(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mass-Blog-for-the-6th-Sunday-of-Easter-2024.mp3)

Our modern world is filled with fear it defines as terrible. It’s caused by the belief that someone or something will inflict pain. But there is an archaic fear that counters such dread with reverence, as in “the love and fear of God.”

A psychologist could have a field day with those distinctions, and one did recently, using the Holy Family as her reference. How did THEY deal with fear of this scary world? She contemplated this as she dreaded an upcoming Christmas concert she and the small choir with whom she sings were to perform.

“I didn’t feel we knew the music, and the concert clashed with another event in the same small village,” she wrote in a blog post.  “It was all going to be awful. Then I joined a contemplation session online. The theme was Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem, and we were invited to imagine how Mary might have felt—heavily pregnant, incredibly uncomfortable, wondering whether she would find somewhere safe to give birth.  I found my perspective changing—how my feelings about the choir were driven by fear, and I suddenly had the sense of a choice. A choice to view and experience the world through a ‘fear lens’, or through a ‘love lens’ characterized by trust and compassion. It was as if my fear had been swept away. And I was surprised that such a well-worn story could have such an impact on me.”

The Holy Family’s combined sense of mission encapsulated in reverence for the One whose mission they shared saw them through. This psychologist, as part of a choir, became part of a holy family, with no doctoral titles separating them. Their group was united in mission, as the Holy Family was.

In this Sunday’s first reading, Peter meets a Centurion who learns the same lessons about fear (Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48). This Centurion is described as a God-fearing man who gave alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God constantly. As this “Cornelius” meets Peter, we can see his fear makes him feel both intimidation and devotion, as he falls at Peter’s feet. Peter comforts him by introducing the fear that unites them as much as their shared humanity does:

“Get up. I myself am also a human being. In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.”

Acting uprightly is an act of love that comes out of reverence for the love God represents in each of us. In our second reading, John counsels us to love one another, because love is of God—and fear of God conquers fear of this world.

“No one has ever seen God,” he writes. “Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. … Perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.” (1 Jn 4:7-12)

Perfect, fearless love of God is available through outreach to each other. It removes the fear of isolation caused by the dividers this world places between us. Sunday’s gospel reading goes to John’s source for this lesson: Jesus.

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” the Master teaches. “You are my friends if you do what I command you. … This I command you: love one another.” (Jn 15:9-17)

The singing psychologist referenced earlier learned to abandon our modern world’s definition of fear and embrace the archaic fear of God that leads to fearless love. Live long enough in this world, and we also find the wisdom that puts that kind of perfect love into words.

“As we get older, shedding fears of failure and imperfections, we can find safety, and greater tolerance of our own failings and those of others,” she concludes. “[Walking] alongside our fears, we reduce the impact they have on us.”

And we’re renewed in our beautifully archaic fear of God.

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mass-Blog-for-the-5th-Sunday-of-Easter-2024-1.mp3)

Our God loves variety. Look how different we are from each other! That difference isn’t by accident. Our Creator doesn’t just scatter seed here and there to grow his people. He grafts us from, and to, His divine root. The Garden of Eden account has God grafting a mate from Adam’s rib. Maybe that procedure inspired Adam’s descendants to engineer the quality and variety of fruit we have in our grocery stores.

An online article on the art of grafting asks, “Why plant 40 different fruit trees when you can grow one single tree that produces 40 different varieties of fruit?” It tells of a fruit tree in California called the Tree of 40 Fruits, each branch of which hosts a different variety—plums on one, apricots on another, peaches on yet another. Up to 40 different varieties of stone fruits could be grown on this one tree.

The lower part of such a tree is called the rootstock, the article explains. It controls tree growth. The other section of the graft is the scion, responsible for qualities like variety, flavor and beauty. Scion is also defined as, “Descendant of an influential family.”

Rather than leaving human generation to the random scattering of seed, God enabled our potential for high quality by grafting us to his rootstock. Grafting not only helps ensure quality, but durability as well, the above-cited article explains. That may explain why God chose Saul (later named Paul after his grafting to Christ’s rootstock) to help spur growth of God’s love not only in the hearts of Jews, but in Gentiles and every other variety of human.

