Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

                                                                                                                                                            

                          

Crowning of Mary
Assumption Church
Fairfield CT

In 1950 when the world was still recovering from the ravages of the Second World War, Pope Pius XII promulgated the doctrine which we celebrate today, the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. Now Catholics didn't start believing in the Assumption only in 1950. Think of how many churches were constructed before 1950 dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. Belief in Mary's Assumption can be found in the writings of the early Church Fathers and for centuries artists have delighted in rendering the scene of Mary being taken up into Heaven.

Of course, Catholics have always loved images of Mary. In today's first reading we have the famous image from the Book of Revelation of "the woman clothed with the sun" who was about to give birth to a son, "destined to rule all the nations." In today's gospel we have St. Luke's famous account of the Visitation. Soon after the Annunciation, Mary embarks on a journey to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who is herself expecting. Artists have loved to portray this tender scene of the meeting of the two women. The young Mary, barely pregnant, greets her elder cousin whose pregnancy is well advanced.

St. Luke is the only evangelist to describe this meeting but, of course, he wasn't present. How did he get his information? It's possible that he was merely relating an earlier oral tradition and giving us an account of what the early Church believed Mary would have said on this occasion. Perhaps he talked with the Blessed Mother herself after the death and resurrection of her Son. In that event, this passage would represent her profound recollection of the Visitation in the light of everything that came after.

Nevertheless, what image does St. Luke give us of Mary? We certainly can't take from his account that Mary was a bewildered, frightened teenager. The very name, Mary or Miriam, means "the exalted one." Scholars tell us that the expression "leaped for joy" is only used in the Bible when one is in the presence of the Almighty, such as the time King David danced in front of the Ark of the Covenant. Elizabeth's greeting,

            Blessed are you among women,

            and blessed is the fruit of your womb...

which we repeat every day in the "Hail Mary," proclaims that from Mary will come the Savior of the world.

The beautiful prayer of Mary which we call the Magnificat is a collection of verses from many sources in the Hebrew scriptures, especially the Psalms, those beautiful hymns of praise. We all know the beginning,

            My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

            my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

            for he has looked upon his lowly servant.

            From this day all generations will call me blessed:

This is the song of a great Queen who has accepted a great mission. 

In artistic renderings of the Immaculate Conception Mary is portrayed as the woman clothed with the Sun, with the Moon at her feet, and stars in her crown. Her dress is white but she is covered with a blue mantle. Ordinarily, she is pictured with a red dress covered with the blue mantle. Now "red" is the symbol of earth or humanity but "blue" is the symbol of divinity. The artists follow the teaching of the Church. Mary is human but she has been cloaked with immortality. In the vigil Mass for today's feast, the words of St. Paul apply not only to Mary but to any who put on the mantle of her Son.

            When that which is mortal clothes itself with immortality,

            then the word that is written shall come about:

            'Death is swallowed up in victory.

            Where, O death, is your victory?

            Where, O death, is your sting?'

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Reading 1. Revelation 11: 19a; 12: 1-6a, 10ab

Reading II. 1 Corinthians 15: 20-27

Gospel. Luke 1: 39-56 (Visitation).

Bread of Life

                      19^thSunday in Ordinary Time

                     

       The gospel readings for this year, the B cycle of readings, are usually taken from the Gospel of Mark. But here in the midst of summer we are presented on five successive Sundays with a series of readings from the famous sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. It is famous because of its exposition of the theme of the Eucharist as the bread of life, the bread that will never fail, and will give eternal life.

We recall that two weeks ago the sixth chapter of John began with the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes whereby Jesus fed a large crowd with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of small fish. Immediately after that Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee and after the Apostles expressed amazement, he told them that they did not understand the significance of the multiplication of the loaves.

Last week Jesus reminded the crowd that followed him not to look for signs or miracles but “to work for food that endures for eternal life which the Son of Man will give you.” 

Today’s readings take up the theme of the food from heaven that will give life. It is clear that the food given to the starving prophet Elijah in today’s first reading was not ordinary food. A hearth cake and a jug of water would not be sufficient to revive a dying man and enable him to embark on a journey of 40 days and nights.

Today we are in the midst of John’s great Eucharistic discourse and we hear the famous words of Jesus.

