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homilies
on the liturgy of the Sundays and feasts
by david q. liptak
The Holy Bible
18th Sunday of the Year—August 1
“A” Readings: Isa. 55:1-3 • Rom. 8:35. 37-39 • Matt. 14:13-21
Title: Bible Reading at Home
Purpose: (1) to explain the imprimatur on a Bible and the available
Catholic translations; (2) to encourage ownership of a personal Bible or New Testament;
(3) to give guidance on Bible reading and study at home.
The opening Bible reading today, from the Second Isaiah, is sheer poetry. The verbal
artistry of the Prophet resounds with joy:
“All you who are thirsty, come to the water! . . . You shall
delight in rich fare . . . I will renew with you the everlasting covenant. . . . “
The long, arduous Babylonian Exile was coming to an end. It was the sixth century B.C.; the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, had just issued an edict allowing the Jewish captives to return to the Holy Land and to their beloved city, Jerusalem. The message is comforting, therefore; the long exile, in what is modern day Iraq, was over. The remnant of Judea was once again free.
Given the situation, what need was there for the returning exiles—displaced persons, really—to hear prophetic words of encouragement? For one thing, their beloved Temple had been destroyed, and the holy city was in ruins. How would they rebuild, or, more basically, organize? Where would they begin? They were home again, of course; indeed some of the returning exiles had been small children when they were marched out to Babylon. But their homeland was largely in shambles.
Thus the prophet’s words were so welcome, not only in theme, but also in context. Speaking for God, he projects the image of a magnificent banquet, a metaphor both familiar and beloved by Israel, one which immediately called to mind the Passover meal, the mightiest act of God in Old Testament history, the supreme Old Testament symbol of liberation homecoming. The Passover meal is of course realized in the Eucharist, the wondrous, continuous miracle of divine love foretold in Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves, recorded in today’s Gospel pericope.
What the Jewish exiles in Babylon yearned for during their captivity, we of the New Testament possess: eternal nourishment, in a feast beyond imagining, by virtue of God’s covenant of love. In our midst we have a Savior, the living Lord Jesus, who leads us out of the bondage of sin, sustains us by his presence and help, and protects us against another tragic dislocation from the land of our heritage, the new and eternal Jerusalem. And we know that on God’s part there will be no more exiles; the only way that we can lose our eternal home and be separated from him, is through mortal sin—by our freely choosing to turn from him and thereby surrender our homeland.
Thus St. Paul, in today’s Second Reading, could exclaim: “What will separate us from the love of Christ? . . . Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor any other creature. . . .” Christ’s loving embrace will not be disallowed. To think that he who went to the cross for us will ever abandon us, is unthinkable.
We know all this from the Bible as read within the Church. A traditional hymn reads: “Jesus loves me. / This I know. / For the Bible tells me so.”
The Bible is our Catholic reference point toward ultimate wisdom. We hold that the books of the Bible are divinely inspired writings, which constitute fundamental wisdom reflecting infinite Truth, who is God. The English word “Bible” is a Greek derivative signifying “books”; “library” is another translation. This set of books, also known as “the Sacred Scriptures” (used also in the singular, “Sacred Scripture”), encompasses 73 booklets or tracts, composed over the span of about a thousand years, roughly between 900 B.C. to 100 A.D. Of these 73 units, 46 make up what is known as the Old Testament Scriptures, which projects the advent of the Messiah. The remaining 27 units constitute the New Testament Scriptures. The heart of these latter is the four Gospels. Following the Gospels, the New Testament is made up of the Acts of the Apostles (the inspired history of the early Church), the various “Letters” or Epistles, especially those of St. Paul, and the mysterious Book of Revelation also known as the Apocalypse.
Bible readings have always been an integral part of the Mass. Indeed, we would not know about the Eucharistic Sacrifice were it not for the Bible as read within the Church. It is in the Bible that we discover that Jesus changed bread and wine into his Body and Blood so that he could remain with us forever.