This didn’t make sense to Ananias, though—one of the early disciples entrusted with helping grow God’s love on earth after Christ’s resurrection (Acts 9:10-31). Why did the Lord enlist Ananias to secure one of the most powerful persecutors of the early Church–and graft him onto its rootstock of love?

So that Church would grow in size, scope and variety.

“Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites, and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name.”

Grafting is indeed a heroic method of growth, and suffering may be part of the process when involving humans, as in any form of surgery. But it also helps ensure the survival of the rootstock of God’s love here on earth. Jesus is that to our Church, and John tells us his survival in us rises above the simple seeding of words.

Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. … And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them. (1 Jn 3:18-24)

John, Jesus’ favorite variety of disciple, learned the art of growing good fruit from his Master. He quotes Jesus:

“Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.” (Jn 15:1-8)

That produce comes at a high price, but offers eternal value.

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mass-Blog-for-the-4th-Sunday-of-Easter-2024.mp3)

“Child of God” isn’t a job for sissies. It comes with one of humanity’s most challenging job descriptions. John tells us about it in Sunday’s second reading from his first letter (1 Jn 3:1-2). The job entails introducing ourselves to a world that won’t recognize us:

“The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. … What we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

As the PERFECT Child of God, Jesus lived and authored the requirements for that job under a different descriptor: “Good Shepherd.” That job title makes it more relatable to task-oriented humans, but it can only be filled by people who follow Christ’s lead as God’s child.

Research the job description for a shepherd in this day and age and you’ll see it has evolved quite a bit since Christ detailed it for the gospel writers. Shepherding was his human heritage, after all, going back to King David. David’s eventual kingship was owed to his first job as a shepherd—the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons. He was a typical shepherd of that time. Many ancient shepherds took that job while being among the youngest sons of farming peasants who didn’t have much land. It was a good way to start a productive life, because shepherd boys couldn’t be of much use doing harder work.

In today’s world, a GOOD shepherd’s job not only comes with a meatier job description, but it fits well into the block diagrams of big ranching companies. The shepherd typically reports to the farm manager, who reports to the business manager, who reports to the CEO. Responsibilities can include:

Production, people management, pasture management & maintenance, AND stock health & wellbeing.

Appropriately enough, that LAST responsibility is listed FIRST in the shepherd’s job description Jesus wrote two-thousand years ago. He offers that job to us moderns via this Sunday’s gospel reading by telling us how it’s done—and NOT done:

“A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.” (Jn 10:11-18)

Good shepherds in Christ’s org chart reported directly to the CEO, and were equipped with the Boss’s most effective tool: Faith. That and a walking stick. No food, no sack, no money. Just the sustenance that comes from doing the job—which could require healing the sick or chasing off demons in wolf’s clothing. John tells us there were many of those.

Once his Master left this job to him, Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, as Sunday’s first reading from Acts tells us (Acts 4:8-12). Peter’s acts before that proved that a good shepherd’s faith can start quite small. Peter and his apostolic partners once had to rely on their Master to finish an exorcism they started but flubbed because of their little faith, as Jesus told him. (Matthew 17:20)

“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

In Sunday’s first reading, a hotly faith-fired Peter boldly explains to his enemies—who’d have loved to do to him what they did to his Teacher—how he mastered the great faith of a good shepherd to heal a lost sheep:

“It was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed.”

As THE Good Shepherd, Jesus is often depicted with a shepherd’s crook—a long stick with a hook at one end to help save sheep from straying and to defend them from enemies. Like faith, it’s standard equipment for shepherds in training. Both can help you maintain balance on rocky ground. But wielding it is not a job for sissies.

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mass-Blog-for-the-3rd-Sunday-of-Easter-2024.mp3)

More than a century ago, Mark Twain taught that there are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damned lies and statistics. Ignorance is their common denominator. In the Internet era, we should consider three types of ignorance: ignorance, willful ignorance, and online research.

