Jesus' Brothers and Sisters?

When I make out my annual spiritual profit and loss statement for my soul’s fiscal year that begins in Advent, I’m always reminded of the parable of the dishonest steward (Lk 16:1-13). The dishonest steward knows he’s being canned for previously squandering his boss’ property. Rather than dig ditches or beg, he makes the shrewd move to eliminate his commissions on sales so that the delighted buyers might “welcome him into their homes.” And he charged big commissions, up to 100%. "The dishonesty of the steward consisted in the squandering of his master's property and not in any subsequent graft" (New American Bible commentary). Rather, his master commends him for his financial prudence, taking strategic losses now for possible gains later. Our Lord’s financial advice is to “store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal” (Mt 6:20). Let’s run our spiritual life then, like a Schwab portfolio. We need to be as spiritually savvy as the worldly are worldly: “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light” (8b). The world’s bumper sticker says, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins.” Ours should say, “Whoever dies with the most Communions wins.” Receiving Holy Communion as often as possible is obviously the biggest bang for our spiritual buck, physically and spiritually uniting with God, yielding the highest ROI (return on investment), easily beating the S&P 500. What's beautiful about the Catholic Church is that there are Masses going on all over the world all the time. The sun never sets on the Mass. Go to daily Mass to financially make a killing. If you can't get to daily Mass, make spiritual Communions to score some moolah. Bring home the bacon with Eucharistic Adoration, bankrolling heavenly greenbacks hand over fist. Reading sacred scripture, of course, is another way to put on the mind of Christ and earn beaucoup bucks. Praying the rosary is a cash cow. In every Hail Mary, we say Jesus and Mary are blessed, affirm his divinity, admit we’re sinners, and ask Mary, the Mother of God, to pray for us. It’s like hitting heaven’s lotto. As members of “a royal priesthood” (1 Pt 2:9) we can offer up in sacrifice our little annoyances and our real challenges as we take up our cross daily, to receive a treasure trove of grace. "For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be" (Mt 6:21). The next paper will cover the sin of spiritual greed. (I couldn’t resist.)

For Catholics, in the hierarchy of truths, the highest truth, and the toughest one to explain--next to the Eucharist--is the Trinity. “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian life and faith” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 234). Only because God revealed that he’s three distinct persons with one nature would we know it. But we could fumble if we think that because the Father, Son, and holy Spirit each possess the divine nature, we believe in three Gods. And there are many other heresies we could fall into. We must, therefore, define and make the distinction between person and nature. Defining person is easy. Not every being is a person. Only rational beings are persons. Persons are who we are. You’re you and I’m me. Nature is what we are. By our nature, we do what we do. “We can laugh and cry and walk and talk and sleep and think and love. All these and other things we can do because as human beings we have a nature which makes them possible. A snake could do only one of them--sleep. A stone could do none of them. Nature, then, is to be seen not only as what we are but as the source of what we can do. But although my nature is the source of all my actions, although my nature decides what kind of operations are possible for me, it is not my nature that does them: I do them, I the person" (Frank Sheed, Theology and Sanity , 1946). God’s nature is the total possession of divinity. Because Father, Son, and Spirit each possess the fullness of God, their nature is exactly the same. The Son, therefore, is everything the Father is, except being the Father: “If you know me, then you will also know my Father" (Jn 14:7), for in Christ "dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily“ (Col 2:9). "Thus, the one, infinite, divine nature is totally possessed by three distinct persons. Here we must be quite accurate: the three persons are distinct, but not separate; and they do not share the divine nature, but each possesses it totally” (Sheed, 1946). Because the three Persons each possess only one, identical, divine nature, there is only one God. You and I have a human nature, but it’s not exactly the same. We think, love, talk, etc., differently. The Trinity is like three laptops plugged into one mainframe computer. All three laptops are distinct, but really there is only one computer. Each laptop, or Person, though, possesses the fullness of the total nature of the one infinite mainframe, God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. --John 1:1 These ideas are Frank Sheed’s, British founder of the Catholic Evidence Guild, of which I was a member. Besides being an acclaimed author, Sheed was a street corner preacher. After taking classes at the seminary, the NYC Guild would meet at Washington Square Park in Manhattan. Then, one by one, we would present our assigned topic to passersby. If people had questions, members would pull them aside. It was a fun and fascinating experience, like being with St. Paul at the Areopagus (Acts 17: 22). From Sheed's book, Theology for Beginners , 1957, abbreviated and slightly expanded on: The truth, that Father and Son possess the one same nature, might remain wholly dark to us if St. John had not given us another term for their relation—the Second Person is the Word of the First. God utters a Word—not framed by the mouth of course, for God has no mouth. He is pure spirit. So it is a word in the mind of God, an Idea. It is the Idea he produces of himself. But the Idea that God has of himself cannot be imperfect. Whatever is in the Father must be in his Idea of himself, and must be exactly the same as it is in himself. Otherwise God would have an inadequate Idea of himself, which would be nonsense. Thus, because God is infinite, eternal, all-powerful, his Idea of himself is infinite, eternal, all-powerful. Because God is God, his Idea is God. The Father knows and loves; so, his Idea knows and loves. In other words, the Idea is a Person. God's Idea of himself is not something only, it is Someone: for it can know and love. Hence, the Son--the Father's Idea of himself--is everything the Father is, except being the Father. "If you know me, then you will also know my Father" (Jn 14:7). The Son, therefore, is "the refulgence of the Father's glory" (Heb 1:3a), the full light of God the Father, reflected in God the Son, who is the very imprint of the Father's being (Heb 1:3b). Jesus is thus "the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15). The Thinker and the Idea are distinct, the one is not the other, Father and Son are two Persons. But they are not separate. An Idea can exist only in the mind of the Thinker. Each possesses the divine nature, but each is wholly himself, conscious of himself as himself, of the other as other. Among men, fathers are always older than sons. But God has not to wait for a certain amount of eternity to roll by before he can be a Father. Eternity does not roll by; it is an abiding Now. Merely by being God, he knows himself with infinite knowing power, and utters his infinite self-knowledge in the totally adequate Idea of himself which is his co-eternal Son. The Father can think you out of existence (which he won't), but he can't think the Son out of existence. The Son is a given, the Father's eternal generation of the Son, an inevitability. The closest we get to an animated idea of self is when we dream. In dreaming, we generate an idea of self that can be quite convincing until we awaken. But it's at that moment of awakening when we see our self and our idea of self as separate, distinct entities. There is one huge and instant difference, however, between God’s Idea and any idea we may form. His is Someone, ours is only something. God’s Idea is Someone, and an infinite Someone; between Thinker and Idea there is an infinite dialogue, an infinite interflow. Father and Son love each other, with infinite intensity. What we could not know, if it were not revealed to us, is that they unite to express their love, and that the expression is a third Divine Person. In the Son, the Father utters his self-knowledge; in the holy Spirit, Father and Son utter their mutual love. Their love is infinite; its expression cannot be less. Each gives himself wholly to the outpouring of his love for the other—holding nothing back. The uttered love of Father and Son is infinite, lacks no perfection that they have, is God, a Person, Someone. After all, "God is Love" (1 Jn 4:16), Love is God, Personified.  As this one great operation of spirit, knowing, produces the Second Person, so the other, loving, produces the Third. The Second proceeds from, is produced by, the First alone; but the Third, the holy Spirit, proceeds from Father and Son, as they combine to express their love. No one says it quite like Frank. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Cor 13:13).

