His gathering, the Church, is the new Israel (765).

Indeed, around the time of Jesus, the Jewish people were praying for just such a renewed gathering by God.

Benedict XVI explains that they longed for a qahal, the Old Testament word for a divinely-called assembly of the people: “a qahal coming from God himself, a new gathering and foundation of the people, increasingly became the center of Jewish hope.”

Qahal was rendered into Greek as ekklesia – the New Testament word for “Church.” By using this technical term to describe herself, the Church declares that she is the hoped-for qahal.

“This petition is granted in us…the chosen final gathering of God’s people” through Christ (Called to Communion, p. 31).

Question for reflection: How has listening to God’s call changed me?

Engaging the Gospel – John 1:35-42

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B): Gospel – John 1:35-42

Andrew learns of Jesus from John the Baptist, meets Him, then brings his brother Simon to the Lord

Sunday’s Gospel illustrates the importance of personal relationships in the transmission of faith.

Benedict XVI explored this dimension in his catechesis on St Andrew:

Andrew had previously been a disciple of John the Baptist, and this shows us that he was a man who was searching, who shared in Israel’s hope, who wanted to know better the word of the Lord, the presence of the Lord.

After “Andrew enjoyed precious moments of intimacy with Jesus,” he shared his life-changing discovery with his brother Simon (Peter). Andrew, according to this Gospel, “was the first of the Apostles to be called to follow Jesus.” Thus the “liturgy of the Byzantine Church honors him with the nickname: ‘Protokletos,’ which means precisely, ‘the first called.’”

The Apostle Andrew, therefore, teaches us to follow Jesus with promptness, to speak enthusiastically about Him to those we meet, and especially, to cultivate a relationship of true familiarity with Him, acutely aware that in Him alone can we find the ultimate meaning of our life and death.

— General Audience of June 14, 2006.

This reminds us that “faith is not an isolated act,” as the Catechism teaches:

You have not given yourself faith, as you have not given yourself life. The believer has received faith from others and should hand it on to others. Our love for Jesus and for our neighbor impels us to speak to others about our faith. Each believer is thus a link in the great chain of believers.

— paragraph 166.

Question for reflection: In what ways do I try to bring others to Jesus?

Engaging the Gospel – Matthew 18:15-20

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Gospel – Matthew 18:15-20

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us about the personal and communal dimensions of reconciliation.

The first has been described as fraternal correction – when we approach someone privately, in a spirit of charity, not with animus or resentment, in order to promote healing and for the spiritual good of the person who committed the fault.

“Fraternal correction is a work of mercy,” Benedict XVI reminds us:

None of us sees himself or his shortcomings clearly. It is therefore an act of love to complement one another, to help one another see each other better, and correct each other…to know the shortcomings that we ourselves do not want to see…

Of course, this great work of mercy, helping one another so that each of us can truly rediscover his own integrity and functionality as an instrument of God, demands great humility and love.

Only if it comes from a humble heart that does not rank itself above others, that does not consider itself better than others but only a humble instrument to offer reciprocal help; only if we feel this true and deep humility, if we feel that these words come from common love…can we help one another in this regard with a great act of love.

—October 3, 2005

At the same time, sin is not just a private matter, because it is “an offense against God” that also “damages communion with the Church” (Catechism paragraph 1440).

Hence Jesus has provided a way for us to be reconciled in a deeper sense. By giving His apostles the power to forgive sins, He established the sacrament of Reconciliation through the Church (1444-45). This healing sacrament reconciles us first and foremost with God (1468), restores fraternal communion, and has a “revitalizing effect on the life of the Church” (1469).

Question for reflection: When have I benefited from charitable correction?

Engaging the Gospel: Solemnity of Sts. Peter & Paul

Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles: Gospel – John 21:15-19 (Vigil); Matthew 16:13-19

The Gospel for the Vigil Mass and Sunday’s Gospel feature pivotal dialogues between Jesus and Simon Peter, each culminating in the Lord’s entrusting him with his unique mission in the Church.

In the text from Matthew, Jesus asks his disciples the pointed question, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Upon this profession of faith, Jesus entrusts to Peter a “unique mission,” as the Catechism notes, “to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it…The ‘power of the keys’ designates authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church” (paragraphs 552-553).