The Google Age has turned us into expert ignoramuses, thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Googling that term will tell you this is the tendency of people with low ability in a certain area to have overly positive assessments of their ability. If you’re a fan of the sitcom, “The Office,” that definition might be accompanied by Michael Scott’s face in your mind. That’s the foolish know-it-all boss Steve Carell played so brilliantly. When it comes to ignorance of God’s will for us, many of us may resemble that remark.

We can get so passionate about something we learn online that we might make a fool of ourselves repeating it—until proven wrong.  We’re not much different from the people Peter criticizes in Sunday’s first reading from Acts—those who came to believe Jesus was more dangerous to them than a murderer.

“You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you,” Peter reminds them. “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses. Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets.” (Acts 3:13-15, 17-19)

Peter suggests we accept what God taught those prophets about the nature of Divinity, and imitate their lifelong searches for the flesh-and-blood embodiment of it in Jesus the Christ. But do we know the nature of our Maker? A Google search won’t offer a proper introduction—unless you search through the First Letter of John. It will tell you:

The way we may be sure that we know Him is to keep his commandments. Those who say, “I know Him,” but do not keep His commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them. But whoever keeps His word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.

We’ve just gone through a long Lent contemplating and repenting the troubling effects our ignorance of God’s will have had on us. But Easter teaches us we can rise above that ignorance by returning to the source of all wisdom—the true roadmap of perfect knowledge we’ve had so much trouble finding. Still troubled?

“Why are you troubled,” the risen Jesus asks his disciples—and us—in Sunday’s gospel reading from Luke (Lk 24:35-48). “And why do questions arise in your hearts? … “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.”

Then he opened their minds to understanding the Scriptures.

We are called to spend our lives as the prophets did—conquering our willful ignorance of God’s truth. Whether our lives are long or short, the journey to that truth begins with a single step. May that step be the one Christ’s life, death and resurrection took beyond the minds of the prophets who anticipated him. All we Internet-bred ignoramuses have to do is continue their journey the rest of the way through the Scriptures to God’s intended home in our heart.

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Mass-Blog-for-the-2nd-Sunday-of-Easter-2024.mp3)

“From each according to ability, to each according to need.”

This is from Karl Marx, Communism’s father.  Knowing this was his mantra, you’d think he’d have been a big fan of Christianity. Communism and Christianity were both founded on sharing wealth, after all. But their definitions of wealth would separate them forever. As Sunday’s first reading proves, the Acts of the Apostles represented wealth stored in the heart of God.

The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. … There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need. (Acts 4:32-35)

Marx called faith the “opiate of the masses, an ideological tool that legitimates and defends the interests of the dominant, wealthy classes.” It does so in part by “placating the poor and exploited classes,” he added. His students who assumed power throughout history mastered the art of exploitation by redefining placation, attacking the Church’s role as peacemaker and perfecting the dictator’s role as appeaser.

Marx’s followers proved that whenever power-hungry humans are involved, corruption sneaks in. Even Christ’s followers have found ways to live down from their Master’s ideals. But Marx—whether knowingly or unknowingly—must have feared those early Christians. He and his ilk tried to exorcise their holy spirit, imprison it, then popularize their own earthbound scheme to claim absolute power by using earthly goods as weapons rather than tools.

Thus, in several countries, power has overcome righteousness by planting fear among the masses. Christianity is dedicated to stunting that growth by begetting peacemakers who inspire courage—one believer a time.

“Whoever is begotten by God conquers the world,” John writes. “And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 Jn 5:1-6)

Without such belief in the possibility of world peace, we subject ourselves to fear of the world’s dominance over us. That explains why the newly risen Jesus greeted his fearful disciples by wishing them peace—three times in Sunday’s gospel passage alone (Jn 20:19-31). John tells us they were behind locked doors out of fear of the people who killed their Master.

But Thomas wasn’t there to experience that peace with them. Maybe he was cowering in his own hiding place. But when he DID join the other disciples in THEIR hiding place, Jesus shed his grace on him too—and a bit of shame, due to Thomas’s fear-laced doubt:

“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed,” he tells Thomas.

