“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Rom 13:9

Certain passages of scripture, due to our familiarity with them, can seem as captivating as a glass of water: good and essential but hardly exciting or challenging. Such is the case with the “Golden Rule” reechoed by Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans. It has been observed that nearly all religions and philosophies have arrived at some formulation of this principle. Nevertheless, the articulation of it in Leviticus 19:18, is still arguably the first time we see it appear in history. While the command: love your neighbor as yourself seems clear, deeper reflection reveals a more complicated proposition. What is love? Who is my neighbor?

Our Lord gives substance to what could otherwise be an ambiguous moral directive. He does this, among other ways, by means of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37) which anticipates the saving action of his own Passion, Death, and Resurrection. As this Parable demonstrates, neighbor is not so much a relation brought about by proximity of place or some other category of identity (sex, race, ideology), but is rather a reality established when mercy – love for someone in misery – is shown. In the case of the Good Samaritan, neighbor-hood is established between those who would have been ethnic and religious enemies. God reveals: to love your neighbor entails loving your enemy as yourself.

There is a general election coming up. It is very easy not to love our neighbors the politicians and their supporters. I believe there are very few of us, for example, who are not guilty of at least some form of detraction when speaking about those with whom we disagree politically. To love is to will the good of the other for the other’s sake. That doesn’t mean we ignore evil or those who commit evil, but it does mean we must speak with them and about them with the same love that the Savior would have us do. This is certainly a great challenge. And yet, it’s as essential as water.

Fr. Richard Hinkley

No sooner has Christ entrusted the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter, identifying him as the Rock upon which He will build His Church, than Peter is rebuked by Christ, identified as a satan, Hebrew for “adversary.” The limits of Peter’s authority are clear: his role and role of all the popes and bishops of the Church is not to conform the Gospel message of Christ to the expectations of this age, but rather to preach boldly that Gospel, even and especially when that message seems awkwardly received.

We are frequently tempted to be embarrassed by the teachings of Christ and the Church. Desiring to have either a comfortable life for ourselves or to maintain the esteem of those whom we respect, the Gospel message can seem outdated, harsh, irrational, and down right cruel. Like Peter, we would rather avoid the aspects of the Gospel that challenge ourselves or others to experience the self-denial that the Cross requires. However, to empty the Gospel of the Cross is to empty it of the power to give Life. So utterly vacuous does Christianity become that it necessitates an immediate and direct correction from Christ himself. Let us never fear the challenges that the teachings of Christ pose for us. Echoing the words of Paul:

“I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Fr. Richard Hinkley

There were once three umpires.

The first said, “I call them as they are!”

The second said, “I call them as I see ‘em!”

The third said, “They ain’t nothin’ till I call ‘em!”

In the gospel passage for this Sunday, Saint Matthew delivers the account of Saint Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Peter’s ability to proclaim and confirm the truth about the authentic identity of our Lord is not the result of merely human efforts whether they be: study, discussion, or guesswork. Christ clarifies for all present that it is a special charism, a gift, given to Peter by God the heavenly Father that allows Peter to make these claims. The Divine Plan for Peter and Peter’s unique role in the College of Apostles is subsequently confirmed by Christ. Peter is given a new name: Peter i.e. Rock, reflecting his fundamental role in the Church and to him is entrusted a special mission i.e. the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.

One of the aspects that is frequently misunderstood about the ministry of the pope as the successor of Peter is the dogma of Papal Infallibility. For many, this dogma is like the position of the second and third umpires. Papal Infallibility is an arbitrary and positivistic imposition of a pope’s opinion on the entire Church. However, the charism of Papal Infallibility is rather like that of the first umpire: merely to state clearly for all those present what the facts are. To be clear, popes have only exercised this extraordinary gift on rare occasions. The two most clear instances occurred when the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (1854) and the Assumption of Mary (1950) were declared. The purpose for this gift, like all the gifts by which Christ adorns his Church, is destined to one end: the salvation of souls. The clarity and infallibility with which the Church speaks is directed towards the mission of Christ: the defeat of the gates of Hell and the rescue of humanity from sin and death. Like a good umpire, Peter and his successors are empowered at particular moments to “make the right call,” cooperating with Divine governance of the Church so that we, like Peter, might come to an authentic and secure act of faith. Umpires are fallible, but when the successor of Peter teaches with regard to faith and morals, with recourse to the authority given to him by Christ, and that this teaching is to be held definitely by the entire Church, such teaching is free from error; it’s always true.

Fr. Richard Hinkley

By Fr. Richard Hinkley

Hosánna fílio David: benedíctus qui venit in nómine Dómini, Rex Israel: Hosánna in exscélsis.

Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.  Hosanna in the highest.