Though God is not in science’s purview or vocabulary, science can lead us to God. The Big Bang, everything from nothing; the subsequent order and maintenance of the universe; and life and its evolution all prove God. A bit of science distances one from God, but much science nears one to Him. --Louis Pasteur By the Lord's word the heavens were made. For he spoke, and it came to be. -- Psalm 33:6a, 9a Belgian Jesuit Fr. Georges Lemaitre was the first to propose the Big Bang theory. Einstein didn't believe it. Cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle pejoratively named it the Big Bang. Until 1927, scientists thought matter always existed, Hoyle's Steady-state theory. The easy way out. I bought an astrophysics text from 1930 with an addendum saying the universe may have a beginning and be expanding, but we’re not yet sure. For if 13.7 billion years ago, the still-expanding, 93-billion-lightyear-wide universe exploded from a single point billions of times smaller than a proton! which it did, then scientists have a problem not acknowledging that an independent force outside the universe, outside time and space because they did not yet exist--also known as God--created the universe. What Is the Big Bang Theory? diameter of the universe And this infinitesimal point, an infinitely dense "singularity," contained all the matter in the universe ( Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time , New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p.49 ). The reason science cannot go back any further is because before the singularity was nothing. Science can't study "nothing," no time and no space. Everything from nothing is Creation. To say that everything, two trillion galaxies averaging 100 billion stars each, came from nothing--on its own--is preposterous. God made the Big Bang go bang. Because God is beyond the scope of science, some scientists just dismiss God, despite compelling evidence to the contrary. They're too smart for God. Instead of being the smartest guys in the room, they have to be the smartest guys in the universe. At least they're honest about their discoveries. Philosophers (good ones) always knew the universe had a beginning, i.e., came from nothing. For if the universe always existed, then it goes back an infinite amount of time. However, if the universe goes back forever, it could never reach the present, which it's obviously reached, as an infinite journey can be made only in an infinite amount of time. The bible considers the earth the center of the universe, which it is. Who cares what’s going on in the geographical center of the universe? We are the center. There is no center anyway, as it’s expanding— faster than the speed of light! (I know, Albert, I know. There have been some updates. Turns out light's special relativity speed limit is not universal, only local.) How Can the Universe Expand Faster Than the Speed of Light? When criticized about the bible making the earth the center of the solar system, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson smartly replied that in Einstein's general relativity theory, "The earth goes around the sun, but the sun also goes around the earth." The bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go; it's not a science book. Genesis is an allegory, a symbolic narrative, for "the Lord God was walking about in the garden" (Gen 3:8). God has no feet pre-Incarnation. Genesis, though, does reveal deep spiritual truths about Creation, the Fall, and the devil (Catechism of the Catholic Church 390-400). The bible was right, and science had been wrong until Fr. Lemaitre's Big Bang theory, that everything exploded from nothing--Creation. Written four thousand years before Darwin and Hubble, Genesis is fairly accurate in its sequence of the origin of humanity. First the stars, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3). Then the sun, night and day (5). Next is the ocean and land (9). Vegetation follows (11). The first creatures begin in the sea (20). Later, the land animals emerge (24). And finally, humans appear (26). It took six days, and God rested on the seventh (Gen 2:2) because he’s a good Jew, keeping holy the Sabbath. The six days are symbolic. "With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years" (2 Pt 3:8), or a couple of billion. After all, Catholics are not Fundamentalists. But could there be other rational beings in the vast universe? Are we the only center? Who am I to limit God’s creative powers? Are there countless Geneses? Or are we alone? Whether the universe is teeming with rational, diverse creatures, or if it's just us, either possibility is staggering. From the Sept. 23, 2016 WSJ: “In 2014, two Jesuit astronomers at the Vatican published a book with the title, ‘Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?’ That year, Pope Francis himself—during a hypothetical section of a weekly homily—said that he would baptize a green Martian with a ‘long nose and big ears,’ although only if the alien ambled into St. Peter’s Basilica and asked. ‘Who are we to close doors?’ the pontiff asked.” Christ In the Universe Alice Meynell (1847-1922) With this ambiguous earth His dealings have been told us. These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth, The lesson, and the young Man crucified. But not a star of all The innumerable host of stars has heard How He administered this terrestrial ball. Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word. Of His earth-visiting feet None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet, Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. No planet knows that this Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave. Nor, in our little day, May His devices with the heavens be guessed, His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way Or His bestowals there be manifest. But in the eternities, Doubtless we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. O, be prepared, my soul! To read the inconceivable, to scan The myriad forms of God those stars unroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

The one whom God raised up did not see corruption. --Acts 13:37 Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days." --Jn 11:39 When USSR founder Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin was adamant Lenin should be preserved as a socialist saint: After death do us part: How Russian embalmers preserve Lenin and his ‘colleagues’ The embalmers “made around 20 incisions, drilled holes in the skull (the brain and eyes had already been removed, along with most other internal organs) and put the leader in a bath of formaldehyde for a couple of weeks to kill germs and bacteria – ultimately preventing further decay.” It takes a lot of work to keep someone looking good forever. Lenin is on display in Red Square. "Cryonics (from the Greek, kryos, meaning 'cold') is the low-temperature freezing (usually at −196 °C or −320.8 °F or 77.1 K) and storage of a human corpse or severed head, with the speculative hope that resuscitation may be possible in the future. As of 2014, about 250 corpses have been cryogenically preserved in the U.S., and around 1,500 people have signed up to have their remains preserved. Since 2016, four facilities exist in the world to retain cryopreserved bodies: three in the U.S. and one in Russia" (Wikipedia). Instead of resurrection, they await defrosting. Probably the most impossible modern-day miracles to scientifically explain are the Incorruptibles. The natural preservation of Saints’ bodies, after being dead many, many years, is a particular problem for skeptics. On display, openly defying the laws of nature, they are known as the Incorruptibles. Without any chemical embalming, the corpses are “lifelike, flexible, and sweetly scented.” 1 There are 102 Saints who, after their bodies were exhumed, never decayed, a foretaste of the resurrection. Just one example, St. Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes, who claimed the Mother of God appeared to her and called herself the Immaculate Conception, looks like she’s about to awaken from sleep, considering she passed over 140 years ago: St. Bernadette body Incorruptibility I was a subscriber to the Committee of Skeptical Inquiry, CSI, which publishes the quarterly newsletter, The Skeptical Inquirer. The committee is made up of scientists, atheists, even magicians, all to disprove the paranormal. Part of their purview is to try to discredit miracles. In the ten years I was a subscriber, I never saw a debunking of the Incorruptibles. What could they say? To those who believe, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice. Bonus: The latest Incorruptible, in Missouri? Show me: Sister Wilhelmina ________________ 1. With over 300 pages of facts and photos, “The Incorruptibles” is a fascinating read. Joan Carroll Cruz, The Incorruptibles , (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, 1977), p. 27.

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world" -- Jn 6:51 Want to get as close to God as possible in this life? Then go to Mass and receive Communion. Experience the mystery of "Christ in you, the hope for glory" (Col 1:27). The only miracle recounted in all four gospels, and twice in Mark and Matthew, is the multiplication of the loaves (Mt 14:13-21, New American Bible commentary). Obviously, this miracle held huge significance to early Christians, prefiguring the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The first miracle in John, changing water into wine at a wedding (Jn 2:1-11), foretells the changing of one substance into another, at Mass. (Incidentally, Jesus made 180 gallons of top-notch wine at that wedding. I always knew God was a partier.) At the Last Supper, Jesus ritualized the Mass, commanding that his sacrifice be memorialized: “He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you’” (Lk 22:19-20). During Mass, Jesus, acting through the Roman Catholic priest, in Christ’s name, in Christ’s power, changes bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood. "The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit: "Christ, our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper 'on the night when he was betrayed,' he wanted to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1366). The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass perpetuates the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. St. Paul concurs: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). Jesus, however, is not being crucified again. Rather, we are sharing in his one eternal sacrifice and triumph over sin, death, and the devil. God’s saving deed is timeless. That’s why the Lamb, Jesus, in Revelation is seen as slain (Rev 5:6). “Christ is the Paschal Lamb without blemish, whose blood saved the new Israel from sin and death. 'The Lamb' is the main title for Christ in Revelation, used twenty-eight times” (NAB commentary). Recall that Jesus was still scarred after his resurrection from his eternal sacrifice: "Look at my hands and my feet" (Lk 24:39); "Jesus showed them his hands and his side" (Jn 20:20). Catholics have a crucifix above their altar, but non-Catholic Christians display only a cross. St. Paul has no problem with a crucifix, "for I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2). "The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different. In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner" (CCC 1367). A listener asked EWTN’s Dr. David Anders if the Mass and Crucifixion are the same sacrifice; at Mass are you present at Calvary? Dr. Anders, a former Presbyterian, clarified that: “The Council of Trent taught that the Mass and Calvary are specifically the same and numerically different. Each individual Mass is a distinct oblation [offering] that is distinct from Calvary. “There is a common but erroneous view that the function of the Mass is to serve as a time-capsule or time vehicle that carries you supernaturally back 2,000 years so that the only sacrifice at which you are present is the historical sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. That position is false. “That’s the Calvinist position, the Protestant position, repudiated by the Council of Trent and repudiated again by Pope Pius XII. The Council of Trent, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Pius XII taught--this is the faith of the Catholic Church--that the same victim who died on Calvary, Jesus Christ, who died in a bloody manner on the cross, that same victim is present on the altar of sacrifice at the Mass through transubstantiation, but in an unbloody fashion. “He’s not killed on the altar at Mass. In fact, he’s glorified, but nevertheless the same victim who died at Calvary is present at Mass, once in a dying fashion, now in an undying, never-to-die-again, unbloody fashion. “The priest who offered the sacrifice at Calvary, namely Jesus, was present at Calvary; the same priest is present at Mass through the person of the ministerial priest. Christ makes his own intention present, namely, to offer his Body and Blood to the Father in reparation for the sins of the world. “The reason why Christ died at Calvary, to reconcile God and man, is also present in the sacrifice of the Mass, which is why they are specifically the same. But they are numerically distinct so that each individual Mass is its own oblation; it’s not simply a time portal to the past. A priest can say Mass on Monday for Aunt Edna; on Tuesday for my knee surgery; and on Wednesday for peace in the world” (EWTN’s Called to Communion , 3/22/24, @18 mins.) Dr. Anders "In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, suffering, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ's sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering" (CCC 1368). Jesus’ Resurrection is also being celebrated at Mass. Through Christ's victory, God is able to transform bread and wine into Jesus' Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. "The whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist" (Council of Trent, Session xiii, October 11, 1551). This transformation is more accurately termed “transubstantiation,” meaning to change one substance into another. “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16), St. Paul rhetorically asks. We celebrate by the victory of his Resurrection. "It is by the Breaking of Bread “that his disciples will recognize him after his Resurrection, and it is this expression that the first Christians will use to designate their Christian assemblies; by doing so, they signified that all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and form but one body in him" (CCC 1329). The Church is the Church of the Most Blessed Sacrament as it is the Sacrament of sacraments. “The blessed Eucharist is the sacrament. Baptism exists for it; all the others are enriched by it” (Frank Sheed, Theology for Beginners, 1957 ). The Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324). Every devotion revolves around the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Although in his divinity Jesus is omnipresent, he is substantively present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity--the whole Christ--in the Bread of Life and the Chalice of Eternal Salvation. He is present in the "very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he 'poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins'" (CCC 1365, Mt 26:28), but with no physicality, in an unusual mode of being. The Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ! Amazing, but true. The Holy Eucharist is the Whole Christ Because "Christ lives, death has no more dominion over him. The bread becomes his body, but where his body is, there he is; the wine becomes his blood but is not thereby separated from his body, for that would mean death; where his blood is, he is. Where either body or blood is, there is Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity. That is the doctrine of the Real Presence" (Sheed, 1957). Holy Communion is real. St. Paul believed it is not symbolic: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:27-29). If the bread and wine are symbolic, how could one partake unworthily? Or why should a person have to examine oneself before eating and drinking so as not to be condemned if they are merely bread and wine? It’s obvious St. Paul believes that the risen Christ is truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament, or else he would not be so strict in his exhortation. Some disciples of Jesus had a hard time believing in Holy Communion: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn 6:52). But Jesus did not back down: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (Jn 6:53-56). Since Jesus literally means eating his body and drinking his blood, “many of Jesus’ disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him” (Jn 6:66). And Jesus let them go. If Jesus had been talking symbolically, he would be morally obligated to say so. But because he did not try to explain, he obviously meant it—and they took it—literally. When Jesus promises, “The one who feeds on me will have life because of me” (Jn 6:57), the Greek verb “feeds” means to “gnaw,” like an animal (NAB commentary), further emphasizing the real nature of the “bread from heaven” (Jn 6:50). After all, Christ was born in a feeding trough for animals, a manger (Lk 2:7), in Bethlehem, which means in Hebrew, "House of Bread." Eucharist is from the Greek, meaning thanksgiving. "The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father—a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God" (CCC 1360). What a great gift God has given us—himself. Do we expect any less from Jesus? What boundless love God has for us to want to unite with us so closely. If all this is really going on at Mass, how could anyone miss Mass? It’s the greatest event in the universe. When we miss Mass, we miss a deep encounter with Christ. When we unite with Jesus in Holy Communion, we are as close as we can get to him this side of eternity. The best possible food to nourish Christ spiritually living in us, is Christ. "When we receive, we have a closer union with Jesus than the apostles had in their three years of companionship, closer than Mary Magdalene had when she clung to him after his Resurrection" (Sheed, 1957). Most joyfully is knowing that God loves us and wants to be incredibly intimate with us. "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:9), literally.