In this context, it is significant that Jesus bestows upon Simon a new name — Cephas, “Rock,” which was rendered in Greek as Petros, in Latin as Petrus, as Pope Benedict XVI observes:

And it was translated precisely because it was not only a name; it was a “mandate” that Petrus received in that way from the Lord.

This fact acquires special importance if one bears in mind that in the Old Testament, a change of name usually preceded the entrustment of a mission…

Jesus responded by pronouncing the solemn declaration that defines Peter’s role in the Church once and for all…what the subsequent reflection will describe by the term: “primacy of jurisdiction.”

But “the ultimate meaning of this primacy” is in service to the love of Christ:

Thus, Peter is responsible for guaranteeing communion with Christ, with the love of Christ, guiding people to fulfill this love in everyday life.

—Audience of June 7, 2006

In John 21:15-19, the Risen Christ asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Lost in the English translation is the fact that the Greek text involves different nuances in the words for “love.”

Benedict explains this “very significant play on words,” with deep implications for our own path of discipleship:

In Greek, the word “fileo” means the love of friendship, tender but not all-encompassing; instead, the word “agapao” means love without reserve, total and unconditional. Jesus asks Peter the first time:  “Simon… do you love me (agapas-me)” with this total and unconditional love (Jn 21:15)?

Prior to the experience of betrayal, the Apostle certainly would have said: “I love you (agapo-se) unconditionally.” Now that he has known the bitter sadness of infidelity, the drama of his own weakness, he says with humility: “Lord; you know that I love you (filo-se)“, that is, “I love you with my poor human love.” Christ insists: “Simon, do you love me with this total love that I want?” And Peter repeats the response of his humble human love:  “Kyrie, filo-se,” “Lord, I love you as I am able to love you.”

The third time Jesus only says to Simon: “Fileis-me?”, “Do you love me?”

In this way, Jesus asks us for the love that we can give. Even if we are incapable of giving Him the perfect love that He deserves, the Lord graciously accommodates Himself to our own frailties and limitations:

Simon understands that his poor love is enough for Jesus, it is the only one of which he is capable, nonetheless he is grieved that the Lord spoke to him in this way. He thus replies: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you (filo-se).“

This is to say that Jesus has put Himself on the level of Peter, rather than Peter on Jesus’ level!

…Peter succeeded in entrusting himself to that Jesus Who adapted Himself to his poor capacity of love. And in this way he shows us the way, notwithstanding all of our weakness. We know that Jesus adapts Himself to this weakness of ours.

We follow Him with our poor capacity to love and we know that Jesus is good and He accepts us.

— Audience of May 24, 2006

Question for reflection: How would I respond to the Lord when He asks, “Do you love me?”

Engaging the Gospel: Ascension of the Lord

Ascension of the Lord: Gospel – Matthew 28:16-20

Christ ascended into heaven and “is seated at the right hand of the Father,” preceding us into His “glorious kingdom” (Catechism paragraphs 663-666).

But Christ still dwells with us in His Church, which He took care to establish as “the seed and the beginning of the kingdom” on earth (669). Because His kingdom is to embrace all nations, so must the Church be universal, literally “catholic,” a word which derives from the Greek term meaning “universal” (830).

Just as the Father sent Christ as His Emissary, so does Jesus appoint emissaries – in Greek, apostoloi (858). Christ empowered His apostles to continue His mission all over the world, investing them with the authority to teach, sanctify, and guide His flock (857). He “promised to remain with them always,” revealing that “their office also has a permanent aspect” and that this “divine mission…will continue to the end of time” (860).

As a result the apostles designated successors, bishops, to shepherd the Church (861-862). Thus began the unbroken line, from the apostles through the successive Catholic bishops for two millennia, down to our own very day.

The preservation of this precious apostolic heritage makes the Church “catholic” in a more profound sense. The Catholic Church receives from Christ “the fullness of the means of salvation which He has willed: correct and complete confession of faith, full sacramental life, and ordained ministry in apostolic succession” (830).

Question for reflection: In what ways do I try to draw others closer to the Lord?

