The Witness of St. Polycarp

 St Peter and St John heal a crippled man in the temple

The First Reading comes today from Chapter 4 of the Acts of the Apostles.  What happened just before this was that St. Peter and St. John both had passed a cripled man who had begged them for some money, instead Peter shared his faith in Christ and the man was healed.  Peter and John went on to share with the crowd that was gathering that it was in the name of Jesus Christ that this man had been healed and so he and John were thrown into prison.  In today’s reading we hear of his testimony before the Sanhedrin - the ruling council.

Peter and John installed Ignatius of Antioch and his friend Polycarp

St. Peter and St. John installed St. Ignatius as the Bishop of Antioch.  St. Polycarp was a close friend of St. Ignatius.  St. Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna which is a town in Western Turkey.  Both Ignatius and Polycarp were disciples of St. John - who installed Polycarp as Bishop of Smyrna.  St. Irenaeus (a disciple of St. Polycarp) tells us that St. Polycarp was a disciple of St. John.

“I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; 

One of the characteristics of a Good Shepherd is that he brings peace to the sheep.  Without a shepherd the sheep are anxious and skittish.  With him they are at peace and unified - because they know his voice and his presence.  

How well do you know the Good Shepherd?  

One of the side-effects of knowing the Good Shepherd is that He takes away worry and anxiety from our lives.  We do not worry and we are not anxious because we are able to trust in the providence of God.

Think back on your life this past week - what are you worrying about?  

• Divorce / Marriage / Relationship?

• Work / Finding Employment?

• Sickness / Chronic Problem?

• A Test or problem at School?

To know Christ - to know the Father means that we understand that everything happens according to God’s will - so when we are able to listen to the Shepherd - especially in the disasters of our lives then we can see that God has a hand in everything.

The capture of St. Polycarp

When St. Polycarp was 86 years old, the Proconsul Irenarch Herod gave an order that any Atheists (that is those who denied that Caesar was God) be rounded up and forced to take an oath that Caesar was God.  Polycarp heard that they were looking for him so he started moving from house to house and hiding to stay alive.  Eventually, some horsemen found him in a farm outside of Smyrna - and when caught Polycarp, he first asked that they be given food and drink to be refreshed and then  asked them to let him pray for an hour before taking him prisoner.

• How often do we turn to prayer when we are caught in a moment of Crisis?  

• How often do we turn to prayer to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd to know the voice of the one who loves us - to ask Him what His will is?

Peter and John - A night in Jail and in Prayer

Peter and John turned to prayer and relied on the prayer, and as the first reading begins today they are on trial.  St. Luke tells us that Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak about what God was doing through them - because Jesus had laid down his life and taken it up again.

Like Peter and John - St. Polycarp was called to witness

When the Proconsul Irenarch Herod endeavored to persuade him, saying, “What harm is there in saying, Lord Cæsar, and in sacrificing, with the other ceremonies observed on such occasions, and so make sure of safety?  Swear by the fortune of Cæsar; repent, and say, Away with the Atheists and I will set you free!  Reproach Christ.”

Polycarp replied - “Eighty Six years have I served Christ, and He never did me any injury:  How then can I blaspheme my King and My savior?”  Since you think I should swear by the fortune of Caesar, and pretend not to know who and what I am, hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian.

Ask for the grace to be a witness this week

I want to invite you in your prayer life this week to ask the Lord to make clear to you when you are being called to witness to the love of God that is made so clear at Easter time.  When you pray in the morning lay your plans before the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to make clear to you when and where you are called to give witness to Christ.

The world today asks us to swear by fortunes like Caesar

Just as in the time of St. Polycarp, the world today calls us to depend on things that are not God, and then ridicules us for being men and women of faith.  Our culture has made a straw puppet out of people of faith as unreasonable, ignorant and superstitious. Nothing can be further from the truth - 

• To know Christ is to know the truth, 

• To know Christ is to live an abundant life.  

• To know Christ is to know the blessings that he showers on us, and to be willing to publicly give Him credit for the grace He has given to us.

Martyr is the Greek word for Witness

Irenarch Herod then threatened to throw Polycarp to wild beasts - Polycarp responded “Call them then, for we are not accustomed to repent of what is good in order to adopt that which is evil; and it is well for me to be changed from what is evil to what is righteous.”