The Bible readings at Mass are arranged for our instruction in a volume called the Lectionary. The Bible readings for Sunday appear in three cycles, A, B, and C. The texts for weekdays are presented in a two-year cycle. Thus, the Lectionary provides a panoramic, continuing review of the entire Bible.
Earlier we used the phrase, “the Bible as read within the Church.” The Bible is a Church book; the Church book par excellence. It belongs to the Church. It was cradled within the Church. Thus the Church safeguards the Bible in translation. This is why Catholics always look for the Imprimatur in the first pages of a Bible which they may want to read or acquire. The Imprimatur is the Church’s way of affirming, in this context, that a Bible in translation conforms with the received texts of the Bible as read within the Church. (The Old Testament was composed in Hebrew and Greek; the New Testament Scriptures were written in Greek.)
As Catholics we should all have a copy of the Bible in our homes, a Bible with an Imprimatur, such as the New American Bible, or the Jerusalem Bible, or the Revised Standard Version. One especially helpful Bible is the Navarre Bible, which is published in sections; each New Testament book (e.g., the Gospel According to Matthew) is issued separately in the RSV version, but with lengthy commentary on each page.
Of course it is not sufficient simply to possess a Bible. One must read it, daily if possible. Family Bible reading should be the practice of every Catholic family, at least on Sunday. Married couples should consider reading from the Bible together every day of their wedded lives. Again, the Bible as read within the Church is the ultimate font of wisdom.
Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church: 101-141, 572, 1656-1658.
The Lord of history
19th Sunday of the Year—August 8
“A” Readings: 1 Kings 19:9. 11-13 • Rom. 9:1-5 • Matt. 14:22-33
Title: History of the Church (A)
Purpose: (1) to show our Catholic roots in the saints and popes of past
centuries; (2) to show the Church as a sign of Christ’s continuing presence.
Today, in the First Reading, we looked in on a crisis in the life of the great prophet Elijah (the same prophet who, representing all the Old Testament prophets, was at Jesus’ side on the Mount of the Transfiguration). The age was quite early, the ninth century before Christ. A fugitive from the wrath of the pagan queen, the notorious Jezabel, Elijah takes refuge in the south, at Sinai, the holy Mountain, referred to in the First Reading as Mt. Horeb. It was there that God, through Moses, four centuries earlier, had sealed the covenant with his People, Israel.
With the pagan queen’s police in close pursuit, seeking Elijah’s execution, he must have asked himself whether his efforts to turn Israel back to the true God had been dashed; whether, in fact, paganism’s gods would rise anew and whether decadence would overpower the sense of the holy.
In this crucial hour, Elijah was to learn anew how God intervenes in our lives and how he comes to our assistance: not in extraordinary disturbances like earthquakes, nor in furious weather patterns, nor in roaring bonfires, but rather in what the Sacred Writer describes as a “tiny whispering sound.” The Divine Presence, in other words, is experienced in silence, far away from the din of the world.
Isn’t this the way that the Son of God Incarnate was born of the Virgin Mary? Without ostentation; without notice by the world, even. As the commentary on Luke 2:15-18 explains in the Navarre Bible: “The birth of the Savior Messiah is the key event in the history of mankind, but God wanted it to take place so quietly that the world went about its business as if nothing had happened. The only people he tells about it are a few shepherds; it was also to a shepherd, Abraham, that God gave his promise to save mankind.”
Christ the Lord comes to us today in the same manner, through his
Mystical Body, the Church. The Church does not own or control the media, which have the
power and the revenue to communicate in spectacular ways to the entire world at once, if
they so decide. The Church, ancient and universal, is hardly credited by the power circles
of our secularist world. This unspectacular faith community (unspectacular in the eyes of
what the world prizes) has nonetheless survived the centuries. No other institution can
reach back two thousand years—two millennia—when the Word made flesh was born of
the Virgin Mary.
The long history of the Church can only be explained by divine
intervention. Christ, the Lord of history, has obviously been in the Church’s midst
all along. All one need do is point to the countless martyrs, from the Apostles until the
present hour: the Martyrs of Rome, in the early Church, the Martyrs of Uganda just over a
century ago.
