Solemnity

Jan 29 2025

Distant Alleluias

Jesus breathed his last. He made no sound. Mary and the beloved disciple listened for his voice. No sound came. He was no more. The silence beneath the cross must have been unbearable.

At the death of a loved one, a hole opens up. Someone who had traveled with us is no more. We call out. No one answers. The silence can be unbearable.

On these days of All Saints and All Souls, how can we celebrate the dead? Death is not to be dismissed lightly. Death is emptiness. Death is heartache. Death is real.

And yet . . .

I remember once thinking that I was hearing angelic voices. I was sitting in the teachers’ lounge. I turned, for it sounded as though it was coming from outside the window. On that spring day, the choir director had the high school girls practicing for Mass, singing alleluias by the pond. The window was closed. The music was far away. But it was sweet. It was pure. It was a taste of celestial joy.

Listen! Can you hear it? The far-off sound of singing rings in our ears.

In the Gospel, Mary and John had to wait three days before they heard Jesus’ voice again. You and I, we’ll wait longer than three days to hear the voices of those we love. But while we wait, we listen. Can you hear it?

We may not yet hear the roaring hallelujahs of heaven. But alleluias from a distance trickle into our silence. Tiny notes of gladness sprinkle into our grief. Joyous memories, warm stories, favorite songs, the granddaughter who looks so like her grandmother—we have tastes of eternity, even while here on earth. Those we love are not dead. They are alive.

Today, we celebrate! The blessed have come through victorious. Listen! Can you hear the singing? Maybe they’re even . . . dancing?

Consider/Discuss

What distant alleluias have you heard that have given you hope? What glimmers of eternity have you seen?
One of my favorite things about All Saints Day is the people who come to Mass. The 4:30 p.m. Saturday Mass saints seem to gather with the 7:30 a.m. Sunday saints and the 10:30 a.m. saints—all of the holy people of a parish come together in one space. This is a taste of heaven on earth, a joy to be together. It might even be a good day for a party. Who do you most hope to see when you get to the celebration of heaven?

Living and Praying with the Word

Alleluia, alleluia! Let the holy anthem rise! Jesus, you showed us that death is not the final answer. Let the choirs of heaven chant it in the temple of the skies! As you rose, we also want to rise. We want to run and greet those we love. Saints among the saints, we live in joyful hope of that day. Thank you for this day to celebrate our hope. Most of all, we want to celebrate you! Thank you for making it all possible.

Jan 29 2025

Scripture Study for

As the Lamb breaks open the seals on the scroll, the world enters a prelude to the final divine judgment, in which those who have been faithful to God will receive their reward. In preparation for that judgment, an angel comes forth to sign and protect the saved from the impending disaster. The number 144,000 (twelve squared times one thousand) is symbolic of the saved of Israel, which is joined by a vast multitude from all the nations. The focus in Revelation is on those who have suffered for their faith, thus the imagery of white robes and palms that has become associated with martyrs. Those who have been saved offer eternal worship to the God and the Lamb who have saved them.

The central theme of the First Letter of John is the reciprocal love of God for humans, love of humans for God, and love of humans for one another. The love of God, which is primary, has been made manifest in Christ. Those who accept this love will love in return through obedience to God and care for neighbor. This love is what allows us to abide in God and in Christ, which in turn perfects us and makes us children of God. This is the unimaginable promise of what is to come. But, in addition to abiding in Christ, believers must also be wary of the “world,” that social reality that is hostile to God and which constantly seeks to draw us away from God.

Near the beginning of his ministry, Jesus presents the fundamental themes of his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Portrayed as the “new Moses” in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus stands as the definitive interpreter of the Law and of God’s will. The Beatitudes are a classic wisdom form, in which the ways of the righteous are laid out for those who would be “blessed” (or “happy”). Jesus’ version of this wisdom theme signals that his teaching and his ministry will focus less on perfection of religious observance (which one might mistakenly consider the equivalent of being “righteous”), and more on qualities associated with humility, vulnerability, and openness to God’s will and action in their lives.

Jan 28 2025

All Is Not Lost

Summer in the northern hemisphere feels like a funny time of year to think about the dying. The created world overflows with vigor. Tomatoes are ripe. Corn is in full ear. Yet here in vibrant mid August, the Church asks us to ponder Mary’s assumption, to probe and ponder the end of earthly life.

I remember one August when my son first saw a dead snake on a dirt road. It was lying still. It didn’t move. His four-year-old eyes brimmed with tears as he asked, “Is it gone? Is it lost?”

We wonder, too. What happens after death? Will we be gone? Will we be lost?

What happened to Mary? Did she die and her resurrected body was taken into heaven, like the Son of God? Was she swept into a chariot without dying, like Elijah? Theologians don’t agree about what her “assumption” looked like. Yet the Theotokos didn’t become a floating spirit, just as Jesus’ resurrected body didn’t become a ghost. The woman created as Mary of Nazareth, body and soul, was taken into heaven. She is not lost. She is alive.

The Good News of this feast is that those who die are not lost. What makes you, you; what makes me, me—that will not fade away. Matter matters. Though we don’t know how it works, we will have the same completion that the Virgin Mary has: we, body and soul, will not be lost.