That reborn belief has brought peace to believers—despite the efforts of those who are fearful of losing worldly power and therefore deprive the faithful of that heavenly peace. The fact that faith survives in the least peaceful parts of our world testifies to a power our power-hungry world could never harvest by using fear as a sickle.

The peace of believing in something greater than ourselves yields an abundant harvest that we believers are called to share with others according to their need. And in this world of Doubting Thomases, that need is ALWAYS great.

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Mass-Blog-for-Easter-Sunday-2024.mp3)

The readings for Easter Sunday give us two pictures of Peter the Rock: One telling us that, before seeing and believing the significance of his Master’s empty tomb, he didn’t understand the teaching that Jesus had to rise from the dead. This is the guy who was so afraid of the people who put his Master in the grave that, while Jesus was still alive, Peter denied even knowing him. So once his understanding of that newly empty space kicks in, we meet a new Peter: one secure in his Master’s forgiveness and strong on sharing it with the world:

“Everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name,” he reassures us. (Acts 10:34a, 37-43)

Forgiveness is the first step to holiness—the forgiveness we give as well as we get. There are many more steps, Peter tells us in his first letter:

“Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, live soberly, and set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, “Be holy because I [am] holy.” (1Peter 1:13-16)

 A recent article in a faith-based magazine stated that demonic possession is at an all-time-high, and the reason is that humans aren’t as “holy” as we once were.

This begs the question, “Can there be degrees of holiness or just degrees of our corruption?” Our faith’s role models exhibited perfect holiness, and inspired us to spend our lives striving to get there by God’s grace. Catholics are called to believe that Mary was the only human (besides her son) conceived in that grace–without sin. Nobody else.

Could it be that a well-lived life is one spent peeling off our layers of corruption so we can see and hear God? Or maybe, so God can see us in the state for which we were created? We may never become THAT spiritually naked in this life, but ultimately, Divine unity is accomplished by God’s grace, not by our trying to be holier than the next guy as judged by human eyes. Easter Sunday’s letter from Paul calls us to rise above our search for an earthly spotlight and to add our own light to God’s glory.

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:1-4)

For us corrupt humans, surrounded by this world’s deafening invitations to join its noise, could the road to holiness be found by separating from that chaos so we can hear an otherworldly invitation to live God’s perfect peace? Holiness, like love, is lived—not measured by our own sliding scale of fulfillment. Fullness can be found in an empty tomb.

Peaceful Easter to you and your family.

–Tom Andel

P.S.: On Palm Sunday, Clinical Psychologist Dr. Ray Guarendi advised our Brother Knights attending the Lafayette Council’s breakfast program not to expect schools to defend their kids’ faith while smart phones continuously expose those children to a corrupt adult world. Holiness starts at home. If it doesn’t, the world’s evils will train the child’s free will that freedom comes from them, not from God. Even Jesus couldn’t save people who chose to be held captive by a world that calls such captivity freedom. Here’s a link to his conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYDBEFLum_4

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Mass-Blog-for-Palm-Sunday-2024.mp3)

Palm Sunday is a study of the difference between fate and destiny. The events presented seem predetermined (fated) to ensure our ability to accept the salvation we’re offered (destiny). Let’s sort through them:

In our first reading, Isaiah explores acceptance of a destiny as God’s prophet, despite its consequences:

I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. (Is 50:4-7)

Sound familiar? Isaiah presages Jesus’ fate. But in his letter to the Philippians, Paul indicates that through Jesus, God the Father chose the road to crucifixion—thereby offering us a destiny to contemplate:

He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. (Phil 2:6-11)

“Because of this” implies a choice Jesus didn’t have to make, not an inescapable fate. But God’s love made that sacrifice a fait accompli. As we continue onto Mark’s account of Christ’s passion, everything seems fated so WE could choose to accept the destiny Jesus’ fate made possible (Mk 14:1—15:47). Let’s count the ways:

A woman anointed Jesus with perfumed oil, and Jesus already knew why: “She has anticipated anointing my body for burial. … What she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Jesus describes in detail for his disciples the pre-ordained arrangements for their final meal together:

“Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.”