Think of St. Agnes, so diminutive a child that, as her martyrology reads, there was scarcely room enough for a wound.
The obituary of our Catholic Church has been written countless times. It was written when the early Roman Church had to go underground—the Church of the catacombs. Yet when the fourth century dawned and the close of the first major persecutions occurred, the Church emerged gloriously.
Later, during the early fifth century, when the barbarians descended upon Rome, Christianity was dismissed by the world as definitely ending. When the barbarians swept throughout Europe, the death of the Church was again broadcast. But the Church survived.
The Renaissance triggered further obituary notices for the Church. When the Popes went into exile in Avignon, France, in 1309, the Church’s demise was thought imminent by many. Later, when the Great Western Schism began in 1378, it was thought inevitable. The Church continued to live, and to prosper.
During the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century, the Church’s death was announced anew. The name of Notre Dame of Paris was changed to that of the Temple of the Goddess of Reason. The Church and the Papacy perdured, with new life.
In more recent times, Josef Stalin demanded to know, sarcastically, how many legions the Pope commanded. Today Stalin is dead, buried, and disgraced, even in what used to be the regions of his U.S.S.R. The Roman Church goes on.
Now other strident voices are heard, in fresh attempts to write the obituary of the Roman Church. Secularists charge that the Church has lost relevancy; dissidents claim that the Papacy has lost credibility. With Christ, the Church of Rome endures.
In this Church founded on the Apostles, the Lord walks upon the stormy waters of this life: again, not spectacularly, but quietly, subtly, unobtrusively. And he brings with him, for those who seek to recognize him in his Church, the covenant promises once made to Israel, the promises about which Paul writes in today’s Second Reading: divine adoption, membership in God’s new Covenant, a sharing in God’s law, worship and promises.
“Come,” Jesus now says to us, through his Church, as we try to cross the rough seas of a confused and often chaotic world.
The fact that this, our historic Roman Church, has endured, and without question, will continue to endure, is a clear sign of the Lord’s presence in our midst. The way that we hear Christ, and embrace Christ now, is by hearing and embracing the Church. In the preached word we are gifted with Christ’s word. In Baptism we become members of Christ’s Church. In Confirmation we are steeled so as to stand in witness for the Church. In the Eucharistic sacrifice, we gather regularly to transform ourselves into more Christ-like persons, thereby changing our families, even our neighborhoods.
Nothing spectacular? In the eyes of the world, no. But in the
perspectives that are eternal, the relevant adjective is awesome.
Again, we hope to remain loyal disciples of the Church, this historic
Roman Church; so ancient, yet so new; so earth-shaking.
Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church: 839-848, 759-776.
Woman of faith
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary—August 15
Readings: Rev. 11:19; 12:1-6 • 1 Cor. 15:20-26 • Luke 1:39-56
Title: The Assumption of Mary
Purpose: to picture our Lady as (1) the ideal Christian and (2) our
intercessor in life at the hour of death.
For the last time, this second millennium, we arrive at the Solemnity of our Lady’s Assumption. In our Catholic faith this means that Mary the Mother of our Lord, having completed her pilgrimage of faith in this life, was taken up bodily into heaven, the first creature to share in the Resurrection of the flesh by the power of her divine Son’s Resurrection to eternal life.
Mary’s Assumption brings into deep focus the dogma of the Resurrection of the body and life everlasting, which we as Catholics affirm every Sunday in the Creed: “We look for the Resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”
Moreover, since Mary has been assumed into heaven, we know that God can never go back on his word. Like Mary, we too are destined for glory before God. Where a candle is lit by God for anyone, a candle is lit by God for everyone. What we must do is keep faith.
Mary is the person of faith par excellence. The Virgin Mother of God has walked the very path we have all been asked to traverse: the path of faith. As Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical, Redemptoris Mater (25 March 1987), it is precisely in our ecclesiastical journey “that Mary is present, as the one who is ‘blessed because she believed,’ as the one who advanced on the pilgrimage of faith, sharing unlike any other creature in the mystery of Christ” (No. 25).