Amen, amen, I say to you,

whoever believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert but they died,

This is the bread that comes down from heaven

so that one may eat it and not die.

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.

It has always been difficult for people to accept these words. Even some of his disciples found it hard to accept and left Him. Down through the centuries it has also been hard to believe. Things came to a head five hundred years ago when some, although not all, Protestant reformers could not believe, despite the words of Jesus in scriptural passages like today’s, that the bread and wine offered in the Eucharistic sacrifice could actually become the body and blood of Jesus. The words of Jesus could not be taken literally. They were just symbolic.

Abuses in the customs and practices of the church at the time of the Reformation even led reformers to complain that the church had departed from the original practices and beliefs of the earliest Christians. Reformers argued that they were not leaving the church but restoring it to its original purity.

Nevertheless, in the past five hundred years, the more scholars have studied the early church, the more they have seen that from the beginning Christians took the words of Jesus in John’s gospel to mean what he said. Almost immediately after the Resurrection of Jesus they began to regularly share a Eucharistic meal together in the same way as He did at the Last Supper when He told them to “do this in remembrance of me.” The earliest Christians believed that Jesus was the bread of life, and that they ate this bread when they shared the Eucharistic meal.

However, what does it mean to believe? How do we know we believe? St. Paul was one of those early Christians. Christian belief is shown in action. 

All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling

must be removed from you, along with all malice,

and be kind to one another, compassionate,

forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

The early Christians understood that you could not say you loved someone if you treated them badly. If they did harm their loved ones or their neighbor, they knew that they must repair the damage. 

During Roman times pagans came to see that Christians behaved differently than others. Often when plague or disease struck Roman cities, pagan priests and officials fled the cities for fear of contamination but Christians stayed behind to care for not only their co-believers but also for their pagan neighbors.

It is not hard to find this caring among believers all over the world today. Despite scorn, ridicule, and outright persecution, Christians continue to act on their beliefs. I recall one teacher at an inner-city Catholic school whose students were mostly non-Catholic, who said “we teach them not because they are Catholic, but because we are Catholic.”

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Reading 1.  1 Kings 19: 4-8

Reading II. Ephesians 4: 30-5:2

Gospel. John 6: 41-51 (the bread of life)

Feed the Hungry

Mosaic in front of Altar
Church of the Loaves and Fishes
Capernaum near Sea of Galile

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's first reading from the Book of Kings tells the story of how the prophet Elisha fed a hundred people with just twenty barley loaves and some fresh grain. It is in today's readings because it obviously introduces the feeding of five thousand people by Jesus that is recounted in today's gospel.

We notice that Elisha's servant questioned how they could feed so many with so little but that the prophet insisted that he distribute what food they had. Just as in the gospel after all had eaten, there was still food left over. Finally, Elisha took no credit for himself. He said that he was just following the instructions of the Lord.

In today's gospel we have St. John's account of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes where instead of 100, Jesus fed 5000 people with only five loaves and two fish. Despite the fact that this miracle is the only one to appear in all four gospels, it is one of the most difficult for many people to accept. Today it is fashionable to offer a purely natural or sociological explanation. Some think that people were shamed by the selfless sharing of Jesus, and proceeded to take food which they had hidden about their persons and share it with their neighbors.

That's one theory but I prefer to think that the God who is responsible for every grain of wheat that grows on the earth, and for every fish that swims in the sea, could feed 5000 people. Right after this miracle we read in St. Mark's gospel that Jesus saved His disciples from drowning when he calmed the storm at sea. St. Mark relates this incident to the miracle of the loaves. He says that the disciples in the boat "were utterly beside themselves with astonishment, for they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was blinded."

 Like many of the miracles of Jesus the loaves and fishes follows a standard format. Jesus is busy at his work of teaching and healing when a problem--a hungry crowd--comes to his attention. He asks Philip where can they find enough food to feed the multitude. Like Elisha's servant, Philip expresses doubt. He explains that even if they could find the food, the cost would be beyond their means. At this point Andrew, Peter's brother, chimes in and says that a boy has five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus then performed a kind of liturgy that should remind us of what happens at every Mass.

Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,
and distributed them to those who were reclining,
and also as much of the fish as they wanted

When all the five thousand had eaten their fill, there was enough left over to fill five wicker baskets.