Have you heard? It’s in the stars. Next July we collide with Mars. --Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra from the Cole Porter song, What a Swell Party , from the movie, High Society The heavens declare the glory of God . --Psalm 19:2 Besides the still-expanding, 93-billion-lightyear-wide universe exploding out of nothing, scientists are also at a loss to explain the universe's subsequent maintenance and order. The universe is a huge machine, with everything in constant, predictable motion. Any engineer will tell you that while it’s one thing to start a machine, it’s quite another to keep it going. The earth is rotating on its axis at a thousand miles per hour. You don’t feel it because the speed is constant, with no acceleration or deceleration. The moon is revolving around the earth, and the earth and planets of the solar system are revolving around the sun. The earth revolves around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour. The sun itself is zipping through space at the blinding speed of 143 miles per second , revolving around the center of our Milky Way galaxy, bringing the rest of us with it. It takes 230 million earth years, a galactic year, for the sun to make its revolution: Galactic year - Wikipedia How could objects with no intelligence maintain such order and precision that you can set your watch by them? My stand-up routine: How come atheists aren't more worried? I’m nervous at my wife's distracted driving on our block at 20 mph. How can you go to sleep knowing the mindless sun is taking you for a ride at 143 mps with no stop signs? After all, one crash wiped out the dinosaurs. "City-killer" asteroid is hurtling by Earth Doorbell cam captures tiny meteorite crash This symphony of the spheres shows that the same Being who created the universe also keeps it going. It is far more rational and probable that a sentient Being independent of the universe is responsible for its origin and maintenance. No worries.

Presently, the Mystical Body of Christ is in three divisions: those in heaven, the Church Triumphant; those in purgatory, the Church Suffering; and those on earth, the Church Militant, battling it out. “At the present time, some of Jesus’ disciples are pilgrims on earth. Others have died and are being purified, while still others are in glory, contemplating in full light, God himself triune and one” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 954). Though the Body is in three different places and stages, we’re all connected, with Christ as head (Col 1:18). Jesus prays for those in the Body that "they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us" (Jn 17:21). Thus, the Body is spiritually but not physically linked, and like bees making honey we’re working toward a common goal--Thy kingdom come--behaving as a single organism. God is our ultrahigh speed wi-fi supplier. He’s never had a service stoppage. No password or user fee is required. The login is, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit. Amen. Because “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1), praying to the angels, saints, and souls in purgatory is really only going online, through God-xinfinity, and asking them to pray for us, the same way we ask those on earth. St. Dominic, dying, to his brothers, said, “Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you more effectively than during my life” (CCC 956). Certainly the ecstatic saints in heaven and the hopeful souls in purgatory are champing at the bit to do good. They're at the ready to plead for us, cheering on the next racers after crossing the finish line themselves. For there is "more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents" (Lk 15:7). How can we not avail ourselves of the Body and the angels when we pray, prefacing every petition, “I please ask Our Lady, all the angels and saints, and the souls in purgatory, to please pray for whatever”? God would be barraged by so many requests by so many friends of his that he may see it our way. Of course God already knows the future, as God is outside time. However, God previously included in his Providence people's free actions, including our prayers, which he knew before time began: "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Mt 6:8b). “Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever, and they interceded with him about her” (Lk 4:38). Why would such an intercession cease after death if someone asked for it, so long as we’re connected, which we are? God will upload users’ requests. “Faith, hope, love remain these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13). In heaven, though, faith is no more because one beholds the object of faith, God. Hope likewise disappears because one achieved the goal of eternal life. “Faith has yielded to sight and hope to possession” (NAB commentary). Love, though, remains. St. Therese of Lisieux: “I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth” (CCC 956). I’ll take her up on the offer. What’s her email, StTL@heaven.org?

There are two versions of the end, Jesus’ return. The one that most believers think of is the fiery Parousia, the Second Coming, like Revelation: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed at the roaring of the sea and waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Lk 21:25-26). A neighbor asked me if I thought now—during the pandemic--was the end. I said, No, our present plight is nothing compared to WWII, for example, where “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Mt 24:7). Instead, the trigger for the end is subtle and quiet. It’s not that life on earth gets so bad that God has to end it. Rather, the end will come silently, when the Body of Christ is complete. At that time, there will be no need for God to keep life on earth going because God's mission is accomplished. The completion of the Body, when the precise number of the saved is reached is the game-changer, but not necessarily dramatic or visible. A big leadup to the end may not be forthcoming. I prefer this less known presentation of the end, which is preliminarily calm and silent, like a thief, with no warning (Mt 24:42-44), "for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." When the end comes, people were just going about their business: “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed” (Lk 17:26-30). The end, then, comes strikingly, of course, but as a surprise. No one sees it coming because it’s not based on world events, but rather a spiritual one. “Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus said in reply, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, “Look here it is,” or, “There it is.” For behold, the kingdom of God is among you’” (Lk 17:20-21), "thus shifting from an imminent observable coming of the kingdom to something that is already present in Jesus' preaching and healing ministry" (NAB commentary). The necessary terror of the Apocalypse is because at the Final Judgment the everlasting destiny of all will be confirmed. All will know the stark reality that some do, and some do not, want to be with God: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace” (Dn 12:2).

