Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Tag: Octave

You are Here :
Christian Witness, Homilies, ,

Reflection for Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi 2023

Trust!

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: “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.” The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 

Thank you for joining today as we continue this short time wherein we consider the mysteries of God and His action to save us. This includes the Mystery of the Trinity (last week), of the Body and Blood of Jesus (starting this past Thursday and continuing to this Thursday), and the power of God’s Word (next Sunday).

From last Sunday through June 18th each of these topics is put before us, not so we get some academic explanation of them, but so we can learn of God’s awesome love, His desire for us, His self-revelation, and finally His desire that we trust and love Him in return.

Last week we discussed trust and how trust is established in each of us, and also how trust can be broken. Trust is key to our relationship with God.

It is interesting that Western Christian tradition has somehow moved so far from simple trust. This is not just something that has happened in the past couple hundred years. It is far more long term.

Part of the problem is evident in the Jewish crowd’s reaction to Jesus’ words: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” They had seen the signs. Scripture was being fulfilled before their eyes. They heard His witness and testimony. The thousands had just been fed and Jesus was telling them of far more excellent bread, one that would feed them unto life eternal – yet they wouldn’t believe. They could not trust even in the scriptures they claimed as the guide for all they did.

The early, pristine, evangelical Christians believed. Their belief was untainted. They certainly had thinkers, the Fathers, among them and they could answer the academics – but not with just academics, but with faith based on witness.

Through the centuries academic explanations became more important. Overthink something and place labels on it and we lose mystery and trust in God’s provision. ‘Hey, I can explain it – what do I need God for.’

In the past sixty-one years the Roman Church moved away from symbols of respect for the Blessed Sacrament. For them, it became just a thing which needed no care in handling. As a result, almost 70% of RC’s no longer believe the bread and wine are indeed Jesus fully present. It is sad.

We hold unto the mystery, not in academic explanations, but in what we say and do at each Holy Mass. How we act with reverence – like Jesus is really here – because we know and trust He is. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  Because He is God, and we trust in Him.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, , , ,

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Circumcision of our Lord 2023

My heart changed.

When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus 

Thank you for joining as we continue in the celebration of the Christmas Season and in our expectation of the Lord’s return in glory.

The question on everyone’s mind “why celebrate this?” I mean, think about it. This ceremony performed probably in Joseph and Mary’s home and all it entails — well it seems both minor and kind of gross.

The Roman Church got rid of this celebration and converted it to a Marian Feast. That cleaned it all up, right? They do not have to think about all this, and they thought they made it all pretty. Unfortunately, they lost the point.

So why do we celebrate our Lord’s circumcision? There are several very important reasons to celebrate.

One reason is that it is factual. January 1st is eight days from December 25th, and in accord with God’s instruction to Abraham which Joe so elegantly read, every male among you, when he is eight days old, shall be circumcised.

Another reason, and this is particularly important for us, is that the fact of the circumcision, the pain and loss of blood, was testament to Jesus’ humanity. Indeed, God had become man. Jesus laid down His Deity and took on our flesh so He could deliver on all the Father’s promises to us.

Jesus as man was the only One Who could save us from our sins by paying their penalty, Who could redeem us, and Who could make us new and co-heirs with Him to eternity in the Kingdom now and to come.

How privileged we all are that God became man, that His humanity was one-hundred percent real and full. Many ancient heresies tried to downplay or outright rejected Jesus’ humanity, but without that humanity we could not have been saved, our debt would not be paid, we would remain our old fallen selves.

In the circumcision we are reminded that this baby boy, Jesus, faced all we face. He was not some magical figure, sitting up in the manger and doing calculus, or speaking, or anything other than what 8-day old babies do — eating, crying, and needing a diaper change.

Finally, the circumcision is a sign in the old covenant, the covenant that Jesus, as God, enjoined on the Jewish people and all in their nation.

Jesus took on this sign of the old covenant in His flesh to declare that He was of Israel, its true son, and just as the sign of the old covenant was in His flesh so would the sign of the new covenant be in His flesh — in nail marks, scars, and a pierced side.

