Sunday, March 17, 2013

From WCU: Gospel For Today

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

Habemus Papam!  We have a pope!  And already Pope Francis is under the microscope of media speculation.  In the past few days I have read that as Archbishop of Buenos Ares he was a strong supporter of liberation theology.  I have also read that he was very critical of liberation theology.  I have read that he was unenthusiastic about Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum, which liberated the Tridentine Mass, blocking attempts by his priests to implement it.  I have also read that he welcomed Summorum, and within 48 hours of its issuance had already established a parish in downtown Buenos Ares to celebrate the old Mass.  

These are reports from the past; what about now that he is pope?  His first morning as pontiff he went the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome to pray to the Blessed Mother.  That is also the titular church of Bernard Cardinal Law, who resigned from the Archdiocese of Boston 10 years ago in disgrace over his role in the child sex abuse scandals.  According to some media reports, Pope Francis met Cardinal Law there and warmly greeted him, "rubbing salt in the wounds" of abuse victims.  But according to other media reports, Pope Francis had Cardinal Law banished from his titular church altogether and refused to see him!  

Which version is the "real" Pope Francis?  Obviously you cannot believe everything you read.

Why do we do this?  Why do we immediately seek to critique and judge?  The first thing we often do is look for faults in the newcomer, reasons to not like him.  Even if it means having to make something up.  This is a serious fault.  This is a sin.  

In today's Gospel reading, the scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman before Jesus.  This woman, they tell him, is an adulterer.  In fact, she was caught in the act!  And according to the Law, she should be stoned.  "So what do you say?" they ask our Lord.

Note that they do not stone her themselves, which according to their minds, they should have every right to do.  That is not enough.  They have to bring her before Jesus, involving Him, asking Him to mete out the punishment, looking for Him to smile upon their righteous disapproval.  They have courage enough to accuse, courage enough to condemn, but when it comes to doing something about it, not so much...

But our Lord would have none of it.  "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone," He tells them.  Deflated, they all began to walk away.  As for the woman caught in adultery, Jesus does not condemn her.  Instead He loves her.  He forgives her.  And He commands her to leave her old life behind and sin no more.

Maybe you are excited about the election of Pope Francis.  Maybe you have read some critical commentary that makes you uneasy about his papacy.  Either way, I encourage you to try one thing.  Try loving him.  And refrain from comparing him with Benedict XVI or John Paul II.  That's not your job.  And he is neither of those men.  He is Francis, and God will judge his papacy according to whether he is the best Francis he can be.

I can guarantee you one thing about our new Holy Father.  He is a sinner in need of forgiveness.  In that he is just like you and me.  

I can guarantee you another thing.  He is a new creation.  Cardinal Bergoglio is no more.  The life of Pope Francis is just beginning.  He's like you and I in that regard, as well.

Allow me to quote from today's first reading from Isaiah:

Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

The Lord is capable of making all things new; including the Church, including you and me.  We are constantly in need of renewal -- all of us.  Whether we are talking about a new neighbor, a new pastor, a new campus minister, a new bishop, a new professor, or a new pope, allow the Holy Spirit to work something new in him.  Allow the Holy Spirit to work something new in yourself.  This is the whole purpose of the sacramental life of the Church.  Each Confession and Absolution, each reception of the Eucharist, is a call to leave our former lives behind and become a new creation in Christ.  This is the point of our Baptism, of our Confirmation.  It is something we recommit ourselves to each Sunday at Mass when we stand up and say, "I believe..."  It is something we each ask for when we say, "Lord, I am not worthy...  but only say the word..."

Pray for Pope Francis and pray for our Church. Pray to the Lord who makes all things new.  

God bless!
Matt

--
WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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From WCU: Gospel For Today

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT (C) - LAETARE SUNDAY

Today is just a little bit different.  Today the Church uses rose or violet colored vestments instead of the usual Lenten purple.  Unlike the rest of Lent, instrumental music may be heard at Mass today, and the altar may be decorated with flowers.  This is Laetare Sunday, named for the first word of the Entrance Antiphon for today's mass.  Laetare means "rejoice," and our opening chant begins, "Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her.  Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast."

The words of the entrance chant are meant to set the tone for the rest of the Mass.  (This is why the Church asks us in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal to sing the proper antiphon from the official liturgical books of the Church, and not substitute some other song of our choosing).  The tone for today's Mass is clear -- be joyful!  We are still in the penitential season of Lent, but the tone -- like the liturgical vestments -- is somewhat lightened.  For today we discover what the suffering and death of our Lord has accomplished for us.  In one word: reconciliation.

St. Paul states it very clearly in today's second reading (2 Cor 5:17-21).  I implore you to read it carefully.

