I used to listen to a talk radio host who would say, “In the department store of life, sports is, after all, the toy department.” Surely that’s a useful message for us “weekend warriors.”

But let’s take that comment a step further. In the department store of life, is our faith merely a department--and a “boring” one at that, such as housewares or women’s clothing? If so, then what about the rest of the store? Are there parts of our life that our faith doesn’t affect?

I think it’s very easy to compartmentalize our day. If we’re not careful, however, this could lead to our assessing our spiritual development based solely or at least excessively on explicit religious observance. In other words, we might look to whether we “got in” our Rosary, chaplet, holy hour, or whatever other devotion(s) we set out to do each day, as if these admittedly good things were ends in themselves.

Or we might pride ourselves on our “orthodoxy,” but then check our faith at the door in certain areas of our lives, such as in our business dealings or even our highway driving. Yet deep down we know that religious observance and doctrinal orthodoxy, to be authentic, must inform the totality of our lives. More...

When my daughter Virginia was younger, she and I had a conversation concerning girls’ names, during which time she commented that Virginia is a very common name. I said, “No, it isn’t honey,” to which she replied, “Yes it is, I hear it all the time.”

Obviously our viewpoint, on matters of greater or lesser signifance, is shaped by our personal perspective and the information that is available to us. When it comes to homosexuality, we find ourselves frequently surrounded by propaganda, societal pressures, and misinformation. We're being pushed to lighten up on a weighty matter, to tolerate the intolerable, to accept the unacceptable. We naturally want to push back, but how we do so matters greatly. More...

I have an unusual family background. My late father and his wife had eleven children. In the 1950s, his wife died of cancer, and so my dad left his sporting goods store in Kankakee, Illinois, and moved most of the family to Southern California. Not too long after that, he met and married my mother.

A decade earlier, my mom’s husband had been killed in World War II, leaving her with two babies.

I am the only child of my parents’ marriage. Even so, I’m very much the product of a large family. I don’t even try anymore to stay on top of the number of nephews, nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces, and great-great-nephews and nieces I have, because they’re so numerous and dispersed.

From time to time while growing up classmates would ask me, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I would innocently respond that I was the youngest of 14 children. However, when the questioner learned more of the details of my family history, he would inevitably ask the follow-up question: "So how many real brothers and sisters do you have?"

Being fairly good with numbers back then, I did the math. Since I had thirteen half-siblings, I responded, "Six and a half."

As I grew older, these questions began to bother me. Perhaps they reminded me of the disturbing reality that the two step-families my mom and dad brought together were never fully integrated into one family. These questions also revealed the emphasis our society puts on biological paternity and maternity apart from the realities and responsibilities of family life. To all my siblings--whom I love--I am merely a half-brother. The term is biologically accurate, but being a "half" never quite sat well with me.

It’s A Girl!

Many years later, I was doubly blessed. I married a wonderful woman who already had a daughter named Brenda. I didn’t want to force the situation, but I truly desired to adopt Brenda and make her in every sense my daughter. How thrilled I was when she came to me and told me she’d like to be adopted. More...

Let's recap what we have discussed so far in this brief series on Peter's confession of faith in Matthew 16.

Peter confessed his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus not only blessed him profusely, but also gave him a new name and a special mission as the "rock" on which He will build His Church. We then looked at the "keys" that were given to Peter, which established him as the "prime minister" of Christ's kingdom, with the authority to "bind and loose."
 
Clearly Peter had a preeminent role as the leader of Christ’s kingdom on earth. But where do Catholics get the idea of an ongoing papacy?

First, let's look again at Isaiah 22 from the standpoint of the transfer of office from Shebna to Eliakim. The authority is tied to the office (whoever is given the "keys" and raiment of the prime minister), and not to the individual.

Sports fans call Lebron James "King James" because of his basketball prowess. Yet this title, or nickname, is attached to Lebron personally. There is no "office" that Lebron holds, and when he retires there will not be a "King James" on the court. That title will not pass to his children or teammates. More...

Let's turn again to Matthew 16:19, where Our Lord says to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Part of giving Peter the "keys" involved the authority to "bind and loose." As we see a couple chapters later in Matthew, this was an authority shared with the other apostles (Mt. 18:18).

