23 years ago today, on the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Pope John Paul landed in Boston for his first visit to the United States after his election. As a Cardinal Archbishop and professor of theology, he had already been across the river in Cambridge where he had lectured to the eminences of Harvard Divinity School, but now he was coming to his own. And his own received him in a big way, filling Boston Common with a hundred thousand souls, a big crowd for a city of 500,000. We college pals who arrived on foot at 7:30 am — making a little pilgrimage of it — were rewarded with a place close enough so that we saw the Pope — that is, if we had our glasses on — and that was enough for us. He told us as the rain poured down on us all, Catholics and catechumens alike, and even a few Evangelicals: “Do not be afraid to follow Christ!”
Author: Richard Chonak
Well, I guess that makes
Well, I guess that makes up for it
OK, I admit it: I was holding Pop Greggy’s episode of ungentlemanly behavior (toward Miss Stimpson) against him, but after reading his new Rodgers and Hammerstein song, I’m willing to relent, grant him an indulgence, and say all is forgiven.
Do be do be do
Do be do be do
Fr. Bob Carr ruminates about why the slogan “What Would Jesus Do?”, a currently popular theme in Evangelical Protestant youth culture, never really sat quite right with him. He offers a story to illustrate why we need not just the question, but also the answer. He starts here and gives a followup.
For what it’s worth, here’s another angle: “WWJD?” by itself is a question about morality, and while moral guidance is good, it’s not everything. Sometimes we get the guidance and we still fail to live up to the way of Jesus. Another question comes to help us out: “What did Jesus do?” He became an inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness for us. We listen to the answers from Jesus the Preacher, but we also need Jesus the Priest.
Adoremus in aeternum Sacratissimum Sacramentum.
Matt. 18: 1-10 Today’s gospel
Matt. 18: 1-10
Today’s gospel reading, according to the 1962 Roman Missal, was for the feast of St. Michael the Archangel.
1: At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2: And Jesus called a little child to him, set him in their midst,
3: and said, “Amen I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
4: Whoever, therefore, humbles himself as this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5: “And whoever receives one such little child for my sake, receives me.
6: But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it were better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
7: “Woe to the world because of scandals! For it must needs be that scandals come, but woe to the man through whom scandal does come!
8: And if thy hand or thy foot is an occasion of sin to thee, cut it off and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to enter life maimed or lame, than, having two hands or two feet, to be thrown into the everlasting fire.
9: And if thy eye is an occasion of sin to thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee! It is better for thee to enter life with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell-fire.
10: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you, their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father in heaven.”
(text from the 1941 Confraternity Version)
This gospel returns to us with painful relevance this year, and in it, the Lord Jesus speaks a warning with the utmost seriousness: lead no one else to sin, and let nothing lead you to sin.
There is also a word of consolation in verse 10, a word that speaks to all those who were as little ones “despised” or scandalized — now we might say: who were disrespected, shocked, wounded, led to stumble. Jesus says you were not alone, you were not lost: your angel in heaven always beheld the face of my Father.