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Saint Augustine Church in Andover has gone onto a summer schedule. The weekday liturgies have all been moved out of the church and into a room in the new Ministry & Education Center they recently built across the parking lot from the church, one that might best be described as a cross between a foyer and a small seminar room. It features a rolling altar, which I’m guessing is usually stored behind a nearby collapsible, sliding false wall – like you see in hotel function rooms. At least there’s a small tabernacle built into the real wall behind the faux one.

The seating is contemporary plastic stackables, which leaves the tile floor to serve as kneeler. The front row of seats, however, consist of typical churchy chairs with kneelers on the back, so you can kneel on them if you sit in the second row. So that’s my new location – second row. The front row is consistently empty. No surprises there.

One of the interesting things about these new arrangements is the physical consolidation of the congregation. There just aren’t enough remote locations to go around! The seating distribution has always been a bit curious at St. Augustine – at least during the Noon Mass. It must look quite peculiar to the celebrants. I figure the nave of the main church probably holds about 350 people comfortably, and the typical daily Mass crowd is about 10% of that number. There’s usually a moderate dispersion of congregants in the back 10 to 15 rows, with a light sprinkling of folks closer to the front. Even a row of seats against the back wall usually has occupants (OK, sometimes including me), while the vast majority of seating in the pews is empty. No doubt we’re all just taking Jesus’ words to heart to sit in the cheap seats, and wait to be invited to sit in the seats of honor (c.f. Lk 14.7-11)!

So, we’re much more intimately co-located these days, which I suppose is nice, but there’s no place to kneel without moving to the handful of seats up front. The downside to that is that, while we might all be sitting closer together, we have some liturgical disunity now. Kneeling on the stone floor is not a practical option for most of the congregation, and very few people are doing it. Even fewer people are standing, as this is not a familiar position in this context – and no one has been instructed to stand, which would probably be the best solution. Most people are, by default, continuing to sit, which is certainly not the end of the world, but makes for a congregation that is doing a little bit of everything – which is pretty disorderly – and sitting is not a proper disposition during the sacrifice, anyway.

All this might seem rather trivial, but liturgy is intended to produce and express unity, and I think it is a shame that some simple steps weren’t taken to better facilitate that expression at the most profound moments in our liturgy.

So, being a little frustrated at St. Augustine, and open to at least a temporary change of pace, I meandered over to St. Robert Bellarmine Church in West Andover last Friday to attend their Noon Mass. The lector took her seat after completing the first reading, without leading the congregation (which I could have counted on my fingers!) in the Responsorial Psalm. The priest seemed to delay several moments, perhaps hoping the lector would return to the ambo and complete her assignment, but when he finally did rise, he went immediately to the reading of the Gospel, rather than lead the Responsorial himself. OK. So he reads the Gospel, delivers a brief homily, then approaches the altar and begins the Offertory prayers. No Prayers of the Faithful! Maybe it was just a general brain-lapse day, but I sure had the sense that I couldn’t win.

Things like this really help me appreciate the attention to the liturgy at St. Patrick’s.

Time to shift gears into summer, all of a sudden. Within the past week, the girls have danced their year-ending recital, and finished school for the year. Rebecca has also played her last Little League game of the year. This week, it’s off to camp every morning for the kids, while I try to catch up with my shadow – which continues to elude me.

I must admit, summer caught me off-guard this year. I don’t know where the time goes. I need to figure out what I’m going to do between now and September, as well as what I’m going to do once September gets here. I need to be ready to start school by then, so I’d better get busy getting my application in order.

In the mean time, I guess I can work on Rebecca’s glove work with her, as she seems determined, at this point at least, to keep playing baseball with the boys next year, rather than joining the girls’ softball league. She’s just a half-pint, but she never seems to be lacking for spunk – or a fan club.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Jer 20:10-13; Rom 5:12-15; Mt 10:26-33

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It would seem that Jeremiah had come to be known among his “friends” and co-religionists as “Terror All Around.” Perhaps they had grown weary of hearing him repeat the phrase. Nobody likes a whiner, and particularly odious is anyone who dares to suggest that the “good guys” might not be square with God.

