10 minute read
Insight from Fathers Koch & Doyle
JUNE 6 AS THE CHURCH, WE
ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST
Ex 24:3-8; Heb 9:11-15; Mk 14: 12-16, 22-26
We focus on the celebration of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. This feast, traditionally celebrated on Thursday, in memory of the Last Supper, reminds us of the power and presence of Christ in our midst.
We hear the Last Supper account of St. Mark, and the very simple yet clear starkness of Jesus’s actions and instructions to the disciples. They were celebrating what appears to be an ordinary Passover Seder meal.
They all seem genuinely unaware as to what might, and indeed will, transpire over the next 12 hours, much less the next three days. Jesus has been with them, teaching and preparing them for the Paschal events that are imminent, and still they are not ready.
As Jesus blesses the cup and the wine – in the usual manner of the Seder meal – he strays from the text to proclaim the bread as his Body and the cup of wine as his Blood.
In his 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharista, Pope John Paul II stated: “It is there that Christ took bread, broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying: ‘Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you’. Then he took the cup of wine and said to them: ‘Take this, all of you and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven.’ I am grateful to the Lord Jesus for allowing me to repeat in that same place, in obedience to his command: ‘Do this in memory of me,’ the words which he spoke 2,000 years ago.”
We cannot separate the Eucharist, and our reception of Communion, from our participation in Christ’s Death. The Eucharist stands at the very heart of the Church, it is the core of who we are as the Body of Christ.
JUNE 13 WE ARE THE FRUIT
OF THE LORD’S LABOR
Ez 17:22-24; 2Cor 5: 6-10; Mk 5: 26-34
The nature of the Church, especially in relation to the Kingdom of God, is one that has been the source of much speculation by theologians over the centuries. The Kingdom of God is certainly more comprehensive than merely the Church herself. God’s kingdom is universal, unconstrained by the limits of time and space.
Jesus tells a parable about the spontaneous growth that happens when a farmer scatters seeds on the ground. As the ancients were not fully aware of the scientific processes of germination, the growth of plants remained somewhat of a mystery. In this section of Mark’s Gospel where Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, we might be tempted to think solely of the Church as kingdom model.
The argument about whether or not Jesus intended to establish the Church gets lost in this language struggle. Jesus does not use the language of separation from Judaism to establish his own Church, as we have seen so much separation from the Church over time, but rather the more inclusive, expansive and familiar language of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus desires to lead all men and women to the Kingdom. He moved the image of the Kingdom beyond the strictures of Judaism to include the Gentile world. The apostles took up this universal mission and journeyed throughout the known world planting the seeds of the faith from England to India in only a matter of decades after the Paschal events.
In our time we are legitimately concerned about the waning of the practice
This stained glass image may be found in St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish, Bradley Beach/St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church, Avon.
of the faith. The Church, especially in the Northeast of the U.S. seems to be dwindling. There are as many people now in our country who practice or claim no religion as there are Catholics (with ex-Catholics making up a large segment of that percentage).
We have lost a sense of our agrarian roots and the reality that there are always seasons of growth, and there are seasons of decline. Just as some plants pop up attempts are failing us.
spontaneously in our gardens from the seeds of plants we left behind the season before, so will the Church be renewed from seeds that we may have forgot were planted.
JUNE 20 DO NOT LET JESUS
SLEEP IN YOUR BOAT
Jb 39:1, 8-11; 2Cor 5:14-17; Mk 4: 35-41 “Lord, do you not care that we are perishing?”
This plea of desperation from the disciples as they struggle to stay afloat in a raging storm on the Sea of Galilee while Jesus was asleep on the boat resonates well with us today. Finding God in the midst of a crisis or in the face of abject terror is real and visceral for most of us.
We tend to want God to respond “now” when we cry out to him. Often our prayers are answered, which gives us a sense of hope. Yet when [our prayers] remain seemingly unanswered, it causes us to doubt and fear.
We are all in this boat together, a boat that knows periods of calm seas and, at other times, great turbulence. As individuals our lives are often rocky and uncertain. We rely on each other – just as the disciples had to work together to try and save their boat – to weather the storm.
One wonders how long they fought against the tempest before they decided to rouse a sleeping Jesus.
They had an on-going relationship with Jesus, and as his disciples, were in continual need of formation, and so Jesus’ intentional napping was meant to teach them (and us) an important lesson.
