Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
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needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
Newsletter, April 2018
Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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Newsletter, April 2018
away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
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for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
Newsletter, April 2018
consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
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Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
Newsletter, April 2018
all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
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Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.
Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
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needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
Newsletter, April 2018
Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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Newsletter, April 2018
away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
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for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
Newsletter, April 2018
consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
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Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
Newsletter, April 2018
all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
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Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.
Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
Holy Family Cathedral
needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
Newsletter, April 2018
Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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Newsletter, April 2018
away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
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for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
Newsletter, April 2018
consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
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Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
Newsletter, April 2018
all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
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Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.
Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
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needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
Newsletter, April 2018
Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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Newsletter, April 2018
away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
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for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
Newsletter, April 2018
consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
Holy Family Cathedral
Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
Newsletter, April 2018
all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
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Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.
Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
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needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
Newsletter, April 2018
Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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Newsletter, April 2018
away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
Holy Family Cathedral
for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
Newsletter, April 2018
consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
Holy Family Cathedral
Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
Newsletter, April 2018
all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID TULSA OK PERMIT 381
Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.
Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
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needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
Newsletter, April 2018
Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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Newsletter, April 2018
away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
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for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
Newsletter, April 2018
consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
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Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
Newsletter, April 2018
all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID TULSA OK PERMIT 381
Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.
Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
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needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
Newsletter, April 2018
Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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Newsletter, April 2018
away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
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for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
Newsletter, April 2018
consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
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Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
Newsletter, April 2018
all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
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Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.
Cathedral News “April Fool Primer: God’s ‘Foolishness’ and ‘Weakness’” Fr. Jovita Reflects on God’s Humor and Wisdom
Inside: Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Living Out Easter at Holy Family Cathedral School Holy Family Parish Practices Serving Others
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Newsletter, April 2018
APRIL FOOL PRIMER: GOD’S “WEAKNESS” AND “FOOLISHNESS” by Very Rev. Chukwudi Jovita Okonkwo, Ph.D.
Recall in the last edition of the newsletter, we highlighted the coincidence of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day. When Archbishop Obinna, whose middle name is Valentine, reminded me that there’s Lent in Valentine, I missed asking him about Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. I’m sure the Archbishop who is very quick about figuring things out would have had an answer to that, too. About these confluence of sacred and secular feasts occurring the same day this year, a blogger posted what sounds like a classic April Fool joke: “Ash Wednesday is on St. Valentine’s Day and Easter is on April Fool’s Day; 2018 is gonna be a weird year for Catholics.” Evidently, Catholics are not generally thrill seekers and many detest weird fantasies. Catholic life and worship is not given to those circuses and gyrations characteristic of Evangelical or New Age piety. Catholic life is much more ordered, even though some are discovering different shades of Catholicism—like the Cafeteria Catholics, Poinsettia and Lilly Catholics, and recently, I heard about Coastal Catholics: referring to Catholics who live in the East and West coasts of the United States. I didn’t know that there’s something they have in common. My impression is that those are the most Catholic parts of the country. But in this age of identity politics, the urge to lump a group of people within categories or make funny generalizations is often unavoidable. Where I grew up, though, there’s what is referred to as “riverine morality,” meant to suggest— often falsely—that those who live near the coasts are more morally permissive than those who live in the hinterland. On a very positive note, many Catholics have had a very good Lent this year—whatever a good Lent means. I heard from several priests that a good number of lax and lapsed Catholics came back to confession this year. Several of those who returned to the sacrament indicated that they have been away from the sacrament for the upward of 20 to 30 years. On a personal note, I had great joy to hear the confession of a penitent who returned after 43 years of absence—another blow to the evil one. Jesus continues to make a fool of the devil who might have thought that he had those children of God down in the hole he dug for them. This year’s Easter
coming on April Fool’s Day promises to expose the foolishness of the devil. APRIL FOOL EASTER I read somewhere that April Fool is associated with Easter; maybe that’s the reason Easter usually comes somewhere at or near the beginning of the month of April. Unlike Christmas, the date for the celebration of Easter varies from year to year. The date as set in the calendar of St. Gregory generally coincides with the Sunday following the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere or the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Easter can fall as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th. Given that Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, the range at which it can fall is between February 4th and March 10th. The last time Ash Wednesday and Easter fell on Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day respectively was 1956, and will repeat in 2029 and 2040. With Ash Wednesday falling on February 14th and Easter on April Fool’s Day, this year’s Lent can shed light on the idea embedded in the divine economy—that love is the only veritable instrument with which to conquer hatred and evil, and that divine love will reveal the foolishness of the world and its ruler, the devil. When the learned St. Paul figured this out, he told the Corinthians: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Angelic wisdom was the most impacted, for when Jesus rose from the dead, the devil (Lucifer—angel of light) who thought he had destroyed Jesus was made into a fool. It won’t be a stretch to even say that the resurrection was a good humor and mockery to the world that pulled every plug possible to ensure that Jesus was condemned and executed.