When that did not work Irenarch threatened him with fire but Polycarp was unfazed.  St. Polycarp was burned at the stake and pierced with a spear in the stadium in Smyrna for refusing to burn incense to the Roman emperor.  As he died he said “I bless you, Father, for judging me worthy of this hour, so that in the company of the martyrs I may share in the cup of Christ.”

Polycarp grew up listening to the preaching of St. John the Apostle - who wrote the 2nd reading today.  St. John said… “Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.”

Polycarp let the words of St. John permeate his very being - it was why he said to the proconsul - “Since you think I should swear by the fortune of Caesar, and pretend not to know who and what I am, hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian.”  Polycarp understood that his baptism as a Christian was the foundation of his life and he would not trade it for anything.  He spent his entire life seeking to become more completely a child of God - he wanted to be a saint. 

True faith is rooted in our relationship with Christ

That is what will happen to us if we understand our vocation as a Christian seriously - it is not something that happened to us when we were babies it is meant to be a way of life - that we have a relationship with God, with the Good Shepherd that is so deep and so profound that it permeates our entire lives and we begin to take on the image of Christ in our lives.  As we grow in holiness our responses become more and more infused with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

 

“Beloved, we are God's children now; 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.”

St. John calls us to become saints

The more we open our hearts to the grace of God, the more we listen to the voice of the Lord, the more we begin to imitate the Good Shepherd in our lives the more we know and understand His will, and the more we are able to cooperate with it.  

Saints subordinate their will to Gods

Ultimately this means that we surrender our will to the will of God - because in that way we imitate the son-ship of Christ - who reminds us in the Gospel - This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. 

Surrender is an active cooperation with the Holy Spirit

Surrender to God’s will is not a fatalistic abandonment to the fate of the world, but an active cooperation with the love of God working in our lives.  It takes work - a life of prayer and a life of conversion.  That surrender to God transforms us into the image of Christ - in the same way that Polycarp was transformed - he imitated Christ in a unique way that only St. Polycarp could.

Christ invites us to imitate Him this week

Christ invites you and I to imitate Him this week - each of us in a unique way that only we can do.

St. Polycarp - Pray for Us.

The Map of God's Love

 Maps help us to know how to get to where we are going

Whenever I go somewhere new the first thing that I like to do is to have a map - so I know where I am going and how I am going to get there.  I am at peace when I know where I am going and how to get there - I think that is part of my nature, and likely a side-effect from traveling around the world as a kid.  The Gospels today make a map for us of Holy Week.  They map out the mystery of Holy week in a beautiful way and prepare us for next week - in which we celebrate the heart of the Christian faith.

The Gospel - A map of Holy Week, the life of the Church and My Life.

If we were to map out the readings today we would discover that they form a whirlpool, with each ring of the whirlpool pulling in the next ring out.  Imagine a clock - there are 3 stops in each ring of the whirlpool, one at 12 O'clock, one at 4 O'clock and one at 8 O’clock.  Each ring connects to the next ring when you transition from the 8 O'clock position to the next 12 O'clock position.  

This whirlpool has 3 rings in it.  

• At the heart of the whirlpool is Christ, 

• then Philip and Andrew in the middle ring and 

• the Greeks - who represent you and I in the outer ring.

Each ring is formed by the parable from the Gospel

• At 12 O'clock - The idea is “A grain of wheat”

• At 4 O'clock - “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat;”

• At 8 O'clock - “but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

The inner ring, 12 O'clock - Christ is the Grain of Wheat

We start with Christ at the 12 O’clock position - Christ is the Grain of Wheat What is it that the grain of wheat does? (from Hebrews) -

“In the days when Christ Jesus was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.”

Christ makes his love for the Father and his relationship with the Father the foremost event of His life.  It is because of that relationship with the Father that he goes on mission to his neighbors and friends - but relationship with the Father is foremost.

Inner Ring, 4 O'clock - “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat;”

As a result of Christ’s relationship with the Father he accepts the passion and the cross - This is the movement from the acceptance of who we are to what we will do.  

In the gospel Christ speaks of his passion when he says

“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.  Father, glorify your name.”

The glorification of the Father occurs when Christ acts on the Father’s will and takes up his Cross.