There is something at once disarming yet alarming about Jeremiah: Jeremiah is a bona fide failure. He has come down to us in history as one of the very greatest of the greats, and he provides us with perhaps our best interpretive tool for understanding the Hebrew Nabi – a line that culminates in Jesus of Nazareth (sorry, Mohammed), but the fact remains that, in his day and time, Jeremiah was a dismal failure.

That he was rejected by the religious establishment of his day is unsurprising – such often tends to be the role of the prophet. It is a sad fact of religious existence that the insecure and impenitent can and sometimes do take refuge in the certainty and immunity that religious authority invariably claims to provide. I say this not to demean religious authority as such, but merely to state what is already well-known: that religion, especially when it is politically (or financially) potent, is not the exclusive domain of saints, but is also compromised by self-seekers, and even knaves.

That Jeremiah was rejected by the political leadership is even less surprising. This, too, is the usual fate of the prophet. King Josiah notwithstanding, few and far between are the political leaders with the humility and piety to listen to the Word of God without responding in violence. Although the office of the Nabi proper is closed with Jesus, the Word of God is still spoken by those who are honest enough to bear its burden, and courageous enough to bear its consequences.

Jesus says to his disciples: “You will be universally hated on account of my name” _{(Mk 13:13).} Said another way: the “prophet” who has climbed into bed with the generals and politicians is a fraud. This is not to say that Christian faith does not have political consequences – it does indeed – it is to say that the Christian voice raised in the midst of political struggle must be one that takes the gospel as its self-understanding and basis of discernment, not political alliance or “tribal” interests. The truth must be proclaimed to all parties, and hence, we will be (or should be) “hated by all.” _{(Mt 10:22)}

The Hebrews of Jeremiah’s time were quite convinced that, because they were genuinely God’s people (as indeed they were) who were worshiping the One True God within the context of creation’s only Divinely ordained religion, that their political and religious institutions would not – could not – fall. The people (not to mention the priests and the princes) were not able to hear the criticism of Jeremiah – the Word of God – being too full of bad religion for that. All of Scripture warns us repeatedly of the errors of assuming that uncritical religion (or politics) can keep us in good stead with God. God’s prophets may end up in cisterns or on crosses, but they represent our only true hope; they represent God, who never ceases to call us into deeper conversion.

And let it be said that there was no shortage of “prophets” to give this view religious legitimization. Indeed, they had the witness of the great prophet Isaiah to point to, oblivious to the perplexing proviso that Isaiah spoke God’s Word to a different time in different circumstances – and faith is not magic; the Word cannot be invoked like an incantation.

There is likewise no shortage in the world today of self-styled prophets, clamoring for the soapbox. Especially in the religious sphere, it’s hard not to trip over “prophetic witness” claims to point out the true path to redemption, or righteousness, or whatever the goal is presumed to be. But anyone conversant with the Old Testament knows that most of the prophets were false. It means nothing to be “prophetic” without being bound by the Word of God – as actually spoken by God. In fact, for those who preach their own understanding in the name of propheticism, it might just be their undoing:

² “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel, prophesy and say to those who prophesy out of their own minds: `Hear the word of the LORD!’ <sup>3</sup> Thus says the Lord GOD, Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! <sup>4</sup> Your prophets have been like foxes among ruins, O Israel. <sup>5</sup> You have not gone up into the breaches, or built up a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the LORD. <sup>6</sup> They have spoken falsehood and divined a lie; they say, `Says the LORD,’ when the LORD has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word. ⁷ Have you not seen a delusive vision, and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, `Says the LORD,’ although I have not spoken?” ⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you have uttered delusions and seen lies, therefore behold, I am against you, says the Lord GOD. ⁹ My hand will be against the prophets who see delusive visions and who give lying divinations; they shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
_{(Ezekiel 13:2-9 RSV)}

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“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known” _{(Mt 10:26)}

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Why do prophets like Jesus and Jeremiah say things like this? If the people had listened to Jeremiah and had trusted YHWH, Jerusalem would have stood. But the people chose to trust the authority of the powerful instead. We should not think that this was an obvious mistake to them – in their own way, they were expressing a confidence in the God of their fathers. But they were filled with fear and pride, not humility and repentance; their eyes were fixed on the enemy at the gate, rather than on God, who transcends human structures – even those Divinely ordained – and sometimes speaks through riff-raff like Jeremiah. Such dialectics still arise, and it takes both courage and spiritual humility to engage them with fidelity to the God who gives voice to both parties.

