In today’s first reading, Luke tells us about the unique community that the first Christians formed:

The community of believers was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common.
With great power the Apostles bore witness
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great favor was accorded them all.
There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need. (Acts 4:32-35)

This is not exactly a passage that we capitalistic Americans like to promote; it appears to come dangerously close to promoting socialism or communism. Many people over the ages have in fact made exactly that claim. So does the practice of the first Christians promote a socialistic economic plan?

I think there are a few things we need to recognize as we read this passage and try to apply it to government economical plans.

1) The Christians’ sharing of all property was voluntary. There is no indication that the first Christians were forced to share all their belongings with the Church; they did so on a voluntary basis. This is obviously much different from a government forcing “sharing” upon its people.

2) This setup was short-lived. There is no historical evidence that this type of communal living lasted very long, and attempts to replicate it over the centuries have all ended in failure. The closest any group has come to replicating it has been monastic communities, but there is a big difference between a group of celibates living together and families living separately but with a common fund.

3) All involved contributed to the best of their ability. In St. Paul’s 2nd letter to the Thessalonians, Paul reminds the Christians there that “we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). In other words, if someone tried to get taken care of by the community without pitching in himself, he should not be included in the distribution of food. Clearly this is different from a socialistic system where everyone receives from the government regardless of their own contribution to society.

4) The early Church was a small and closed community. There is no indication that Luke is advocating that entire nations or empires should emulate the early Church in this regard. In fact, the point of this passage is to show the unique and powerful way the Holy Spirit was working in the early Church. It is not a “normal” way of living.

So this passage is not advocating a socialistic or communist governmental system. But I should also hasten to add that neither does it promote capitalism either. In fact, the Bible is pretty agnostic when it comes to advocating economic models for governments. The truth is that no model is perfect and all will be practiced by people afflicted by Original Sin and therefore all will be unjust. Some might be better than others but none are perfect. In fact, I would argue that if we were all without sin, just about any economic model – capitalism, socialism, etc. – would work fine because we would all be putting others first in our lives.

And that is the other lesson we need to take away from this passage: we are obligated as Christians to care for others. For “conservative” Christians living in America, it is sometimes too easy to focus on the obligation of everyone to work to the best of their ability and “pull their own weight”. But as followers of Christ we need to be more focused on our own obligations to care for those less fortunate than ourselves, as Christ makes abundantly clear in the parable of the sheep and the goats. It would be better to help someone who we felt was “lazy” than to not help someone who was deserving of assistance.

Yesterday my wife and kids were out of town, so I decided to attend Divine Liturgy at Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek-Catholic Church in the morning, and then the Extraordinary Form of the Mass at my parish in the evening (while watching the Reds beat the Cubs 3-1 in-between!). It was a beautiful way to spend a Sunday (although I would have preferred my family to be around) as I was able to first-hand experience the traditions of the Catholic Church in their fullness.

I’ve said this before, but I’m struck by the similarities between the Eastern liturgy and the Western liturgy, especially in the extraordinary form. One of the things that struck me yesterday was the extravagance of both liturgies. In America, we are very extravagant when it comes to sports (just look at the Super Bowl half-time show), politics (watch a Presidential inauguration sometime), and showbiz (see an Oscar red-carpet show). But when it comes to religion, we are very reticent about being too extravagant. Our puritan origins suggest that we keep our religious ceremonies simple. And there is a certain beauty to a simple liturgy; I know that I love attending a daily Mass with no music and a short homily. Simple liturgies can be very spiritually uplifting.

But traditionally Catholic liturgies are anything but simple, especially in the East. Since this is where we directly interact with God as a community, what can be too extravagant for the Almighty Lord? Thus, traditional prayers tend to be long, filled with a lot of theological language and highly poetic. Take, for example, the Confiteor in the Latin Mass. We don’t just confess our sins to God. We confess them to “almighty God, to blessed Mary every Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you, brethren”. Do we need to include all those other people along with God? No, but by including them we forcibly remind ourselves of being surrounded by saints and angels during the liturgy.