For us, the new covenant in Christ’s flesh and blood frees us, as St Paul says, from the Law and its prescriptions. We live a new changed existence in grace.

St. Paul is being very careful in exhorting the Galatians and us so we might perceive our new reality –who we really are as a changed people. The Galatians, and some today, believe that they can do stuff — be circumcised, cook a certain way, carry out lists of activities and be saved. How wrong they are!

Our salvation is in the God/man Jesus. He completed that work. Now we must accept Him, live changed lives, and walk His way in faith working through love.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, , ,

Reflection for Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi 2022

Eat, Drink, Be Mine.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

I am so thankful you have chosen to worship with us this Sunday as we reflect, in this Octave of Corpus Christi, on Jesus’ command to eat His body and drink His blood. We rejoice in the very reality of His self-giving that makes us His.

The Rabbi of Jerusalem once visited the pope in Rome:

My dear brothers and sisters, the funny tale about the Rabbi and the Bishop of Rome is related to place and nearness. 

God had once set His singular dwelling in the midst of Israel. In fact, He was so close to His people that we dwelt in a tent alongside them. It was not until the time of King David that it was determined Israel would build a Temple for God, a more permanent dwelling. It took around 400 years to get to that point. That work was completed by King Solomon.

What did not happen though was the thing God really wanted, which was not a physical building in which to dwell. He did not need that. David’s predecessor Saul learned that lesson by his own disobedience and that of his soldiers. In 1 Samuel 15:22 we hear: Obedience is better than sacrifice, to listen, better than the fat of rams. The prophet is telling Saul that the attitude of the heart (the whole self) in relation to God is more important than external things like sacrifices and buildings.

King David himself writes in Psalm 40 and 51 respectively: Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, and You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings.

Israel knew that God desired to live completely within them, but they kept it external.

Jesus came among them, the God-man, to reveal the presence of God completely, to make His Father known, and to call people into the Kingdom. He repeats His Father’s earlier call to Israel in full reality of presence — I want to be among you, within you, and I want you to be part of me.

As St. Paul tells us, I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over He repeats the key words of Jesus repeated by the Church all through history — This is My body, This is My blood. 

Jesus not only left us His words, His gospel way of living, but in His example, instruction, and command His very presence — the totality of His being body, blood, soul, and divinity — so that His singular dwelling would be in the Church — that is — in us.

We fulfill what Israel did not, having Jesus — God Himself — dwelling within us. He is no longer in a tent in the camp, or in one special building. We are His place, we are His. Let us celebrate that now and always rejoicing in Jesus’ precious gift of self, bearing and sharing Him with joy before all.

Homilies, , , ,

Reflection for Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi 2016

Octave of Corpus Christi

Fed by what is
simple.

Brothers and sisters, I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you…

A little girl asked her mother, “Why do you cut the ends off the meat before you cook it?” Her mother told her that she thought the meat absorbed the spices better if you did that. “Maybe check with grandpa, because he taught me to cook.” The little girl went to her grandfather and asked the same question. He told her that he believed the meat absorbed cooking juices better if you cut the ends off. “It keeps the meat tender.” He told her that to be really sure she should ask her great-grandmother because she taught him to cook.

The little girl, determined to know why, went ahead and called great-grandma and asked her the same question. Great-grandma told her very simply, “My cooking pot was too small.” Simple answers.

Some of us are newer to the communion table and others have been approaching for years. We seem to all have our reasons and understandings.

We could go into a long theological discussion on the Eucharistic moment, and our encounter with the Divine in communion. We could consider the Church as a single body fed by the Lord. Those are great lines of thought that should be pursued as time and prayer allow. But there is something much simpler.

We can liken God to the deepest lake or the highest mountain. Just by gazing and encountering Him, standing in His presence, we instinctively know and feel His majesty. God speaks to our hearts by His mere presence. We are here in His house, in His presence in a very special way, and we can simply know that we are with Him. That is beautiful, but there is more.

A theologian or philosopher would want to not only scale the mountain or dive into lake, they would want to explore its every nook and cranny. That is wonderful, but we don’t have to go that far. God provides an answer.

