Football

As summer winds down America’s thoughts turn to football. Thanks be to God at least we can all agree on the basics of football! And one of those basics is this: the best defense is a good offense. Our Divine Lord says this, too: “You are Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” We can read Christ’s words in two ways. The Church is a fortress whose gates will never be stormed by hell, but the Church is also a battering ram whose force the gates of hell cannot withstand. Bishop Robert Barron points out this second interpretation in his Magnificat magazine reflection for today, and we will consider both ways of reading today’s Gospel.

A Good Defense 

First, the Church is a stronghold of truth and goodness. Christ built her as a safe refuge for his sheep, for He himself is the gate. Over the centuries, Catholic churches have served as sanctuaries for those fleeing persecution. This week, for example, 10,000 people fleeing South Sudan’s vicious civil war have sought protection inside the Catholic cathedral in Wau, South Sudan’s second largest city. The Church provides safe haven for those seeking truth, goodness, and beauty. Here on noisy Geary Boulevard, people step inside our parish church day and night to find peaceful refuge from the city streets. The Catholic Church is peaceful and beautiful, however, not just as a kind of religious Disneyland, but because she teaches eternal truths. She teaches these Gospel truths in her doctrines and sermons, but also in her architecture, her painting and music, and all her arts. In our day, irrational ideas about sexuality and marriage, so-called “gender theory,” confuse and harm many. In this confusion, the Church defends the dignity of the human person, as she has from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Empire. Is the Church perfect? Not in her human dimensions—weak or confused leaders often make mistakes and even commit crimes. But in her divine mission of providing truth and beauty to the human race, the Lord who established her keeps her from essential error.

A Good Offence

The Church is also an effective offense against error and injustice. She doesn’t only hunker down behind defensive walls but she also sallies forth bearing the banner of truth, goodness, and beauty. When Jesus said that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” the Church, he is also saying that the Church herself is the “aggressor.” The enemy cannot prevail against our attack. We storm the gates of darkness, we rush the strongholds of injustice and error, and we break into enemy camps to free those in captivity. The Church frees those in bondage to depression, to alcohol and drugs, to pornography —in bondage to error, the great error of pretending there is no God. Loneliness and despair, born of atheism, is killing so many today. Did you know that suicide is now the second leading cause of death for teens and young adults in our country? A few years ago a young man threw himself off the Golden Gate Bridge. Police found this note back in his apartment: “I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.” If God does not exist, there is no reason to smile. There is no reason itself, just irrational human error. The Church launches a frontal attack on the dark fortress of atheism, on a rescue mission to free those in captivity. Jesus assures us that the gates of hell cannot prevail against her.

Fr. Kolbe Breeches the Gates

​The Church must provide defensive measures, but the Church must also go on the offensive, when lives are in danger. We receive truth and beauty here at Mass, but we must go then into the streets to bring those saving truths to those in bondage. That’s why a small group, that should be larger, attends the 9:30 Mass every other week, but then goes out into the City, on the offensive, if you will. Our St. Paul Street Evangelization brings Christ to the Clement Street Farmer’s Market with sweet smiles and beautiful rosaries and kind words. That is the kind of winning offensive we launch, with patience and charity and truth. I finish with the tale of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan friar who died in Auschwitz in 1941, whose feast we celebrated two weeks ago. He had established the largest friary in the world, over 700 brothers, just outside of Warsaw, a sanctuary in the midst of societal collapse (the Nazis had already invaded Poland). The Gestapo arrested him in early 1941, sending him to perhaps the greatest fortress of darkness in history, Auschwitz concentration camp. One morning the camp commander, Rudolf Hoess, decided to choose ten prisoners for starvation. The last man he picked wept for his wife and children, and Fr. Kolbe calmly walked toward the Nazi commander. “I will take that man’s place,” he said. “Who are you?” the commander asked incredulously. “I am a Catholic priest,” Kolbe replied. Hoess stepped back in fear, but accepted the offer. Kolbe died for that man, and for all men. He had breeched the gates of death by letting Our Lady lead him into the enemy camp itself. By dying for another man, he freed the prisoners of Auschwitz.  A survivor said word spread like wildfire through the camp, giving men hope and a reason to live. Kolbe loved Our Lady above all. “Immaculate Mary has sent us into this camp for a great purpose,” he told his brothers. Let Fr. Kolbe inspire us to do the same. The gates of hell cannot prevail against truth and love.