The Lord is asleep in the boat because the disciples ignored him and decided to do it the way they knew how. As professionals they didn’t perceive Jesus being of any help to them.
So often, we let Jesus fall asleep and then wonder where he is when all of own
JUNE 27 THERE ARE MANY
WAYS TO APPROACH THE LORD
Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24; 2Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mk 5:21-43
How much faith did it take for an unnamed suffering woman to work her way through the crowd just to get an opportunity to touch the clothing of Jesus so that she would be cured?
She risked much more than she thought. She was clearly familiar with Jesus and his working of miracles, though no one had yet sought a healing without coming forward and asking Jesus for his mercy. In a sense her boldness suggests that she is embarrassed of her affliction and is unwilling to expose herself to him and those around him. She acts out of the self-reservation of her dignity and anonymity, while she seeks the Lord’s mercy.
We contrast her in this event with the definite boldness of Jairus, a synagogue official, who approaches Jesus with the request to heal his dying daughter.
Both knew they needed the Lord’s assistance.
These two people mirror the ways in which many of us approach Jesus. Some of us, like this woman, try and sneak up on Jesus and seek his assistance without entering into a relationship with him. But, as with this woman, Jesus seeks us out – he wants to see our face and hear our voice. He desires that we “tell him the whole truth.”
Some of us are like Jairus. We demand Jesus’ attention now and expect that he will leave aside what he is doing in order to tend to our needs. We, too, often wait until the last minute, when things are at the bitter end, before our cries go out to the Lord, seeking his mercy and peace. Then, too, there are those voices around us, not to bother the Master. Don’t bother praying, it is of no use, our prayers never get answered anyway. Maybe we feel the situation is too desperate as well.
This moment in the ministry of Jesus has much to teach us about how we pray, and how we enter into a relationship with the Lord.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.
Crucifixion and need for repentance; raising children Catholic
QUESTION CORNER
Father Kenneth Doyle
Catholic News Service
QI can understand that Jesus died on the Cross to reconcile us with the Father, but why do we say that Jesus died to forgive our sins when we have to repent continually for those sins? (city and state withheld)
AThe Bible does say that Jesus has forgiven our sins; St. Paul tells us in Colossians 2:13 that “even when you were dead in transgressions ... he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.”
But it is perhaps more precise to say that Jesus, by suffering and dying for our redemption, has simply opened for us the possibility of heaven – something we could not have done for ourselves.
The question remains, though, that if pardon for sin comes ultimately from Christ’s work on Calvary, how is it received by individuals? The answer is that Jesus wants us to do our own part in making amends for our sins, so our eternal salvation is not automatic.
Remember that Matthew’s Gospel (25:41) pictures Jesus at the last judgment saying to some, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” If the manner of our life has effectively been a denial of God’s teachings, we will be judged on that.
And if God had already forgiven all of human sin in a single act, it would have made no sense for Christ to bestow on the disciples the power to forgive sins when he told them (Jn 20:2223) following the Resurrection: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Nor would it have made sense for Jesus, when teaching the disciples to pray the Our Father, to explain, “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions” (Mt 6:14-15).
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Find our programming schedule on our website, and ways to make us part of your charitable giving! Q My question concerns Catholic sacramental marriage, which I always understood to include a commitment by the couple to do their best to raise their children in the Catholic faith. So is a marriage invalidated when the parents, not even one of them, do not fulfill their commitment to raise their children in the faith – especially when they do not make any effort whatever to bring the children to Mass or share their faith with them, even at an early age? (Baltimore)
AYou are correct in assuming that a Catholic marriage includes the commitment to raise children in the Catholic faith.
In fact, during the wedding ceremony itself, the priest asks the couple: “Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”
And even in a mixed marriage (where one of the spouses is not a Catholic), the Catholic party must pledge to continue to practice the Catholic religion and must also (in the words of Canon 1125.1) “make a sincere promise to do all in his or her power so that all offspring are baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church.”
But the failure later in marriage to carry out that commitment does not affect the sacramental validity of the marriage itself.
A valid Catholic marriage results when, in freely consenting to marry, the couple has the intention to marry for life, to be faithful to one another and to be open to children.
Questions may be sent to Father Kenneth Doyle at askfatherdoyle@ gmail.com and 30 Columbia Circle Dr., Albany, New York 12203.
