3rd Sunday of Easter--We Have an Archbishop!
"We have an Archbishop."
This was quite a week! Unless you've been living in a cave, you know that after months of waiting and months of endless uninformed speculation, the Holy Father has sent us a new shepherd, Bishop Robert J. Carlson from the Diocese of Saginaw, MI.
The archdiocese held a press conference on Tuesday to introduce the Archbishop-elect. He seemed personable, very bishop-like in his comments. He's an Irishman from St. Paul, MN which is a good thing. He's also a story-teller as most good Irish priests are. Not surprisingly, the local press started their negative spin almost immediately. The Post published their first negative piece just 24 hours later. (He takes instructions from the Vatican!) But local television didn't even wait that long. On one station, they interviewed a woman who said, "I just hope he's not as controversial as the last guy." No word whether the woman was Catholic or not.
If that woman were here, I would ask her why she wants a non-controversial leader. Isn't controversy exactly what our Church is about? Has there ever been a public figure in the history of the world more controversial than Jesus? Hasn't our Church been the center of controversy ever since?
Today we hear from St. Peter, by way of St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. We hear from St. John, and we hear from Jesus himself, again through the writing of St. Luke. Three men. All intimately familiar with Jesus and all giving us a controversial message.
Peter says, "Repent, therefore and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away."
John tells us, "Those who say 'I know Him', but do not keep his commandments are liars and truth is not in them."
Finally, Jesus Himself speaks to the Apostles and to us, "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem."
You can't get much more controversial than that!
I spent some time this week looking at some of the things our Archbishop-elect has written and said and I'd say he is controversial. In January of last year he wrote a "Pastoral Letter on Evangelization". Here's how he began:
I'm not going to read you the whole seven page letter, you can find it easily online, but obviously it's about evangelization. It's about the hostility of our 21st century culture to Jesus' Church, a culture of that views murder as a choice. So what are we supposed to do when faith and culture clash? As the Bishop points out, this isn't new. We've been down this road before. Like the kids say, "been there, done that".
The early Christians lived during the heyday of the Roman Empire. For the first 300 years of the Church, the climate was very anti-Christian. It varied from unfriendly to the new Church to openly hostile. At times, Christians were even killed. But, as we know, the Roman Empire is long gone while the Church is still alive and growing more than 2,000 years later. Even the Empire's language is gone. It's pretty ironic that the only place you still hear Latin spoken today is in the Catholic Church.
But how did the Church survive? What was their secret? It's no secret, it was the words and deeds of the Christians themselves that drew new followers into the Church and made it a force to be reckoned with.
The bishop points out that the word "martyr" means witness. Even though we think of martyrs as those who gave their lives for the faith, early Christian martyrdom just meant bearing witness to Christ in words and deeds. He writes, "This is our roadmap. The Church today, like the early Church, needs people who are ready for martyrdom--people who are willing to let their words and deeds bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, people who are willing to make sacrifices so that the truth of the Gospel can be heard, our culture challenged, and our world transformed."
Jesus revealed Himself by His words and by His actions. Do we really think that people would have listened to Jesus if he had just been a preacher? In the history of the Jewish people there had been lots of preachers. Good, inspired preaching was nothing new. No, it was Jesus' acts that made people stop and listen. Without the healings; without the exorcisms; without the multiplication of the loaves and fishes; they might have thought this was just another guy roaming around telling stories.
Today is no different. We can tell the story. We can talk about Jesus, how He died and rose from the grave to pay for our sins. But like St. James said in his letter, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give him the necessities of the body, what good is it? so also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 2: 14-19, 26)
"Good works" is a pretty generic term. What are these "good works" we're supposed to do? It can be a lot of things. It can be stopping to help someone with a flat tire. It can be taking a casserole to a friend who's dealing with an illness or a death in the family. It can be bringing a yellow Meal-a-Month bag to church. And, of course, it can be contributing to the Annual Catholic Appeal. Once a year we ask you to be as generous as you can to support all the good things that the Church does in the community.
You may be thinking that it's a rough economy. You really can't afford to give any more. But look at it this way. There are people in this community who are in great need; greater need than any of us. But, and this is important, how do we know that this time next year we may not need the services of one of the agencies supported by the ACA? There are a lot of people in our community, right here in this church, whose situations have changed dramatically since April, 2008. Many of us have lost jobs. Many of us have gotten sick. Many of us have just gotten a year older and find ourselves in need of services provided by ACA agencies.
I'm not going to take your time to go over all the good things your money does, you can read about it in the pamphlets in the pews, or check it out on the archdiocesan web site. I'm just going to close with another quote from Archbishop-elect Carlson's letter, "Through our words we can offer the world something to believe in. But it's our deeds that give the world a reason to believe---or not believe---the good news that we proclaim."
This was quite a week! Unless you've been living in a cave, you know that after months of waiting and months of endless uninformed speculation, the Holy Father has sent us a new shepherd, Bishop Robert J. Carlson from the Diocese of Saginaw, MI.
The archdiocese held a press conference on Tuesday to introduce the Archbishop-elect. He seemed personable, very bishop-like in his comments. He's an Irishman from St. Paul, MN which is a good thing. He's also a story-teller as most good Irish priests are. Not surprisingly, the local press started their negative spin almost immediately. The Post published their first negative piece just 24 hours later. (He takes instructions from the Vatican!) But local television didn't even wait that long. On one station, they interviewed a woman who said, "I just hope he's not as controversial as the last guy." No word whether the woman was Catholic or not.
