Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the gospel today Jesus says: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." (Mtt 9: 12) Even the well need to have a check-up! I have heard a number of times of people who thought they were in good health then, going for a check-up, found that there was something very wrong with them. If this is the case with our physical well-being how much less can we pronounce authoritatively on the state of our own moral and spiritual health. St Paul wrote: "I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me." (1 Cor. 4: 3-4) The litmus test of our openness to God and his mercy is to be found in our ability to recognise the demands of mercy towards others that God makes on us: "Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice'. " (Mtt 9: 13a) Mercy means that we identify with the plight of others as well as their potential for good even when s/he has done wrong to us or to others. It calls forth that good which leads on to healing and reconciliation. Can I name a moment in my past week or month where I have acted out of mercy towards another? If I struggle with selflessness I can be comforted: "For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." (Mtt 9: 13b) 

Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

It is irritating to have people focusing exclusively on the sacrament of the Eucharist as if it was in a category all of its own. True, it does stand out from the other sacraments because of the enduring, substantial presence of Christ, under the species of bread and wine, this nevertheless misses the point. All of the sacraments are the actions of Christ. All of the sacraments are effected by the action of the Holy Spirit and are actions of the Church. Those sacraments which can only be received once: baptism, confirmation and Holy Orders all bring about an ontological change, rather than a substantial change, but they bring about a change all the same. One of my favourite maxims is: "magic is when we use created things to influence God, sacraments are when God uses created things to influence us." The Eucharist is for our benefit and sanctification just like the other sacraments. It is, however, not isolated from them. Henri de Lubac stated that: "Church makes Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church." To understand this mystery we need to see it in its context and the life as lived by the Church not just to focus on the Last Supper. The action and mediation of Christ in the Church and her sacraments is wonderful and mysterious however it is not magic. The 1983 Code of Canon Law sums up the mystery in this way: "Canon 897 The most August sacrament is the Most Holy Eucharist in which Christ the Lord himself is contained, offered, and received and by which the Church continually lives and grows.  The eucharistic sacrifice, the memorial of the death and resurrection of the Lord, in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated through the ages is the summit and source of all worship and Christian life, which signifies and effects the unity of the People of God and brings about the building up of the body of Christ.  Indeed, the other sacraments and all the ecclesiastical works of the apostolate are closely connected with the Most Holy Eucharist and ordered to it."

Feast of the Holy Trinity

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in the first centuries of the Church, was a topic held to be of great importance. As with the teaching on the Incarnation the Church had to struggle to fend of inadequate understandings of its fundamental truths. These misunderstandings, if they are stubbornly maintained by their proposers, become heresies and have the potential, like cancer cells in the body, to destroy the whole. Fortunately, we no longer hand over such people to the civil authorities to be burned but heresy remains a delict or crime in Canon Law under canon 1364. According to canon 751 "Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith." This should not prevent us from searching more deeply into the truths of the faith. It is only when we obstinately hold on to our own mistaken idea that we are in danger of heresy. Such a verdict has to be reached by a church tribunal. Thus, we should always desist from calling other people heretics and enter into discussions with them in good of the faith striving to edify each other by what we say, think and do.

Pentecost

In Eucharistic Prayer III we pray: "... for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, by the power and working of the Holy Spirit, you give life to all things and make them holy and you never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name. Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit ...". Each time we gather for Mass and celebrate a sacrament it is the same Spirit that is at work in us as was present to the disciples at Pentecost. The manifestation is different but the effects and the end results are the same. We are united in faith, given courage to bear witnesses to it, granted charisms and spiritual gifts as well as endowed with the gift of peace. It is that gift for which we pray after the Lord's Prayer and was given to the disciples as related in today's Gospel. The life of the Church is unchanged in its essentials: "The Church was, in this fundamental sense, catholic on the day of Pentecost and will always be the same until the day of the Parousia" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 830). This should give us all hope because the obstacles faced by the Church were far greater than what we face now. It is really a question of our openness to the Holy Spirit and our willingness for him to work in, with and through us so that the works and fruits of the Spirit will be evident in us.

The Ascension

The mystery of the Ascension is best addressed through looking more closely at the consequences of the Incarnation. It is a matter of doctrine that Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is fully divine and being conceived in his humanity, he is fully human. By assuming life in the flesh he lost none of his divinity however he took on the capacity to be tempted, to suffer and to die. In other words he entered into our reality in all ways except he did not sin. By doing so he enabled human beings to participate in his divinity. Saint Paul tells us that we participate in the life of Christ through baptism: "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his ... The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you all must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ." (Rom 6: 5, 10-11) Since we are joined to him in this way the lack of a tangible experience of his risen body is not problematic because, through the sacraments and the Church, Christ is present to us now in a way that far surpasses a one on one physical encounter. In the Ascension we see that he has set a pattern for us which is not bound by earthly realities: "Thus it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being'; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual." The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the amn of dust, so are those who are of dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven."  (1 Cor. 15: 45-49) Our gaze therefore should not remain on the crucifix, with the sufferings of Christ, nor should it be directed to heaven searching for when he will come again. Rather it is alert to Christ present in our midst through the power of the Holy Spirit working in, with and through us. Thus, we pray for and anticipate our renewal in the Holy Spirit next Sunday at Pentecost. We need not worry that Christ has been taken from our sight. We know in faith that if we stay faithful we will be joined with him in the heavenly realities when our time comes.