Homily: Saturday 5th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Gn 3:1-24 • Ps 90 • Mk 8:1-10

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After that first sin, that original sin, God asks Adam a question: 

"Adam, where are you?" [Gn 3:9]

At first it seem a strange question, doesn't it? After all, God knows where Adam is physically. But then we realize what God is really asking. He's asking Adam to look within himself and recognize where he is spiritually because of his sin. Yes, indeed...

"Adam, Where are you?"

Don't you see what's happened, Adam? What you and Eve have done to yourselves? 

With that simple question God reminds them that He had given them paradise on earth, everything they needed, but they had tossed it aside. They lost their intended place in God's creation because they desired God's place. 

God had created them in His image, molded them into His likeness, blessed them as no other creatures had been blessed, and yet they listened to Satan and succumbed to the temptation to be like God.

How that question, that Word of God, must have echoed throughout the Garden: 

"Adam, where are you?"

It's the kind of question Jesus would ask, isn't it? Calling the sinner back to awareness of his sinfulness. We hear similar questions in the Gospels, don't we?

"Woman, where are your accusers?" [Jn 8:10]

"Simon, son of John, do you love me?" [Jn 21:15-17]

St. Irenaeus, one of the great Fathers of the early Church, reminds us that it truly is the Eternal Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of the Father, who speaks to Adam in the Garden. Listens to what Irenaeus writes:

"It is the Son who speaks with men... the Word of God who is always with the human race...and who teaches the things of God to men. The Son of God speaks now with Abraham, now with Noah...now He seeks out Adam..."

Yes, indeed, He who will be called the "New Adam," the Word of God, the Son of God, seeks out and calls to Adam: 

"Adam, where are you?"

Adam is shamed. He and the woman are naked. With their sin they have cast themselves out of paradise and into exile. They know they have sinned, just as you and I know when we have sinned. But they refuse to admit it, to repent. Adam blames the woman. The other, the one created to be loved is now to be blamed.

Already the effects of their sin have taken hold. Sin and its effects will multiply and infect every generation that follows, pouring through the ages. We soon encounter it again, when God's Word asks another question:

"Cain, where is your brother?" [Gn 4:9]

Sin multiplies. A brother is envied, despised, and murdered. Today God asks us those same questions.

Where are you? Where is your brother?

Our world, much like our first parents in Eden, has become lost. Rather than recognizing and repenting of our sinfulness, rather than caring for one another, we cast blame, and we destroy.

"Where is your brother?"

It is a question that God, in His love and mercy, asks each of us. 

"Where are you?"

What you have done? What horrors have you brought to my creation? Why do you turn away from me, convinced you are gods? Why do you turn away from me when I call out to you?

Yes, God seeks us out, just as He sought Adam and Eve in the Garden.

God had provided them with food but they ate that which was forbidden them. Out of their rebellion something else is forbidden them: to eat of the tree of life, which would cause them to live forever. Despite their sinfulness, God offers them, and He offers us, a path to return to God from their exile.

As they leave the Garden they encounter God's mercy. And from that encounter comes a promise. It is the promise of God's Son, the gift of Jesus Christ, who will take on Adam's nakedness, our nakedness, who will take on the shame of humanity, the shame of all our sins, and allow Himself to be sacrificed by those He created.

By His wounds we are healed [1 Pt 2:24].

Yes, Jesus is nailed to the tree of life, and leaves us a new food: the Eucharist, His own Body and Blood. Once again we can eat of the food that will give us eternal life. It is through Jesus Himself that we are transformed.

The Mass is a kind of new Eden in which Jesus feeds us with the food that perfectly satisfies. We see a foreshadowing of this in today's Gospel passage from Mark:

"He took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks, He broke them and handed them to His disciples to distribute. And they distributed them among the crowd" [Mk 8:6].

The Eucharist, the Bread of Life, comes from Jesus but is distributed by his disciples. Today we, the disciples, are called to feed the hungry with both the physical and spiritual bread they need.