GOD’S HUMOR Does God use humor? Absolutely. The pages of the Bible contain a lot of good humor that God pulled on humanity. Consider for example, God’s question to Adam after the fall: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9)—as if He didn’t know where he was or wasn’t seeing him. You can imagine, in the midst of the disappointment generated by the fall, God laughing at the folly of man who—convinced by the cunning serpent—believed he could be like God. A similar pun could be drawn after Cain killed his brother Abel. Here comes God with overt humor, in the form of a probing question, “Cain, where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Do you think God didn’t know the whereabouts of Abel?
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Cain’s audacious response—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”— was equally as humorous as it was astonishing. But it was the Psalmist who went all out to depict God’s explicit humor. The Psalmist starts by asking in the Second Psalm, “Why this tumult among the nations, among the peoples this useless murmuring?” (Psalm 2:1). Verse two continues: “Kings of the earth take up their position; princes plot against the Lord and his anointed. ‘Now let us break their fetters! Now let us throw off their bonds!’” Then the Psalmist makes a show of God’s unqualified sense of humor: “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them.” According to McKenzie, this is the laughter of scorn and contempt at the plots and threats of the enemies of the king—a reference, too, to the plots of Herod, Pilate and the Jews against Jesus (Psalm 2:4). In Psalm 37:13, the laughter is directed at the enemies of the righteous one: “The sinner will observe the just, and he will gnash his teeth over him. But the Lord will laugh at him: for He knows in advance that his day will come.” Psalm 59:9 has the Lord direct his laughter at the Gentiles, whose ways and plots will come to nothing—just as the resurrection proved that the plots of those who killed Jesus and installed guards to ensure He remained in the tomb came to nothing. Then there’s this graphic joke found in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where God chides Israel and Samaria for their infidelity, giving Israel a deprecatory nickname, Oholibah and Samaria, Oholah. The joke is so graphic that, even though it’s in the Bible, I’d rather not repeat it here. If that sparks your curiosity, pick your Bible and read Ezekiel 33. Many many times Jesus would throw in a joke or two that, in my opinion, the gospel writers rather presented as sharp retorts or crafty aphorisms. I believe that the heresies and disputes about the nature of Christ that were prevalent during the early Church and the formation of the New Testament scripture warranted a disdain for levity. This may partly explain why some of the pseudo-gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected among the canon of scripture. Yet, I cannot fail to find humor in some of the exchanges Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees, with Herod, with Judas, and so on. Take for example Jesus’ answer in Matthew 12:48 to the person who told him that his mother and brothers were standing outside waiting to have a word with him. Jesus’ response was made to sound harsh while he could have just said in somewhat typical Okie language, “Is that right? Y’all, too, are my brothers and sisters and mom, aren’t you?” That would have attracted some laughter as he left to meet His family. Or imagine the pun He would have pulled on Judas after he complained in Matthew 26 about the excessive waste of perfume by the woman who anointed His feet. One
Newsletter, April 2018
preacher paraphrased Jesus on that occasion as saying: “Judas, my dear, don’t worry about it. I can see you really care about the poor. There’ll be plenty of poor people long after I’m gone.” I cannot imagine that Jesus did not use humor in his preaching. One service we can do to ourselves this April Fool Easter is to lighten up a bit and grapple with God’s humor. If Jesus didn’t laugh, would he have been thoroughly human? IS IT WISDOM OR HUMOR OR FOOLISHNESS? When Jesus made these series of statements in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel— “Love your enemies” “Pray for those who persecute you” “Offer the wicked man no resistance” “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him” “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles” “Give to the one [anyone – sic] who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow”—was He using metaphor or being humorous or being plain stupid? Does it makes sense to love my enemy and spend hours in prayer for the wellbeing of my persecutor? I can understand ignoring my enemy because I do not want to get into a fight. Certainly, the prayer my persecutor deserves is that he becomes obliterated. I’m no weakling; you strike me, you’re getting it back—really hard. I’ll make you pay squarely for toying with my property, not turn over what I’m left with. I can go on and on to enumerate what clearly makes sense to us the way we think. But Jesus, the man of contradiction, says we should act differently; in fact, somewhat foolishly—in the view of the world and according to the jaded ethics of living in civilized society.