This antiphon, taken from Matthew 21:9, provides the first words sung before the Procession or Solemn Entrance that precede the Mass of Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord.  The cry hosanna hearkens to Psalm 118 which originally would have been used to accompany a liturgical procession of the Davidic king into the temple for sacrifice.  Hosanna originally meant an entreaty for help: “O Lord, save!  Grant us salvation!”  This is how the word hosanna is used throughout the entire Old Testament. (See Ps 118:25)    However, by the time of our Lord it had assumed the meaning we generally associate with it: “Praise and Glory!”  Psalm 118 is further quoted by the crowd of disciples when they sing, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Ps 118:26)  While these are the only portions of Psalm 118 that are directly quoted here, the entirety of Psalm 118 casts light on the meaning of this messianic action by Christ and his followers.  We recall that Psalm 118 is used on the following occasions liturgically: The Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday, the 2^nd Sunday of Easter and the 4^th Sunday of Easter.  It is also used every other Sunday for Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours.  For the Church, Psalm 118 is a “resurrection psalm” perhaps the “resurrection psalm” par excellence.  I would like to invite you to read Psalm 118 now, a psalm (like all of them) Christ would have known by heart, and consider how the words of that psalm contextualize the procession, the crowd’s activity, the city’s perplexity and ultimately the messianic mission Christ intends to accomplish in the coming days.  I’ll leave you now to read Psalm 118.

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Stunning, is it not?  Christ, mounted on a colt, Israel’s true king is he who, “conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth.” (CCC 559)   So consider Christ meditating on these words of the psalm: “In danger I called on the LORD, the LORD answered me and set me free… I shall not die but live and declare the deeds of the LORD….  Open the gates of righteousness; I will enter and thank the LORD….  The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.  By the LORD has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes.”  The children of the Hebrews quote the psalm; Christ fulfills it.  The pilgrimage of Christ that has Jerusalem and his Pasch as its culminating goal began in the amenable and immaculate womb of the Virgin Mother thirty-three years before.  All the mysteries of the Nativity, the hidden years, and public ministry of the Lord have now entered into their final and climactic days.  The pilgrim, Priest-King of Israel, assuming the form of a slave, meets his people and allows them to ascend with him to the place of sacrifice and encounter with God, knowing full well how the intense suffering predicted in the Psalm are to be fulfilled.  Yet as it is soon to be revealed, that place of sacrifice and encounter is no longer a temple built by human hands, but the true Temple: Jesus Christ.

In the course of the liturgy today, we observe how the cries of “hosanna” are replaced with cries of “Let him be crucified!”  The expression of exultant praise is abandoned and yields to rejection and condemnation.  As much as these two expressions are opposed to one another, recalling the original meaning of hosanna with its evolution from: a cry for salvation to an expression of praise and then followed by the sentence that Christ suffer and die: all this reveals the Wisdom of God for us and that of the Paschal Mystery.  To save us (hosanna) God allows himself to be annihilated in the flesh (crucified), and in this the glory of God shines forth (hosanna)!  And while our Salvation and the glorification of the Father is something God achieves through himself and his own might (Ps 118:15-18; 23) one of the fruits of the Procession with Palms is that he allows us sacramentally to join him in his triumphant entrance, to join him in procession to the altar of sacrifice, to accompany him into his Passion, Death, Resurrection, and thereby discover anew the reason for all things.

The heart of the Procession of Palms is to be found interiorly, in a soul that meekly follows the Lamb and boisterously cries out that the Lord is glorified in his saving works.  This heart of the Procession is not beyond our reach this year.  Whether we have blessed palms from this year or years past, or even some branches we cut down today, we have no less opportunity to acclaim him.  To acclaim him in our hearts, to acclaim him through the prayers we pray individually or as a family, and to orient ourselves in the same direction as the Lord, moving each day this week towards the celebration of the Paschal Mystery.  St. Thomas from last week provides us with the only instruction we need: “Let us also go to die with him.” (Jn 11:16)

By Fr. Richard Hinkley

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The Fifth Sunday of Lent, the penultimate before the glorious Paschal Triduum and Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord, is here and contains a great amount of material for our assimilation.

The Fifth Sunday of Lent ushers in the “mini-liturgical” season of Passiontide which includes the Fifth and Sixth Week (Holy Week) of Lent. In dioceses in the United States, as in much of the World, the practice of covering crosses and images throughout the church from now until the Easter Vigil is frequently observed. In addition, Prefaces I and II of the Passion of the Lord is used at daily Masses from now until Holy Thursday. The sobriety of all of these signs and prayers serves to heighten our awareness that the purpose and destiny of our Lenten observance is upon us, and as Laetare Sunday prompted us to recognize the ultimate joy that this destiny produces, the sobriety of Passiontide prompts us to prepare for this joy through a more intense desire for: conversion, horror for our sins, and devotion to the God who saves us through suffering.