This "binding and loosing" authority may sound strange to us, but this language had several familiar meanings in Jesus’ time, including: More...

After changing Simon’s name to Peter, Jesus did something else that made Peter’s important position in the kingdom even more obvious. Jesus gave Peter “the keys to the kingdom” and the power to “bind and loose” (Mt. 16:19).

To understand the rich symbolism of the keys, we need to see how they were used in the Davidic kingdom of the Old Testament.

The key of the house of David symbolized the administrative authority of the “master of the palace” who is "over the household." This person would be the king’s highest ranking official in the royal court, known as the al bayyit or prime minister, who acts with the king's authority.

Let’s look at this role in the Old Testament. More...

In our last installment (sorry about the delay, btw, had a virus and was also traveling), we saw that in Matthew 16, Our Lord gave Simon the name Peter. Today, we're going to take a closer look at that name and what it says about his mission in the context of the Church Jesus is building.

The name Jesus--Petros in Greek and Kepha in Jesus’ language--means Rock.
 
There is no evidence that Kepha was ever used as a proper name before this incident. Peter is a common name now, but not then. It's like being named Boulder. It was a very unusual name. What did Jesus mean when He called Simon by this non-name, “Rock”?
 
And what did He mean when He told him He would build His Church on him and the gates of death would not prevail against it? More...

If you go into St. Peter’s basilica and look up, at the base of the dome, there are big, distinctive black letters on gold that say (in Latin) “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church . . . and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

These were crucially important words 2,000 years ago, and they’re also an important foundation for the role of the pope in Christ’s kingdom today.
 
Imagine what it would have been like to have been there during that pivotal conversation between Jesus and Peter. Let’s time travel back to Caesarea Philippi and hear these words as the apostles and others at that time would have heard them. More...

Today's Gospel is taken from Matthew 16. It's the famous account of Peter's confession of faith and Jesus' response. Over the next few posts, we will gradually unpack this rich passage.

Today, let's consider this: Jesus asks, "Who do people say that I am?" People seem to be saying different things. But then He makes it very personal. He says, "But you, Peter, who do YOU say that I am?" That question goes out to all of us.

Peter's response comes in verse 16: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." This concise answer recognizes (a) Jesus’ divinity, as well as (b) His status as the Messiah-King of Israel.

This answer gets an A plus. (I have to admit that saying this conjures up thoughts of Ralphie's bb gun essay in The Christmas Story, but I digress.)
 
In this scene, Peter became the first person in Matthew’s Gospel to explicitly recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Then Jesus gives Him the beautiful blessing of verses 17-19:

"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

But what does this blessing mean? At first blush, this doesn’t seem to be about putting Peter and his successors in charge. We need to go a little deeper.

In our next installment, we will examine the significance of Peter's new name.

A student of mine once asked me these questions: When did the term “Catholic” come into play? How did we become “Catholic” from our Jewish roots? These were very good questions, so I thought I would share my brief response with the readers of Catholic Hour.
 
The first recorded use of the word “catholic” (from the Greek word for “universal”) in reference to the Church is found in the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and disciple of St. John who was martyred by the Emperor Trajan in 107. Shortly before his martyrdom, he wrote several letters to various Church communities that have been preserved by the Church ever since. One such letter was the Letter to the Smyrneans, where he wrote in chapter 8:

“See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

Interestingly, Antioch is also the place where the followers of Christ were called “Christians” for the first time (Acts 11:26).

As for the second question, really the goal of all of salvation history, from the time of the fall and surely from the scattering of the nations at Babel, has been to reunite the divided, sinful family of man into the Family of God, the Church. The Church indeed is universal, as it’s the means of salvation for the whole world, Jew and Gentile alike. Surely the Jewish people played a unique role as God’s chosen people, from whom would come Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. In a real sense the Church became “Catholic” at Pentecost, when God reversed the scattering of peoples at Babel (see Catechism, no. 830).

The covenants made to the patriarchs, to Moses, and to King David all find their fulfillment in the salvation Christ brings to the world. As was promised way back in Genesis, through Abraham and his descendants all the families of the earth will find blessing (Gen. 12:3).