Our grand finale is to be with God. You and I will stand before the power of the Most High and be overshadowed with glory. Together with the angels and the saints, we will overflow with intoxicating happiness within the tenderness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is our confidence: ultimately, we will be home. We will not be lost. We will be found.

Consider/Discuss

Everlasting life—is this just a nice idea? Is heaven just a delusion for simple and backward people? Some would distrust anything that cannot be detected by our five senses. Many, even other Christians, scoff at today’s feast. Heaven is real; we believe that and yet we do not believe. What difference would it make to our lives if we regain a robust sense of a blessed eternity? It is beyond our imagining that all of the universe, all matter, will one day be drawn into God. St. Paul says that all creation groans while awaiting the final deliverance from death. The feast of the Assumption gives us a foretaste of that redemption. What does it mean for your human dignity and mine, that all created matter will one day be drawn to God?

Living and Praying with the Word

God of the Universe, you give us tastes of heaven on earth. Yet we have no idea of the abundance that you have in store for us. Your face shines upon us even now. One day your light will radiate upon us in everlasting brilliance. On this August day, plant deep within us an enthusiastic vision of the immensity and promise of your glory. Holy One Most High, let your exhilaration radiate from within us so strongly that we cannot hold it in. Mary, Mother of God, pray for us on this day, your day.

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

John’s vision of the woman and the dragon begins a section of Revelation that focuses on the power of evil—Satan—to oppose both God and God’s people. Although the power is formidable and truly destructive, in the end it does not prevail. The woman adorned with the stars, sun, and moon (see Genesis 37:9–10) represents Israel, who gives birth to the Messiah. Satan, of course, wishes to prevent this, but God rescues the child and also the “mother,” God’s people, who are also threatened by evil. The passage immediately after the reading (12:7–9) recounts the battle in heaven between Satan and Michael, which ends with Satan being thrown down to earth. Our reading resumes with a hymn of praise for God’s victory over Satan.

Paul has been responding to the claims of some that there is no resurrection, to which he answers that if there is no resurrection, then Christ was not raised from the dead and—if this is the case— then we have no hope (15:12–19). But Christ has been raised, and now Paul explains the implications. Christ has been victorious not only over his own personal death but over death absolutely. Just as our human existence and experience of death is corporate (“in Adam”), so also will be our experience of life “in Christ.” Those who “belong to Christ” will be the next to be raised, and then finally all will be raised when Christ comes into his kingdom.

Luke’s account of the Visitation features what might be termed two prophetic oracles, in the sense that both Elizabeth and Mary praise God and announce what God is doing. Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary focuses on Mary as “blessed” both because she is the “mother of my Lord” and also because she has believed what God has spoken. Mary begins by “proclaiming the greatness of the Lord” for the blessing God has given her, but immediately turns to the larger redemptive work of God, which is the reason for Mary’s blessedness. This redemptive work involves overturning the power of the proud, the rich, and the mighty in favor of the weak and lowly. All of this is done because God remains faithful to ancient promises.

Jan 27 2025

Cleansed (?) by the Blood

“Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people? Yuck . . . gross.” Her face wrinkled with disgust. As I looked around the room, all of their faces said the same. Sacrifice and the splashing of blood and the slaughter of heifers and goats; the ninth-grade girls whom I taught had no cultural framework for that use of blood. “That’s repulsive,” they grimaced.

We talk about “the bread” on this feast day. But what about “the blood”?

The Hebrews sacrificed an animal for its blood. Blood was life. Life was from God. Sprinkling with blood was to purify, to set things right, to atone for sin. To sin meant to throw things out of kilter, to break a relationship, to miss the mark of what we should be or do, to sever a bond. So the blood was for cleaning things up. But why did they need to do that?

At the core of Jewish theology is the “bigness” of God. God is untouchable. God is inaccessible. The God who is holy is so pure that sin cannot even be looked upon. We who are sinful, therefore, have no access to the Almighty. The atonement of blood made things right again when people messed up and strayed. Think of the psalms: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

The reading from Hebrews also talks about this cleansing of blood. But goat and bull blood are temporary. Jesus shed his own blood so that we would be made clean eternally; clean so that we could draw near to God. He said, “This is my blood,” then took a cup, and they all drank from it. Did they, like those teenagers, maybe . . . gag a little?

Consider/Discuss:

“Wash up for dinner,” my grandmother used to say. I can still hear her words. “Wash up for dinner;” whenever we say the words, “I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof” Jesus says back to us that we will be healed—also made clean, restored, and sanctified. Have we grown so accustomed to that cleansing of Jesus’ blood that we don’t think about it? Does it (or should it) unsettle us a little bit?
When our image of God grows inordinately small, almost teddy bear–like, we can become presumptuous, as though we ask, God is so nice, how could we not “get through?” What happens to our worldview if we grow blasé about the “bigness” of God? What does that do to reverence and awe?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, Blood of cleansing, you have opened the way for us to be holy. You came to make things right. Yet we are still broken. We still mess up. Life knocks us around. Life knocks around those we love. Wash us this day with your Blood, for we want to be healers as well. You who are infinite have chosen to dwell among us. Let us not take you for granted. Come, Lord Jesus; bring us into your presence, so that we can bring you to others.