Brothers and sisters: Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.  And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.  We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Every Catholic should be familiar with this verse, and be ready to quote it when speaking with non-Catholics about sacramental Confession.  This is the "ministry of reconciliation" Paul speaks of, which he said is the "message entrusted to us [the Church]" by God.  Through this ministry, God appeals to us, through the Church, to be reconciled to himself.

Confession is also called Penance and Reconciliation. These three names all tell us something different about the sacrament.  "Confession" describes our action of freely admitting our sins and failures before God's ordained representative.  "Penance" describes our actions performed in reparation out of sorrow for our sins.  But "Reconciliation" describes not our action, but God's action towards us.  As St. Paul describes, we are made "a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come."  We are reconciled to God, through Christ, and the vehicle for this is the ministry of reconciliation God entrusted to the Church.

Today's Gospel reading is the very powerful story of the Prodigal Son.  It is a parable of a son who turned away from his father and his father's ways, and who lived to regret it.  Life outside of his father's house was miserable and hard.  "Wretched" would be a better word.  And so he decides to repent of his ways and come back home, begging his father to at least accept him as a servant.  

Is this not how we sometimes can feel when we go to Confession?  Perhaps we've been living a life for some time which was far from our Heavenly Father's ways.  We have been far outside of His house.  And we are tired.  We have been living in the metaphorical pig sty with the Prodigal Son, and we have had enough.  We long to return to the life of the Church and be reconciled to God, even if it is just as one of his lowly servants.  

But God doesn't do probation.  His reconciliation is not conditional.  You will never hear in the Confessional, "Alright, we are going to give you another try.  We'll let you back in, but you have to start from the bottom and work your way up."  God is like the father in the parable.  As soon as he saw his son walking up the path toward him "he ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him."  He dressed his son in the finest robes, put a gold ring on his finger, slaughtered the fattened calf and put on a feast!

"'This son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.'  Then the celebration began."

We use that word "celebration" often in speaking of the sacrament of the Eucharist.  We refer to the priest who "celebrates Mass."  We don't often think of "celebrating" the sacrament of Confession.  But we should.  God celebrates each time a sinner returns to him.  And the penitent is the honored guest at the feast.  

Today, the Church reminds us to rejoice!  "Be joyful, all who were in mourning."  It is the Church's great joy to invite you into this celebration.  In the words of St. Paul, "We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God."  Or in the words of the psalmist  "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord."  You've been given a great invitation.  You just need to decide to RSVP.

God bless, and enjoy your day!
Matt

--
WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Gospel For Today

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

"I am..." For us, this is an incomplete statement.  We can finish the thought in so many different ways.  I am a campus minister.  I am a husband.  I am a father.  I am a brother, a son, a friend, etc.  These statements all tell you something about myself; my occupation, my vocation, my relationships.  All of these things make up part of who I am, but none of them are the totality of who or what I am.

I could be very specific and give you my name.  "I am Matthew."  This tells you who, but not what, I am.  I could be very general and say, "I am a human being."  This tells you what I am in the most basic terms.  The statement "I am" can be read as "I exist as..."  Other aspects of my existence may change over time -- my relationships may change, I can change occupations, or even change my name if I were so inclined.  But I cannot change the fact that I am a human being.  That is the nature of my existence.

A human being is one who has his "being" -- that is to say, his existence -- as a human.  We are speaking of human nature, that thing which all humans, young and old, short and tall, black or white, male or female, possess in common which makes them distinct from orangutans and elephants and porcupines.  To speak of a thing's nature is to speak of the type of existence it has.  When you read the word "tree" you have an image in your mind of what a tree is, even though I have not written of any specific tree.  We know that there are all manner of trees -- junipers, oaks, ash, beech, maple, willows, etc -- but we also know that all of these things have something in common, their "treeness," that makes them different from bushes and vines.  

So it is with we human beings.  We all share our type of existence in common.  And it is this common human nature that makes up the backbone of our moral law.  Catholic moral tradition is rooted firmly in the natural law, which takes as its basis our human nature.  Put simply, when we act in accordance with our nature, we are doing moral good.  When we act against our nature, we do harm to our human dignity, and do a moral evil.  So this idea of "nature" or "essence" is very important to our lives even though natural law is not taught much in schools anymore, outside of a few philosophy courses.  

All this is very interesting, you may be thinking, but what does it have to do with today's scripture readings?  As I said to begin with, when we begin a statement, "I am," there are many different ways we can finish it, the most fundamental of which is to tell our nature, or what we exist as.  "I am a human person."  

So how does God complete that statement?  What is God's nature?