The Eastern liturgy is even more extravagant. They cannot say in 5 words what can be said in 100 words, nor do they say once what can be said three times. For example, instead of just having a generic prayer at the beginning of their liturgy for travelers or the country, they  pray “For our country, the president, and all those in public service”, “For this parish and city, for every city and country, and for the faithful who live in them”, “For favorable weather, an abundance of the fruits of the earth, and temperate seasons”, and “or travelers by land, sea, and air, for the sick, the suffering, the captives, and for their salvation”.By including every possible situation, they make the prayers real and focus the spirit on truly praying for these intentions.

This extravagance is not due to accretions that have built up over the centuries; there is an important theological point to which they direct us. As the most sublime type of interaction we can have with God while on earth, the liturgy should place us in the presence of God and remind us that He is the Almighty, the Eternal One, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Nothing is too extravagant for Him! All of this extravagance puts us in our proper place in the universe: He is God, we are not.

If we spend millions of dollars celebrating a football game in the middle of the winter, why not spend a few extra words worshiping God?

My favorite conference is coming up soon:

Three Orientale Lumen Conferences are planned in 2010 for lay persons and clergy from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Oriental Orthodox Churches.  One of the few ecumenical dialogue meetings that are open to the public, this year’s conferences will focus presentations on “The Councils of the Church”.  Held annually since 1997, the Orientale Lumen conferences provide a “grass roots” form of ecumenical dialogue where all persons learn from each other’s traditions.

See the link for details. Here are the speakers for the DC conference, which I hope to attend:

The second conference will be held June 21-24 at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, DC.  The speakers will be:
• Metropolitan Jonah, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America
• Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, DC
• Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, Professor Emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, The Vatican
• Archpriest Peter Galadza, Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky Institute, Ottawa, Canada
• Father Thomas FitzGerald, Holy Cross Theological School Boston, MA
• Mr. Elias Damianakis, Lecturer and Iconographer, Tampa, FL

That is quite a prestigious group: the Washington bishop of both the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church in America, the preeminent Catholic expert on Eastern Christianity (Taft), and other Eastern authorities. Try to make an effort to come this year for at least one day if you can!

National Review has an enlightening article about one of the most addictive and destructive drugs in the world: pornography. It is probably the most destructive force against marriages today.

What is not mentioned, however, is that most mainstream TV and movies are now the gateway drugs for this evil.

Personally, I don’t feel that encouraged to hear that Catholic priests are the same as everyone else. After all, they are called to be alter Christus, not alter homos.

Pray for our priests!

It appears that they are swimming in money.

But, unfortunately, none of it has gone to keep Southern Catholic College afloat, not even until the end of the semester.

The problems that will caused by fraud Maciel will be legion, it seems.

Nearly 1,200 people were baptized last weekend in the Archdiocese of Washington alone. If the angels in heaven rejoice over one person’s conversion (Luke 15:7), then that was quite some party in heaven last Saturday night.

Pietro Molla passed away on Holy Saturday, the liturgical anniversary of the childbirth which led to St. Gianna’s heroic death.

I imagine he has been looking forward to his reunion with his wife for over 40 years.

Archbishop Wuerl prays with sex abuse protesters

I recently got an email asking me some great questions regarding the proper way for Catholics to study the Bible. I thought I’d share the questions and my answers publicly:

I was reading your blog on Modern Myths about Catholics and Bible Reading.

If Mass is not the place for Bible study and you find small groups to be ripe for abuse, how do you study scripture, by yourself? Is appreciation of scripture different from study? What do you mean when you say there are the boundaries of the Catholic faith that order your appreciation of scripture?

It is true that Mass should not be the place for “Bible study”, and that I have a low opinion of most “small group” Bible studies out there. So how should a Catholic study the Bible? And as the questioner so astutely asked, is appreciation of Scripture different from study?

The primary way that a Catholic should study – and appreciate – the Scriptures is regular attendance at Mass. But wait a minute, didn’t I say that Mass was not the proper place for Bible study? Yes, but my statements are not contradictory. Mass is not the place for Bible study in that it is not appropriate to use a homily to minutely explore the technical details of a passage – the setting it was written in, the original audience, the form of the text, etc. These things might be mentioned in passing, but they should not be the focus of the homily. Instead the Church asks the priest or deacon to use the homily to apply the Biblical passage to the life of the congregation.