What keeps us from embracing the Christ - It is that we love ourselves more than the Father

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. 

How do I change (repent) my view of my life?

In Hebrews Jesus teaches us to enter into this mystery we need to approach our relationship with God in a different way.

“Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered;”

2 Problems - Obedience and Suffering

For modern westerners there are two problems with this witness - that Christ learned obedience AND that obedience was learned through suffering.

We think that Obedience leads to imprisonment - but Obedience is the key to freedom. The word obedience has some negative connotations - we want a radical independence and liberty from everyone - which means we want to obey no one - I am free therefore I get to do my own thing…  This is not the kind of freedom that Christ teaches.  Christ teaches freedom from oppression through experiencing the love of God.  Christ teaches freedom from sin by listening to the will of the Father.  The Father has a mission for each one of us and it is found within this parable.  

The problem of embracing Suffering - what it means to die

To be obedient means to listen with your heart - that is what Christ does, and he is compelled by the love of the father - even though in his humanity he is not comfortable with the idea to listen to the Father and to embrace suffering because it brings us to holiness.

Suffering is nothing that we would ever want to embrace, however it is in suffering that we learn to depend on God and to rely on His grace.  It is in suffering that we see God’s love being perfected in us and through us.

Inner Ring - 8 O'clock - “but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

For our culture - suffering is useless - after all you can’t work when you are dead.  For Christ - death is an integral part of His mission because by his obedient embracing of the suffering of death that he opens the gateway to eternal life.  

Jesus makes this clear when He says:

And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

Again, from Hebrews, 

Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

St. Ambrose - Death shows our true nature

About this parable St. Ambrose pointed out that the nature of the grain of wheat is hidden until it dies and rots - then it brings forth abundant life - new life that shows its inner reality.  This is a great way of seeing the Love of Christ - it is because of Christ’s death on the cross that we have abundant life with God.  

It is through Christ’s death that eternal life is possible

Christ’s death was not empty, devoid of meaning - but it is at the heart of everything that we do as Christians - it is in His death that everything in life has meaning.

The Middle Ring - 12 O'clock - Christ’s abundant fruit through the Apostles. - The Apostles are grains of wheat.

Andrew and Philip are called to also be grains of wheat - and it is in being wheat along with Christ they learn to listen to God and to follow God with their hearts.

Andrew and Philip had a radical experience of Christ.  They spent 3 years with Him during His public ministry and then witnessed his passion, death, and amazingly the resurrection.  In John’s Gospel Christ goes on to say 

Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.  

The Middle Ring - 4 O'clock - Martyrdom of Philip and Andrew - Unless a grain of wheat dies…

As servants we are called to become conduits for others to encounter God’s love - but in order to do that we need to first follow Christ.  After the Resurrection both Andrew and Philip lived their lives sharing the reality of Christ with those around them and they did not flinch from their mission - to the point that like Christ they were both crucified.  Andrew was crucified in Patras, Greece and Philip in Hierapolis (in South west Turkey) which was at that time also Greek territory.  Philip and Andrew were willing to set aside their lives to show the Gentiles the love of God.

The Middle Ring - 8 O'clock - The witness of the Apostles is the path through which we come to know God - And when it dies it produces much fruit…

Christ’s love is written on our hearts through our Apostolic Faith…

Each Sunday in the mass we recite the creed which connects us to the fruits of the martyrdoms of Andrew and Philip when we say “I believe in One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church…”  The faith that we have comes to us from the witness of the love of God given to us through the Apostles.  Andrew and James were linchpins through which this grace has flowed to us.  They are the servants of Christ who bring us the new covenant that the prophet Jeremiah speaks of - 

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.  I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  

The Eucharist is how we receive God’s Law in our hearts

Since the start of the Church the Apostles have celebrated the Eucharist.  It is here that we hear about the actions of God, and receive the Eucharist - That “Grain of Wheat” which is Christ who has died that we might receive God himself, the gift of Love in our hearts.

The Outer Ring - 12 O'clock - You and I are the Greeks who approach Christ through the Apostles.  We too are “grains of wheat”

Philip and Andrew you and I, brothers and sisters are Grains of Wheat.  We are the ones who need to take this Gospel to heart this week and to live it out so that God’s will can be done in our lives.  Jeremiah goes on to say “All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.”

Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving help us to know God

The goal of our fasting, almsgiving and prayer this Lent has been to help us to get to know God more clearly, more completely.  When we welcome Christ into our hearts, by our prayers, words and actions we form our conscience. 

Jeremiah says “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.”

When our conscience is properly formed - by an encounter with the true and living God we no longer need others to teach us write from wrong - for we know right (Christ) and out of our love for Him we avoid the wrong - This leads us to 

4 O'clock position of the outer ring - Unless a Grain of Wheat dies…

Our conscience makes it clear to us when we have strayed from the truth and from our relationship with God - it leads us to conversion - to a death to sin.  The psalmist today prays the prayer of a Christian who desire forgiveness from God. 

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.

Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.

A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.  Cast me not out from your presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me.

Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving show us that we too are grains of wheat…

Another purpose of our prayer, fasting and almsgiving this Lent is to help us to be a grain of wheat - to imitate Andrew and Philip, who imitate Christ and to confront Sin in our own lives.  

• Prayer is to ask for the strength to follow Christ, 

• Fasting is to prepare us for death - to teach the body that the soul is greater and 

• Almsgiving is to give thanks to God for the grace to be converted to serving him.  

We are called to be wheat - to enter into death through obedience and suffering so that we make space in our lives for the love of Christ to dwell.

8 O'clock, Outer Ring - “But if it dies it produces much fruit…”

The beauty of embracing the Christian life is that it is the way that you and I are called to participate in the life of God - to cooperate with Him to bring about His will.  As the Psalmist says  Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me. I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall return to you.   

Our mission as Catholic Christians is to be the servants of the New Covenant - to form our consciences according to dwell and to nourish the gift of the Holy Spirit that dwells in our hearts.  To accomplish this we too need to become a grain of wheat - to die to sin so that they might have life.

Do we have the courage to embrace the cross in our lives?

Through the Desert

 

First Sunday of Lent

Gn 9:8-15, Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 1 Pt 3:18-22, Mk 1:12-15

The Spirit Drove Christ into the Desert

St. Mark tells us that the Spirit drove Christ into the Desert to be tempted by the Devil?  Why would God do that to himself?

The Desert is a place of Death

We have in our parish this beautiful poster of the Desert - it is at either Sunrise or Sunset - it seems to be a place of quiet, solitude, and beauty. Looking at this poster - you might be thinking to yourself - “I get it.  Jesus is about to begin His public ministry, so he is going to catch some rays and relax before getting busy saving the world.”  Nothing could be further from reality.

The Source of Death is our decision to Sin

St. Mark also tells us that Christ was driven into the desert to be tempted by Satan.  That tells us a bit about the reality of the Desert - it is the place of death.  There is no water, no shelter, no protection, everything is exposed, dries out and dies.  

The Israelites went into the Desert to Die to Slavery

When the Israelites went into the Desert it was so that they could die to the life of slavery in Egypt and so begin to live life as the chosen people of God.

The Desert is a dangerous place

The Desert is where we are alone, unprotected from the wild-beasts who are all scrambling to find their next meal - which if we are unprotected could be us.  The desert is populated with poisonous things - Snakes, Scorpions and the like - not a place where we could lie down and rest…

Why then does the Church send us into the Desert of Lent?

As I said - the desert is the place of lifelessness.  It is the place of Death.  For each of us, the desert is the place in our hearts where we choose sin, we choose to kill our relationship with God - that is the desert that we are called to enter into so that we can have a holy Lent.

The Desert of Lent is where we die to the Slavery of Sin

The Church sends us out into the Desert of Lent each year so that we can die to the slavery of Sin in our lives.  She does not send us into the desert unprepared, but sends us into the desert armed with the season of grace (God’s Love), and the weapons against the enemy - Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving.

On Ash Wednesday this past week the parish was packed with people, wall to wall.  The parking-lot was packed - and everyone was excited to be here.  In my experience of Lent, I know that this is early days, everyone is still enthusiastic about this journey - we have yet to stumble, fall or fail at our lenten disciplines - but that too is coming.

What is Sin?  What is Temptation?