In today's first reading from Exodus Moses has an amazing encounter with the Living God in a burning bush.  God speaks to Moses directly.  He tells him, "I am the God of your fathers," and says He has heard the cry of the people of Israel in Egypt and He will rescue them from their slavery.  Moses asks a very simple, but important question.  "If I go to the people of Israel and tell them 'the God of your fathers' sent me, and they ask me your name, what should I tell them?"  In other words, who are you?

God's answer is short and profound.  "This is what you should tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you."  God gives His name as, "I am who am."  In Hebrew (which has no vowels), this is the tetragrammaton YHWH, the holy name of God which devout Jews dare not pronounce and even to this day cannot be spoken within Catholic liturgies.  

For us, as I said, "I am" is an incomplete statement.  We must qualify our existence by saying what we exist as.  "I am Matthew," or "I am a husband," or "I am a human being."  For God, "I am" is a complete statement.  God does not "exist as" anything.  He exists, period.  "I am who am."  He is existence.  By revealing His name to us in this way, God is giving us a very intimate glimpse into His being.  We learn something about God's unique nature.  The divine nature is existence itself.  To be God is to be existence.

What does this tell us about God?  If we look around us in this created world, everything we see has two things in common.  1) It exists, and 2) it does not have to exist.  All that we can observe, including you and I, has a dependent existence.  We could just as easily not have existed and the cosmos would get along just fine.  In fact, there need not be any cosmos at all when it comes down to it.  We have a borrowed existence, and so the question arises, borrowed from where?  Or from whom?  

But since God's very nature is existence, He cannot not exist.  His is the only existence that is not dependent upon something else.  Therefore he must be eternal, never having a beginning and never having an end.  Everything that exists does so only because it shares in God's existence, in His being.  In this way we each have a share in the Divine Life.  And we continue in our existence only because we are sustained by God's love.  A great theologian once said that if God every stopped loving you, for one brief moment, you would vanish out of being.  

In a few weeks time we will hear in the scriptures of the arrest of Jesus, of His trial and subsequent crucifixion on Good Friday.  He will be accused of blasphemy.  How did He blaspheme?  It is because He made such statements as "I AM the bread of life," and "I AM the way, the truth and the life."  He said, "I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM."  

By making such statements, Jesus was identifying Himself, for those who had ears to hear, with the eternal God who is existence itself.  Christ is YHWH.  He is the Great I AM.  He is life.  And either he is wrong and guilty of blaspheming.  Or He is right...  and if He is right...  well, then that changes things.

Understanding this is why the Apostles could meet their deaths with joy in their hearts, for love of Christ.  It is why countless disciples and converts risked their own lives to live for Him.  Christ is the One who spoke to Moses in the burning bush, who gave spark to all Creation, entered into Creation itself to redeem it.  Realizing this means a paradigm shift.  It means making fundamental changes in your life.  It means repentance and conversion in the light of His love.  It means nothing can ever be the same.

--
WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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From Davidson: CCM Bulletin week of February 25

Lord and Master of my life, do not give me a spirit of laziness or idle curiosity, or ambition or empty talk.
Instead, grant to me, your servant, a spirit of self-control and humility, of patience and  love.
Yes, Lord and King, enable me to see my own failings, and not to judge my brother or sister, for you are blessed unto the ages of ages.
Amen.
~The Prayer of St. Ephrem (d. 373); prob. composed 5th century

The Prayer of St. Ephrem is the great Lenten prayer of the Byzantine-Rite Churches (Orthodox and Catholic). It is prayed twice daily in the weekday services of Lent, and also used privately. It is a physical prayer as well as a verbal one: after each of the three verses of the prayer, one kneels down and touches the forehead to the ground (or, alternatively, makes a deep bow). We’re not used to physical gestures in prayer so this may feel awkward. It might also seem “Muslim”—but it is likely that the Islamic prayers and their gestures were actually inspired by Christian practices!
(adapted from Fr. Columba Stewart, in Give Us This Day)

Safe travels over the spring break!--Karen


___________________________
Karen Soos
Associate Chaplain and Catholic Campus Minister
Davidson College
Campus Box 7196
Davidson NC 28035
704. 894. 2423

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From WCU: Gospel For Today

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

In today's gospel reading in Luke, Jesus takes Peter, John and James to the top of the mountain to pray.  While praying, his face changes and his clothes become white.  And then two men appear with him and begin conversing with him.  They are Moses and Elijah, and Jesus speaks with them of his exodus from Jerusalem.

We call this event the Transfiguration because the disciples see Jesus transfigured, manifesting his glory.  It is in his transfiguration that Christ displays to the disciples the reality of who he is.  