Mary not only precedes us. As Maria Assumpta, she also guides, assists and comforts us in our pilgrim’s progress. One can even say that Mary Assumed into Heaven helps keep our minds and hearts fixed on the only true goal of our pilgrimage: the risen and glorified Lord Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary.
Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar once explained that Maria Assumpta “points us, in anticipation, to the real place for which we strive, to the wholeness and sacredness of our whole spiritual and material existence; because it is fitting that not only the bridegroom but also his bride, the heavenly Jerusalem, should really (and not only ‘ideally’) partake of the ultimate salvation gained on the Cross, and that the eschatological marriage feast of which the Book of Revelation speaks, should not be put off till some far distant future but should now already in a mysterious present be beginning” (from “The Marian Principle,” in Communio, Spring 1988).
That “marriage feast” of heaven which the Book of Revelation describes (Rev. 19) can be summarized in terms of today’s Gospel, the beloved Magnificat, or “Mary’s Hymn.” Think of our blessed Lady, assumed into heaven, affirming the glory of the Lord with the same expressions she once used, two millennia ago, in a little town in the hill country of Judah: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord: my spirit rejoices in God my Savior / for he has looked upon his lowly servant. / From this day all generations will call me blessed: / the Almighty has done great things for me, / and holy is his Name. . . .”
Mary assumed into heaven, help us appreciate how much the Lord has done for us, destining us with his grace to be with you, body and soul, praising the goodness of the Lord forever.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church cites a beautiful prayer in this context, taken from the Byzantine Liturgy: “In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.”
This beautiful prayer closes with a phrase we often use in prayers to our blessed Lady, namely, the petition to “deliver our souls from death.” The “Hail Mary,” which most Catholics say at least once every day, concludes with such a request; namely, “pray for us sinners . . . now and at the hour of our death.”
It is precisely in her title as Maria Assumpta—Mary Assumed—that our Lady comes to our aid as we think about, or approach, the prospect of our death. Mary received the body of her lifeless Son, Jesus, as he was taken down from the Cross. But Jesus was to rise again, and to bring to life forever, anyone who accepts him as Lord and Savior. Mary, the first of the Redeemed, now awaits in heaven all who have followed in her footsteps of faith. She awaits us precisely as Mary Assumed into Heaven: Maria Assumpta.
Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church: 963-966, 969, 974.
Upon this rock
21st Sunday of the Year—August 22
“A” Readings: Isa. 22:15. 19-23 • Rom. 11:33-36 • Matt. 16:13-20
Title: The Church and Peter
Purpose: (1) to explain the importance of Peter in the Gospels, and (2)
to explain the continuation of the Petrine Office in the Bishop of Rome.
Today’s Gospel is well known by Catholics everywhere. It is the comforting “Keys of the Kingdom” passage, from Matthew 16. No matter how many times we have heard this text, we experience newfound enthusiasm for the Faith of our Fathers wherever it is read anew. Some of the phrases are almost heraldic, as if written by St. Luke:
“You are Peter, / and upon this rock I will build my Church, / and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. / I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. . . .”
The Church and Peter; Peter and the Church. The Church was founded upon the Apostles, whose head is Peter. It is not that Jesus established the Church, then named Peter as his Vicar. No; the Church is built upon Peter. Indeed, Christ’s Church is recognized because of Peter. Where Peter is, there is the Church.
Moreover, Peter is promised the keys to heaven’s kingdom, and the power to bind and loose in the name of Christ. “To bind” and “loose” mean, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “whomever you exclude from your communion, will be excluded from communion with God,” while “whomever you receive anew into your communion, God will welcome back into his” (No. 1445).
Notice, incidentally, that today’s First Reading, from Isaiah’s prophecy about placing the key of the House of David upon the Messiah’s shoulder, dimly foreshadows Jesus’ conferral of the Power of the Keys.