What Jesus is telling his disciples in this week’s gospel is that we are to tell the truth in the face of whatever potential persecution we might met, whether social, religious, or political (“for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles” _{Mt 10:17-18}). Fear should have no part in our decision-making (“So, do not be afraid”). But this is easier said than done, for our confidence must be in God, but it can be very difficult in practice to tell the difference between God and the religious and/or political structures we identify with (hence the popularity of the tribal deity that goes by the name of “God & Country,” not to mention jihadism).

The bottom line is that it’s hard to trust God. It is always a choice, and there is always an alternative, and the alternative is almost always compelling. When Jesus tells us that the Father values us more than so many sparrows, it seems like a weak argument – and certainly doesn’t convince many to jump out of trees expecting to fly better than sparrows. Radical faith in God is all too easy to paint as religious quackery, but that’s just an excuse to avoid the hard work of discernment. As Jeremiah shows us, being faithful to God is precisely about that discernment; about learning to lay self-interest aside (personal or tribal), and being willing to embrace the challenge God constantly presents us to continue in His Word.

This week’s readings are an invitation to shed our fears, and to put our faith in God, because the “free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ” _{(Rom 5:15)} is a sure thing. There is no longer any excuse for allowing fear and pride to dull our ears to the prophetic voice of the Spirit calling us as disciples of Christ to speak truth to power, and to let God worry about the enemy at the gate. There are no shortcuts to peace through expediency. Too many Jeremiahs never get pulled out of the cistern, and we need them around to remind us of what we are created to be.

ΑΩ

I saw this bumper sticker on the car in front of mine upon leaving Saint Patrick church this morning, following morning Mass. I actually didn’t have my cell phone with me, and had to run home for it, then went back to snap the picture. Fortunately , the car was still there, as it turns out it belongs to our parish youth group leader, who is staffing a fundraiser this morning.

It’s a definite keeper. I’m too old to put it on my car with a completely straight face, but I just may do it, anyway. It was obtained through some now-unknown website, but I’ll come back and post a link to it here, if I can find it.

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Update: here is the link (no guarantee you won’t something to offend you on the site, if you look hard enough).

I’ve been very tired over the past couple weeks. I run out of steam before I get home from work, and I haven’t been able to find my second wind, for the most part. I wish I could write during the day, when my head is often buzzing with ideas I’d like to pursue, but by the time I get home, I just don’t have the energy.

This especially concerns me because I’ve been making noises again about getting my application in to Franciscan University so I can begin my prep work for their MA program. I can’t help wondering if I should just drop the idea, and simply pursue my own academic agenda at my own pace. I haven’t even been reading – I’m too tired to think these days. How can I succeed in course work in this condition?

Perhaps I can fight through it somehow. It’s true that I’ve allowed myself to be somewhat sucked into the excitement of the Boston Celtics’ renewed success, and I’ve been staying up watching some playoff games. But in reality, I’m getting more sleep at night than at any time I can remember. I think my recent TV watching might be more a function of my tiredness than a cause of it, though maybe there’s some reciprocity going on.

Tomorrow promises to be a particular challenge, as Abby and Rebecca have their annual dance recital. It’s a long afternoon – the schedule I saw calls for 47 different routines in succession – and most of the music will be awful. The experience will no doubt rekindle in me a desire to pick up the thread I was writing on the role of pop music in the life of children, and I suppose that if I manage to find the energy to work my way through it, that will be a good thing.