In addition, the Fifth Sunday of Lent normally marks the Third and Final Scrutiny in preparation for the Baptism of the catechumens who are to be admitted to the Sacraments of Christian Initiation at the Easter Vigil. Obviously, things are out of joint this year, but whenever the Scrutinies are celebrated they are an intense summons to conversion and prayer of exorcism over the catechumens so that they may be all the more ready spiritually for their metamorphosis in Christian Initiation. At some point during the Fifth Week of Lent, at a special liturgy, the catechumens receive formally the “Our Father”, that is to say, they are formally entrusted by the Church with this the Lord’s Prayer, the recapitulation of the Gospel, in preparation for the Triduum.

Much is occurring in this Fifth Week of Lent, and such is the case too in the Sunday Gospel. The Raising of Lazarus, along with the gospel accounts of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and the healing of the man born blind, constitutes the third of the Cycle A Sunday Lenten Gospel readings which have as their chief focus and theme Baptism into Christ. The dialogues and signs (the theologically charged word St. John uses to describe Christ’s miracles) from these gospels sacramentally clarify for us what the Lord intends to achieve perfectly through his Passion, Death and Resurrection. What do faith in and baptism into Christ give us? First, they bring an awareness of our desires, our sinfulness, and our hunger for God (3rd Sunday’s Gospel). Second, they bring about a new creation within us, a healing of spiritual blindness, and an illumination with the Truth (4th Sunday’s Gospel). Third, they bring eternal life (5th Sunday’s Gospel)

Like the whole of the Gospel of John, the gospel reading today exudes a rarified theological language and symbolism. The words, actions, time, place, and number of everything and of everyone is highly charged and significant. One of these elements on which I would like to focus is the number four. We know that Lazarus was ill. Christ was notified of this fact, but unlike in the case of the royal official’s son (Cf. Jn 4:43-54), whom Christ healed immediately upon being notified of his illness, Christ seemingly does nothing…. for two days. It is not until the third day (Cardinal Ratzinger notes in one work that in the Old Testament, the third day is the day of theophany, encounter with God) that Christ announces his plan to risk his life, to return to Judea, and to wake Lazarus up so that they might believe.

When Christ and the Apostles arrive in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days. While the number four may not bring any kind of negative connotation for us (there are, after all, Four Gospels, Four Marks of the Church, etc.) in the case of Lazarus, four is not a pretty number. If three is the number that brings us to an encounter with God, with four something has gone wrong. We have missed the mark. We have sinned. Saint Augustine, in his commentary on this passage from John, notes that Lazarus, while his illness and death certainly garner our grief and sympathies, was a sinner. In fact, for Augustine the four days of Lazarus’ rotting in the tomb are a symbol of the four-fold sinfulness of mankind: Original Sin, sins against the Natural Law, sins against the Mosaic Law (the Old Covenant), and sins against the Gospel (the New Covenant). St. Augustine’s insistence on Lazarus’ status as a sinner and this four-fold sense of sin will go on to influence several ancient Eucharistic Prefaces that will serve as the basis for the Preface we use for the Fifth Week of the Lent.

While this insistence on Lazarus’ status as a sinner can seem initially off topic, the relevancy of this is further expounded by St. Augustine as he makes another critical observation: how many times Jesus’ love for Lazarus is mentioned.

Someone may say, “How can Lazarus be a symbol of the sinner and yet be so loved by the Lord?” Let the questioner listen to the Lord: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners”! If God did not love sinners, he would not have come to earth.

On hearing of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus said: “This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it.” Such a glorification of the Son of God did not really increase his glory, but it was useful to us. He says, then, “This illness is not unto death.” The reason is that even the death of Lazarus was not unto death but happened for the sake of the miracle, the performance of which would lead men to believe in Christ and so avoid real death. Consider here how the Lord indirectly calls himself God, having in mind those who deny that he is God.

The illness and death of Lazarus are not brought about by his or his family’s personal sins any more than the blind man’s blindness (Gospel 4th Sunday) was caused by his or his family’s personal sins. However, Lazarus was a sinner. Lazarus was born with Original Sin. As a consequence of the latter, Lazarus was subject to all the effects of Original Sin, including illness and death, and as a consequence of his personal sins he was especially in need of liberation. Why does Christ allow for Lazarus – and his relatives and friends at that matter – to go through all of this? Is not that same observation by Martha and Mary never far off from our minds: Lord, had you been here, this would not have happened? Why were you not here?