All of us are sinners, we all commit sin.  There is nothing more embarrassing than to be a committed Christian and to recognize in your life that you are addicted to sin.  Even though you make a firm resolution in confession to avoid temptation to sin and the sin itself I still find myself committing sin in my life.  

Sin is when I freely take an action that is of grave matter that is directly opposed to the will of God.  Scripture tells us that the wages of Sin is death.  It also tells us the topics that make up grave matter.  The first 3 relate to God

1.  God Alone

2.  God’s name is Holy

3.  Take time to worship God on the Sabbath.

The last 7 are how we relate to one another.

4.  Honor your Parents

5.  Do not kill

6.  Do not commit adultery

7.  Do not steal

8.  Do not lie

9.  Do not covet your neighbor's wife

10. Do not covet your neighbor's goods.

That recognition leads me to the realization that I cannot escape Sin under my own power - that I am weak and that I need help. 

Sin kills our friendship with God - Sin is the Desert

God gave us the commandments (in the desert) to help us to live a good and holy life.  Yet all of us, find ourselves from time to time where we choose to break one or more of these commandments.  In that moment we choose to make ourselves God, and say to the Lord - you don’t know what is good for me - and instead to break the commandment - which kills off our ability to recognize the love of God.

When we do that we find ourselves in the midst of a spiritual desert - a place devoid of life and without the presence of God.  We truly are exposed to the wild beasts and vulnerable to death.  What can we do?

Psalm 107 - The Desert will become a place of springs

In Psalm 107 the Lord says that he will turn the “desert into streams, thirsty ground into springs of water…”.  The desert that the psalm refers to is the place of death that we find ourselves in this Lent.  It is the desert into which Christ preceded us to do battle with temptation by the Devil.  

Christ goes into our Deserts to help us win over sin

Christ goes into the desert - into the place in my life, your life where we choose to sin, where we exclude God from our life and where we begin to die to rescue us from the wages of Sin and Death.  That is what this Lenten season is about.  The Church equips us with Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving to give us the tools of conversion - so that we can die to the slavery to Sin and rise into the newness of life.

Prayer expresses our need for help

Prayer helps us to verbalize our need for God’s help.  Prayer in which we can begin to understand the depths of God’s love for us - that we can drive out temptation to make ourselves God and instead remember that God loves us completely, deeply, profoundly, totally.

Fasting helps us subdue impulsiveness

Fasting - where we do battle with the impulsive nature of our will.  Satan often tries to get us not through our logical nature - “Hey wouldn’t it be a great idea if you forgo eternity in communion with God for an Icecream cone?  No rather it is through our impulsive nature - I want, I am compelled, I desire…  Fasting helps to strengthen ourselves against our more impulsive desires - because at its heart most habitual sin is just that - we have become so comfortable in our sin that it is a habit and we are not even thinking about it any more…

Almsgiving is an imitation of Christ

Almsgiving - reminds us that everything we have been given is a gift from God, and so therefore we should share the gifts that God has given us with those in need. Almsgiving is a powerful weapon in Lent because not only does it help us to recognize God’s gifts, but it teaches us to imitate God by imitating His generosity - in sharing the gifts that God has given us..

Christ waits to be invited into your desert

Christ wants us to know that the desert is not a place that is foreign to Him, that is devoid of Him - that he is too embarrassed to go to.  No, rather God is compelled by His love for us to enter into the Desert for our conversion.

To bring about a flood of grace

And what of these Springs of Water that God desires to release into the Desert?  The springs of Water are best symbolized by the water of Baptism - in which God’s grace gives life and light to the world - in which we are reborn from Sinners into children of God - vessels of God’s grace welling up in us and through us into the world.  

See that God saves you this Lent

When we allow Christ into our Desert he brings his grace to cure the barrenness of Sin, and to bring about a new life of grace in our midst.  With all of the saints who were great sinners, the desert becomes a place of springs because it is the place where they can clearly see God’s love for them conquering sin and death in their lives.

St. Peter says in the second reading today…

Beloved:  Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.  Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit… 

In which a few persons… were saved through water.  This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.  It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience,

Repent (Change your mind) and believe in the Gospel

A clear conscience through which God’s love can permeate our lives and through our lives transform the world.  That is why the Gospel today ends in this way - Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."  Christ has gone before us - it is up to us to follow Him…