If that woman were here, I would ask her why she wants a non-controversial leader. Isn't controversy exactly what our Church is about? Has there ever been a public figure in the history of the world more controversial than Jesus? Hasn't our Church been the center of controversy ever since?
Today we hear from St. Peter, by way of St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. We hear from St. John, and we hear from Jesus himself, again through the writing of St. Luke. Three men. All intimately familiar with Jesus and all giving us a controversial message.
Peter says, "Repent, therefore and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away."
John tells us, "Those who say 'I know Him', but do not keep his commandments are liars and truth is not in them."
Finally, Jesus Himself speaks to the Apostles and to us, "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem."
You can't get much more controversial than that!
I spent some time this week looking at some of the things our Archbishop-elect has written and said and I'd say he is controversial. In January of last year he wrote a "Pastoral Letter on Evangelization". Here's how he began:
“The good diffuses itself”: It’s an old theological principle. But you don’t have to be a theologian
to know what it means. When we find a good restaurant we want to share it with our friends, and
we do. When we hear a good song we want to share it with our friends, and we do. When we see
a good movie or read a good book or find a good recipe we want to share it with our friends, and
we do. The good diffuses itself. The good wants to be shared, and anyone who resists the desire
to share it is rightly called selfish. [I think he just called me selfish.]
It’s a curious fact about many Catholics, however, that there is one good thing that we are reluc-
tant to share: the good news of faith in Jesus Christ. [I think he just called all of us selfish.] For one reason or another, our culture tells
us that it is selfish to keep good things to ourselves, but rude to share the good news of Jesus
Christ. And, for one reason and another, we have grown comfortable with this double standard.
We have believed what our culture has told us. [So, we're supposed to go against the culture. I think that's called "controversial"]
The time has come to challenge our culture, and ourselves. The time has come to stop follow-
ing our culture, which tells us to keep God out of the public square, and start following the Lord,
who tells us that we will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). If sharing the good
news about worldly things is an expression of joy and an outpouring of love for the people with
whom we want to share that joy, then it just makes sense that we would show our love for those
same people by sharing with them the joy of following Jesus Christ.
It’s time for us to stop conforming to the world, and start transforming it. It’s time for a new
springtime of evangelization." [I think our new Archbishop may be very controversial. He wants us to go against the culture and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I don't know about you, but I like him already.]
I'm not going to read you the whole seven page letter, you can find it easily online, but obviously it's about evangelization. It's about the hostility of our 21st century culture to Jesus' Church, a culture of that views murder as a choice. So what are we supposed to do when faith and culture clash? As the Bishop points out, this isn't new. We've been down this road before. Like the kids say, "been there, done that".
The early Christians lived during the heyday of the Roman Empire. For the first 300 years of the Church, the climate was very anti-Christian. It varied from unfriendly to the new Church to openly hostile. At times, Christians were even killed. But, as we know, the Roman Empire is long gone while the Church is still alive and growing more than 2,000 years later. Even the Empire's language is gone. It's pretty ironic that the only place you still hear Latin spoken today is in the Catholic Church.
But how did the Church survive? What was their secret? It's no secret, it was the words and deeds of the Christians themselves that drew new followers into the Church and made it a force to be reckoned with.
The bishop points out that the word "martyr" means witness. Even though we think of martyrs as those who gave their lives for the faith, early Christian martyrdom just meant bearing witness to Christ in words and deeds. He writes, "This is our roadmap. The Church today, like the early Church, needs people who are ready for martyrdom--people who are willing to let their words and deeds bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, people who are willing to make sacrifices so that the truth of the Gospel can be heard, our culture challenged, and our world transformed."
Jesus revealed Himself by His words and by His actions. Do we really think that people would have listened to Jesus if he had just been a preacher? In the history of the Jewish people there had been lots of preachers. Good, inspired preaching was nothing new. No, it was Jesus' acts that made people stop and listen. Without the healings; without the exorcisms; without the multiplication of the loaves and fishes; they might have thought this was just another guy roaming around telling stories.
Today is no different. We can tell the story. We can talk about Jesus, how He died and rose from the grave to pay for our sins. But like St. James said in his letter, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give him the necessities of the body, what good is it? so also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 2: 14-19, 26)
"Good works" is a pretty generic term. What are these "good works" we're supposed to do? It can be a lot of things. It can be stopping to help someone with a flat tire. It can be taking a casserole to a friend who's dealing with an illness or a death in the family. It can be bringing a yellow Meal-a-Month bag to church. And, of course, it can be contributing to the Annual Catholic Appeal. Once a year we ask you to be as generous as you can to support all the good things that the Church does in the community.
You may be thinking that it's a rough economy. You really can't afford to give any more. But look at it this way. There are people in this community who are in great need; greater need than any of us. But, and this is important, how do we know that this time next year we may not need the services of one of the agencies supported by the ACA? There are a lot of people in our community, right here in this church, whose situations have changed dramatically since April, 2008. Many of us have lost jobs. Many of us have gotten sick. Many of us have just gotten a year older and find ourselves in need of services provided by ACA agencies.
I'm not going to take your time to go over all the good things your money does, you can read about it in the pamphlets in the pews, or check it out on the archdiocesan web site. I'm just going to close with another quote from Archbishop-elect Carlson's letter, "Through our words we can offer the world something to believe in. But it's our deeds that give the world a reason to believe---or not believe---the good news that we proclaim."
posted by Mike at 11:19 AM
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