A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane, poet, and author of The Red Badge of Courage All living creatures you sustain, Lord. --Psalm 36:7c Some think that to believe in evolution is to deny God. Nothing could be further from the truth. Life and its evolution affirm God’s existence. Charles Darwin boarded at the Anglican Shrewsbury School and graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge. Darwin certainly knew Genesis, which is fairly accurate in its sequence of the origin of humanity: First the stars, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3). Then the sun, night and day (5). Next is the ocean and land (9). Vegetation follows (11). The first creatures begin in the sea (20). Later, the land animals emerge (24). And finally, humans appear (26). How ironic it would be if Darwin came up with his sequence because of Genesis. Amazingly, 3.7 billion years ago, non-living matter began to organize itself into life. These simple forms of life—one-celled creatures—then evolved into more and more complex multicellular forms resulting in the staggering diversification of life found today. The problem is that the universe—on its own—cannot make life from non-living matter, and then take that life and make it evolve. Some find it difficult to reconcile their faith with evolution, but not St. Pope John Paul II: “The theory of evolution is more than a hypothesis. The convergence of results in scientific work, conducted independently, is in itself, a significant argument in favor of this theory.”1 What's the difference how we got here? Christ still came. There is too much evidence not to believe in evolution. How can one explain away the dinosaur room in the NYC Museum of Natural History? We have to be open to the truth. God is Truth. Thus all scientific truths ultimately point to God. Evolution is common sense. For example, the reason many pesticides eventually fail is because the few surviving bugs obviously have some genetic resistance. Their offspring will likewise be resistant. Thus, a change in the environment, the pesticide, altered the species. Over billions of years, big changes can happen. Evolution, though, depends on God. The reason that life and its evolution could not happen without God’s intervention is the “Second Law of Thermodynamics.” Don’t be bothered by the term; it’s a simple concept. The second law of thermodynamics explains what happens to everything, a book, a car, your body, the universe, over time—they fall apart. Any college chemistry text states this law: The entropy or disorder of the universe is constantly increasing. Entropy is a measure of the randomness of a system. The direction of all natural events is toward disorder. Every spontaneous chemical and physical change increases the total entropy of the universe. By itself, the universe breaks down order into disorder. It never builds things up. We instinctively know this, although we may not realize it. Basically, as Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest astrophysicists of our time, said: “Entropy is a form of Murphy’s Law: Things always tend to go wrong.”2 For example, a vase on a stand is in a higher state of order than if it falls to the floor and breaks. Anyone could tell you which vase was “before,” and which one was “after.” People have seen a vase fall and break, but no one has ever seen a broken vase put itself together and go back on a stand (except when a movie is reversed). The broken vase is now at a lower energy level, with less potential energy and less order. One day, the universe will run down because all its energy will be in the lowest form, heat, which then dissipates, leading to the Big Chill, a dead universe. St. Paul observes the obvious, that "creation was made subject to futility" (Rom 8:20a). Heat Death of the Universe Because the direction of all natural events is toward disorder, entropy is sometimes referred to as “time’s arrow.” As time goes forward, disorder increases. Based on entropy, it’s easy to figure out “before” and “after” to every natural and spontaneous event. The universe can give an illusory appearance of increasing order, like when water freezes. Entropy still increases, though, because of the heat lost in becoming ice. However, this apparent increase in order is transitory and there's never a next step in complexity. Opening the door to an air-conditioned room shows the universe decreases order. Having cold air in a closed room and hot air outside is order. The difference in concentration between the two air masses is a concentration gradient. When the door is opened, however, the universe takes over. Hot air comes in, cold air goes out, and disorder increases until the temperature is uniform. When a balloon pops, the entropy of the universe increases. In an air-filled balloon, the molecules of air have a certain degree of order because they are close together. Their movement is limited by the balloon. After the balloon pops, though, the air molecules expand into the atmosphere, with much more random, disordered movement. They aren’t able to stay together. Since the universe is always increasing disorder, how could life—which is the epitome of order—begin unless something independent of the universe--also known as God--brought it about? And how could life then evolve into more diverse and complex forms without divine intervention? Life’s progression has been a continual increase in order, yet the universe can only make disorder increase. In previous examples, “after” always meant less order than “before.” That’s not the case, however, with life and its evolution. Scientifically speaking, one is compelled to believe in God. By itself, the universe is obviously not capable of making life come from non-living matter, and then taking that life and making it more diversified and complex. In other words, life and its magnificent, breathtaking evolution could not happen without God. The famous Miller-Urey experiment, which recreated the conditions of primitive earth, led to the formation of amino acids, which are the building blocks of life. However, the simple amino acids did not combine to form more complex proteins or anything resembling primitive life. A big letdown. It's just a one step, dead end, with no increase in complexity, like water to ice. Miller-Urey experiment Prolific science author and atheist Isaac Asimov's spurious argument is that although the total disorder of the universe is increasing, there may be pockets or islands where there is an increase in order, such as life on earth, for example. The mistake here is that entropy is a uniform phenomenon affecting all areas at all times which would not allow the steady 3.7 billion year progression of life from simple to complex, disorder to order. Remember the textbook statement: “The direction of all natural events is toward disorder.” Life is a supernatural event. Entropy troubled Dr. Asimov; he knew that having life, despite entropy, challenged atheism. So he wrote a short story, his favorite, about how a computer becomes God to overcome entropy, no fooling: The Last Question Entropy is not selective, allowing some parts of the universe to be affected by it and other parts not to be. It would be the same as a balloon bursting and all the air molecules staying together and becoming more concentrated. Imagine how impossible it is for an apple to jump up from the ground to a tree. Consider the likelihood of food coloring staying completely together and intact in water. Think of how incredibly odd it would be if an air-conditioned room with its door opened kept the same concentration gradient as if the door were closed, with cold air on one side and hot air on the other. These events are too unlikely. And you'd have to do them for 3.7 billion years. Yet that’s what life continually does in combating entropy by increasing order. Hence, life and its evolution could not happen on its own. God is responsible. God overcomes entropy. Because we’re alive proves God exists. Our bodies are constantly battling entropy. The universe abhors life’s order. We are under continuous assault, in countless ways, by the environment. At every moment the universe is trying to destroy us. We usually do not realize it because our bodies are doing such a good job of putting up a fight. Gravity is pulling our blood down while our hearts are pumping it up. The outside temperature tries to change our steady internal temperature. The universe tries to break up our highly ordered bodies into randomness, the same way food coloring diffuses in water. Our bodies fiercely fight back, attempting to remain intact with a controlled internal environment, also known as homeostasis. One day, though, the universe will win the battle, turning us back into dust, the original elements we’re composed of. When you die, the entropy of the universe will have increased, for the universe brought your highly ordered living body to a halt and began breaking it down into its disordered components. There is just one problem: There should not even be a battle. The indifferent, belligerent universe cannot simultaneously maintain you and destroy you. It can do only one, all the time. While the cold, mindless universe is trying its best to annihilate us at every moment, the average person is making 2 to 3 million red blood cells per second or 200 billion red blood cells a day, and breaking down 200 billion! How Many Cells Are in the Human Body? Types, Production, Loss, More To describe all the actions your body does to maintain order using the nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory, immune, urinary, muscular, skeletal, digestive, and other complex systems requires a thick physiology text. A doctor can only clean, apply ointment, and bandage a wound. God heals it by directing the universe. The aloof, callous, hostile universe by itself is of no help. Quite the contrary, the universe would like to see your cut become infected and do you in. You're much too ordered. One human cell's DNA, for example, contains a code that's comprised of six billion units , unique to that person. All the information needed to make that person is in their DNA, far, far more complicated than any computer code: Introduction - Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome ... The degree of order in a living being is astonishing. That’s the miracle of life. Every person is being held in existence by God's will alone. Without intelligence, all the parts of the body are working purposefully together to maintain homeostasis. The universe, however, cannot perform the complex processes that take place in the human body to overcome entropy while attempting, at the same time, to destroy those processes by entropy. The threatening universe cannot be on both sides. The universe can do only one thing all the time: increase disorder. The universe is consistent. The unknowing, uncaring, menacing, destructive universe has no choice in the matter. The only explanation is that God creates life, sustains life, and guides its evolution by directing the universe. God is the Intelligence that enables life to overcome entropy at every moment, and with such vigor, in every generation. Praise God. _____________________________ 1. “Message to Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution,” Origins, CNS Documentary Services, 5 Dec. 1996, p. 415. 2. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time , New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p.144.

What follows is my take on C.S. Lewis’ idea: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. “Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”1 Does Jesus embody God’s qualities? Unlike philosophers who say this is the way, Jesus says, “ I am the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6). Jesus declares he is God: “Whoever sees me sees the Father” (Jn 14:9); says he always existed: “Before Abraham came to be, I AM” (Jn 8:58); foretold the future: “the Son of Man will be handed over” (Mk 10:33); forgave wrongs that didn’t directly involve him: “Child, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5); multiplied bread: “They all ate and were satisfied” (Mt 14:20); never sinned: “Can any of you charge me with sin?” (Jn 8:46); controlled the weather and sea: “He rebuked the wind and the waves” (Lk 8:24); healed the sick: “The blind regain their sight” (Lk 7:22); raised the dead: “Little girl, arise” (Mk 5:41); gave a new commandment: “Love one another” (Jn 13:34); said he would judge the world: “He will separate them one from another” (Mt 25:32); and did many other things only God would be able to say and do. (How could fishermen, a tax collector, and the rest of that crew have thought all this up, anyway?) Jesus is either lying, crazy, or telling the truth. There is no middle ground with Jesus. One cannot say he is just a good man or only a moral teacher because he claims he is more: “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8:12). If Jesus isn’t whom he claims to be—namely God—then he’s a bad man for telling such a big lie. Or he’s crazy for thinking he’s God. Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. Guards sent to arrest Jesus attest to his unique viewpoint: “Never before has anyone spoken like this one” (Jn 7: 46). Jesus is Lord. ----------------------- Lewis, C. S., Mere Christianity , London: Collins, 1952, pp. 54–56.

You Can't Go Home Again --Novel by Thomas Wolfe In the gospels, Jesus never uses his divine power to work miracles for himself or his family. All Jesus' miracles are to help others or be signs for belief or both. When Jesus was hungry from fasting forty days, the devil suggested Jesus turn stones into bread (Mt 4:1-4). “Jesus refuses to use his power for his own benefit and accepts whatever God wills” (NAB commentary Mt). Jesus does eventually multiply the loaves, but only because his hearers are hungry. In the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Jesus does help his family using miracles, which is one of many reasons this gospel was rejected. For example, he stretches a beam of wood that was too short to help his father finish constructing a bed: Infancy Gospel of Thomas Jesus’ return to the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth (Lk 4:16-30), where he grew up, starts off fine, but ends quite badly, precisely because of this self and family miracle prohibition. After his reading Isaiah, “all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, ‘Isn’t this the son of Joseph?’” Familiarity breeds contempt. Jesus, however, oddly replies, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” Traditionally, St Joseph, patron of a happy death, died before Jesus’ public ministry: Francisco Goya, Sketch for the Death of St. Joseph Thus, Jesus is picking up that the townspeople are implying, “Why didn’t you heal your father? You’re healing all these strangers, and you let beloved Joseph die.” Jesus tells them, this attitude is why prophets Elijah and Elisha were sent to non-Israelites. When they heard Jesus’ response, the people in the synagogue were furious. They drove Jesus out of town, and wanted to throw him headfirst off a cliff. Jesus somehow passes through the crowd and gets away. Jesus never went back to Nazareth again. "No prophet is accepted in his own native place" (Lk 4:24).