Lord, teach us to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to labor and seek no reward save that of knowing that we do your holy will.

Course Presentation: Biblical Typology Session 2

I conducted the second session of the course in Biblical Typology on Wednesday evening. Again, we had a good crowd of almost 80 people. I didn't get pelted by soft fruit so I assume the session was well received. I'll conduct session three next Wednesday evening.

You can either go directly to my Bible Study page and view the course presentations and other handout material: Bible Study Website. 

...or you can view the PowerPoint here: Typology Session 2

(I corrected the bad link to the Session 1 presentation in the previous post. My apologies, and thanks to those who pointed it out to me.)

What's With All These Zombies?

Zombies on the Move

Are you as puzzled as I am about all the movies, TV shows, and books about zombies that in recent years have captured the interest of so many people? Zombies seem to be everywhere and in many of these stories the living dead far outnumber us regular living folks. They're very nasty looking creatures, these zombies, but they lack the more complex personalities of the classic horror monsters. Frankenstein's monster and Count Dracula might have had questionable motives, but at least they had motives. But all those robotic zombies, wobbling and shuffling about, just aren't that interesting.

And then there's the incursion of zombies into areas where they simply don't belong. Because I'm a long-time Jane Austen fan, I consider the novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a desecration. Miss Austen had an active and sometimes quirky sense of humor, but I'm pretty sure zombies among the Bennets would not have pleased her. She was, after all, a believing and practicing Christian.

The Bennet Sisters Take On the Zombies

And who can feel good about the film, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies? It's all very strange indeed.

Abraham Lincoln vs, Zombies

And yet, people seem captivated by these boring, stumbling, flesh-eating things. One recent poll revealed that 14% of the US population believe there's a chance of a "zombie apocalypse." You might think 14% a rather small number, but 14% of our current population of about 325 million would mean 45 million Americans are waiting for the living dead to rise up against us. And how many more actually believe these creatures exist? I can't say, but I suspect it's higher than 14%.

I'm pretty sure I first encountered zombies back in the late '50s and early '60s when I used to watch a late-night TV horror show hosted by a rather odd fellow who went by the name of Zacherley. My high school buddies and I would stay up late to watch "Zacherley at Large", a truly bizarre offering that aired weekly on New York's WABC. The guy was a hoot and his show included several interesting extras: his "wife" who spent her time in an open coffin with a stake through her heart; his "son", named Gasport, who moaned from a bag that hung from the ceiling; and Thelma, a strange blob-like creature. As you might imagine, for us 16-year-old boys Zacherly was extremely  entertaining.

Zacherley and Friend

His real name was John Zacherle. He was an Ivy League alumnus (an English major at Penn) and served as an Army officer in both Africa and Europe during World War Two -- all before his rise to ghoulish superstar. Zacherle died last year at the age of 98. I was sorry to hear of his passing but he certainly had a long and full, if somewhat odd, life.

Anyway, Zacherley didn't simply show a weekly horror movie; he added his own weird commentary and crazy skits, some cleverly integrated into scenes in the film, thus turning each film into a comedy we adolescents could enjoy. I can't recall the title of the first zombie movie I saw, but I'm fairly certain it starred Bela Lugosi. Since those early days I can honestly say that zombies have rarely crossed my mind...at least until their recent resurgence.

Why this current fascination with the so-called living dead? Perhaps it's the symptom of a return to a more primitive view of the world. For ancient man, death was a horrendous mystery, something to fear, and a clear sign of human weakness. Many of the ancients bound their dead before burying or entombing them, apparently in an effort to keep them from returning to the world of the living. They placed "magic" objects in the grave to cast spells on the dead, and tossed in some food and other necessities to keep the dead happy. Yes, they believed in and were afraid of ghosts, those who returned from the dead.

