On the Feast of Corpus Christi

The readings for today are very useful. Especially:

Deuteronomy 8:13-16

Do not forget the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery,
who led you through the great and terrible wilderness,
an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions.

He made water flow for you from flint rock,
and fed you in the wilderness with manna
that your ancestors did not know,
to humble you and to test you,
and in the end to do you good.

I Corinthians 10: 16-17

The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break,
is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?

Because there is one bread,
we who are many are one body,
for we all partake of the one bread.

There are moments when St. Paul steps aside and the Good News is transmitted.

Last week Paul assured us that only those moved by the Spirit could proclaim the Kerygma: Jesus is Lord. And today he reminds us, that fed on the life-giving body and blood of the one Lord, we are made into the one body of that Lord.

The Body of Christ, which we celebrate today, can be known in at least three ways. Firstly, Jesus has a body, that was conceived by the Holy Spirit and borne by the Virgin Mary. This body was circumcised, was presented in the temple, was found there by his worried parents, was baptized by John, was crucified, died, burried, raised up, ascended, and will come again! Secondly, the Body of Christ is the community of those baptized into his death and resurrection, those who have been grafted onto the vine who is Jesus. Lastly, there is the Body of Christ, made available to us in the Sacrament we contemplate today. However it is known, it is the one Body of Christ.

The Lord of heaven has given into our hands the Body and Blood of his only Son, that we may be nourished by it, and thereby enabled to proclaim his good news, to welcome others into the fellowship of Jesus' table. Nourished also to live beyond this life the life of the sisters and brothers of His Son in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Who Would have Thought?

You are Pope St. Pius X. You'd rather be right than
newfangled.

Which Twentieth Century Pope Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm not a particular fan of Pius X, nothing really against him, mind you, just not a fan. But I would rather be right than merely newfangled. Of course, I'd prefer be right in a very generous, kindly manner, rather than the smug, snarky attitude that gives rectitude such a bad name.

I played with the quiz a couple of times. Two different clicks, not so off the mark, and I come up as Pope Paul VI. A different couple of clicks, also not so off the mark, as the mark is allowed to go, and I get to be John Paul II. What a wonderful world.

At the end of the day, I must admit to a distaste for the newfangled, a word I must now use everyday in a sentence.

On the question of Faith

I've been thinking about faith a lot recently.

I guess one should expect that during Lent and Easter. Every day someone, somewhere is talking about faith, or exhorting one to faith, or professing the Faith. Jesus is hanging on the cross; Jesus is laid in the tomb; Jesus is raised from the dead; Jesus has ascended into glory; the Holy Spirit has come upon the disciples like a roaring wind and tongues of fire. Every day for 12 weeks, faith has been an explicit part of the picture. Every day.

But what if you don't have any?

All of my life I have been greatly perplexed by that saying of Jesus:

Matthew 17:20

. . . for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Be transported hence there, and it shall transport itself; and nothing shall be impossible to you.

All of my life it has been abundantly clear to me that Faith is not one of the gifts that I've been given, at least not so that you'd notice the geography changing too regularly.

When I was in College, my dearest friends were men and women of great personal struggles for whom the question of faith was terribly real.

It never really occurred to me that there might be no God. But I did have a period of deep doubt. It did occur to me that the God who does exist might not be the God my Charismatic friends spoke so highly of, or that my smug cousin proudly proclaimed to be her personal Lord and Savior.

Even now, I'm a bit uneasy about all that. It is altogether possible that we have got God quite wrong!

One set of my best friends were devoted Charismatics. God, for them, was very alive, very interested in their daily activities and class schedules. Everyday, in every way God was the Person of the Hour! The evidence of faith was everywhere amongst them. One of their number had their left leg grow three inches--I swear! Another was exercised of the demon of homosexuality, right before my eyes! Glory! All of them got to weep on a weekly basis and shout and jump about during rather musical worship services. None of them had to feel bad.

My more cynical friends might suggest that these people had enjoyed altogether too sheltered and structured childhoods, or remind me of the subtleties of experience arising from a raised kundalini. In any case, for many years this question of faith thing has been very irritating.

Remember, I've never really questioned that there is a God. The unmoved mover makes complete sense to me! The fear, really, is that that mover is unmoved and unmoving! When Anselm makes his contribution to Western Civilization with his claim that God is that than which none greater can be conceived, he completes his argument for God's existence, making a leap of faith to declare that that God is the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And there's the rub, what if Anselm got it wrong?

This never bothered my Charismatic friends. Anselm was not in the Bible and rational arguments are dubious anyway. And, well, assurance is so much more comfortable than doubt. The life and experience of the Spirit was right there for them. It has never been that way for me.

Today, to top off the whole season's focus on faith is the reading from St. Paul:

I Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13

No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, —Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

I may not be able to move mountains with a quiet command, but I do seem able to say: Jesus is Lord. And, I hope that means that the Spirit lives within me. Hoping is not the same as believing. I believe in God and I have after many years begun to hope that Jesus is the true face of the God of that belief.

I have opted for Jesus, and the Jesus tradition, because the notion of the unmoved mover is too horrible to contemplate, however easy to imagine. Hope for me has been the road toward faith. I will not claim faith, but I will acknowledge a hope for it.

When I was young I used to pray: I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.

Thirty five years later, and I just don't have it, or I do. Whatever it is that I have is far more quiet than anyone could want.

I have given up on faith. I don't pray for it any more. For the last ten years or so I've been praying for Love, not faith. Saint Augustine said: Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord; and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. I would rather love God than believe in him. I have come to believe that love answers the question of faith, belief. I would prefer to love.

It may be a surprise to some, but I pray the Rosary at least once each weekend while I walk from the Northside of the campus where I live, down the hill to the Public Library and then on to lunch. I've got issues with the Rosary, most of which will be left for another discussion, I've never quite cottoned to the approved schema associated with the Rosary so one of the many personal adaptations I employ concerns the three little Hail Mary's at the beginning (or end, whatever).

For many years I have prayed these Hail Mary's with a specific intention, I pray for the theological virtues of: faith; hope; and charity. I ask Almighty God to give me, or the world, or for whomever it is that I am praying, the gift of Faith in their life and the effects of Faith right now-- not later, but later too! In a like manner, I also pray for Hope and the effects of Hope, and for Love and the effects of love. We need, all of us, efficatious Grace, sufficient Grace just won't do!

Whatever else these things may be, mental attitude, psychological outlook, theological virtues, they are gifts. While they may be abundant, many of us seem to be in great need of them.

Only God, who is not unmoved, can give us these gifts, and I commend the practice of asking for them.