As Catholics we hold that the Papal Office emerged from Jesus’
mission to Peter. That Peter enjoyed primacy over the other Apostles is especially clear
from three key Gospel texts: Luke 22:31ff.; John 21:15ff., and today’s text, Matt.
16:13-20.
Today’s Gospel is highly instructive. For one thing, we learn how
our divine Lord changed Peter’s name, by calling him kepha, the Aramaic word for
“rock,” which in Greek is petra, from which derives the English
“Peter.” (Formerly Peter had been called “Simon.”) By this Jesus meant
to reinforce symbolically his designation of Peter as the foundation of the Church he was
establishing. Peter was to be a sign of stability, permanence and unity. One who bears the
keys must be stable, constant and a center for final convergence.
The Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke’s inspired history of the early Church, describes how Peter functioned in his role of leader. He is routinely cited as the principal spokesman for the Apostles. Even though we read of Peter’s “standing with the Eleven,” Peter is the one who speaks. He is the principal preacher, too, the pace-setter for apostolic endeavor. (Cf. Acts 1:15-26; 2:14-40; 3:1-26; 4:8, 5:1-11; 5:29; 8:14-17; etc.)
That Peter eventually went to Rome, and was martyred there, is part of our Catholic Tradition. One biblical testimony to his presence in Rome is from Peter himself, in his First Epistle, wherein he describes Rome, the place from which he was writing, in metaphorical language (5:13).
Our Catholic faith is that the Bishop of Rome, or the Roman Pontiff, is a successor of St. Peter as Chief Shepherd of the Church. Thus, Vatican Council I declared: “. . . even to this time and forever Peter lives and governs ‘and exercises judgment in his successors,’ the bishops of the Holy Roman See, which was founded by him and consecrated by his blood. Therefore, whoever succeeds Peter in this Chair (i.e., of Rome) holds Peter’s primacy over the whole Church according to the plan of Christ himself.”
This pastoral office of the Papacy in the Church necessarily includes the responsibility to give one’s life for Christ and his Church. There is an ancient legend that St. Peter, at the height of a persecution, departed Rome, only to meet Christ coming into Rome “to be re-crucified.” Known as the Quo Vadis? Legend (the Latin, Quo vadis, Domini? means, “Where are you going, Lord?”), it was referred to by Pope John Paul II in his inaugural sermon as Pope. One English version reads:
Lo, on the darkness broke a wandering ray,
A vision flashed along the Appian way.
Divinely in the pagan night it shone,
A mournful Face, a Figure hurrying on,
Though haggard and dishevelled, frail and worn,
A King, of David’s lineage, crowned with thorn.
“Lord, whither farest?” Peter, wondering, cried.
“To Rome,” said Christ, “to be re-crucified.”
Into the night the vision ebbed like breath,
And Peter turned, and rushed on Rome and death.
Today, simply speaking for Christ in the midst of a confused, chaotic and error-filled world, can be a form of martyrdom, especially when the Holy Father is quite alone, with little support, and with much rejection, ridicule and hostility. Yet God’s wisdom, emphasized in today’s Second Reading, is safeguarded, articulated and interpreted by the Church, presided over by Peter and his successors—the Papacy.
Today we thank God for the Church and the Papacy. We believe that Peter still speaks words of faith to guide and strengthen us in our pilgrimage. We resolve that we shall listen carefully to Peter in the Church, that we shall help others do the same, and that we shall pray for this successor of St. Peter, Pope John Paul the Great, who is unquestionably a source of rock-like certainty.
Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church: 442, 640-42, 552-53, 765, 1446.
Love the Church
22nd Sunday of the Year—August 29
“A” Readings: Jer. 20:7-9 • Rom. 12:1-2 • Matt. 16:21-27
Title: The Importance of Being Catholic
Purpose: (1) to show the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, and (2) the
importance of being a Catholic.
The great prophet Jeremiah, who so closely resembles Jesus (Jeremiah was a celibate and was condemned for blasphemy) laments in today’s First Reading: “Everyone mocks me.” Chosen to announce the word of the Lord, he is ridiculed and rejected. “You duped me, O Lord,” he protests, “and I let myself be duped.”