Engaging the Gospel: Matthew 4:12-23

3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Gospel – Matthew 4:12-23

Jesus begins to preach the Gospel and to call His disciples

Jesus begins his public ministry by preaching the Gospel. While “gospel” is literally translated as “good news,” the word has a much deeper meaning in its historical context, as Pope Benedict XVI has explained:

In Jesus’ time, the term ‘gospel’ was used by Roman emperors for their proclamations. Independently of their content, they were described as ‘good news’ or announcements of salvation, because the emperor was considered lord of the world and his every edict as a portent of good.

Thus, the application of this phrase to Jesus’ preaching had a strongly critical meaning, as if to say God, and not the emperor, is Lord of the world, and the true Gospel is that of Jesus Christ…an announcement that it is God who reigns, that God is Lord and that his lordship is present and actual, it is being realized.

The newness of Christ’s message, therefore, is that God made himself close in him and now reigns in our midst.

— Angelus of January 27, 2008

Besides preaching the Gospel, Jesus also calls his first disciples in today’s reading.

These two actions are profoundly related: the Gospel is “the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners” (Catechism paragraph 1846), and that divine mercy invites each and every one of us to follow Jesus intimately, calling all to “the fullness of Christian life” and “to holiness” (2013).

Question for reflection: When have I sensed that the Lord was calling me?

Holy Orders

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 1533-1600:

• When Christ endowed the apostles with authority, and commanded them to go forth and make disciples, He gave the Church an ongoing mission until He comes again; hence the apostolic ministry also continues over time, bestowed through the sacrament of Holy Orders.
• Its name comes from the Latin ordo, “order,” referring to an established civil body, with a special connotation of governance; by ordination, one is incorporated into such an order.
• There are three degrees of Holy Orders, each deriving from a Greek term in the New Testament: bishops, from episkopos (“overseer”); priests, from presbyteros (“elder”); and deacons, from diakonos (“servant”).
• Christ is the supreme Priest, the one mediator between God and humankind, Who is prefigured by the priests offering sacrifice in the Old Testament: from Melchizedek and Aaron to those consecrated for worship in the Temple.
• While this one priesthood of Christ is shared by all the baptized, the ordained priest is configured to Him in a profoundly different way; this sacrament confers a gift of the Holy Spirit, indelibly marking the soul, so that the priest receives the sacred power to act in the person of Christ, the Head of His Body, the Church.
• The ministerial priesthood exists to serve the faithful by teaching the faith, exercising pastoral governance, and celebrating the sacraments, above all the Eucharist; by promising celibacy (in the Latin Rite, not in the Eastern Churches) the priest expresses his single-hearted commitment to shepherd his flock.
• Priests who are consecrated as bishops receive the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders; as successors of the apostles, bishops are responsible for their own flocks, while also caring for the universal Church; they form the apostolic college in our day, in communion with the head of the college, the Bishop of Rome.
• Bishops have the authority to celebrate this sacrament, ordaining through the laying on of hands and continuing the apostolic line; the priest is ordained as the bishop’s co-worker in apostolic mission, and so exercises his ministry in communion with, and obedience to, the bishop.
• The ordination of deacons configures them in a special way to Christ, not as Priest, but as Servant; aside from performing some liturgical roles to assist bishops and priests, deacons are dedicated to charitable works and other ministries of service.
• Holy Orders have been integral to the Church’s life since its inception; St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the early 100s, urged reverence for bishops, priests, and deacons, “For without them, one cannot speak of the Church.”

Live Your Faith

“If we really understood the priest on earth, we would die not of fright but of love….The Priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus.” So wrote St. John Vianney, the patron saint of priests.

Only through the ministry of His priests does Jesus give Himself to us in the Eucharist. No priest, no Eucharist – a reality that our persecuted brothers and sisters, and those in remote mission territories, know too well.

Let us be ever mindful of praying for our bishops and priests, that the Lord may protect and sustain them, and ask Him to keep raising up good and holy priests for His Church.  