Then Jesus points the fickle finger of fate at one of his own disciples:

“One of you will betray me, one who is eating with me. … For the Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”

Jesus’ fate was “written,” and Judas’s fate seems necessary for its fulfillment. But ALL of his disciples are tied in with that fate, seemingly to warn us 21^st century disciples not to choose a destiny riddled with fear:

“All of you will have your faith shaken, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be dispersed.’”

Even Peter seemed fated to fearfully avoid standing up for his Master so we could learn by his example and avoid making fear our destiny:

“This very night before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.”

Finally, when Jesus breathes his last fated breath, a Roman Centurion is the first witness to testify to the truth that saves us:

“Truly this man was the Son of God!”

Believing that is our destiny. Denying it is a fate equal to death.

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Mass-Blog-for-the-Fifth-Sunday-of-Lent-2024.mp3)

Last week we addressed academia’s focus on our guaranteed mortality. To counter that study in finality, we cited the gospel reading that forms the kernel of this week’s message:

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:20-33)

Treating that gospel reading academically doesn’t do it justice. It’s born of flesh and blood and dedicated to our spiritual immortality. But we must first remember Jesus was human, too, and feared what was about to cause his earthly death:

“I am troubled now.  Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?
But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.”

Part of that fear was whether his disciples were ready to carry on in his name. Were they weaned of their ignorance? To wean means:

“Becoming accustomed to managing without something on which one has depended.”

According to Paul’s letter to the Hebrews from which we read this Sunday, the teachers of his time still had a way to go before being ready to get off their traditional formulas and digest the meat of the Master’s new teachings:

“Although you should be teachers by this time, you need to have someone teach you again the basic elements of the utterances of God. You need milk, [and] not solid food. Everyone who lives on milk lacks experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties are trained by practice to discern good and evil.” (Heb 5:7-14)

Quite a difference from the era envisioned by the Prophet Jeremiah in Sunday’s first reading. He must have expected God’s word to become subliminal in us sooner than it did. IF it ever did.

“I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the LORD. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:31-34)

We must be able to recognize the evil that living in this world has written on our heart, and to discern it from God’s handwriting. Jesus’ prayer that his Father’s name of “I am” be glorified was heard, and, through rolling thunder, the Hearer reassured him that, through him, that name is glorified, and shall be again in human hearts. The answer to Jesus’ prayer came for our sake, Jesus tells us, in preparation for when “the ruler of this world” will be driven out.

Evil is the ruler, and evildoers are that ruler’s subjects. Jesus is the forgiveness that destroys evil’s power. I AM is the wielder of the weapon of forgiveness. So am I, and so are you. But forgiveness requires moral muscle. We must handle that weapon together and aim it at each other. Do we have the strength to pull the trigger?

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Mass-Blog-for-the-Fourth-Sunday-of-Lent-2024.mp3)

The latest issue of Case Western Reserve University’s alumni magazine featured an article titled “A Mindset Reboot: Grappling with the prospect of a finite human future.” That title isn’t surprising, coming from a secular university. The title of the author profiled in it is though. He’s described as a “religion scholar.” Nothing in his official title reflects expertise in divinity, though. He’s listed as a distinguished university professor with a Ph.D. from the college of arts and sciences.

The article discusses a how-to book he just wrote about “finding our way in the Anthropocene.” That ten-dollar word describes a new geologic epoch “defined by humanity’s damaging footprint.” The author suggests we acknowledge that our time on earth is short. He embraces a Hebrew biblical tradition steeped in nature, telling us we’re from dust, and to dust we return.

We Catholics used to acknowledge the same thing as we marked each new Lenten season by receiving an ashen cross on our foreheads.  But it’s a new day and age, and instead of acknowledging our future as dust, today our Lenten ash distributor quotes one of Jesus’ first pieces of advice, straight out of the beginning of Mark’s gospel: “Repent and Believe in the Gospel.”

What we need to reject as we exit the Anthropocene, the author suggests, is the notion that humans are exceptional animals ordained by God to hold dominion over nature, and instead, adopt a mindset of “earth creatureliness.”