It's all rather mystifying because there's really little to fear from a dead human body. But I suppose many fear the dead because they call to mind our own bodily mortality. We know we shall be like them soon enough, but really don't understand why. Perhaps something within us believes the dead should not be dead and should, therefore, return to life. And yet death seems to be one of the few certainties we face and, like life itself, is a definite part of the human experience as we know it.

Death and life seem to engage in a constant struggle within us, but to the faithless death is always the victor. Death just stares us in the face and makes sport of all of our humanistic philosophies. Say what you will, death tells us, but your agnostic and atheistic humanism will leave you with absolutely nothing. Once death sweeps away all their humanistic fluff, these deniers of life are left with only one thing: when you're dead, you're dead. As the munchkin coroner said of the witch, "....she's not only merely dead, she's really, most sincerely dead."

Chesterton on Atheism

These philosophies offer no hope. They give us no reason to face a future with anything but despair. The world of the living dead, of zombie wars and apocalypse, seems to be a blend of the primitive and the agnostic, a contradictory sign, an impossible mix of hope and despair. It's really a sign of the spiritual confusion that has entered the hearts of so many today.

And so how do we explain death, and do so in a way that offers hope? Atheism certainly doesn't succeed, for death laughs at its weak attempts that end only in the grave.  Materialism can do nothing but dance around death, while pretending not to notice its looming presence. And the reincarnationists only pile death upon death. The real answer, the truth about life and death, is right there in the Bible, in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis.

When God created man and woman there was no sin and no death. In other words, God's intention for humanity was life; death did not exist. As we read Genesis 2:7-15 we realize that God created man as a "living being", not a being that would eventually die. And so life, not death, is the natural state that God desires for man. We were created for life, for immortality, for eternal life.

Sin and Death Enter the World

It's not until chapter three of Genesis that we encounter death for the first time. It arrives on the scene unnaturally, entering into creation as a result of sin. Although God had warned of the consequences of disobedience -- "you shall die" -- something that Eve readily admits to the tempting serpent, our first parents decided to disobey God, taste evil, and learn what it was all about. But the moral order can come only from God, the Creator of all. Man cannot decide for himself what is good and what it evil simply because we cannot know evil as God knows evil. In the same way, only God can truly know goodness. As Jesus said to the man seeking eternal life: "No one is good but God alone" [Mk 10:18].

As it turns out, the effects of this original sin are many, but death is perhaps the most obvious, and the most unnatural. That's right, death was not God's natural intent for us, but through sin nature is altered.

The Church teaches that the human soul is immortal, and with the resurrection so too is the body. But in the beginning both body and soul were immortal, joined together in perfect harmony. Sin introduced the unnatural and, as one theologian suggested, "the horror of an immortal soul bound in a mortal and corruptible body." Sin, then, is the true horror story. 

Yes, indeed, through sin the harmony between man and nature described in Genesis 2 is broken and the consequences are disastrous. As St. Paul reminds us:

"Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and this death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned" [Rom 5:12].

But it is through the Creative Word of God, through the Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, that death is overcome and life is returned to humanity:

"For if, by the transgression of one person, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ [Rom 5:17]. 

Yes, Jesus Christ, through His act of redemption gives us life once again -- eternal life that restores God's natural plan for humanity. How did Jesus put it to Martha just before He brought her brother, Lazarus, back to life?

“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die" [Jn 11:25-26]. 

Perhaps, then, the ancients and primitives had the right idea in their view of death as something unnatural. The  materialists claim death is the natural and final consequence of life, because they can accept nothing else. Could today's fascination with zombies be a reaction against the materialists, against the humanists who really think so very little of humanity? Could this zombie-fever stem from the same ancient roots, from a deep internal awareness that death is just not right, that we are destined for something greater? Perhaps so, even though zombies offer a grossly distorted and freakish view of immortality. It is the view of the faithless, a hellish grasping after eternal life by those who do not know Jesus Christ and the Good News He brings to the world.