When Jesus performed a physical miracle like this, we can usually be sure that it had a spiritual dimension. Remember how after he had forgiven the sins of a paralyzed man, he healed his paralysis as a sign he could also forgive his spiritual malady. This miracle, where Jesus provided food for the 5000, has also always been viewed as a precursor of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Although many people in the world today still are hungry, many more seem to duffer from a real spiritual hunger.

This miracle, where Jesus provided food for the 5000, has also always been viewed as a precursor of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Many people find it hard today to believe that the Body and Blood of Jesus are offered in the Sacrifice of the Mass. Perhaps this lack of belief is one of the things that has led to so much of the spiritual hunger in our world. 

The Apostles must have been reminded of the loaves and fishes at the Last Supper when they saw Jesus take the bread, offer thanks, break it, and then say, "This is my body that is for you?" How could the bread be His Body? Or what about, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." How could the wine be His Blood? We know that they believed it because He said it and because He would raise His Body from the dead only three days later. We also know that the first Christian communities also believed it and from the beginning repeated the Lord's words whenever they gathered together "in remembrance of Him."

In today's second reading from the letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul calls for unity in that community of new Christians. He says that there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. No where is this unity seen more than when we all join together to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord during the sacrifice of the Mass. It is there that He feeds us in the same way that he did the 5000 on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

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Reading 1. 2 Kings 4: 42-44
Reading II. Ephesians 4: 1-6
Gospel. John 6: 1-15 (Loaves and Fishes).

The Little Way

                           15^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                         

When we hear of prophets we usually think of them as kind of mystical foretellers of the future. However, the special talent of the prophets we encounter in scripture was their ability to describe with sometimes brutal accuracy the wrongs of their own day and call for repentance and renewal.

For the most part, the prophets we encounter in scripture claimed no special gifts or talents. Last week we saw that the Prophet Ezekiel claimed that despite his own weakness or lack of ability, the Lord had called him to carry out a mission. In our first reading today, the Prophet Amos says much the same thing. He claims that he is not a prophet and that he does not even have the learning or background to be one.

I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores,

The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me,

Go, prophesy to my people Israel.

In other words, Amos was just a simple, ordinary man no different from anyone else.             

In today’s gospel we see Our Lord entrusting a bunch of simple, ordinary men with a mission. Today’s gospel reading from Mark picks up right where we left off last week. We recall that after performing many healings and miracles in a neighboring region, Jesus returned home only to meet a doubtful reception from his own people. He was led to say that a “prophet is not without honor except in his own country.”

Nevertheless, Jesus commissions the Apostles to embark on a mission in the same way as Ezekiel and Amos. They wouldn’t need book learning or years in a seminary. They wouldn’t need a lot of money or equipment.

He instructed them to take nothing for the journey

But a walking stick—

No food, no sack, no money in their belts. 

His authority would be all they needed to perform the same works that He had done. So, without any special training or experience they set out to do His work. We are told that like the prophets of old they preached repentance, drove out many demons, and “anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

When we hear of these first Apostles, we must always put ourselves in their shoes or sandals. We speak of our bishops as being successors of the Apostles, but we are all successors of the Apostles in our own little way. But how are we to be apostles or prophets with our own limited time and abilities?

I knew a young widow he told me about all that she was doing to care for and raise her young daughter. It was truly admirable. Nevertheless, she wished that she had more time to devote to God’s work, or to spend more time in prayer and devotion. I think I did right to tell her that when she cared for her daughter, she was indeed doing God’s work, the work she had been chosen to do. Her prayers were the words she said to her daughter. So many times in the gospel Jesus directs our attention away from himself, and asks us to care for those entrusted to our care. His one commandment was to love one another.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians, that is the young Christian community in the city of Ephesus, with a long introduction that seems to indicate that they are all apostles. He writes,

In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.

Even though we are simple, ordinary people involved in the mundane tasks of life, these same mundane tasks have been elevated or consecrated through the sacrifice of Jesus and the sanctification of his Holy Spirit. 

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Reading 1.  Amos 7: 12-15

Reading II. Ephesians 1: 3-14

Gospel. Mark 6: 7-13 (Jesus Summoned the Twelve)