It is no happenstance that Moses and Elijah appear.  These are not merely two random Old Testament figures.  Moses is the giver of God's Law, and Elijah the most revered of the prophets.  Just as in today's reading, these two men also ascended a mountain to witness the glory of God (Ex. 24:15-18; 1 Kg 19:8-18).  

Moses had promised, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers -- it is to him you shall listen" (Duet 18:15).  

Now, in this moment, Jesus Christ reveals himself as the fulfillment of this promise -- indeed, of all that the Law and the Prophets give witness to.  God the Father's voice is heard from the cloud, "This is my chosen Son; listen to him."

Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah about his "exodus from Jerusalem."  Exodus means "departure," but more than that, it calls to mind the historic exodus when Moses led the Isrealites out of their bondage in Egypt.  Christ is preparing to lead not just Isreal, but all of mankind out of our bondage to sin and death.  

In today's first reading from Genesis, God speaks to Abraham about the land promised to his descendants.  It was to this Promised Land that Moses led his liberated people.  But in today's second reading from Philippians, St. Paul tells us that now "our citizenship is in heaven." This is the new Promised Land, the ultimate goal of our new exodus from sin.  

Are you a fellow pilgrim on this journey to the heavenly kingdom?  To join this new exodus, you only must put your faith in the Lord, as Abraham did.  You need to follow the way of Mary, who said, "Do whatever he tells you to do" (Jn 2:5).  You need to heed the words of the Father: "Listen to him."  

Upon witnessing the Transfiguration, Peter tells the Lord, "Master, it is good that we are here."  We today climb that mountaintop whenever we come to worship at Mass. We can see the Lord in his transfigured glory in the Eucharist, if we have the eyes of faith.  We can head the voice of the Father, if we have the ears of faith.  And we can feel in our hearts and proclaim with our lips, along with Peter, "It is good, Master, that we are here."

--
WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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From Davidson: CCM Bulletin week of February 18

A human being is more than the power or capacity to think and to perform. There is a gentle person of love hidden in the child within each adult. The heart is the place where we meet others, suffer, and rejoice with them. It is the place where we can identify and be in solidarity with them. Whenever we love, we are not alone. The heart is the place of our ‘oneness’ with others.
            ~Jean Vanier (founder of L’Arche)


FAQ… What is L’Arche?

L’Arche (or, The Ark) was founded in 1964 in France by a French-Canadian Catholic named Jean Vanier. He became aware of the plight of thousands of institutionalized developmentally disabled adults in France, and after discernment with a priest friend, invited two disabled men to live with him in community.

From this small beginning, L’Arche has grown to 140 communities in 36 different countries. The first US L’Arche was founded in 1972; there are now 18 communities in the United States. 

Each L’Arche is independent, but they are unified by a shared statement of identity and a shared mission:  “We are people, with and without developmental disabilities, sharing life in communities belonging to an International Federation. Mutual relationships and trust in God are at the heart of our journey together. We celebrate the unique value of every person and recognize our need of one another.” Their mission is to:

Make known the gifts of people with developmental disabilities, revealed through mutually transforming relationships;

Foster an environment in community that responds to the changing needs of its members, while being faithful to the core values of their founding story; and

Engage in diverse cultures, working together toward a more human society.

L’Arche communities are communities of faith, rooted in prayer and trust in God. The spirituality of L’Arche is grounded in the belief that each person is unique and of sacred value, and that God’s love is experienced through mutual friendships in which the gifts and weaknesses of each person are recognized and accepted. By creating communities where people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities enjoy such mutual friendship, L’Arche seeks to live the Beatitudes – Jesus’ call in the Sermon on the Mount to be people of simplicity, gentleness, compassion, justice and peace.

While the original L’Arche was founded in a village in France in the Roman Catholic tradition, today the communities of L’Arche around the world reflect the predominant faith tradition or traditions of the local area.

L’Arche is a way of life, but it is also a model of care that is unique. People with intellectual disabilities are at the heart of L’Arche. They are not clients, patients, or recipients of services, but rather they are friends, teachers, and companions. People without intellectual disabilities grow through their encounters in L’Arche. Through daily acts of care, trust, and friendship, they develop into ambassadors of compassion and leaders of social change and the common good. A divided society is mended through inclusivity where people with many differences – socio-economic status, race, religion, and intellectual capacity – live and work together.

Jean Vanier continues to live in his original L’Arche community in France.

For more information, see http://www.larcheusa.org/.

___________________________
Karen Soos
Associate Chaplain and Catholic Campus Minister
Davidson College
Campus Box 7196
Davidson NC 28035
704. 894. 2423

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