They sang a new hymn, saying, "Worthy are you to receive the scroll and break open its seals, for you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue, and people and nation."-- Rev 5:9 Most people who do not believe in God do so because of the problem of suffering and evil. And many people turn to God because of suffering and evil. Long before I was a big believer, when I had to change a flat on the Bronx Bruckner Expressway shoulder with my grandfather in the car, I was really praying. If you asked, most people would say the cause of suffering and evil is human free will. Thank God we’re not robots. We can love each other or kill each other. That explanation will work if someone punches my nose, but not for the 2004 Indonesian tsunami that killed 230,000 people. If God is all good and all powerful, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Rabbi Kushner’s mistaken conclusion in his book of that title was that God was not yet in complete control; some chaos remains in the universe. God, however, is still fully in control. But God respects free will. Because of his infinite goodness, God is able to bring good out of every event, even those that originate in an evil free will, whether human or angelic. God, though, limits evil. If the devil had his way, he would destroy us all. The worst thing that ever happened was Jesus being crucified. God incarnate, rejected and killed, was the greatest injustice. But God turned the Crucifixion into the best thing that ever happened, using Jesus’ sacrifice to redeem humanity. That’s why it’s “Good” Friday. Although an evil act is never good, God somehow manages to make good come out of it. Remember, back in the Garden were not only Adam, Eve, and God, but also the serpent. God is spirit (John 4:24). If God created us, a hybrid, surely, he first created purely spiritual creatures like himself, the angels. We’re the oddballs. Just as God has no control over my free will, the angels were put to a one-time challenge: Are you for or against my material creation and children? Just like God has assigned us jobs, be a good mom, husband, priest, worker, daughter, citizen, etc., the angels could choose to do good or evil, to serve humanity or turn against us. I can make a lot of mistakes, which I do, and repent, which I also do, and try again. Not so the angels. Since their preternatural consciousness can see all the consequences of their choice, they’re locked into one or the other, good or evil. Hence, the fallen angels made the fallen world, as "the whole world is under the power of the evil one" (1 Jn 5:19b). But God (always) had a plan. He knew what would happen. Still, people blame God for suffering and evil; he should’ve stopped it. Jesus, though, redeems God. Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, God's only begotten Son, endured suffering and evil also, and much worse than all of us will ever likely experience: "Look and see whether there is any suffering like my suffering" (Lam 1:12). God became man. And in voluntarily suffering for love of us, to save us and open heaven for us with his victory over sin, death, and the devil, reconciling humanity to God by his cross, Jesus the Son of God makes God worthy of our love. Because God suffered for us, we can now willingly suffer for God, and for others, as St. Paul did: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church" (Col 1:24), thereby making us co-redeemers. When faced with unavoidable suffering, our response must be Christ's: "I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name" (Jn 12:27-28). Be honored that as an adopted child of the Father, you have the same calling as his only begotten Son. For "you received a Spirit of adoption, through which we cry, Abba , 'Father!'" (Rom 8:15), better translated, "Daddy." "We are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him" (Rom 8:16-17). "Therefore, he is not ashamed to call them 'brothers'" (Heb 2:11b). St. Paul has the proper perspective: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us" (Rom 8:18). Though God doesn’t necessarily take our suffering away because of the fallen world, God lends his presence to our plight. "Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested" (Heb 2:18). God, however, providentially uses the devil to allow God's children to freely choose good or evil. Our free choice, challenge, and destiny.

As Catholics, we’re not required to believe in a private revelation, like Our Lady of Guadalupe, for example, but it’s not that easy to scientifically explain away: The Science (or Lack Thereof) Behind Juan Diego’s Tilma However, I never met an elementary believer who thought it odd that the assumed, resurrected Mary could appear any way God wants, even as a pregnant Aztec. God has some fun in the resurrection appearances because from scripture we can only conclude that Jesus sometimes looked like other people after he rose. His friends had to recognize his personality to realize it was Jesus. By the tomb, Mary Magdalene thinks he’s the gardener (Jn 20:15). She must have been a close friend, because once Jesus says her name, she immediately knows it’s him. Mark says, “he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country” (Mk 16:12), which is similar to Luke’s two walkers whose “eyes were prevented from recognizing him” (Lk 24:16). They walked and talked with and about Jesus for seven miles not knowing this guy was the very person they were discussing. How funny. Jesus does not look otherworldly because they would have fallen down and worshiped him. Like Our Lady of Guadalupe, he just looks like someone else. When Jesus then takes the bread and says the blessing, in his own style of course--with Eucharistic overtones, substance without appearance, Jesus, God, looking different--is when they grasp who he is. The best part, though, is at that moment, Jesus vanishes. I’m already laughing. Now imagine telling others, he rose, we saw him, but he was shorter with a different face and body, and then he disappeared into thin air. But we knew it was Jesus. Yet that’s what some witnesses seem to be saying. A supernatural Seinfeld episode. The real divine comedy. After catching no fish during the night, even his good friends the apostles do not perceive this stranger’s identity: “When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus” (Jn 21:4). It took the great catch of fish for John to say, “It is the Lord” (Jn 21:7). “And none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they realized it was the Lord” (Jn 21:12b). God plays some jokes on his friends.

He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in his sight.-- Eph 1:4 These amazing ideas and great quotes—including the title—are from street corner preacher Frank Sheed’s Theology for Beginners , abbreviated: Our understanding of Our Blessed Lady depends totally upon our understanding of her Son. Everything about her flows from her being Christ’s mother; as our understanding of him grows, our understanding of her grows. She is the mother of God. The child she conceived and bore is God the Son. In his divine nature he had existed eternally. But this human nature he owed to her as much as anyone owes his human nature to his mother. As God he was born of the Father before all ages; as man he was born at a particular point of time of the Virgin Mary. Do not think it sufficient to call her the mother of his human nature; natures do not have mothers. She was mother, as yours or mine is, of the person born of her. And the person was God the Son. Most of us find this truth almost shattering in its greatness; it is not simply a biographical fact about Jesus which one notes but does not linger upon. There are those who do see it like that and so dismiss it. On the outdoor platform I once had a questioner who said, solemnly: “I respect Christ’s mother as I respect my own.” The overwhelming temptation, when one hears such a remark, is to point to the difference between the two sons. In seeing what the difference is, a good starting point is the simple fact that this Son existed before his mother. So that he is the only Son who was in a position to choose who his mother should be; he could choose therefore what every son would choose if he could, the mother who would suit him best. Further it goes with the very heart of sonship that a son wants to give his mother gifts; and Christ, being God, could give her all that she would want. To his giving power there was no limit. And above all she wanted was union with God, the completest union possible to a human being of her will with God’s will, grace therefore in her soul. He was her Son, and he gave it lavishly. She responded totally, so that she was sinless. It was her response to the grace of God that made her supreme in holiness—higher even than the highest angel, the Church tells us. By grace, Our Lady outranks all created beings. But only because she responded to God’s love more perfectly. St John Chrysostom says, “She would not have been blessed, though she had borne him in the body, had she not heard the word of God and kept it” (Lk 11:28).

Frank Sheed, Theology for Beginners, 1957 , abbreviated, continued: We have considered one result of Our Lady’s being the mother of God—all sons want to give their mothers gifts, but this Son could give without any limit save her power to receive; and what in supreme measure he gave was sanctifying grace. But there is one special element in his power to give that we might easily overlook. Because he was God, he could give his mother gifts not only before he was born of her, but before she was born herself. This is the meaning of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It refers not to Christ’s conception in Our Lady’s womb but to her conception in the womb of her own mother. It does not mean, either, that she was virginally conceived; she had a father and mother. It means that her Son’s care for her and gifts to her began from the first moment of existence. For all of us conception comes when God creates a soul and unites it with the bodily element formed in the mother’s womb. But from the very first moment of her soul’s creation, it had, by God’s gift, not natural life only but supernatural life. What this means quite simply is that she whom God chose to be mother never existed for an instant without sanctifying grace in her soul. Yet for many devoted lovers of the Blessed Virgin, a troubling question remains. Our Lady had said in the Magnificat: “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” How could God be her Savior, what was there to save her from, if she had grace always? To save men from their sins is a great mercy of God; but to save this one woman from ever sinning was a greater mercy, but still a mercy. Not only that. Sinless as she was, possessed of grace at every instant, she was still a member of a fallen race, a race to which heaven was closed. The Savior’s redeeming act opened heaven to her as to all members of the race. The Assumption means the taking of Our Lady, body and soul, into heaven. It is a doctrine of the Church that all would receive back the bodies from which their souls had been separate at death. The gap between was a result of sin, and Our Lady was sinless. At the Annunciation, theologians hold that in saying, “May it be done to me according to your word,” Our Lady uttered the consent of the human race to the first step in its redemption. The Assumption means that in heaven she represents the human race redeemed; she alone is, body and soul, where all the saved will one day be. At Calvary, when our Lord gave her the apostle John to be her son, he was not simply making provision for her. It was part of his plan of redemption, that he was giving her to be the mother of John—not of John as himself but of humanity. From that moment she is the mother of us all. What does motherhood carry with it? Essentially love and total willingness to serve. Those two things Catholics have always seen in Mary, telling her their needs with complete confidence, inwardly conversing with her freely. That is, we pray to her; which simply means that we ask for her to pray for us—for all kinds of things, but especially for grace, which is what mattered most to her. Christ redeemed us. We are not meant to be only recipients of redemption, still less spectators and no more: we are called to be stewards in the dispensing of graces. The principal ways for every one of us are love, prayer (the Mass above all), suffering. Everyone’s prayers can help others, but the holier, the more. With Christ and in Christ we are called upon to take part in redeeming others. All are meant to take part in his redeeming work, but Mary above all; for she was sinless, she was wholly love, she suffered supremely. The truth is that what the Church, the Mystical Body, does in its other members more or less well according to the individual’s will to cooperate, she in her single person does continually and perfectly. She is the first steward in the dispensing of graces, the ultimate co-redemptrix. Mary: Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate

I contend that Jesus first appeared to the apostles days after his Jerusalem appearances on the first day of the week. Odd as it sounds, based on the preponderance of scripture, most or all of the apostles weren’t in Jerusalem late Sunday after the Resurrection. Peter and the apostles fled to Galilee, out of fear of their lives. The other disciples were there, though, on that first day of the week. The Eleven skipped town. Can you blame them? Maybe they were next. Their whole world fell apart. Jesus promised the apostles at the Last Supper: "After I have been raised up, I shall go before you to Galilee" (Mt 26:32 and Mk 14:28 verbatim). The message from the angel to the women in Mark, after the Resurrection, is, “Go and tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you’” (Mk 16:7). In Matthew, Jesus says to the women at the tomb, “Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Mt 28: 10b). Luke, like John, mentions that Peter went to the tomb, saw the burial cloths, and went home: “Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened” (Lk 24:12). "Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there. Then the disciples returned home " (Jn 20:3, 6, 10). Home for Peter is Galilee. It takes a few days to walk there. Jesus predicts, "The hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home " (Jn 16:32). In the addendum to his original ending, John adds the story of the great catch of fish. John’s original ending was, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (Jn 20:30-31). This is obviously how John first ended. The NAB says the next part below was added before John was published (as all versions/copies have it). A TV reporter asked a mom how she was coping with the loss of her son in the Iraq war. She said she did a lot of cooking, because that’s what she liked to do; cooking gave her some peace in dealing with her tragedy. Peter’s the same. He goes fishing after his tragedy: "After this, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberius [aka Galilee]. He revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, 'I am going fishing.' They said to him, 'We also will come with you.' "(Jn 21:1-3a). Then the great catch of fish follows. Remember, this story comes after John’s other appearances, but is chronologically the first appearance to the apostles because going fishing makes sense only if Peter and the apostles don’t yet know about the Resurrection. Earlier, John says that Thomas wasn’t around for the Jerusalem appearance: “Thomas, called Didymus, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came” (Jn 20:24). How could Thomas be there? He went back to Galilee like the rest of the Eleven. Luke knows of this post-resurrection Galilee appearance but he’s trying to remain faithful to Mark, his source. Unlike Mark and Matthew, Luke’s call of the fishermen includes the great catch of fish (Lk 5:1-11). In addition, Peter kneels to Jesus and says, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” This is Peter’s newfound faith, “Lord,” and repentance, “sinful man,” for his three denials. Further, in John, Jesus is cooking fish (Jn 21:9). In Luke, Jesus eats a piece of baked fish after his resurrection (Lk 24:42-43). Finally, in Luke’s appearance on the road to Emmaus, Jesus gives the “impression that he’s going on farther,” (Lk 24:28), yeah, to Galilee. Mark may know this Galilee appearance also, because in his gospel, the four fishermen leave their boats and follow Jesus even before he does any signs (Mk 1:16-20), which is somewhat implausible for this crew. For Mark, it’s more important to show that the apostles were with Jesus from the beginning. Nonetheless, something extraordinary obviously happened to these scaredy-cats who fled after the crucifixion, because the apostles soon returned to the temple area in Jerusalem, boldly proclaiming Jesus Christ, ultimately giving their lives for him. "All day long, both at the temple and in their homes, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Messiah, Jesus" (Acts 5:42), despite being warned, flogged, imprisoned, and ultimately martyred. What prompted the apostles' dramatic change of heart and newfound courage? They saw him again. If Jesus did not rise, Christianity would have fizzled out. And of course, the women were always the first ones to know.

St. Augustine was walking on the seashore thinking about God’s nature when he noticed a boy doing something strange. After filling a seashell with water, the boy poured it into a small hole in the sand. He did this several times. Augustine asked what the boy was doing. The boy said he was putting the ocean into the hole in the sand. “That’s impossible,” he replied. But then Augustine realized he was doing the same thing. He was trying to fit the infinite God into his finite brain, which is impossible. St. Augustine and the Seashell, by Dr. Marian Horvat One can, however, make some reasonable assumptions about God’s attributes. God has consciousness and identity. When confronted with the reality that the universe could not start itself or keep itself going, some might erroneously think the universe was started by some mindless force. It takes a mind with intelligence to construct and maintain such an orderly machine. The universe’s clockwork precision betrays the intelligence of its Creator. Thus, God is a Person. Since God is outside time and space, he is eternal. Augustine asked, “What was God doing before the universe was created?” The answer is at the Big Bang, not only was the universe created, but time also began. Astrophysicists claim correctly that before the Big Bang, time did not exist. Because God is outside time, he always is. God has no origin: "I am who am" (Ex 3:14). God's primary attribute, therefore, is existence. “For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself” (Jn 5:26). Furthermore, past, present, and future are simultaneously present to God. He sees us dead and buried already. God has no beginning or end. God holds all things in existence by his will alone. Deism, which believes God started the universe but is now no longer involved with it, is wrong. By his very nature, God is unable to dissociate himself from his creation. If he did somehow “forget” about us, we would revert to what we were--nothing. God is omniscient. He knows the past, present, and future positions of every subatomic particle in the universe. Better said, "Even all the hairs of your head are counted" (Mt 10:30). God is infinite, so he knows all possible permutations of every event. Because he didn’t subscribe to quantum physics, which is based on probability and uncertainty, Einstein famously said, “God doesn’t play dice.” The answer is that God does play dice. It’s just that the game is fixed. Them bones are loaded. God is all-powerful. Nothing can happen without God ordaining or permitting it. Apart from sin, the Almighty is responsible for everything that happens in the universe. There are no accidents. Though God is all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, amazingly, God is humble: "I am meek and humble of heart" (Mt 11:29). Despite all of God's overwhelming attributes, God is humble. God is not proud or arrogant. When you're so great, you know to be humble. You can't top God in humility, where the King of the Universe became one of us, dying a terrible death--for love of us. That same King unites with us at Mass under the appearance of bread and wine. How humble God is. Moreover, “because God is infinite, there is no distinction between his attributes and himself. If only my knowledge, for example, were myself, I should be knowing all the time, simply by being. I should not have to make a distinct effort to know; I should never forget. God’s knowing is not distinct from himself. It is himself. This applies to all his attributes. God is justice. God is mercy” (Frank Sheed, Theology for Beginners , 1957). Most of all, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). God loves us. How wonderful. His love is an infinite love. He cannot stop loving his creatures. “If you were the only person on earth, Christ would have still suffered and died for you” (St. Augustine). How could we not be filled with joy in knowing God loves us? Part of the response to acknowledging someone’s love is to trust. Thy will be done. Jesus, I trust in you.

Someone asked, How can I start a new religion? Get publicly executed and show up three days later. St. Paul knows that Jesus’ divinity depends on his rising from the dead. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain” (1 Cor 15:17). Jesus’ followers claim a real bodily resurrection, not some symbolic return. Jesus does not rise as a ghost: “A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Lk 24:39). However, the resurrected body is not limited by time and space. Although the resurrected body is a corporeal one, Jesus went through locked doors (Jn 20:19); he appeared and vanished suddenly (Lk 24:31). Yet he ate a fish (Lk 24:42-43). The witnesses to the resurrection were convinced Jesus physically rose. According to the gospels, the first person to see Jesus after he rose was Mary Magdalene. Mary of Magdala is described as a big (former) sinner: “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out" (Lk 8:2). Because numbers have significance, “seven demons” means the fullness of sin. Perhaps she had been an adulterer or prostitute. She certainly would not be considered a credible witness in her day. Even the disciples do not believe her: “She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe” (Mk 16:10-11). If the author of the earliest gospel wanted to convince people about the Resurrection, a woman who was a known sinner would be the last person to use as first witness. The only reason to use her is if she really did see the risen Lord first. The witness of the apostles also gives reason to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. If the Resurrection didn’t happen, Christianity would have fizzled out. Christianity is built on the blood of the martyrs. Although people have been known to give their lives for a false reason, at the time they believed it to be true. The apostles were martyred for a simple reason: they believed they saw Jesus after he had risen from the dead. There is no complicated reason behind their belief. Either they saw Jesus risen or they didn’t. All the apostles—except John, and Judas, of course—died martyrs’ deaths. These were the same apostles who deserted Jesus out of fear of their lives. At Jesus' betrayal and arrest, "all the disciples left him and fled" (Mt 26: 56B). Peter, who cowardly denied Jesus three times, was crucified upside down. Paul, who at first was an enemy of Christianity, had his head cut off. Would you die for a lie? If the apostles had not seen the resurrected Lord, what would they gain by lying? Some people might not have the courage to die for the truth. Who would die for a lie? All the martyrs needed to do to save their lives was to deny Jesus. Yet they gave their lives for him. He is risen, truly risen. 