Penance & Reconciliation

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 1420-98:

• Although Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist instill grace within us, they do not erase the weaknesses of our fallen human nature, and our inclination to sin, called concupiscence; thus conversion is an ongoing process in the Christian life.
• Sin is an offense against God that damages our relationship with Him as well as with Christ’s Body, the Church; sin causes a cascade of detrimental effects that hurt us.
• The Holy Spirit prompts us to recognize our sins, and gives us the grace of repentance and contrition – being sorry for our sins and resolved to change our lives with the help of God’s grace.
• Christ provided for our need by instituting the sacrament of Reconciliation, to pick us up when we fall, restore our friendship with Him, reconcile us with each other and within ourselves, and strengthen us in our struggle.
• Only God forgives sins, but as recorded in the New Testament, Christ gave this power to forgive sins, and the authority to bind and to loose, to His apostles; He therefore entrusted the Church with the ministry of reconciliation.
• This sacrament is known by several names, depending upon which aspect is being emphasized; while the precise manner of celebration has varied over time, its fundamental structure remains, along with the inviolable seal of absolute confidentiality and secrecy.
• The penitent confesses sins to the priest in order to be healed and rid of them; each and every grave (mortal) sin must be confessed, and although it is not strictly required to include lesser (venial) sins, the Church strongly encourages us to mention them too, for our spiritual health and well-being.
• In so doing, we anticipate the particular judgment that takes place at our death; by judging ourselves honestly now, and casting ourselves upon God’s mercy, we receive absolution from the priest acting in the person of Christ; our sins are forever blotted out by His Blood, and we will not be liable for them at judgment.
• Absolution takes away sin, but does not repair the damage left by it; the penitent must also try to make amends by doing penance, first and foremost the penance assigned by the priest; while we cannot make sufficient reparation ourselves, our penance serves to unite us with Christ, Who alone expiates our sins.
• The Church also helps by means of indulgences: obtained through certain prayers and works, indulgences apply to us the merits of Christ and His saints, thereby freeing us from the lingering after-effects of sins that have already been forgiven.

Live Your Faith

It is often asked, why confess sins to a man when you can go straight to God?

Just as we go to a doctor to treat a physical illness, out of concern for our mortal bodies, so we seek the sacrament for the far more important health of our immortal souls. Sin is a spiritual cancer that requires God’s healing grace, or it only metastasizes.

God, Who created and redeemed us, knows us better than we know ourselves, and in His Wisdom, established this forum as the ordinary means for the forgiveness of sins. Instead of thinking that we can manage our own spiritual lives better than God, why wouldn’t we want to use the very means the Lord has given us to free us of our burdens?

The Eucharist

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 1322-1419:

• The Lord is truly present – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – in the Eucharist; for this reason, it is the Most Blessed Sacrament, the source and summit of the Christian life.
• Because this sacrament is our ultimate treasure, Christ Himself, it is honored with an abundance of descriptive names: Eucharist (from the Greek for “thanksgiving”), Sacred Mysteries, Bread of Angels, Holy Communion, Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
• The Old Testament is rich in prefigurations of the Eucharist, most notably the priest-king Melchizedek who offers bread and wine in Genesis; the unleavened bread and cup of blessing at Passover; and the manna that sustains the Israelites in the desert.
• Christ fulfills these prefigurations by instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper: anticipating His sacrifice on Calvary, He establishes the memorial of His Death and Resurrection — the new and definitive Passover — and commands His apostles to celebrate it until He comes again.
• Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, and in the Eucharist, are one single sacrifice; in this way He makes His once-for-all sacrifice present to us, and applies to us the fruits of redemption; Calvary is not being repeated, but rather, we enter into its mystery.
• From the time of the apostles, whom Christ consecrated as priests of the New Covenant, the Church has faithfully carried out His command: Christians have assembled on Sunday – the day of the Resurrection – for the Eucharist.
• The essential structure of this celebration has endured, amid variations in non-essentials, over the ages: the liturgy of the Word (proclamation of Sacred Scripture and preaching of a homily or sermon) builds up to the liturgy of the Eucharist, when the priest prays Christ’s words to consecrate the bread and wine.
• Christ solemnly declared in the Gospels that the Eucharist is His Body and Blood; the Church has defined this wondrous change as transubstantiation – even as the appearances of bread and wine remain, their underlying reality is changed, by the consecration, into Christ.
• In recognition of the Lord’s Real Presence, we must examine our consciences, and if aware of serious sin, we must seek the sacrament of Reconciliation, to receive Him worthily; as St. Paul testifies, it is a grave sin to consume the Eucharist unworthily.
• Worthy reception of this sacrament increases our union with Christ, helps to detach us from sin, forms us as the Church, binds us in the unity of the Mystical Body, commits us to the poor, and serves as a pledge of glory in eternal life.