So, the next time someone talks to you of zombies, tell him about Jesus and the joyful, immortal life God has planned for him. Tell him of the natural, body-and-soul, eternal life with the One Who created him out of a love beyond our understanding.

Homily: Saturday, 5th Week of Ordinary Time

Readings: Gen 3:0-24 • Ps 90 • Mk 8:1-10
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What does God first say to Adam after that original sin? He asks a question, doesn't He?

"Adam, where are you?" [Gen 3:9]

God knows where Adam is, physically, but He wants Adam to understand and recognize where he has placed himself by his sin. 
Where are you, Adam? Don't you see what's happened, Adam? What you and Eve have done to yourselves?

Yes, with that simple question God reminded them that He had given them paradise on earth, everything they needed, a gift they tossed aside. The two lost their intended place in God's creation, because they desired that which is reserved for God Himself. They listened to the serpent, and succumbed to the temptation to be God, forgetting that God had blessed them as no other creature had been blessed. They had been created in God's image, molded into His likeness. But they were still creatures, weren't they? They were not the Creator.

Oh, how that question, that Word of God, must have echoed throughout the Garden:

"Adam, where are you?"

Adam is shamed. He and the woman are naked. With their sin they have cast themselves out of paradise and into exile. They know they have sinned, just as you and I know when we have sinned. But they refuse to admit it, to repent. Adam blames the woman. Yes, the other, the one created to be loved is now to be blamed. Already the effects of their sin have taken hold.

Sin and its effects will multiply and infect every generation that follows, pouring through the ages. In Genesis we soon encounter it again, don't we? When God asks another question:

"Cain, where is your brother?" [Gen 4:9]

Cain, where is your brother?

Sin has indeed multiplied. A brother is envied, despised, and murdered.

Today God still asks those same two questions:

Where are you? Where is your brother?

The world today, like our first parents, has become lost. Rather than recognizing and repenting of our sinfulness, rather than caring for one another, we cast blame, and we destroy.

"Where is your brother?"

It's a question that God, in His love and mercy, asks each of us.

"Where are you?"

Yes, God seeks us out, just as He sought Adam and Eve in the Garden. He calls us back to the reality of His love by exposing our sinfulness.  

What horrors have you brought to my creation? Why do you turn away from me, convinced that you are gods?

God had provided them with food but they ate that which was forbidden them. Out of their rebellion something else is forbidden them: to eat of the Tree of Life, which would give them life eternal.

But even in their sinfulness, God offers them, and He offers us, a path to return to God from their exile. As they leave the Garden they have an encounter with God's mercy. From that encounter comes a promise. It is the promise of God's Son, the gift of Jesus Christ, who will take on Adam's nakedness, our nakedness, who will take on the shame of humanity, the shame of all our sins, and allow Himself to be sacrificed by those He created.

By His wounds we are healed.

Yes, Jesus is nailed to the Tree of Life, and leaves us a new food: the Eucharist, His own Body and Blood, God With Us in a way almost unimaginable. And now we can eat of the food that will give us eternal life. It is through Jesus Himself that we are transformed. The Mass is a kind of new Eden in which Jesus feeds us with the food that perfectly satisfies.

We see a foreshadowing of this in today's Gospel passage from Mark. This is the second miraculous feeding of the crowds. At the first Jesus feeds 5,000; in the second 4,000. Listen again to the Word of God:

"...taking the seven loaves he gave thanks (in the Greek, eucharistesas), broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd" [Mk 8:6].

Yes, the Eucharist, the Bread of Life, is given to us by Jesus but is distributed by his disciples. The same is true today. We, the disciples, are called to feed the hungry, to feed them with both the physical and spiritual bread they need.

Lord, teach us to be the servants we are called to be. Help us to serve you by serving others, regardless of the cost. Let us learn to accept the wounds of service as gifts, to turn our lives into a labor of love, happy and content only to do your will.