Making Pilgrimage - A Touch of Irony

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the liturgical celebration of Jesus' final Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  As the Torah commanded, He traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover in the Spring, Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks fifty days later, and Tabernacles in the fall (Ex.23:14-17; 34:22-23).  Keeping the feasts allowed the Jewish people to not only relive Israel’s deliverance, the giving of the Law, and entrance into the Promised Land; but to look ahead to the time when the Messiah would usher in a period of unequaled freedom, faithfulness, and prosperity.  That reached a fever pitch when Jesus entered Jerusalem amidst the other pilgrims on Palm Sunday.  

Why make pilgrimage to Jerusalem?  Because of the Temple! It is impossible to overstate the Temple's importance in Judaism.  It was the only place on earth from which legitimate sacrifice, avodah, could be offered by Israel’s Levitical priests.  The synagogue and prayer in the home were never a substitute for the sacrificial worship of the Temple, but means for those living at a distance to unite themselves to it. Prayer in the synagogue took place facing the Temple, at the same time as the morning and evening sacrifice.  And although Jews recognized that the universe itself couldn’t contain God, His presence in their Temple was utterly unique.  It was “His House.”  Just look at the love and esteem Jesus showed for His "Father's House" throughout the gospels.

And all of these elements have of course been carried over into Christianity - pilgrimage, the centrality of sacrifice (Jesus' sacrifice, made present in the Eucharist), and even our church buildings as "God's House."

Now, in the title of this post I mentioned that there is an ironic aspect to making a pilgrimage.  I do not mean to discount the wonderful experience that pilgrimage can be - traveling to the places where the awesome events in salvation history took place and being able to pray there.  It simply strikes me that the most important pilgrimage we can make is the one we make down the road each Sunday morning to the local parish where Jesus, God Himself, is present in the tabernacle.  We visit God's House, where we enter into Jesus' Passover from earth to the Heaven in the Eucharistic celebration!  There are surely wonderful benefits to be gained in making a pilgrimage overseas, but it cannot objectively bring you into any more intimate contact with God than your mini-pilgrimage to Palm Sunday Mass in your local parish.  And that is something to celebrate!

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If Wrong, We Catholics Are SERIOUS Heretics (Holy Thursday Reflection)

Being Holy Thursday, I am thinking about the Eucharist, and it struck me anew how earth-shattering our Eucharistic Faith truly is.  My high school theology teacher, Mr. Burns, nailed it, "After the priest prays Jesus’ words, “This is My body…This is My blood,” you don’t have bread and wine there anymore; it is Jesus!  People, you don’t fall on your knees in the kitchen when you pass by the Wonder Bread.  You go down on our knees in church because that’s not bread anymore, it is Jesus Himself!"

If we Catholics are wrong on this point, then we are not just making a simple mistake; we are guilty of the grossest kind of idolatry - of worshiping a piece of bread as God!   But that is our faith in the words of Jesus - our faith in His power to do absolutely anything!  Jesus said:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat [“phogein” in Greek, the usual verb for “eat”] the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life within you; 
he who eats [“trogein” in Greek, meaning “to munch or gnaw”] my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56, NIV)

The Apostle Paul took Jesus at His word.  Look at what Paul wrote the Corinthians:

"Whoever, therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died."

(1 Corinthians 11: 27-30)  

And the early Church understood Jesus and Paul every bit as literally as Catholics today.  Listen to my man Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, writing in 107 A.D.: 

“I desire the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, Who was of the seed of David, and for drink, His Blood, which is love incorruptible.”(Epistle to Romans)

“Use one Eucharist so that whatever you do, you do according to God: for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar as there is one bishop with the presbytery and the deacons.”  (Epistle to Philadelphians)

"Take note of those who hold heterodox [or heretical] opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which comes to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God ... They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes." (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans)

That's bold; we Catholics are "all in."  We are not simply another Christian denomination.  Either we have preserved the Faith established by Jesus, or we are idolaters.  For someone who truly wants to live as a disciple of Jesus, it is impossible to be indifferent to the claims made by the Catholic Church.  Either she is the Church founded by Jesus and the Eucharist is literally His body and blood, or she is misleading over a billion people.  But if she's right ... then it is the fullness of the Christian Faith.  Don't you think it's worth a serious study?

"Hey, Jesus is Standing Right Behind You" (or, What makes Catholic churches so different)

How would your posture or speech change if your friend whispered, "Jesus is standing right behind you"?  My back would suddenly straighten, I know that.  I have shared many intimate moments with the Lord in prayer, and I know that He is present everywhere, but I couldn't help snapping to attention if I realized that He was physically standing behind me I would .  Whatever I was in the middle of saying would suddenly lose all importance, and I would spin around on my heel as quickly as I could to acknowledge Him.  I don't think I could take a step toward Him or reach out; I would be too transfixed.  I would have to wait for Him to reach out to me.

It is this type of presence - Jesus' physical presence - that we experience in Catholic churches.  Jesus is really present, in a physical way, there in the tabernacle where the Eucharist is reserved.  And that is why we genuflect - touch our knee to the ground - before we enter our pew.  It's the reason we stand, kneel, and maintain a reverential silence through the Mass.  All our attention is fixed on Jesus, because He is present in the Catholic sanctuary in a way far different than He is anywhere else in creation - even in the churches of other Christian.  (I mean no disrespect; Protestant brothers and sisters do not share Catholic belief in  Jesus' Real Presence in the Eucharist, and so in their theology this level of presence is not possible before the Second Coming.)

This is why Catholic sanctuaries are much quiter than our Protestant brothers and sisters'.  They have a wonderful appreciation of Christ present in the gathered assembly and they celebrate that in greetings and conversation.  We Catholics need that kind of fellowship with the members of our parish!  But for us it should take place in the entry way/lobby or over coffee and donuts afterward in the cafeteria.  Within the sanctuary Christ is physically present to us through the miracle of the Eucharist - right there in the tabernacle.  And if we truly believe that, then our actions should follow, as surely as if we suddenly realized He was standing right there behind us!

Right in Front of Me

I hadn't prayed my daily rosary yet, so at about 9 p.m. this past Saturday, I ran up to the perpetual adoration chapel on my street. For those who may be unfamiliar with "perpetual adoration," it simply means that the Eucharist is exposed there on the altar, 24 hours a day, and kept company by one or more members of the parish. The Eucharist is displayed in a monstrance (you can see the white Host in the middle), as in this picture.

As I began praying the rosary, I meditated on Jesus' resurrection, picturing Mary Magdalen there at His tomb and hearing Jesus call her name. And the truth bowled me over me once again - the Risen One is right in front of me! What looks like a wafer of bread is Jesus of Nazareth; it's really Him - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. There I was, meditating on His resurrection right there in His very presence - not just a vague spiritual presence, but one that I could physically locate and gaze upon!

We can see this truth foreshadowed in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, and then proclaimed in the four Gospels, the letters of Paul, and the Apocalypse. If I was only allowed to point to one passage though, it would be Jesus' words in John's Gospel, "The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh...he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life...For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink" (John 6:51,54-55).

This is the reason I'm so excited to be just another Catholic - because at every Mass I kneel before, and then receive into me, the Lord of the Universe. I have the opportunity to renew our union again and again. Everytime the Eucharist is celebrated, time and space are folded; and we unite ourselves with Jesus' passage to the Father through His death, resurrection, and ascension!