"To Trust in God" by Bishop Boyce

This is perhaps one of the most beautiful homilies I've ever run across. It is exactly what we need to hear to face the time that we've been born into. The values of the Church are being attacked. The freedoms that this astonishing nation was founded upon are being eroded by the very man the people elected to protect them. Now is precisely the time that we need to trust in God and remember that we know the end of the story. Please, read this homily and entrust the Lord Our God with more of your life, more of your hopes and fears today:

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Homily of Bishop Philip Boyce, at Knock Novena – "To Trust in God"

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace" (Heb. 4:16).

The word of the Lord urges us to place our trust in God, not in the brittle supports of created things on earth. People have always been tempted to rely on some visible and profitable reality. To us, it seems at times to be a step too far to place our confidence in Him whom we know only through faith. It was a test failed by Adam and Eve when they were asked not to taste of the fruit of the tree of Good and Evil. Relying on their own wisdom, and abetted by the false promises of the Evil One, they put their trust in a created gain rather than in the power of the all-wise Creator.

They were very soon to regret their folly. They immediately tasted the bitter fruit of the confidence they placed in a lie. They felt ashamed of each other and afraid of God. Their misplaced confidence led to death for both of them. There we see how true it is that God did not make death (Wis 1:13) but that "through the devil's envy death entered the world" (Wis 2:24). Our first parents trusted in a lie and in the father of lies. As Jesus would say one day: "The devil…was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (Jn 8:44).

Throughout the history of salvation, people have been led astray. They trusted in something or someone less than God – human idols of one kind or another. It was either in riches or power, earthly princes or human allies. Yet the wisdom of God denounces such shallow confidence: "Cursed is he who trusts in man….whose heart turns away from the Lord…Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord" (Jer 17:5-7).

The Trust of one who believes

Trust or hope means persevering in faith against the evident difficulties that free us. On a natural level, hope is a movement of our will towards something we perceive as good, that is not ours completely, but that is possible though difficult to attain. Psychologically it creates a tension within us because, what we aspire to, we do not fully possess as yet. But the very fact that it is possible to attain makes us overcome the uncertainties and be confident that what we long for is not beyond our grasp.

Christian theological hope, or trust of one who believes, aspires to the greatest good of all, namely, our salvation and the vision of God in heaven. The Lord Jesus tells his disciples that this is not a delusion for "it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom" (cf. Rom 4:18). However, the God who gives the promise is faithful so that "hope does not disappoint us, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5)

Trusting in God through suffering and in the Dark night of the Church

The moment of history we live through in Ireland at present is certainly a testing one for the Church and for all of us. Attacked from the outside by the arrows of a secular and godless culture: rocked from the inside by the sins and crimes of priests and consecrated people, we all feel the temptation to lose confidence. Yet, our trust is displayed and deepened above all when we are in troubled and stormy waters. It is easier to be confident when we ride on the crest of a wave, when the tide is coming in. Not so easy, however, yet every bit as necessary, when what is proclaimed by the Church namely the truth of faith with its daily practice and influence on behaviour, is under severe pressure.

Some of you may be labouring under a severe trial and have come to this Shrine of Our Lady at Knock for strength and consolation. It may be a dreaded illness or family difficulties; it may be spiritual darkness and desolation; it may be trying circumstances in the present financial downturn. Or it may be the spiritual Dark Night that now engulfs the Church in Ireland, in which our spiritual horizons are dimmed because some of those anointed to preach the word of God and to sanctify, were found to have betrayed the trust placed in them by innocent souls.

What we are called upon to do at this time is to act hopefully, with patience. Every dark night of suffering is meant to be a time of purification and renewal. As so often in times past, there were dark days of disorder and trial for the Church. But then, she rose again fortified in light. So too will it be once again this time.