The wonderful thing about God is that He is not wiling to just be looked at. He wants a full-on encounter with us at the deepest level. While some of us might be uncomfortable climbing a mountain or diving into a lake to experience it full on, God does not wait for us to do so. He brings the refreshment of the lake, the depth of His love and care, and the majesty of His being and goodness right into our lives. He does not stand apart, separated from us. He is with us.

God answers our most basic need – to be fed, to be strengthened, to be made complete, and to fully experience Him. He comes to us in the Eucharistic moment – giving us His eternity – for which we proclaim our thanks and then He simply feeds our every need. He is simply and completely with us.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, , ,

Solemnity of the Circumcision 2015

First reading: Genesis 17:9-14
Psalm: Ps. 19:8-11
Epistle: Galatians 5:3-6
Verse Philippians 3:3
Gospel: Luke 2:21

circumcisionpainting

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Today we observe the Solemnity of the Circumcision. In accordance with Mosaic law, Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day after His birth. As we read in Genesis: An infant of eight days old shall be circumcised among you.

Eight days is often called, within the context of the Church, an Octave.

The Church calls us to observe the eight days following Christmas as an “Octave” or eight consecutive holy days. These days allow us the time needed to contemplate the mystery of Jesus’ coming as man in a special way.

The eight days between the Solemnity of the Nativity and the Circumcision are as much a celebration of Christmas as Christmas day itself. In the Church’s wisdom, She knows that we cannot possibly celebrate the unfathomable mystery of Jesus’ birth in just one day. These eight days of contemplation help us to prepare and conform ourselves to a life where we continually observe the Christmas feast. We train to make it a constant in our lives.

Each of our Octave days are to be filled with praise, reflection, and profound contemplation of the richness we have as Christians – a richness that starts in Jesus’ birth. By observing these eight days, this Octave, we can re-order and better practice our observance of Christmas as a continuum. It helps us to move further away from the worldly practice of celebrating Christmas in one chaotic morning, throwing it all out the day after. We move away from observing and being slaves to a commercial calendar to the calendar that reveals God’s love.

The practice of observing a celebration for eight days is as ancient as the Old Testament. The Hebrew people observed many of their feasts for a period of eight days. The “Feast of Tabernacles” and the “Dedication of the Temple” are two of the more notable. Later, in the Christian era, the Church continued the tradition by celebrating very special feasts for the same length of days. Today we celebrate several feasts with Octaves: Christmas, the Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi.  The Church offers these eight days periods in order to allow us ample time to contemplate the richness of these mysteries. 

These observances take us away from being overly simplistic in celebrating the greatest and most profound Holy Days – days that mark God’s most powerful interventions in human history. It helps us to see, in a deeper way, how powerful God’s saving work is. It helps us to more fully integrate these great and powerful truths into our own lives.

The powerful truth we celebrate in a particular way today, on this eighth day of Christmas, is the Lord’s circumcision. On this occasion we are given a profound lesson concerning Jesus’ humanity. On this day our Savior first shed His precious blood. The Cross, and suffering that was to come, overshadowed the Lord Jesus even while He lay in a crib by swaddling cloths. The knife which cut the Lord’s flesh on that day foreshadows the centurion’s spear which would pierce His side, releasing the saving flood of blood and water. In that blood and water we have been made new – we have been regenerated into His image.

The Spirit-blade of baptism’s waters and our communion in the blood of Christ marks the soul and body of each and every Christian with the “Seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” We become children of the new Covenant, and rather than circumcise our flesh, we circumcise our hearts.

Consider that Jesus first came in a world that did not have television, computers, sports, cell phones, fast food, automobiles, careers and newspapers. Yet our ancestors too were distracted by daily life. They needed time to take stock of God’s great work, to circumcise their hearts anew. How much more do we need the time to enter more deeply into God’s mysteries, to circumcise our hearts in these hectic days. How much more do we need to be reminded to take time off from work, visit family, feast, attend Holy Mass more regularly, praise God, care for the poor, do charitable works, and most of all be humbled by all God has done for us.

All Right Reserved © 2005 - 2023