THE PRICE OF GLORY But let us weigh these words of Jesus, especially in the light of resurrected glory. Reflecting on the above statements by Jesus, Jacques Bossuet said that we ought to be willing to bend, so that, together with our brother, we can be mutually accommodating. Continuing, Bossuet enjoins, “To swallow every sort of bitterness, to be suffering to the point of having one’s body submerged, as in baptism: this is the price of glory.” The Christian man or woman then, far from avenging himself upon the one who strikes him, turns the other cheek because intentional disciples of Christ start on earth to cultivate the peace and tranquility
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needed for the life of heaven. These inner attitudes and dispositions, according to Mitch and Sri, transform the heart and build up love. Christians are, in a sense, “dead men and women”—meaning, they have died to the ways of the world and now mimic the life of glory, found in the Resurrected Christ. Hence, we’re to go beyond external conformity, the way our friends see it, the manner in which our neighbors act in order to imitate the perfect love of the heavenly Father who is love Himself and calls us to immerse ourselves in His love (I John 4:8). Easter therefore comes to us as a celebration that elevates us beyond the world and its ways, placing us right with Christ who conquered the world through the immolation of His own body. St Paul will admonish, “If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Consider the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” He further writes, “Clothe yourself with the new man, who has been renewed by knowledge, in accord with the image of the One who created him…clothe yourself like the elect of God: holy and beloved, with hearts of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, and patience” (Colossians 3:10,12). It is not just the devil, the world as a whole operates in a distinctively anti-God manner, so that Easter is a juddering event as far as the sophistication of the world is concerned. The resurrection event celebrated at Easter parodies worldly instincts and tendencies. It elevates to very high status what the world would consider utter failure and foolishness: poverty, silence, weakness, death, grave, love of enemies, turning the other cheek, serving rather than be served, deprecation, forgiveness, taking the lower place, meekness, mourning, purity, endurance, and the like. The Lord of life commands these as the new way to happiness and contentment. Let us ask the Mother of God who now basks in resurrected glory to draw us to her Son so that we may radiate this new life to a world caught up in its foolish and erroneous ways.
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Death is Overcome: The Power of the Resurrection Excerpt from catholicexchange.com
At Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection in a particular way, but this celebration is not meant only for that one day in spring when we can eat chocolate again after a fortyday fast. Rather, every Sunday is to be a reminder of our Easter celebration and of the Lord’s Resurrection. Every Sunday, therefore, when we participate in the liturgy, is to be a celebration of our hope in Christ. When we are weighed down by the weariness of the world, we cannot forget the power of the Resurrection, from which we draw nourishment for the week ahead. Celebrating the Resurrection reminds us that we were not made for this world, for this “valley of tears,” but rather for eternal life with God. It is fitting, therefore, to be reminded of the power and glory of the Resurrection. When Christ died and was buried in the tomb, the disciples were confused and lost. They had hoped that Christ would be their Savior—and then the exact opposite seemed to be true (or so they believed). Thus, the glory of the Lord after his Resurrection was almost beyond them, for in the instances when they encounter the risen Lord, they could not recognize him at first. We shall cite two of them. The first is when Mary Magdalene encounters Christ outside the tomb. After she realizes that the body of Christ is missing from the tomb, she weeps. We read in the Scriptures, “She turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She sees her Lord, but she could not know his identity because of the bodily barrier: Christ’s Body was now glorified and therefore beyond human comprehension. She thinks he is the gardener and assumes he has taken the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name
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away” (John 20:15). All Christ has to do is say her name before she recognizes him as the Teacher. It is a similar story with the two men on the road to Emmaus: they did not recognize Christ, who walked with them along the road and taught them many things, until the breaking of the bread (cf. Luke 24:30-32).
know him, for he dwells with you, and will be with you (John 14:15-17).