Christ’s response to this question is clear and manifest: I am with you in your suffering. I weep with you. I know your loss for Lazarus was my friend. As Adrien Nocent, OSB, notes: if St. Irenaeus of Lyons is correct and the glory of God is man fully alive, then God cannot be fully glorified by Creation until the Creature has been restored to full life. Yet the destruction of sin and death, the ultimate impediments between humanity and God, cannot be abolished without a sober and serious cure. The Lord who raises Lazarus as the seventh and ultimate sign before his own definitive conquest of Death, does not reveal this sign by distancing himself from us, but rather drawing near and suffering with us. The One who is sinless suffering for the sinner.

Our own struggles these days test our faith in the Lord’s abiding presence and power over Death. The seeming failure of the Lord to answer our prayers in the manner or time we think he should answer them may lead us to the false conclusion that we should slacken our prayers or that our faith is not “an essential business” after all. However, I hope we can draw at least two fruits away from Christ’s mighty sign in this week’s Gospel. First, we are sinners and that whatever hardships we must endure now, in light of the offenses we have given God, are a way in which we can do penance for our sins which ultimately are only remitted by the Pasch of Christ. Second, these same hardships are not to end in ultimate death and annihilation. Christ has conquered Sin. Christ has slain Death. Eternal life is not so much an event or a theory, it is a Person: Jesus Christ. The more we live in him these days the less we have to fear and the more we have to gain.

By Fr. Richard Hinkley

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Rejoice!

Seriously, Father? Rejoice? At this time? Don’t you know what’s going on? Can’t you see that we are in crisis and that this is not the time to rejoice?

Are you blind?

No, I am not blind, and neither are we the “children of the Light.”
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Lent. It is referred to as “Laetare Sunday” because the word “Laetare” is Latin for the command “Rejoice!” It is the first word of the Entrance Antiphon for this Sunday. Laetare Sunday and the Fourth Week of Lent mark the midway point of our Lenten pilgrimage. With each passing day there will be more time behind us than before us as we approach Holy Week and the glories of the Paschal Triduum. Recognizing this proximity, with the goal more clearly in sight, the Church calls us to “Rejoice.” Typically on Laetare Sunday, similar to its Advent counter-part Gaudete Sunday, the vestments used at Mass would be rose colored, flowers could be used to adorn the altar, and the organ and other instruments could be used more generously. These signs, with the texts for the Mass, all express and stimulate our faith so that, as the Collect for the Mass indicates: “with prompt devotion and eager faith the Christian people may hasten toward the solemn celebrations to come.”

In order to access this authentic source of joy; however, we have to see with a renewed vision. We need the uncreated “Light from Light” to illumine the eyes of our soul, to heal our spiritual blindness and allow us: to behold with clear vision the way things truly are, to put things in proper perspective, to see not as man sees, but as God sees. (See 1st Reading). When we allow God to heal our spiritual sight, suddenly the entire universe appears new and we find ourselves with a different posture towards life. “Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you are at my side with your rod and your staff that give me courage.” (See Res. Ps. 23)

The Gospel for today is one of the three great Gospel accounts from John that have a particular focus on the Catechumens (called now “The Elect” since their approval by the local bishop) as they prepare for Christian Initiation. Last week we recall our Lord teaching that sacramental initiation into life in Christ creates a new source of life within us, “springs of water welling up to eternal life.” This week, we look at the effects of the sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist) as a healing of spiritual blindness and an illumination of the soul with the “Light of the World” (See Gospel). It’s no accident that Light is one of the chief symbols and themes employed in the Liturgy, above all at the Easter Vigil. While Christ heals the man born blind from his physical blindness at the beginning of the Gospel, it is not until the end after the Pharisees “threw him out” that he professes faith in Jesus as the “Son of Man” i.e. the Christ, worships Jesus, and receives true clarity of vision.

While some may choose to focus on the darkness of the valley, we who have been reborn in Christ and are illuminated by his word are truly in want of nothing (Ps. 23). We see the table he has spread before us. We see the anointing he has given us. We see our cup overflowing. God is here and isn’t abandoning us. Our optimism, rooted in a clear understanding of Christ’s abiding presence, can be obnoxious to some and may result in a “social-distancing” that has nothing to do with sanitation. We are also discouraged because we may not have the same access to the sacraments that we normally have. That’s ok. It’s good that the absence of these things hurts. It means we see clearly what’s important. However, rather than stopping there, let us look and see that the Lord has not abandoned us: the liturgy is still being celebrated, the sacraments are still being celebrated. We can like the blind man still worship Christ by coming to adore him in the Blessed Sacrament at Church. We can still worship Christ in our homes and with our families through the Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Stations of the Cross and other devotions. We can still worship him by giving to the poor and needy who are always affected worst in times of crisis.

There is so much we can still do! The true tragedy would be to remain blind to that.

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (2nd Reading)