Jeremiah suffers for his vocation. But prophesy he must. To him God’s word—God’s very name—was like a fire raging within his innermost self. He must speak out; he is consumed by the necessity of it. A prophet must be a holocaust.
St. Paul had similar thoughts about his vocation as a preacher. “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,” he asks us to do in today’s Second Reading, a sacrifice “holy and pleasing to God.” And whatever the contradiction, do not give in, he insists. In no way are we to conform to this age. On the contrary, we must constantly discern what God’s will is, what is truly good and pleasing to him. Which, again, means refusing to go along with the world’s so-called values.
In the Gospel text, we hear an even more dramatic summons by the Lord: “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” And “whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. . . . Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. . . .”
So we commit. We commit ourselves to God’s word. We commit because we believe, unreservedly, that this historic Roman Church, is uniquely Christ’s own Church, and, consequently, speaks and acts in Christ’s own name. Despite the naysayers, despite the contrary tides of materialism, secularism, and even of neopaganism, we stand Jeremiah-like “against the world,” in this Church, founded by the Lord upon Peter and the Apostles. We believe that this Church is Christ’s principal sacrament in the world; we believe that the fullness of grace and truth are found here.
In the ancient Creed we profess at Sunday Mass, we refer to our Church as “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” These are the four characteristics—call them “marks”—of Christ’s Church, the signs by which Christ’s Church can be recognized.
First, our Church is one; we speak of the unicity of the Church. This “mark” is visibly manifest in the successor of St. Peter, upon whom Christ founded his Church. At every Mass we express this unicity when we pray for the Holy Father by name, within the Eucharistic Prayer. For example, in Eucharistic Prayer III the celebrant prays: “Strengthen in faith and love your pilgrim Church on earth; your servant, Pope John Paul II. . . .” In the same sentence, the name of the local bishop is read. One cannot be a member of Christ’s Church unless one is in communion with the Holy Father and the local bishop.
Secondly, the Church is inherently holy, because it is Christ’s own institution, and because it possesses the seven principal means of touching God in this world, the seven sacraments, supremely the Eucharist. Christ our Lord is really present under the appearances of bread and wine.
Thirdly, our Church is Catholic, which means that it is universal, meant for all human beings of all lands, of all times. If Christ came to save all mankind, as the Scriptures clearly reveal, his Church must be destined for all mankind—Catholic, in other words.
Finally, and fundamentally, the Church is apostolic. Not only was it founded on Peter and the Apostles, but it is today in continuity with the Church of the apostolic era. This historic Roman Church, almost 2000 years old, is the same Church as that depicted in the New Testament Book of Acts.
Our Catholic Church is therefore unique. We need to appreciate the privilege of being members of the Church. As we love Christ, so we love the Church. “Love Christ; love the Church,” is an ancient expression that sums up the essence of our membership.
“Love Christ; listen to the Church,” is another way of interpreting this ancient axiom. We are especially graced because we have a Church that speaks with certainty, that speaks for Christ. Hence we should foster a deep appreciation for the Church’s Magisterium, by means of which we are guided safely and surely in a grey, often dark world.
To be a Catholic is to belong to the most ancient and comforting institution in the world, an institution divine in its origins. Why be concerned about the contradictions of the world? Jeremiah-like, we move against the tide, no matter how difficult the passage, because God’s name and word are like a fire raging within our hearts.
Besides, what profit would there be otherwise? Christ is our only goal; Christ is the goal, the only one who gives meaning to our lives. And, as Francis Thompson put it in his immortal The Hound of Heaven (Christ is speaking): “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”
Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church: 830-856.
Reverend David Q. Liptak, a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, is the pastor of St. Catherine Church, Broad Brook, Conn., and serves as censor librorum for the Archdiocese. He also teaches theology at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., and writes a column for the Hartford Catholic Transcript. Fr. Liptak has authored sixteen books, ranging from bioethics and hagiography to canon law and homiletics. He is now updating his Biblical-Catechetical Homilies, published by Alba House.
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