Hoarders

Much attention has focused recently on the phenomenon of hoarding. Some people simply cannot part with anything, moving about their homes through dirty tunnels. Hoarding is a phenomenon of a throw away economy that produces billions of tons of cheap products. Everyone who has things in storage (I do, in a friend’s garage at least) is a bit of a hoarder. I was impressed when 31-year old Brendon Ford moved from our rectory on Tuesday to the Dominican Novitiate: everything he owned fit into a mid-sized sedan. How many pickup trucks would you need to move your stuff?
 
Let’s talk about spiritual hoarding. We Catholics are the spiritual children of the Jewish nation, themselves chosen to receive the law of God—“blessed are you, O Israel, for what pleases God is known to you!” We have received that law, but inestimably more, we have received the gift of justification, the sacraments, and the New Covenant of grace. God has given us the fullness of truth; God has given us the Eucharist! But do we hoard the Gospel? Do we keep these infinite graces to ourselves, where they do little good, or do we distribute them as good stewards? We have been chosen, but not for ourselves. We have been given all this so that we may have the joy of giving it to others. The law of the gift: what you give away is renewed within you. When you try to keep God’s gifts tightly in your hands, it turns to dust. Faith is only faith when it is given away. Don’t just keep the faith—spread it!
 
And so “My house,” God says through the Prophet Isaiah in the first reading, “shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The Jews were not chosen for themselves, and neither are we. We are chosen to bring God’s law of love to all the nations. “The foreigners …. Them I will bring to my holy mountain; their offerings will be acceptable on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
 

Giving it away

​That’s why our community came up with $250,000 to build a public chapel open for the entire city 24 hours a day. Last week two Spanish-speaking women were trying to get into the chapel. “Their sister is a regular in the chapel but they love it too, so I let them in and encouraged them to register with the chapel to get the code. How wonderful these ladies from the Mission felt welcome in our chapel! How wonderful that many tourists, and Hindus and Muslims and atheists come off Geary Blvd to find a quiet spot in our open church. Silence is the beginning of prayer and the beginning of peace. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
 
In our Gospel today, Jesus goes into the pagan territories of Tyre and Sidon, and a Canaanite woman, calls out: “Have pity, Lord, Son of David.” He ignores her. “Send her away,” the disciples ask him, and then he denies her outright: “I was sent only for my own, the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman persists: “Lord, help me.” And he goes even further by insulting her: “why should I throw good food to a dog?” The woman does not miss a beat: “Please Lord, even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from their masters’ tables.” So finally Jesus breaks, and I think he breaks into a big smile. “O woman,” he exclaims, “great is your faith!”
 
This faith is not mine to hoard, but mine to give away. I have received it to give it. That’s our parish and every Catholic parish. That’s why one of our parishioners leads a small group to the Clement Street Farmer’s Market every other Sunday, to give the faith. Will you join her? That’s why 150 of us have taken an hour of adoration every week, to keep this chapel open for all the city, to pray for the city in a dedicated hour every week. Will you join us? That’s why many teach children’s’ catechism on Sundays and RCIA on Mondays and Bible study on Tuesdays. They know what they have received and gratefully give it to others. That’s why a group of men just formed a Knights of Columbus chapter here, and a four of our women a mother’s group, and why our young men serve at the altar and our young women sing in the choir, and our young adults pray the rosary every Tuesday night together. Will you join them? Or will you simply hoard your faith? Let His house be called a house of prayer for all nations!