The reading of Scripture at Mass is the primary usage of Scripture; in fact, I would say that it is why the Scriptural books were written in the first place. In the early Church, the debate over the canon (i.e. which writings were to be included in the Bible) was really a debate about which writings were to be read during Mass. Furthermore, many, if not most, of the New Testament writings were written to be originally read at Mass. When Paul wrote a letter to a community, he intended it to be read to the whole church of a particular area. And when would that be read? During the only time the local church gathered – at Mass. So Paul (and the other NT authors) wrote their writings with the intention that they be read at Mass – that is their primary usage. So to really understand the Scriptural books, we too need to hear them in Mass. This liturgical context keeps us in the “boundaries”, so to speak, of the original authors, and keeps us from going off into illicit interpretations and flights of fancy.

And hearing the Word of God proclaimed at Mass is the best way to grow in appreciation of it. The Sacred Scriptures were not written to be dissected in a classroom – they were written to be lived. And hearing them proclaimed in their original setting – the Mass – is the best way to appreciate that living dynamic of the Sacred Text.

Thus, the foundation for understanding the Bible is to hear it within the worshiping Body of Christ. This must be the starting point for any understanding – and appreciation – of the Sacred Text. But is this the only way that Catholics can  study the Bible? No; as followers of Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, we need to really dive into the inspired Word of God to better know and love Jesus. So we should take every opportunity outside of Mass to study the Scriptures as well.

What then are some practical ways for the Catholic to study Scripture? It is important, first of all, to remember that the Bible is a collection of ancient texts written in cultures that are widely divergent from our own. One cannot just pick up the Iliad and expect to understand it completely. Likewise, one cannot pick up the Bible and expect to comprehend the Sacred Text immediately. We need guides. The ideal situation would be to be involved in a Bible study led by a priest; i.e. someone who has been trained by the Church to know the Bible and its relationship to the Church. But of course this is not usually possible. Another possibility is to be in a small group that is led by someone who has formally studied the Bible is a faithfully Catholic academic environment, such as Franciscan University of Steubenville or Christendom College or other such school. Better yet, take classes yourself at one of these schools (many offer distance learning classes). But I would not recommend being in a small group Bible study led by someone with no formal training, or even worse, a small group with no leader at all. Too often such groups turn into discussions of “what do you think it means?” with no concrete study of the text.

If none of these possibilities exist, there are some good study guides available that can be used for individual study. Some I recommend highly are the Navarre Bible, the Ignatius Study Bible and the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture. All of these understand the proper place for the Bible in the life of the Church and so can be useful for learning the Scriptures. (I would also be remiss not to mention that my own upcoming book – Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew - is intended to help Catholics to understand the person of Jesus as represented in the Gospel of Matthew, so it will hopefully be of some use as well).

As Catholics, we need to be immersed in the Scriptures as much as possible. Fortunately this can be done primarily just by going to Mass. But for those who are able, there are many other opportunities to appreciate and study the Sacred Text, and we should take advantage of them whenever we can.

St. Jerome, pray for us!

Since the first Easter morning, there have been two main lines of argument against the fact of the Resurrection. The first we hear in today’s Gospel reading (Mt 28:8-15): the disciples of Jesus stole his body from the tomb. As Matthew notes, this accusation was very common in the early days of Christianity. The second argument has been more common over the past 100 years: that the disciples had only a “spiritual” encounter with Christ after his death. Jesus did not rise in the flesh, but instead God confirmed his preaching and life by having the disciples have an “experience” of him while on earth.

In response, the testimony of the Church in regard to the Resurrection has always had two core components: (1) the empty tomb; and (2) the appearances of the Risen Christ.

And both of these components are necessary. If there were just an empty tomb, then the accusation that the disciples stole the body would have merit. And if the disciples just claimed to see Christ after his death, then it is quite possible that these were just visions, either heaven-sent or created in the mind, but either way no proof that Christ had truly risen from the dead.

But combined, they are powerful evidence for the reality of the Resurrection. If you read any of the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, notice that they always emphasize these two parts of the Easter story, for they show us that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. Allelujah!

When you have time today, read this moving testimony from a former Jehovah’s Witness who converted to Catholicism. As she relates, she came out of darkness by the light of the Risen Christ.

Yesterday, the Feast of the Resurrection, is my favorite day on the liturgical calendar.

By happy coincidence, today is my favorite day on the civil calendar.

Play ball!

Hallelujah! He is Risen!

At daybreak on the first day of the week
the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had prepared
and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
(Luke 24:1-3)

For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison…
(1 Peter 3:18-19)