“Life comes from death, depends on death, even feeds on it,” he advises. “Accepting this will help us break our denial of human finitude.”

Indeed, Jesus seems to concur, based on what he teaches through John’s gospel:

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (JOHN 12:24)

Unlike what this professor tells us, though, that fruit represents the hope of what comes next. Mark’s gospel tells us what Ph.D. scholars of the Anthropocene don’t:

“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” (MARK 8:35)

Ph.D. scholars use their titles to promote the work they’ve done for humanity, and this particular one’s work seems to suggest we abandon the hope of going on forever and work instead at enjoying the limited time we have left.

But as Paul teaches the Ephesians in this Sunday’s second reading (Eph 2:4-10), hope can’t be found in our work, but in God’s gift of faith that allows us to inhabit HIS work—as accomplished through us.

For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.

By not believing in our role in the eternal arts and sciences of God, we condemn ourselves to the darkness of the Anthropocene’s dustbin. But John’s gospel tells us we were made to be reflectors of God’s eternal light:

Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God. (Jn 3:14-21)

That light is our life, and it’s magnified by each other’s faith. It’s the cure for anyone contracting a terminal case of academia.

–Tom Andel

(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Mass-Blog-for-the-Second-Sunday-of-Lent-2024.mp3)

If you believe that bit of wisdom in our headline, people of faith are lucky. It came from the mind of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, an ancient Roman philosopher. And although he was a pagan, he was also a pen pal of Paul—Christianity’s strongest defender. Centuries after Seneca wrote this pithy remark, it’s become the inspiration for modern-day CEOs hosting crucial business meetings.

One of Christianity’s most inspiring meetings is commemorated in this Sunday’s gospel reading: Christ’s transfiguration (Mk 9:2-10). This is where Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus as he literally blinded disciples Peter, James and John with his brilliance. Moses and Elijah represented God’s law and the prophets, respectively, and as such, were to be humanity’s preparation for salvation. Jesus became our opportunity for enjoying that outcome.

But luck had nothing to do with this meeting. It was God’s gift to us—and therefore represents our hope for salvation’s success in us.

The word “success” is often substituted for “luck” in Seneca’s quote. But if success is the opportunity God offers us, it still requires action on our part—just as giving a gift requires a giver’s preparation. The giver discerns the recipient’s passions and contemplates their needs. Then that gift is wrapped, so beauty encompasses it as it is given. But choosing the right opportunity for gift-giving is key to hitting the recipient at the right time. Because God is love, these things come naturally to The Giver. Or supernaturally.

So in the transfiguration, the law (designed to direct human action), and prophecy (intended to give us insight into the consequence of our actions) meet love: the desire for someone’s good. God is I AM, and BEING that love, God comes to us through the gift of His Son.

Where ancient humanity failed to find that love in this world via words written in stone and spoken by flesh, Jesus points the way to the otherworldly Promised Land of his Father’s irrational love—which is the bridge between this world and that one.

After the disciples witnessed their Master’s transfiguration, God added sound to their hearts’ vision:

“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them not to relate their vision to anyone until the Son of Man rose from the dead. They kept it in their hearts, but their minds still questioned what rising from the dead meant.

The answer comes as Christ’s gift to us, unwrapped in John’s gospel: whoever keeps God’s word in their heart will never taste death, as people who live by laws carved in stone and spoken by flesh do. Jesus told this to people who were ready to stone him for blasphemy (John 8:52-59). Harboring God’s word means entering the landless and timeless realm of being that existed before Moses and Elijah—even before Abraham, the father of faith on earth.

“Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day,” Jesus told the stoners. “He saw it and was glad. … “[And] before Abraham came to be, I AM.”

The spirit that gave Abraham the courage to sacrifice his son based on faith in the irrational love of I AM (Gn 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18) is the same spirit that gave us Jesus. Christ’s love was manifested in the sacrifice of his flesh—showing us that God lives beyond the flesh.

It is that spirit of love that gave Paul the guts to share with us the key to his courage:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31b-34)

LOVE is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Luck has an expiration date. True Love doesn’t.

–Tom Andel