Notes distilled from 14 sermons during the summer of 2014 at Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Parish
1. Ascension. Christ left us here. I am not God; He is. We do make a difference and truly have the choice to cooperate with Him or fail/sin. Christ includes us in the process of salvation of the world. We are His hands and feet today—to dry a tear of help someone through a doorway. We have real free will, so when we succeed we have “merit” for what we have done. Even though everything depends on God, He chooses to let us freely help.
2. Pentecost. Fire of the Holy Spirit. Martin Luther claimed that we are not “sanctified” but only redeemed by Christ’s “shielding” us from the wrath of God by almost deflecting God’s righteous anger away from us with his cross. He used the analogy that we are like a pile of manure, covered with slow to look good, but still rotten inside. Catholics believe we have a nature wounded by sin but totally redeemed by Christ and re-purified by baptism and any time we receive absolution. We are a furnace of power, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit—on fire with the love of God. The good we do is real, coming from a real source of good in our souls.
3. Trinity. The Mystery of the Living God has been revealed to us as a gift of knowing his very own inner nature—even though it is beyond our understanding. It tells us that I am not God but that there is one ineffable supreme being who loves me enough to make his dwelling in me.
4. Corpus Christi: Understanding the Eucharist is the same as understanding anything. We take evidence and conclude—just like we take evidence of sight and touch and taste and conclude bread and wine are there, we take evidence of (1) the history of God’s effective word (2) the holiness in people’s lives (3) the many books of miracles of the Eucharist and (4) our own inner intuitive sense of the “holy” to deduce that the “soul and divinity” of Christ are there along with his “body and blood” in true and real form—using the bread and wine as “contact points” to connect with the person of Christ just as the few inches of auto tires connect the whole family car with the road.
5. Sts. Peter & Paul: Church as a true community with very imperfect people. Luther, Calvin & Zwingli believed that though Jesus did set up a community as his CHURCH with the apostles, the early church quickly got contaminated by the religions around it and “Jesus’ true community” died out leaving us only the bible. They pointed to the sinfulness of the members of the church of their times (early 1500s) but did not look at the saints around them too. They taught that the bible alone (uncontaminated) lets faith grow and communities “spring up” with Jesus in their midst—much like an oasis. Catholics believe we are indeed sinful members, but that the church community as a whole is more like an irrigation system where grace comes from Christ, but through the people he empowered to bring that grace. God’s grace really inhabits us, and the good that we do really has merit. Protestant preachers only inspire others to grow in grace directly with God; Catholic priests actually bring grace through the sacraments.
6. God speaks to us in Sacred Scripture, but in CODE. Just as we sometimes speak to little children in simplified ways, God spoke to Moses and the prophets in ways they could remember his truth and teach it to their children while wandering through a desert. Later much of it was written down, but still in “condensed code” for the living community to use as notes. To break open that code we have 4 tools: The context of the passage (where in the book, when & where the book was written, etc.) and the genre or style of the book (is it law, or history, or insight, or sung prayers like the psalms, etc.) are the two most used tools, and these notes are found in the introduction and footnotes in Catholic bibles. Secular archeology adds some insight and verification of the info in the bible, and the Holy Spirit specifically reveals some things to the pope [that’s what infallibility means] when we still have questions. With these 4 tools we can really arrive at what the full meaning of scriptures is—rather than just “anyone’s opinion.”
7. New Testament: WOW! and now what do we do? Because the New Testament was written within a few decades of the resurrection, it is easier to break its code. The context (audience for the Gospels are Mt for the Jews, Mk for the Romans and LK for the Greeks and John for a second generation (as he was very old). Each chose real and true episodes from the many events of Jesus’ life to make the most sense to that audience, but no one could write everything. The Epistles are letters, each with a purpose and destination we know from them. Revelation is a vision of the present at that time—but looking not into the future but into eternity to give hope.
8. Picnic Week-end: Jesus was tired and dirty but still showed us the face of God. We have trouble thinking of Jesus as both God and Human, so we “drift” to one extreme of the other. Jesus gives us clear evidence that he is really God (miracles, resurrection) and yet truly human (suffering, tired, hungry, friendships and limits). Having faith and humility, we accept the Incarnation (one of the great mysteries) even though we cannot understand it. Jesus’ humanity gives us good example greater than any saint can give.
9. Styles of Prayer and Colors of Spirituality: The way each of us prays best is connected with our innermost character, which is revealed by what we prefer to do. Those preferences fall into seven categories at the instinctive level of humans—so intimate that we do not realize that others are not starting from the same assumptions. Those categories or archetypes are easily remembered by colors: Purple for peace (knowing the ground rules or where you fit), blue for beauty (jaw-dropping awe), green for life (why we like even wild animals), yellow for truth (why it is so hard to keep a secret), orange for power (fast car, big truck, etc.), red for fellowship (opposite of loneliness), brown for ritual (new years, rites of passage, etc.). It is OK for these to be different in each person, but knowing that fact makes it easier to understand one another.
10. Grace under Pressure: telling truth to power with God’s graciousness. Commutative justice (give and take equally) and distributive justice (sharing fairly) need to be constantly re-evaluated in any political system, and corrected or defended with kindness –despite any pressure from the devil to respond to evil with evil and think we are being just.
11-12-13. Sacraments: living the kingdom of God invisibly. Community and surrender rather than magic (which tries to control). Human Act involves the mind, will & body, which is what we use to enter into Jesus who designed these 7 sacraments to correspond to the essential aspects of human life: 3 transitional: Baptism/birth; Confirmation/adulthood; Anointing/ready for death.
2 frequent: Eucharist/food; Confession/healing. 2 communal: Matrimony/mating; Orders with liaison service. We learn about how we identify with Jesus in each aspect of life; we choose to enter into him; and our bodies are involved in an action that resonates with that life event.
14: Human labor & dissolvable reality: Because we are connected with Jesus, our actions have eternal value and have both ripple effects (good consequences perhaps generations from now) and are the gifts we will lay before the throne of God—because they adhere to our souls.