Jesus’ command to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44) is radical. Who else in history ever gave such advice? The reason, of course, to love our enemies is because God loves them. God still cares for them and keeps them in existence, for “he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and unjust” (Mt 5:45). Seeking revenge? Dig two graves. St. Paul started off as a great enemy of Christianity: “Saul was trying to destroy the church; entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment” (Acts 8:3). He was breathing murderous threats against the disciples (Acts 9:1). Saul watched over the cloaks of those who stoned St. Stephen, the first martyr (Acts 7:58). Thus, St. Paul could be considered an accessory to murder. Saul was a bad guy. Paul admits his former misdeeds: “I imprisoned many of the holy ones with the authorization I received from the chief priests, and when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. Many times, in synagogue after synagogue, I punished them in an attempt to force them to blaspheme. I was so enraged against them that I pursued them even to foreign cities” (Acts 26:10-11). In the great miracle of his conversion, St. Paul radically, intellectually, changed his whole view of the new movement, recognizing Jesus’ truth. But what’s even more amazing, is that St. Paul became nice. He had not just a change of mind, but what’s much more difficult, St. Paul had a change of heart: “If I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2b). How can the same guy who assisted at St. Stephen’s martyrdom later write: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection”? (Col 3:12-15). I like St. Paul’s post-conversion treatment of enemies: kill them with kindness. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing so, you will heap burning coals upon his head” (Rom 12:20-21). Besides God's command, another reason to love our enemies is that God can flip them. God can take his greatest enemy, like Saul, and make him his greatest proponent. Paul single-handedly changed the world. St. Paul’s letters made it to the New Testament. No one could ever have guessed this outcome before his conversion. Most desirably, forgiveness frees me . Why should I give my enemy free rental space in my head? I don’t have any gigabytes to spare as it is. To err is human, to forgive divine. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The sacrifice of Isaac is one of the most bizarre stories in the Bible. The background is that Abraham was a “friend of God” (Is 41:8; 2 Chr 20:7; Jas 2:23), unlike Moses (Dt 34:5), Joshua (Jos 24:29), and David (Ps 89:21) who were servants or slaves of God (NAB commentary Jn 15:15). Abraham was old like Sarah his wife (Gn 18:11). “When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said; ‘I am God the Almighty’” (Gn 17:1). “I am making you the father of a host of nations” (Gn 17:5b). God promised, “Sarah [meaning “princess” NAB] is to bear you a son, and you shall call him Isaac. I will maintain my covenant with him as an everlasting pact, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him” (19). “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3, Jas 2:23). “Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated” (Gn 21:2). After fulfilling his pledge, God then puts Abraham to the test, asking the unthinkable: “Take your son Isaac, your only one [also translated “beloved” NAB], whom you love. Offer him up as a holocaust” (Gn 22:2). As Abraham took the knife to slaughter his son, the Lord’s messenger [angel] said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy. I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son” (12). Who would sacrifice his own son? I’m sure when I said God told me to do it, my attorney would advise I plead insanity. But in hindsight, the Old Testament story makes perfect sense. It’s no longer bizarre. The sacrifice of Isaac is a prefigurement of God sacrificing his only beloved Son—for us: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

After his Resurrection, Jesus shared his power with the apostles, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Jn 20:21-22). Before his Ascension, Jesus commissioned them, “All power in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:18-20). Jesus created an office of authority for Peter and his successors. Jesus changes Simon’s name to Peter, meaning “Rock”: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:18-19). Jesus empowers Peter to be his earthly representative. To make up for his three denials of Christ, three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him (Jn 21:15-17). When Peter responds that he loves Jesus, Jesus commands him, “Feed my lambs.” The second time Jesus tells him, “Tend my sheep.” Finally, Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.” Peter is the earthly shepherd in place of Jesus. Thus, wherever Peter is, Christ’s Church is. That the Catholic Church has an unbroken line from Peter to present Pope Francis is indisputable. Check any reliable source for a list of Popes. There may be a controversy like the Western Schism when three men claimed to be Pope (below), which the Council of Constance resolved, but one was definitely Pope. Just recently, there were two living popes, when the late Benedict retired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism In an emergency, any person can baptize (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1284). In Holy Matrimony, the wife and husband give each other the sacrament, how beautiful. But Holy Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Anointing, and Holy Orders need an ordained priest or bishop. So how was Christ’s power transferred from the apostles? By the laying on of hands. "The imposition of hands was used in the Old Testament to signify the transmission of authority from Moses to Joshua (Nm 27:18-23; Dt 34:9). The early Christian community used it as a symbol of installation into an office: the Seven (Acts 6:6) and Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:3)" (New American Bible commentary, 1 Tm 4:14). “They presented these men [deacons] to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them” (Acts 6:6). Paul reminds Timothy to "stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands" (2 Tm 1:6). It’s like I’m holding a live wire, so I’m electrified, then someone grabs me (don’t try this at home), and the electricity flows through to the next person, and the next, ultimately, intergenerationally. The Catholic Church has apostolic succession, a sign of truth.

Catholics are sometimes puzzled when a non-Catholic Christian asks, “Are you saved?” We don’t presume salvation because I know if I make a few bad choices, I’ll be making a U-turn. How ironic is it then, that in the Catholic New American Bible, when Jesus heals someone he often says, “Your faith has saved you,” while the Protestant Revised Standard Version reads, “Your faith has made you well”? Using “Google translate” and the Greek New Testament, " η πίστη σου σε έσωσε " is indeed, “Your faith has saved you.” Hence, the Catholic translation is the more accurate one. In The Cleansing of Ten Lepers (Lk 17:11-19), all ten lepers were healed as they were going to show themselves to the priests. However, only one, a Samaritan, returned to Jesus to give thanks. It’s at this point that Jesus says to him alone because of his response, “Your faith has saved you” (Lk 17:19). All ten had faith to ask to be healed, and trust that they would be healed on the way. Jesus asks though, “Where are the other nine?” (17b). Only the Samaritan followed up on the next step, to give thanks to God. Any line in scripture needs to be interpreted within the totality of scripture and tradition. Faith in Jesus, of course, is the springboard to salvation. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6). But faith cannot be mere intellectual assent. Response is the key, as "faith without works is dead" (Jas 2:26). The same St. Paul who said, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9), also said, “If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing" (1 Cor 13:2b). In the Parable of the Sower (Mk 4:1-9), some seed scattered among rocks “sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it produced no grain” (5-7). In the parable’s explanation, the ones sown on rocky ground are those “who, when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy. But they have no root; they last only for a time. Then when persecution or tribulation comes because of the word, they quickly fall away” (Mk 4:16-17). Those sown among thorns are “people who hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit" (Mk 4:18-19). Both groups initially had faith but fell away. They failed to persevere. “We have become partners of Christ if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end” (Heb 3:14). "But as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance" (Lk 8:15). God "will repay everyone according to his works: eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works" (Rom 2:6-7).

Like every family, the Holy Family had their share of misunderstandings. When Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem after the feast of Passover, without telling his parents, they frantically searched for him for three days (Lk 2:41-52). When they finally find him, his mother exclaimed: “Son, why have you done this? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety” (48). His answer was basically, You should’ve known where to look. I think my parents would have used a slightly different choice of words than Mary. Jesus is Lord. Mary is sinless. I guess any problem was always Joseph’s fault. Before his first miracle in John at the wedding feast in Cana (Jn 2: 1-10), his mom tells Jesus, “They have no wine” (3). “Jesus said to her, 'Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come'” (4). Despite his resistance, Jesus complied. Thus, Mary, who willingly agreed to bear the Christ (Lk: 1:38), now spurs Jesus’ public ministry. In the earliest gospel, Mark, James and John request from Jesus “that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left” (Mk 10:37). Remember, the apostles openly wondered who was the greatest (Mt 18:1-5). The request is not out of character. Jesus answered, “To sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared” (40). Isn’t John “the disciple whom Jesus loved”? (Jn 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:20, and 21:24). So who could these two honorees be, whose places are already set? Matthew, who copies this story from Mark, changes the questioner to the mother of James and John (Mt 20:20). “The reason for Matthew’s making the mother the petitioner is not clear” (NAB commentary). However, by using “mother,” Matthew is giving the answer to the question by making us think of “mother.” Of course, Mary and Joseph, his mom and dad, the people closest to him, are at Jesus’ right and left in his glory. They raised Jesus and believed in him before anyone else. Our Lady was there from womb to tomb to upper room. Who else could sit in those designated spots?