One man who sacrificed all he had to discover the true Church, Blessed John Henry Newman, and who had personal experience of her weakness as well as of her beauty, expressed this buoyant trust in eloquent words:

"But in truth the whole course of Christianity from the first, when we come to examine it, is but one series of troubles and disorders. Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it. The Church is ever ailing, and lingers on in weakness, "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in her body." Religion seems ever expiring, schisms dominant, the light of Truth dim, its adherents scattered. The cause of Christ is ever in its last agony, as though it were but a question of time whether it fails finally this day or another. The Saints are ever all but failing from the earth……; meanwhile, thus much of comfort do we gain from what has been hitherto,- not to despond, not to be dismayed, not to be anxious, at the troubles which encompass us. They have ever been; they ever shall be; they are our portion." (Via Media I, 354-5)

These troubles seem to us to be the worst ever – simply because they are the ones we struggle through at present. The Lord however has to be met in the midst of the very trials that beset us. We should not so much fight them directly as give them into the Lord's keeping. In some ways we exchange our weakness for God's strength. Simply to worry and fret makes the anguish fester within us. We do not deny them but rather take them as our share in Christ's redeeming sufferings. From the midst of them we call upon the only Person who can really help us.

As we heard in the first reading, David, looking back on how the Lord delivered him from his enemies and the waves of death that encompassed him, said: "In my distress I called upon the Lord…." (2 Sam 22:7). He recognised his predicament but he sought help in his weakness from God, the Strong One of Israel. Or like the two desperate people in the Gospel passage: a prominent ruler of the Synagogue whose daughter had already died, but who hoped beyond hope in a miracle and a poor women, a socially marginalised person on account of her ailment, making a desperate grasp, trying to touch even the fringe of the Lord's garment. The unshakable trust of both of them was rewarded promptly and with astonishing authority (Mt 9:18-22). In some ways, the worse our condition, the nearer is God's help. For nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, for he has promised to be with his Church until the end of time. As Christians, so much will depend on our attitude of faith and trust. We cannot avoid trial and suffering in this world. "It is not by side stepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed (writes our Holy Father), but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love" (Spe Salvi §37). Therefore, we need to trust Him.

When we enter into any kind of suffering and distress, it is the Lord who allows us to experience our own weakness and inadequacy. Some situations cannot be rectified without special help from on high. The sad effects of accidents on the roads, of dreaded diseases, of social and economic upheavals, of addictions and so on, need more than human resources. They also need the helping hand of God. The prophet warned the people of old: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many…..but do not look to….the Lord" (cf. Is. 31:1). We look for prosperity, but there is no real and lasting prosperity without God.

Indeed unless we trust in a higher power, in God himself, what hope can we have? St. Paul told his converts at Ephesus that before they came to know Christ, they were "without hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12). We need the radiance of a hope that looks beyond the horizons of space and time, one as Pope Benedict teaches "that cannot be destroyed even by small-scale failures or by a breakdown in matters of historic importance" (Spe Salvi §35). For the distinguishing mark of Christian believers is "the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness….To come to know God – the true God – means to receive hope" (Ibid, §23). We thank God for the faith, that enables us to trust in Him.

Knock: a Call to trust in God

In this holy Shrine of Knock, we are always reminded of the reasons we have for hope and trust in God. Central to the Apparition itself is the altar with the Lamb standing on it. This reminds us first of all of the Eucharist where, as fruit of Christ's Sacrifice, there is offered to us in every Holy Communion the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. By nourishing us with Christ's life, the Eucharist nourishes in us a life that has no end. "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day" (Jn 6:54). This is a pledge of something great to come, a seed that will blossom into eternal life, into immortality.

From this point of view, the holy Eucharist, which we shall celebrate with intensity at the International Eucharistic Congress next June, is a Sacrament of hope that strengthens our trust in God. It sustains us as we are buffeted by the storms of this world and bear a cross that weighs us down. The Mass is a foretaste of heavenly peace. At this Eucharistic celebration we too experience it at least imperfectly but really, and we are given the promise that it will one day be perfect and cannot be lost. Therefore, let us trust our God.