Every time the Gospel is solemnly read at Mass, Our Divine Master speaks to us. As we hear also in the Gospel acclamation at today’s Mass: “Receive the Word of God, not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the Word of God.” In today’s Gospel, Our Lord says to us what he said to the Pope and the bishops at the opening Mass for the Synod for the Family on October 4, 2015.
 
He says, “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” Many good Catholics have asked me with if they can receive communion after getting a divorce. Christ’s words today clearly answer that question. A divorced person may receive communion and all the graces the Holy Eucharist brings. However, if one marries a second person, without having proven the unlawfulness of the first marriage (annulment), he commits adultery. A hard teaching? Yes, but a teaching that leads to life. These are God’s words, not man’s.
 
I think it providential that in the Gospel for the day the Synod opened in 2015 Jesus made the same point. After hearing this, many at the Synod were reassured that God had given spouses the gift of “indissolubility,” the grace to be faithful to spouse and children until death. But some at the synod, in particular many of the German bishops, argued that marriage is not indissoluble, and so a divorced and remarried Catholic should receive Holy Communion. Other wealthier countries began to side with the German prelates. The bishops of Germany receive billions from a government “church tax” on those who identify as Catholic. If the bishops insist on difficult teachings, much of this revenue stream would dry up as taxpayers leave the Church. The Church in Germany is awash in money but its parishes are largely empty. In contrast to the German hierarchy, the bishops of Africa vigorously defended Christ’s obvious and constant teaching on marriage at the Synod. The Church in Africa is so poor that many parishes hold Mass under a tree because they cannot afford a building. These Masses, however, last three hours and are packed.
 
Pope Francis has called for a Church of and for the poor. Africa, not Europe, is that Church at the moment. When it comes to the Gospel, the poor have much to teach the wealthy. Let us look to Catholic dioceses that are faithful, robust, and poor in spirit, often poor in body too, for a path to Christian renewal. 

I often do the early parish Mass. I tumble out of bed at 5:45 (a full hour after the Missionaries of Charity arise!), hasten to the rectory chapel for our communal holy hour, and I begin to wake up. Jesus gradually brings us to consciousness by the shining radiance of His presence (calories and caffeine will come later). If I have the early Mass, I report directly to the church after our holy hour. By then I’ve been up for 90 minutes. Already a few preoccupations have crept into my mind, and my stomach is still empty. Our early Mass is in the extraordinary form, which uses a bit more wine than the ordinary form (three pourings rather than just one). The first pouring, of course, becomes the Blood of Christ, but retains the physical properties of wine. We use a port wine that is 18% alcohol to prevent it from turning to vinegar, since it will stay unrefrigerated in the bottle for a week at a time. By the third pouring (during the purifications), the priest cannot help but feel a bit more affable, as even consecrated wine retains the “accidents” or chemical properties of wine.
 
The Mass ends, I give the blessing, and I go down the steps for the “Leonine Prayers,” done in English. I gaze up into the blue windows, which ride above our shining marble altar, adorned with gorgeous flower arrangements. Today flushed pink and French vanilla roses glowed among pale green gladiolas. God has surrounded his throne with beauty, I thought, and placed us all among that loveliness. His beneficence toward us is everlasting.
 
God chose wine to become his Blood. Wine, in all its sublime properties, sacramentally represents for us Christ’s life outpoured. Wine, which brings joy to gods and men, is the sacramental substance that Christ chose to represent Himself in the Mass, along with bread. The priest cannot perceive the infinite mystical graces Christ’s Blood obtains for him at early Mass. The natural cheer wine brings to the heart, however, signifies, in the smallest way, those same graces. God begins the priest’s day, not with coffee or sugar, but with wine, become His Blood. How sweet it is, and how much more infinitely sweeter must be the redemption wrought by Christ’s Blood itself. If we only knew the measure of the Gift to which the Mass hints by the gifts of bread and wine!