Location: Basilica of Saint Francis
Xavier (Dyersville, IA) – 5 p.m. Saturday & 8:30 a.m. Sunday
Saint Boniface Catholic Church (New Vienna, IA) – 10 a.m. Sunday
Date: Sunday May 25th (6th
Sunday of Easter, Year A)
READINGS:
1st Reading: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
Resp. Psalm: Ps. 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
2nd Reading: 1 Peter 3:15-18
Gospel: John 14:15-21
FOCUS: Following St. Peter’s command,
we should be prepared to explain and defend our faith.
FUNCTION: Attend the Cluster CRHP retreat;
take time to read your Bible; learn your faith.
Every
once in a while, I’ll watch a TV show like Law & Order, and it’s always very
fascinating; it’s interesting to see how the law gets played out (often in a dramatic
way, but, hey, that’s TV). Someone’s
accused of a crime; one attorney in the legal drama is the prosecutor, who’s
trying to bring about a conviction for the person charged with a crime, who’s
known as the defendant; and it’s then up to the defense attorney to come up
with an argument, testimony, and evidence about why the defendant should not be
charged with the alleged crime. Then the
jury takes the testimony, the evidence, and the arguments presented by the
prosecutor and the defense attorney, deliberates on it, and returns with a
verdict of either guilty or not guilty regarding the alleged crimes.
It’s
exciting stuff; the lawyers have to be ready to give some good arguments about
why someone should either be convicted or acquitted. In a similar way, this weekend’s second
reading says we should always be ready to give a defense for what we believe
and why we believe it. Obviously our
defense or explanation won’t be quite as dramatic as the presentation by the
defense attorney in a TV show like Law & Order, but it what’s we’re called
to do, regardless. St. Peter says, “Always be ready to give an explanation to
anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and
reverence…”
This
verse is often used as the basis for Catholic apologetics. Now, the word “apologetics” doesn’t have
anything to do with apologizing – we’re not called to go around saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry for being Catholic, this is
just the way I was raised…..yeah, I’m sorry that we believe in the Real
Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist…...yeah, I don’t know why we have a Pope,
either…..you’re right, we do make too big a deal about Mary.” No, no, no….nothing like that. Apologetics is about offering up reasons –
based on Scripture and Tradition – for why we believe what we believe. This is something that we Catholics need to
be able to do a much better job of. Many
of us don’t know our faith like we should.
Yes,
we believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but we might not
have any idea where to turn to in the Bible or the tradition of the Church for
why we believe in the Real Presence; and to do that, we should be familiar with
the Gospel of John, chapter 6, where Jesus speaks about Himself as the Bread of
Life in His famous “Bread of Life discourse.”
And we should know about someone like St. Ignatius of Antioch (from the early
2nd century), who frequently talked about the Church’s faith in the
Eucharist in his letters.
Likewise,
we give Mary the highest honor after God Himself, but perhaps we can’t
adequately explain why; and to do that, we should be familiar with the text of
the Annunciation to Mary in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, and how the
Archangel Gabriel addresses her as “full
of grace,” and how that means that she’s been specially chosen by God and
set apart in a special way to be the mother of His only-begotten Son; and we
should probably know a little bit about her title, “Mother of God,” and how
that title came about because the early Church Fathers in the 3rd
and 4th centuries were trying to defend the divinity of Christ from
heretics who tried to say that Jesus wasn’t actually God.
Furthermore,
we all know that we have a Pope, but we might now know why we have a Pope, and
how that position in the Church came about; and to do that, we should be
familiar with the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, and St. Peter’s confession
about the identity of Jesus, and how Jesus named Him Peter and said that He
would build His Church upon Peter, whose name means “Rock,” and how Jesus gave
Peter the keys of the kingdom, giving Him the power to bind and loose. And we should know about how St. Peter
became the Bishop of Rome, and how successors were chosen after He died, and
how the Church in Rome developed a primacy among Christians because of Peter’s
authority among the apostles.
The
Eucharist, Mary, the Pope – these are just a few of the many topics that we
should be able to talk about intelligently as Catholics; we should know our
faith and be ready to give an explanation for our hope to people who ask. How do we do that? I think we all have to spend a little more
time learning about our faith. Maybe we
need to spend a little more time reading our Bible; or listening to a good CD
from Lighthouse Catholic Media; or reading a good Catholic book by someone like
Scott Hahn or Patrick Madrid or Edward Sri or Brant Pitre; or visit a website
like catholic.com (the website for Catholic Answers) or cuf.org (the website
for Catholics United for the Faith) and read some of the content they
offer. There are so many ways we can
grow in our faith.
We
must not be accidentally Catholic; we have to be intentionally Catholic –
because we believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, that He
founded the Church upon Peter, the first Pope, and that He died and rose from
the dead, and sent His disciples out to preach to the whole world the truth of
the Gospel and God’s plan of salvation.
That’s why we have to be intentionally Catholic; we have to know our own
story; we should be familiar with our family history as Christians, as members
of the Church, the family of God. If
we’re just going through the motions, then we’re missing the point. Faith is something that either needs to be
continually growing, or it will shrivel up; faith is like a plant – you have to
water a plant in order to keep it alive; the point is, if our faith isn’t being
nourished by continued learning, we shouldn’t be surprised if it feels kind of
dead.
One
way to nourish your faith would be to get involved in the Cluster CHRP retreat
– Christ Renews His Parish. Many people have
learned that when they started giving more to God, God gave them a lot more in return. Is it a sacrifice? Perhaps, because it means we’re not doing
something else. But could it be just
what you need? Absolutely. Give God a little, and He can do great
things.
I
especially encourage our Catholic men to step up to the plate about attending
the upcoming CHRP retreat, quit being afraid, and become the kind of spiritual
leader that your wife and family and this community needs. The point is this: if we know our faith, then
we’ll always be ready to give a reason for the hope that we have in
Christ.
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