Moreover, the Lamb on the altar at Knock reminds us of the Apocalypse with St. John's vision of the end of time and of fulfilment in heaven. We see the risen and triumphant Lamb of God. He is surrounded by angels and a countless number of Christian believers who come here on pilgrimage. This vision foreshadows the heavenly city from which will descend at the end of time the Church, which is the Bride of Christ, the Lamb of God. In his prophetic gaze, St. John "saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and heard a great voice from the throne saying, "Behold the dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them….he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more…." (Rev. 21:2-4). In that company there will be for us "things no eye has seen. No ear has heard, things beyond our imagining, far outweighing our present distress" (cf. 2 Cor. 4:17).

This triumphant Church of the elect is the same that now struggles and sighs in the slow and painful grip of history that is unfolding hour by weary hour, minute by minute. We now face the challenge of trusting in our Saviour, at times without hope. The powers of evil and their apparent triumphs put our trust in God to the test. However, we have the certitude of faith that Christ, the Word of God, will have the final victory. And it is not far away. For the Lord says: "Behold, I am coming soon" (Rev. 22:7).

And we all respond with a cry of hope that hungers for his presence: "Maranatha, Come. Lord Jesus, come."

Perhaps Blessed John Paul II, at the time we embarked on a new Millennium of human history, had this vision of hopeful trust in his mind when he wrote: "Duc in Altum! Let us go forwards in hope! A new Millennium is opening before the Church like a vast ocean upon which we shall venture, relying on the help of Christ. The Son of God, who became incarnate two thousand years ago out of love for humanity, is at work even today: we need discerning eyes to see this and, above all, a generous heart to become the instruments of his work…we can count on the power of the same Spirit who was poured out at Pentecost and who impels us still today to start anew, sustained by the hope which does not disappoint" (Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, No 58).

We are under Our Lady's protection, who visited her people here at this spot in a time of poverty and distress. As long as she is praying for us in Heaven nothing whatever, high or low, can harm us or take away our trust in God. She reigns a Queen forever and her Son refuses her nothing she requests. Our Lady of Knock, pray for us.

Perpetual Virgin, Revamped

The next series on the Blessed Virgin has now been fully revamped: Perpetual Virgin. In addition to all the personal touches I slipped into the various chapters, it also now includes a substantial amount of new quotes from the Early Church Fathers as well as the following new concluding chapter:

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Mary, Court of the Eternal King

"You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if He had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord's body, that court of the Eternal King."

-Pope St. Siricius (A.D. 392, Letter to Bishop Anysius).

This response of the Sainted Pope upon hearing from one of his brother bishops of the appearance of some Antidicomarites (as St. Augustine calls them) in Anysius' diocese, expresses well the heart of the Christian who has pondered this doctrine and come to accept the Church's position. It is beyond fitting that Our Lord Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, should not have to share His "court", the womb of His mother, with a sinful sibling. I am reminded of the Centurion's protest in the Gospel, "I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof..." (Matt 8:8). If we are not worthy that the Lord God should come into our homes, then how much more unworthy are we to enter the courts of the Holy One of Israel???
        As I learned the Catholic position, I too, little by little, began to realize the profound audacity of claiming that the Mother of God might sully both her "gate" and her womb by the touch of sinful humanity when she had been chosen by God to be His holy Ark, more holy even than the first. This may seem hypocritical to those who believe that Mary too was sinful. After all, if Mary was mired in sin like the rest of us, then our Lord's first home, "that court of the Eternal King," was already sullied by her own imperfections. But that's not what we believe. Indeed, it is one small part of the reason we attest that Mary was preserved from all stain of sin from the moment of her conception, but that's a topic for another time.
        Too often in America, our tendency regarding God is to forget the supreme reality of His holiness. We are too acquainted with the effects of His awesome mercy, which allows us to because not only servants but children and friends to Almighty God, that we almost completely forget His justice. We have become complacent and presumptuous, approaching His holy altar without the fear of the Lord. If nothing else, that is what this doctrine aught to rectify in our hearts. For the sake of our sanctification, we absolutely must remember that the Lord is holy─i.e. set apart─to the point that anyone who is not absolutely pure, devoid not only of all actual sin, but also of any and all mere attachment to sin, comes into His presence, His holiness and justice demand that He eradication that person (this, by the way, is also why we believe in Purgatory, but again that's a topic for later). In the Old Testament account of the Ark, which was also called the Ark of the Presence, returning from the Philistines, Uzzah did not sin in desiring the Ark to be safe─indeed, that desire fueled the calling of Joseph who offered his life to be protector of Mary and thus became likewise the protector of Christ─yet he was smote because He dared reach out his hand to touch the object that held the Presence of the Holy One of Israel─not even the Presence Himself, but that which held Him. And this was merely the seat of God, not the person whom His Presence fully entered! It would be the height of audacity to presume to touch such a person in a sexual manner! Indeed, that is why, while they believed that she was merely consecrated to the Lord in the normal way, the scribe and priest in the Protoevangelium were aghast at the prospect of someone having lain with her. How much more appalled would they have been to learn later that a sinful man had lain with the very Virgin to whom God had consecrated Himself in return?
        It is for this reason that the Catholic Church calls Mary "the Spouse of the Holy Spirit." Because, despite the long tradition of woman and men consecrating themselves to God in the Temple, and indeed throughout the centuries since the Incarnation, Mary was the first and last to whom the Holy Spirit in return united Himself so completely that a Divine Person, the Saviour of the World, was born of the union. As Christ Himself said, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6). In the end, the only question I was left with regarding this doctrine was not a question to be asked of Catholic apologists, but rather a question that I had to ask myself: if God has made Himself uniquely one flesh with this particular woman, how could I not believe that she would have remained faithful to God alone? And I respond in the words of St. John of Damascus: "Perish the thought!"