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you
For when one sees human beings, who are weak by nature, leaping towards death, neither shrinking from its corruption nor fearing the descent to hell, but with an eager spirit challenging it and not flinching from torture, but rather for the sake of Christ preferring instead of this present life zeal
Thus, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which came after Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the apostles had the boldness and ability to preach the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the priests and Sadducees were “annoyed because Thus, the power of the Christ’s Resurrection is incredible, for they were teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus in the his body is now glorified and unrecognizable by his resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). Nevertheless, no matter disciples until he reveals himself to them in corporeal ways. what was done to prevent the Holy Spirit from speaking St. Thomas Aquinas notes the following reason for the through the apostles, thousands upon thousands were difference of Christ’s resurrected body: baptized in the name of Christ. The important thing to note is that it was not by the apostles’ own power that they But Christ’s body after the Resurrection was truly made up preached the Resurrection of Christ. Rather, it was by the of elements, and had tangible qualities such as the nature inspiration of the Holy Spirit within them that allowed them of a human body requires, and therefore it could naturally to be bold and fearless—it was their hope that Christ truly be handled; and if it had taken nothing beyond the nature is the answer to the difficulties of life. It was their hope that of a human body, it would likewise be corruptible. But it this life is not the end, but rather, there is hope in the had something else which made it incorruptible, and this eternal life to come. was not the nature of a heavenly body, as some maintain… it was glory flowing from a beatified soul (ST III Q. 54, art. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we read, “In him, 2, ad. 2). according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Even though Christ’s body had natural physical qualities— Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise he could walk, talk, and eat with the disciples—there was of his glory” (1:11-12). In accordance with God’s plan, our something different about him. Having given glory to his hope is fulfilled in living for the glory of God and for Father through his death on the Cross (cf. John 17:1), Christ Heaven. We have been “sealed with the promised Holy was now rewarded with a resurrected body. This glory of Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire Christ’s resurrected body was to be a sign for us of the possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13glorious life to which we are called in the Beatific Vision. It 14). Through the Holy Spirit, we can have the hope of our was a sign of hope that our eternal life is different in inheritance of Heaven, which awaits us after death. By degree, not in kind, after death. It is for this reason that living for the glory of God now, in this life, we are working Christ prayed at the Last Supper, “Father, I desire that they to gain our inheritance of Heaven, in a certain respect. We also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, are now “enlightened,” so that we may know the hope to to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for which Christ calls us, which is “far above all rule and me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:18; 21). Thus, our hope in the Resurrection is not a human thing: rather, it is a gift from God that we have hope in the life to St. Athanasius speaks about the power of the Resurrection in come. When Christ died, rose, and ascended into heaven, his short work, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary he promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would be the Press, 2011). Writing about the early martyrs for Christ, he advocate with the Father, bringing hope for this troubled explains that they did not fear death, which is atypical of world: human nature.
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for death…who is so silly or who is so incredulous, or who is so maimed in mind, as to not understand and reason that it is Christ, to whom human beings are bearing witness, who provides and grants the victory over death to each, rendering it fully weakened in each of those having his faith and wearing the sign of the cross? (p. 80). Athanasius speaks of the zeal these individuals had for death, not merely for the sake of death, but for Christ’s sake. They were unafraid to suffer the pains of death because they knew they would share in eternal life with Christ because of his Resurrection. As Athanasius explains, “When death is played with and despised by those believing in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been destroyed by Christ and its corruption dissolved and brought to an end” (Ibid). We ought to be inspired by those early martyrs who spurned death so easily, because they knew and understood that death was no longer an enemy. Their belief in Christ was stronger than death, stronger than the most terrifying thing for most human beings. In our own time, we might be afraid of death. We might wonder why there is so much suffering in the world, and we might fear what is to become of us because of our belief in Christ. Nevertheless, as Pope Benedict XVI explained in his encyclical Spe Salvi, “Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present” (1). Hope in the resurrection of the body and our redemption enables us to face our present situation, knowing that we are not living for this world, but for the world to come. Hope is not a thing of this world: it is a supernatural gift that gives us the boldness to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and even to die for his most worthy Name.