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.--St. Augustine It’s sad that some people go through life not knowing why they’re here. Except for daily existence, life has no transcendent meaning for many. They trudge through this often difficult and frustrating life with no ultimate purpose. Life has its good times for sure, but they are often short-lived. Everyone suffers. Not to be a killjoy, but life is hard. That’s just reality. People become old, sick, homeless, addicted, abused, unemployed, handicapped, rejected; they endure war, poverty, crime, natural disasters, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Some are starving to death today. The specter of death always hangs above us. Even if our lives are relatively free of immediate life-threatening suffering, our sisters and brothers are enduring it, which sometimes is more painful to watch than if it were us. What’s the point? If life is just going to be eighty years—or much less—of suffering, and then I die and that’s it, I’m disappointed. There is nothing to look forward to. St. Paul agrees: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all" (1 Cor 15:19). Oftentimes, especially when we’re young, we forget about death. Death, however, eventually reminds us of our finite existence. If after death my consciousness ceases to exist, who cares about anything else? Let’s just live for today. That’s why people run after all sorts of diversions: sports fanaticism, singing idols, drugs, alcohol, illicit relations, excessive exercise, workaholism, endless TV, internet addiction, materialism, power, and anything else that makes people temporarily forget or numb the meaninglessness of life. I read about a seventy-two-year-old who waited thirty-six hours for Yankee playoff tickets. I wonder if he went to church that week. Although sports, music, exercise, and the internet are good in themselves, these amusements and activities cannot be the main purpose of life. Ultimately, they never satisfy. True fulfillment cannot be found in transient things. Life can only have meaning if it transcends this temporary earthly existence. Having children or writing books are two ways to outlast your allotted time, in a sense. Yet they fall far short of true transcendence. The only life that would give hope is an afterlife in which we retain our identity. The meaning of earthly life is dependent on whether there exists true eternal life. If there is a life beyond this one, then life on earth becomes incredibly meaningful since every action has eternal consequences. On the other hand, if there is no afterlife, then life is meaningless. Ironically, what you believe happens after death, if anything, is what gives or does not give life meaning. But there is an afterlife, because there is a God, who loves us and opened wide the gates of Paradise. And that makes all the difference. "What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him."--1 Cor 2:9.

The destruction of the Jerusalem temple was in 70 AD, around the time the earliest gospel, Mark, was published. Some might erroneously think that Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s destruction, “There will not be one stone left upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mk 13:2b), was added after the event. However, there are some stones remaining upon each other to this day, at the Western Wall. Mark did not make up the close, but slightly inaccurate quote. Another mistaken belief is that the cleansing of the temple didn’t happen, but is only a parable in action. Biblical scholar, college textbook author, and self-described atheist-agnostic (because of suffering and evil) Dr. Bart Ehrman: “It is virtually certain that some days before his death Jesus entered the temple, overturned some of the tables that were set up inside, and generally caused a disturbance. The account is multiply attested (Mark 11 and John 2) and is consistent with the predictions scattered throughout the tradition about the coming destruction of the temple.” 1 In the synoptic gospels, the cleansing of the temple (Mk 11:15-19) is toward the end of Jesus’ public ministry, immediately after his entry into Jerusalem (Mk 11:1-11). John, though, puts the cleansing at the beginning of his ministry (Jn 2:13-25). “The order of events in the gospel narratives is often determined by theological motives rather than by chronological data” (NAB commentary John). The later entry is probably more chronologically accurate, after Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, when he was literally riding high, on a donkey. Though the chief priests and scribes “were seeking a way to put him to death, they feared him because the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching” (Mk 11:18). Jesus’ exalted entry, with the crowds crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (9b) prevented his enemies from taking action when Jesus then cleansed the temple. “Jesus made a whip out of cords,” which is one of two things Jesus “makes” in the gospels; the other is clay to heal a blind man (Jn 9:6). He then drove out those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there, overturned their tables, and spilled their coins (Jn 2:14-15). Jesus' righteous anger is because the exclusive sellers are price gouging pilgrims' purchases and currency exchanges: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. But you have made it a den of thieves" (Mk 11:17; Is 56:7; Jer 7:11). Furthermore, the animals for sacrifice, and the means to purchase them, will no longer be needed anyway because Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. “This episode indicates the post-resurrectional replacement of the temple by the person of Jesus” (NAB John). Jesus’ opponents couldn’t understand that the temple will no longer be the place to worship God. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. He was speaking about the temple of his body” (Jn 2:19, 21). God dwells in the person of Jesus. He is the new temple. And amazingly, by virtue of our Baptism, we are temples of God as well: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). ________________ 1 Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 221.

Once again, the Pharisees test Jesus, to try to make him make a mistake so they can bring a charge against him. In a dramatic but cruel scene (Jn 7:53-8:11), they make a woman stand in the middle of Jesus’ listeners, saying, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women (Dt 22:23-24). So what do you say?” (4-5). (Where’s the man involved?) His enemies place Jesus in another no-win situation. They know Jesus would never agree to stone her, but how can he reconcile that with the commandment “Thou shall not commit adultery” and its accompanying penalty? (Ex 20:14). Then “Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger” (6), the only time Jesus writes in the gospels. Jesus said, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (7), and he kept writing. “And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders” (9). What could Jesus possibly have written, to make his enemies scatter? I say, if he wrote only the names of their past girlfriends, it would be enough for holier-than-thou guys to vamoose. This story is intriguing because it’s “a later insertion, missing from all early Greek manuscripts. It is found in different places in different manuscripts” (NAB commentary). The reason the gospel editors may have been initially hesitant about including the story is that Jesus is too lenient, too merciful. After her accusers scatter, Jesus, the Judge of humanity, asks the woman, “Has no one condemned you? Neither do I condemn you” (10-11). His advice is only, “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore” (11). The Pharisees never experienced or imagined the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where because of Christ's sacrifice, in God’s mercy, sins are forgiven. “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 976; Jn 20:22b-23). “There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive. There is no one, however wicked and guilty, who may not confidently hope for forgiveness, provided his repentance is honest. Christ who died for all desires that in his Church the gates of forgiveness should always be open to anyone who turns away from sin” (CCC 982).

When a scholar of the law asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied with the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37). “For ethnic and religious reasons, the Samaritans and Jews were opposed to one another” (NAB commentary), in other words, enemies. On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus tried to pass through Samaria, but the Samaritans would not let him (Lk 9:51-56). James and John were so angry at Samaritan inhospitality that they wanted fire to come down on them, the way Elijah called down fire on his enemies (2 Kgs 1:10-12). I like St Paul’s revenge, kill them with kindness: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head” (Rom 12:20). Jesus simply rebuked James and John, taking a different route. Of course, in the Parable, Jesus makes the sworn enemy the hero of the story. Hence the ancestry of the person standing before you has no bearing on her personality, whether she’s nice or not. Prejudice, or pre-judgment, makes no sense. I’ve met many, many people of all sorts, whose personality was impossible to predict based on their makeup. One cannot logically summarily dismiss a whole segment of people. Recall the Samaritan woman who goes off as a missionary to proclaim Jesus (Jn 4:4-42). When the priest and Levite approach the victim, they cross to the other side. They avoid the victim because he may be dead. He’s described as “half-dead” (Lk 10:30). Being close to a corpse violates the Jewish law, making one ritually impure (Lv 21:11). Because God delivered the Jews through Moses, the lawgiver, from 400 years of slavery under the Egyptians, destroying their powerful army, leading the Chosen People to the promised land, they believed “The law was God’s greatest gift to his people. Ancient Jews were committed to following the law because they had already been shown favor by God. Keeping the law was not a dreaded task that everyone hated. Jews typically considered the law a great joy to uphold.”1 Imagine in that everything you do, wake up, go to bed, prepare to eat, finish eating, in everything, you bless God for his good favor. How wonderful. The legal scholar’s mistake is making legalism superior to love. “Love never fails. Faith, hope, love remain these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:8,13). Love trumps the law.

St. Paul thought the Second Coming was imminent, to take place in his lifetime. In the earliest writing in the New Testament, circa 51 AD, he consoles those in the Thessalonica community whose loved ones have now passed before the Parousia: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep. We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thes 4:14-15). The controversy comes from the next lines: “For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thes 4:16-17a). ’’Will be caught up together” literally means snatched up, carried off. From the Latin verb used, rapiemur , has come the idea of “the rapture,” when believers will be transported away from the woes of the world; this construction combines this verse with Mt 24:40-41: “Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left” (NAB commentary 1 Thes). The big, recent proponent of the rapture is late author Tim LaHaye. His first book and movie, “Left Behind,” starts with a pilot and stewardess discussing that some passengers disappeared during their flight. Only their clothes were on their seats when the plane landed. I guess it’s, “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again” (Job 1:21). Like any few lines, the rapture, also known as "millennial dispensationalism" (1 Thes 4:17 NAB commentary), must be considered in the entirety of scripture and tradition. Belief in the rapture is a relatively new, mainly American Evangelical idea to which the majority of Christian traditions do not subscribe Rapture - Wikipedia . The many quotes about the Second Coming, however, portray that Christ’s living disciples will experience the Parousia on earth, and not get a pass: “And he will send out his angels with a trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds” (Mt 24:31); “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand” (Lk 21:27-28); “For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth” (Lk 21: 35); “The one who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Mk 13:13b); “Amen I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Mt 16:28). “So if they say to you, ‘He is in the desert,’ do not go out there; if they say, ‘He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For just as lightning comes from the east and is seen as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be’” (Mt 24:26-27).