Mother of God, Revamped

I've completed the rewrite of the Mother of God series, including a newly added closing chapter. I hope you'll take the time to review the page and, if you like, comment on it. For the sake of those who don't have time to read the whole page right away, I'll include the new closing segment here:
 
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God-Bearers Like Mary

 
        Much more could be said about the ways in which Mary is the true antitype of the Ark of the Covenant, but I think that perhaps we've seen enough to be convinced. Or, if this has not been enough, I suspect that no amount of words will suffice; only the grace of God will do. Nevertheless, as I said in the beginning, the Church teaches and defends the doctrines pertaining to Mary not so much because of what they say about Mary, but because of what they say about Jesus and about ourselves. And that is why I eagerly embrace them. This doctrine, as was stated in the first chapter, hinges on the Divinity of Christ. If Jesus is God, then His mother is God's mother. If Jesus is God, then the woman who bore Him bore God. But what about us? Why does this matter for us and what does it teach us about our relationship with God?
        There is no simple answer to those questions. Like Mary, each of us must ponder these things. Mary is essentially, the prototypical Christian, and so it is our task to "[b]e imitators of [her] as [she] imitates Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1). There are many, many ways in which each of us is called to be a God-bearer, an ark of the new covenant. We are called to be Christ's ambassadors to those who are yet dying in sin, and thus to carry Him within ourselves as we live out our daily lives. This is why, at the end of Mass, we are told, "Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord," or "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life." At Mass, we receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus because He is truly present in the Eucharist (a.k.a. the Lord's Supper, a.k.a. Communion), and then we are sent to bear Him forth into the world so that His saving presence might save everyone with whome we come into contact.
        Each of us, having been created in the image and likeness of God, is called to protect the dignity of that inherent godliness in a myriad of ways. Just as Mary protected her Son by putting her whole body between Him and the entire world when He was too small to survive alone in it, we may be called to put our bodies in harm's way in order to protect those who are too weak to protect themselves. Some do this by campaigning for the end to Abortion, by standing outside Abortion clinics, praying for and speaking to those who enter in the hopes that they may save the lives of unborn children. Others do it more routinely, by serving as doctors, nurses, medical technicians, etc., working to safeguard and improve the health of those who are ill, despite the ever-present possibility that they themselves may be infected by any one of the illnesses under which their patients suffer. Still more put themselves in harm's way in a manner very similar to the Blessed Mother: by being parents, protecting their children from the dangers of the world, teaching them how to face it, and, of course, training them to know, love, and serve Jesus as their very own Lord and Saviour, Eternal King of their lives and lover of their souls. There are as many ways to answer this call as there are Christians who hear it.
        Whatever your particular calling, it is this Truth to which you owe that calling. Without Mary's willingness to be the Mother of God, the Son of God might never have become human, might never have taken on Himself the mortal flesh that allowed Him to die for your sins. Without Mary's conscious choice to bear God within her womb, none of us would be Christians. She is the first, best Christian; she offered herself completely, body and soul, to God so that He might have a body to offer up for us. Ponder this mystery─ponder Mary's motherhood; ponder the incomprehensible reality of Emmanuel, Transcendent God tangibly present with man, sharing the same human flesh as each and every one of us; ponder the suffering the Philistines endured because they refused to recognize the Ark for what it was; ponder the all-humbling joy felt by David and Elizabeth, indeed by the whole Isrealite people, when the Ark of the Most High God was brought to them, though they were not worthy─ponder all this and your Christian life will become more unfathomably meaningful than ever before.
        Before I became Catholic, I never knew any of these things about Mary. I never pondered these things. And now, because I know them and ponder them, I not only know more about Jesus and His mother, and about God and His plan for salvation, but I have a richer, deeper, and closer relationship with Him. I love God more because I can see His love more clearly. Because I see His mother for who she is, I can better see Jesus for whoHe is. If you know more about who my mother is, you will know a great number of things about me that I myself could never tell you; in the same way, as we learn to know the Mother of God, we come to know things about Him which He can better show us─through her─than tell us. That is why, when God says, "honor your father and your mother" (Exodus 20:12), we would do well to honor His mother too.