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Matt 7:21 (NAB)

9th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Deut 11.18, 26-28, 32
Rom 3.21-25, 28
Matt 7.21-27
(view the readings at the USCCB site)

Very interesting how the two reading cycles converge in today’s liturgy – which they certainly don’t always do. The first reading is not on a cycle, but is usually an Old Testament reading that somehow typifies, or at least contextualizes, the reading in the Gospel cycle. The Gospel reading today is from the end of the Sermon on the Mount, which Jesus finishes by making a startling distinction between effective and vain forms of encountering Him. I sometimes hear people refer to this as the difference between giving lip service and real service to God, but I don’t think that goes far enough.

True, in Mt 7.24-27, Jesus clarifies the distinction by differentiating between those who act on His words and those who don’t, but I don’t think this is just about the need to put faith into action. It is about faith being rooted in truth, in God’s will. This seems very clearly illuminated in the first reading.

Just as in the Sermon on the Mount, God has placed before the people His words, and invited them to respond. Paralleling the “act on them”/”not act on them” distinction in the Gospel, we see the options to obey or not obey the commandments, bringing about blessing or curse.

The curse in Dt. 11.28 is identified with three phrases: not obeying the commandments; turning aside from the way ordained; and following other gods not known. There’s no distinction made between the first two terms – disobeying the commandments is turning aside from the way ordained – but the third term is given as a reason: to follow unknown gods. In other words, turning aside from the way ordained is said, by the LORD, to be done for the purpose of following other gods.

I think it’s important not to miss the significance of the assumption this verse is pregnant with: that one does not fail to obey the commandments except to follow other gods – perhaps even that one cannot turn away from the way ordained (The Way) without following other gods. So not only is following the LORD without obeying the commandments excluded a priori, but so is any semblance of agnosticism – at least among those who have heard the commandments, the “words.” This is sensible enough: having encountered the truth, one can accept it or reject it, but one can hardly claim to be unaware of its existence.

I think the NASB, HCSB, NIV and NJB get this verse wrong by translating it: “turn aside from the way… by following other gods.” (To its credit, the NASB does put “[Lit: to follow]” in the margin.) I’m not suggesting that following other gods is not in and of itself a turning aside from the way ordained – it’s a violation of the 1st Commandment – but the wording in these texts envisions sin (turning away) following from idolatry, instead of the other way around. There may be a reciprocal relationship between them, but I think the text is trying to tell us here basically that pride goes before a fall; the desire for falsehood precedes the lie.

Many of the loosey-goosey translations seem to botch this passage at least as badly. I see far too much leaning in them toward the wrong-headed idea that fidelity to God is about worshiping the “right” god, and, conversely and even more so, that worshiping the “wrong” god is what constitutes a sinner – and especially an enemy. This is an overly simplistic reading, and I think both the Matthew reading and the Romans reading witness against it.

Just a few verses earlier in Deuteronomy, we read: “be careful lest your heart be so lured away that you serve other gods and worship them” Deut 11:16 (NAB). The word that the NAB here translates “lured away” is often translated as “deceived.” Idolatry is enticing, but it is by means of embracing falsehood (deception) that one is brought to idolatry. When Jesus says “I never knew you [evildoers]” to those who protest: “we cast out demons in your name,” we see the fruits of religious self-deception at work in those who may be very much in conformity to the exterior norms of a life of faith, and even impressively so, but who are not transformed themselves to a life of fidelity to God’s Word, which amounts to taking the truth as a yoke to bear, without regard to personal cost – that is the knowledge of Christ that unfolds in the life of the disciple. We cannot turn back from that path without “exchanging” gods.

This is essentially what Paul is getting at in the Romans reading as well, though he comes at it from a very different angle. Paul had to deal not only with practitioners of religious self-deception, but with teachers of it. The issue is complex, and deserves much more time than I can give it here, but we are still talking about the difference between approaching the spiritual life as an exercise in religious conformance, and approaching it as a humble – and grateful – subject of the encounter with ultimate truth. We are not made right with God through the practice of religious activities – ritual or charismatic – but through persevering faithfully in the ever-unfolding encounter with truth, as God has revealed it in the person of Jesus Christ.