Live Your Faith

Out of His exceeding love for us, Christ gives us the best possible gift – His Real Presence in the Eucharist – but how do we treat Him?

Do we enter church with a lively sense of coming to a sacred place, in the presence of the living God? Do we genuflect before the tabernacle, and maintain a reverential silence in our pews? Or do we act as if we’re in a theater waiting for the show to start?

Do we go up to Communion on auto-pilot, through force of habit, and sit distractedly afterward? Or do we prayerfully welcome the Lord in His sacrament of love?

Confirmation

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 1285-1321:

• As its name implies, Confirmation strengthens and completes the grace first received in Baptism, and empowers us in a special way through the Holy Spirit.
• The rite of anointing with perfumed oil, or chrism, signifies the anointing by the Holy Spirit; hence the Eastern Churches refer to this sacrament as “Chrismation” or “myron” (another term for chrism).
• Anointing plays a significant role in the Old Testament, consecrating kings, priests, and occasionally prophets; Messiah literally means “anointed” in Hebrew, and the equivalent in Greek is “Christ.”
• The prophets foretold that the Spirit, Who anointed the Messiah, would ultimately be poured out upon all the people of God.
• Jesus fulfills this promise, first at Easter and in a striking way at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples and empowers them for mission.
• The Holy Spirit comes upon us in a similar way in the sacrament of Confirmation, which therefore perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the life of the Church.
• As recounted in the New Testament, the apostles bestowed the Spirit through the laying on of hands; for this reason, the original ministers of Confirmation are the bishops, the successors of the apostles.
• The bishop (or his designated priest) anoints the confirmand and pronounces, “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit,” a seal that marks us irrevocably for Christ; because this imprints an indelible character, like Baptism, we receive it only once.
• Through Confirmation, we are united even more firmly to Christ and His Church, equipped to carry out our responsibilities as members of the faithful, and commissioned to go forth and witness to Christ.
• Confirmation is so closely related to Baptism that it was historically administered at the same time; the Eastern Churches have preserved this ancient custom, and still confirm infants, underscoring that the sacrament is about God’s gift of grace.

Live Your Faith

Confirmation is not a religious graduation, or a coming-of-age ritual. While it is excellent to prepare for this sacrament, so that we may be better disposed to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, we must not lose sight of the fact that God is freely bestowing His grace – we are not earning it.

And He fills us with His grace not merely for our own benefit, but for the building up of His Body, the Church. Have we used the gifts that God gave us in our Confirmation, or have we let them lie dormant?

The Gift of Ecclesial Ministry

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 871-96, 976-87:

• Christ Himself is the source of ministry in the Church: ever since He chose the 12 Apostles and endowed them with authority, this sacred college has continued through their successors, the bishops, led by the Bishop of Rome.
• Bishops, and their co-workers the priests, receive sacred authority from Christ through ordination, in order to serve the faithful; they serve principally by teaching the faith, sanctifying through prayer and the sacraments, and governing.
• The Bishop of Rome has primacy among all the bishops because he is the successor of St. Peter, the head of the apostolic college; he is called the “Pope,” from the word “Papa,” in affectionate recognition of his fatherly role.
• Christ entrusted the fullness of authority to Peter by giving him the keys of the Kingdom; evoking Old Testament imagery from the Davidic Kingdom, Christ made clear that Peter would serve as the chief steward in the Messianic Kingdom.
• The Pope is the Vicar of Christ: he has universal jurisdiction over the Church and serves as the visible foundation of our unity.
• His fellow bishops likewise serve as the visible source of unity in their local Churches, which they guide with the authority they receive from Christ; bishops are not vicars of the Pope, but are brothers in collegial communion with him.
• Christ empowered the Apostles to forgive sins; thus He gave the Church a great gift of mercy, the ministry of reconciliation through the Sacrament of Penance.
• To protect the Church from heresy, Christ has bestowed the charism of infallibility upon His shepherds.
• This does not mean that Popes are perfect, for they sin and make mistakes in prudential judgments; nor does it apply to their routine statements.
• The gift of infallibility instead prevents an erroneous definition of doctrine; this charism is exercised when the Pope proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine of faith or morals, or when the Pope and bishops in an Ecumenical Council declare a doctrine as divinely revealed.