Holy Family Cathedral School 2017-2018 Dear Holy Family Cathedral Parishioners, In this season of Easter, we focus on the renewal of our life in Christ. Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection give us the strength and commitment to carry forth the mission entrusted to us as disciples. As teachers, that means bringing to our students and their families an awareness of God’s love, and his presence in our lives. As a school community we strive to encourage our students through the
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consistent practice of loving God, loving others, showing mercy, and working for justice. Holy Family Cathedral School is uniquely blessed in the composition of its community. Our student body is diverse in every way. We have students of various races, ethnicities, creeds, backgrounds, and abilities. As a result, our community gives us a broader perspective on the meaning of the resurrection. In the words of Fr. William Saunders, “through the resurrection, our Lord has a radically transformed or glorified existence. Glorification means that Jesus was fully and perfectly spiritualized and divinized without loss of His humanity.” This “spiritualized and divinized” humanity is our mission and our focus as we experience the next few months together as a school community prior to the summer vacation, and as individuals as we rest and regroup for the upcoming school year. As the end of the school year approaches, we hope that you will keep us in your prayers as we welcome our second graders to the sacrament of the Eucharist and a fuller participation in the life of the Church, display our gifts and talents at the Springs Arts Festival, celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating eighth grade class, and welcome our seventh graders into their Leadership Roles at the Light of Leadership Mass. We also ask that you prayerfully consider making a donation to the school to assist with converting the fourth floor of the building into additional classrooms, purchasing textbooks and supplies, and ensuring that we are able to pay our teachers salaries and benefits that are comparable to those paid by the public school system. Additionally, if you, a family member, or friends have been considering a Catholic education for your children, we welcome you to schedule a tour. Contact the school office to schedule: 918-582-0422. We have limited openings available at most grade levels. Yours in Christ, Leslie Southerland Principal
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Family Faith Formation 2017-2018
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all of you.
Lenten Service Opportunities Holy Family parishioners gave of their time, talent and treasure on two special occasions this Lent. Many parishioners participate annually in Clear Creek Abbey Work Day. Each year Catholics from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states come to the Abbey on the first Saturday in March. Participants help the monks accomplish in one day what might otherwise take them months or perhaps years to complete. Projects range from gardening, tree planting and chopping wood to welding, painting, and fencing. It is a grace filled day of prayer and work, the Benedictine motto. Also in March, Holy Family Cathedral invited the Blue Star Mothers of America, Oklahoma Chapter One, located in downtown Tulsa to Wednesdays at Cathedral. Sandra Bixler gave a presentation explaining the tangible ways in which this organization supports servicemen and women deployed overseas. All present came away with an understanding of the on-going need. Following her presentation and inspired by her stories, parishioners spent the evening writing letters, coloring patriotic pictures, and decorating shipping boxes. We sorted and packaged food and toiletries items in preparation for shipping in Freedom Boxes. These boxes are packaged and shipped by the Blue Star Mothers volunteers on a weekly basis. The evening was enjoyed by all in attendance and much work was accomplished! Sandra offered appreciation via email and asked that parishioners know of her gratitude “for all the wonderful donations,” and added: “You have a lovely bunch of folks there and it was a pleasure to meet them all!” Some of these pictures were included in her email to be shared with
Our parish will have an opportunity to serve the poor face-to-face on Thursday, May 17 by volunteering at Night Light Tulsa. Night Light is an arm of City Light Foundation of Oklahoma with a specific mission to provide for the homeless and working poor residents of Downtown and North Tulsa. Each week on Thursday evening the volunteers serve 450 hamburgers! Details of our service night will be posted in the bulletin in the weeks prior. Visit the website to learn more about the organization and the services they provide at http://citylightsok.org/night-light-tulsa/. Thank you Holy Family parishioners for your generosity. Your joy and love are palpable each time we gather together in service. Monica Conro Director of Family Evangelization
Holy Family Cathedral PO Box 3204 Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 Electronic Service Requested
Most Rev. David A. Konderla, Bishop of Tulsa Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery, Bishop Emeritus Very Rev. Jovita C. Okonkwo, Rector Rev. John Grant, Associate Pastor Rev. Msgr. Gregory A. Gier, Rector Emeritus Deacon Tom Gorman Deacon Greg Stice Deacon Kevin Tulipana Deacon Jerry Mattox Deacon B.D. Tidmore Deacon Jon Conro Holy Family Cathedral Parish PO Box 3204, Tulsa, OK 74101-3204 918-582-6247 HolyFamilyCathedralParish.com TulsaCathedral@gmail.com Holy Family Cathedral School 820 South Boulder Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74119 918-582-0422 HolyFamilyCathedralSchool.com
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Weekend Mass Schedule: 5:00 p.m. Saturday 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday Weekday Mass Schedule: 12:05 p.m. Monday 7:00 a.m. & 12:05 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday 7:00 a.m., 12:05 & 5:05 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. Saturday Tuesday-Saturday daily Masses are usually in the Chapel of Peace. Confessions: Ten minutes before all Masses, and 3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Saturday Friday Evening Holy Hour: 5:05 p.m. Mass, followed by Adoration and Benediction until 6:30 p.m.