Manifold Updates

          There are several things that I'd like to make you all aware of. Firstly, I've moved my blog from Xanga to Blogger. This is primarily to accommodate the fact that I've started up a website as well as Google+ and Facebook pages, all of which I can link to very, very easily and visibly from Blogger while it would be far less visible and far more complicated to setup on Xanga. Also, Blogger has a lot of options for free that Xanga only allows to paying bloggers (in fact, I don't even think Blogger has a paying option), so that's a huge bonus. And finally, I rather like the way the new blog looks over and above the way the Xanga one did (both on the actual blog-site and in the background where I manage it), so I'm definitely liking the move. As such, this will be both the last post on Xanga and the first post on Blogger. Sorry for the inconvenience; I hope you'll follow me over there...

          Now, as for the website, I thought it might be helpful to collect all the stuff I'm writing in a more organized fashion. As my wife informs me, it's entirely possible to gather all the posts that relate to, say, the doctrine of Mary as Mother of God by finding and selecting that tag on the blog, but that still means reading each blog entry separately and then re-running that search when you're ready for the next one. That may be simple and natural for some of you, but it's not for me. I find it much more practicable to have it all collated in one easily-navigated place, so that's part of why the website exists. The other reason I've gathered all my Mary-blogs there is so that I can go through and re-work them a little. As I've practiced at this endeavor of writing about Catholic teaching, I've been trying to hone my style, and I've come to the realization that what I (and also my parents, teachers, and professors) liked about my writing style in high school and college was that I was very good at making the abstract personal by "putting myself into my writing," as they say. So, although I haven't finished doing that yet, I'm working on adding more of those personal touches to what I've already written about Mary. As I said in my introduction to the whole Marian series, these doctrines are the ones with which I wrestled the most before I became Catholic, but I don't feel like I've been adequately expressing that in writing about them thus far. So I'm going back and doing that, one section at a time. So far, I've only gotten through the intro, but I'll try to let you all know when I finish putting myself more clearly into subsequent sections.

          The other new additions are, as I said, Google+ and Facebook fan pages, both of which are linked to from both the new blog and the website. The main reason for those is to better allow for the online equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising. It also, of course, adds another medium through which you can write comments or ask questions to help me continue to hone my writing style at the same time that I help you understand where I and the Catholic Church are coming from in what we believe. So, please, keep reading and commenting. I'll take all the constructive criticism I can get.

 

In the Cross of Christ and His glorious resurrection,

Jackford R. Macarius B. Kolk

Tenui Ecclesiam Catholicam nec dimittam.