Live Your Faith

While the world sees authority through the lens of power and control, Christ has taught the Church to view authority through the lens of sacrificial service.

The Lord could have constituted His Church in any number of ways, but He chose to give us shepherds. It is His will that our Pope, bishops, and priests serve us for our own spiritual good.

The Lord Himself will hold each and every one of our shepherds accountable for how well, or poorly, they upheld this sacred trust.

Four Marks of the Church

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 811-70:

• The Nicene Creed describes the Church as “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” – given by Christ, these essential characteristics are the “four marks” of the Church.
• The Church is one because of her divine Founder; our visible bonds of unity are our profession of one faith, common celebration of the sacraments, and apostolic succession of bishops in communion with St. Peter’s successor, the Pope.
• The Church instituted by Christ endures to this day in the Catholic Church; but sadly, our gift of unity has been wounded through sin, causing the splintering of believers into other ecclesial communities.
• These other Christian communities have elements of sanctification, and varying degrees of imperfect unity with the Catholic Church; the Orthodox Churches are nearest of all to us, with their apostolic succession and ancient liturgical heritage.
• We must never resign ourselves to the historical tragedies of division; urged by the love of Christ, and in fidelity to His will, we must pray and strive for the restoration of full unity among all Christians.
• The Church is holy because of her union with Christ, who sanctifies her and empowers her to sanctify in turn; the Blessed Virgin Mary is the perfect exemplar of the holiness of the Church, while the saints reflect diverse patterns of sanctity.
• Although the Church in heaven has reached the state of perfect holiness, the Church on earth is still made of sinners struggling on the journey; until the end of the world, the Church is simultaneously holy and yet ever in need of purification.
• “Catholic” comes from the Greek for “according to the totality,” or “in keeping with the whole,” and the Church is catholic in two senses: she has the fullness of the means of salvation, and she is universal, with a mission to the entire human race.
• The Church is apostolic because she is built on the foundation of the witness of the Apostles (from the Greek for “emissaries”), she safeguards and transmits apostolic teaching, and she is guided by the Apostles’ successors, the bishops.
• The Church should not be seen as a federation of discrete local Churches with merely organizational ties to Rome; even as particular Churches contribute their own culture to the rich Catholic tapestry, they are truly one in the Mystical Body.

Live Your Faith

We can sometimes take for granted the incomparable gift we have been given as Catholics – the fullness of the means of salvation that Christ wills for us! It is not triumphalism to want to share this gift with others.

On the contrary, we would be lacking in love if we failed to appreciate our Catholic faith. Let us be ready to reach out to non-practicing Catholics, and people of other faith communities, and invite them to come and see.

 

The Church in God’s Plan

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 748-810:

• The English word “Church” derives from the Greek Kyriake, meaning “what belongs to the Lord.”
• The Latin term for “Church,” Ecclesia, is a loan word from the Greek Ekklesia, meaning “convocation” — with the special sense of an assembly literally “called forth” by God, not just any ordinary group which associates on its own terms.
• The Church has been in God’s plan from before the foundation of the world: God has ever intended to gather together a family in communion with Him, and even the tragedy of human sin will not prevent God from accomplishing His will.
• This plan to form a People of God begins to unfold in the Old Testament, as God calls Abraham, our father in faith, and espouses Israel as His own chosen people, to whom He reveals Himself.
• Jesus fulfills this divine plan by founding His Church, through His preaching, His sacrificial offering on the Cross and in the Eucharist, and by endowing His Apostles with authority, thus giving the Church a visible structure.
• Christ cannot be separated from His Church, which is His Body, comprising the saints in heaven, the holy souls being purified in Purgatory, and the faithful on earth; as God wedded Israel, so does Christ join Himself to the Church, His Bride.
• The Church is a mystery because it is both the divinely established, Mystical Body of Christ, filled with holiness and grace, and at the same time human, including the earthly community of flawed people still striving to overcome sin.
• The Church serves as both the means and the goal of God’s plan: God helps us to attain interior union with Him through the sacramental life of the Church, so that we may enjoy eternal life with Him in heaven.
• As the soul is to the body, so the Holy Spirit is to the Church: the Spirit forms us into the Temple of God, and lavishes charisms (graces) upon its members for the building up of the Church and the good of the world.
• Because the Church is the convocation of the human race for salvation, it is in its very nature missionary: we must teach and make disciples of all, to bring everyone into the intimacy of God’s family.

Live Your Faith

The root meaning of the Church, as an assembly convoked by God Himself, gives us perspective: the Church does not belong to us as its members, but instead belongs to the Lord.

The Church is not a social club, in which we get to write the bylaws to suit ourselves. Nor can the Church be reduced to our experience within a particular parish.

Rather, the Church is both the visible society on earth and a transcendent reality as the Mystical Body of Christ.

Resurrection of the Lord

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 638-58:

• The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the fundamental fact of Christianity: if Jesus had not actually risen, our faith would have been senseless.
• The Resurrection is a real historical event: Jesus’ body and soul, which had been separated at the point of His death, were reunited, and He rose from the tomb.
• The risen Christ appeared, not as a ghost, but as true flesh and blood to His amazed disciples on a number of occasions; these events are recounted in the New Testament, which was written within living memory of the participants.
• A powerful motive for belief in the Resurrection is the dramatic change it effected in the Apostles: traumatized by the Crucifixion, they were suddenly transformed into bold evangelists who were martyred for their witness to Christ.
• The Apostles’ behavior is inexplicable in purely human terms; these initially terrified men would not have suffered martyrdom for a fabricated story; only authentic encounters with the Risen Lord can explain their testimony.
• Indeed, the Apostles at first scoffed at the women who told them of the Resurrection; even when Christ appeared to them, they had to be convinced that He was physically alive in the body – like hard-headed realists, not mythmakers.
• A particularly striking case in point is “Doubting Thomas,” who had to see and touch the Lord’s wounds in order to believe the truth.
• Yet the Resurrected Christ did not simply return to normal earthly existence, like Lazarus or the others He had raised; rather, Christ’s body was now glorified, and entered into another dimension of life not limited by space and time.
• The Resurrection fulfills the prophecies uttered in the Old Testament and by Jesus Himself, confirming all of His works and teachings as the Son of God.
• The Resurrection is integral to the Paschal mystery, Christ’s Passover; by His death, He liberates us from sin, and by rising, He opens a way for us to new life; we celebrate the triumph of His Resurrection in a heightened way at Easter.

Live Your Faith

We might become desensitized to this “crowning truth of our faith” because we are so accustomed to it, but the power of the Resurrection should continue to astound us.

Jesus has conquered death and given us a path to eternal life, a new life that begins right here and now through His grace.

Do our lives reflect this supernatural reality, or are we just going through the motions as if the Resurrection never happened?

God’s Revelation in Sacred Tradition

Summary of Catechism paragraphs 74-100:

• Sacred Tradition (with a capital T) does not mean customs that have varied over the course of history, according to time and place.
• Rather, Sacred Tradition refers to the teaching that has been handed on from the apostles and continued by their successors, the bishops.
• The very term “Tradition” derives from the Latin verb tradere, meaning “to hand down,” “relate” or “bequeath.”
• The apostles handed on divine Revelation in two ways: orally, by preaching, by developing institutions and framing the Church’s patterns of worship; and in writing, either by themselves or associates, which became the New Testament.
• Thus Sacred Tradition was already operative in the earliest stages of the Church, even before the New Testament was completed.
• Indeed, Sacred Tradition is itself responsible for the compilation of Sacred Scripture, through discerning which books are divinely inspired; in other words, no Tradition, no Bible.
• As a result, Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are both expressions of divine Revelation, and we cannot exclude one or the other.
• Far from being a lifeless object, Tradition involves a living transmission of this teaching, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, until the end of time.
• This living transmission takes place through the apostles’ successors, the bishops, in communion with St. Peter’s successor, the Pope; together they form the Church’s teaching authority.
• This teaching authority, called the Magisterium (from the Latin term for “teacher,” magister), is not superior to the Word of God, but instead serves it by explaining, clarifying, and communicating the fullness of Revelation.

Live Your Faith

We too play an important role in the handing on of Sacred Tradition. Through our baptism, we are members of the Body of Christ. We are called to give our full assent to the teaching of the Church, to adhere to it firmly in our daily lives, to form our children in the faith, and to share it with our family members, friends, co-workers, everyone we meet. Let us actively cooperate with the Holy Spirit by opening our minds and hearts to the richness of our Catholic faith, and by passing it on to others.