Through His sacrifice on the Cross, Christ conquered sin and death once and for all. So why do Catholics seemingly sacrifice Christ over and over again at Mass?

I'm sure many of us have heard this question at one time or another. The key is to understand that the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and the sacrifice of the Mass are the same, single sacrifice. Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross brought about “objective” redemption—in other words, the possibility of salvation for all people of all time. No other sacrifice is needed.

The sacrifice of the Eucharist, commonly called “the Mass,” does not repeat or multiply this sacrifice, then, but rather makes present this one, definitive sacrifice of Christ here and now in our local parish church. This brings about what we call “subjective” redemption—in other words, the application of the merits of Christ’s sacrifice to individual men and women.

In continually offering the sacrifice of the Mass (cf. Mal. 1:11), the Church fulfills the command of the Lord Jesus to “do this in memory of me” (Lk. 22:19). Through the sacrifice of the Mass, we are able to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, without which we have no life in us (cf. Jn. 6:53-56).

For more information on this topic, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1362-72. I also highly recommend my friend Thomas Nash’s book, Worthy is the Lamb, on the biblical roots of the Mass.

This past weekend I was considering my own mortality. You see, yesterday was the 32nd anniversary of the death of my second-oldest brother, Ray. Also, a couple days ago was the birthday of my oldest brother, Bob, who passed away just a few weeks ago.  It really struck me that the 32-year gap between their deaths really isn't that big, even though during that time I've gone from being a teenager to a middle-aged grandfather. How, in practical terms, do I understand God's involvement in the relentless progression of time?

So, I really connected with the familiar readings at Mass yesterday. One was from Ecclesiastes ("For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun"), Colossians ("seek what is above"), and Luke ("You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you . . .")

There were so many things in these readings that really spoke to me. I guess I can sum up my thoughts this way: Life can really beat us up if we lose track of our heavenly prize (cf. Phil. 3:12-15; Mt. 6:25-34; 1 Cor. 9:24-27).  Without Christ, life is a cross without resurrection. And further, I'd say that part of life that beats us up is time itself. I may not have understood that when Ray died 32 years ago, but I understand it now.

And the answer? Well, yes, the daily crosses in our lives are real. Suffering is a given. Are we going allow our suffering to be an absurdity, a waste, or "vanity"?  Or are we going to truly abandon ourselves to Christ and unite everything in our lives to Him--not just in theory but in the way we live from day to day, even moment to moment?

I think that part of the "renewal of the mind" (Rom. 12:2) that St. Paul is talking about is exactly that--we need to change our way of looking at things that bring us down. Why live as slaves, when Christ came to set us free? When we commit ourselves to daily meditative prayer and frequent recourse to the sacraments, when we seek what is above, then our perspective down here is changed for the better. 

Joy comes with the experience of attaining that which we hope for. As Christians, our daily struggles can be a cause of great joy for us. After all, they bring us a foretaste of the fullness of life for which we're striving.

So join with me this day and every day: Dare to rejoice!      

One of the hallmarks of the Church in our age is the renewed emphasis on the role of the laity. Drawing upon the rich, traditional teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Church reminds the laity that all of us are called to holiness by virtue of our Baptism, and we are all called to play an active role in the apostolate, serving as leaven in the world.

All that’s well and good, but saying it doesn’t make it so. All Catholics--and not merely those who are called to the priesthood and/or religious life--need a sound Christian formation to be able to respond generously and well to their own personal vocation in Christ. We need ongoing catechesis. In short, we can’t expect the fruits of discipleship, such as growth in holiness, apostolic zeal, and so forth, unless we truly are disciples.

In recent decades the Church has called the family the “domestic Church.” This is a powerful image that suggests something more than a once-per-week catechism class and maybe a crucifix on the wall. More...

As Catholics, we try to balance in our lives of faith the active Martha and the contemplative Mary. Sometimes in the process Martha gets a bad rap. She’s anxious and worried about many things (Lk. 10:41), so at times we might picture her as a frantic busybody flitting around doing 101 things, while the serene Mary sits at the feet of Jesus.

But today (in two hours) is the feast of Saint Martha. She is a full-fledged saint, with all the rights and privileges that go with it! While activism without prayer can quickly turn into mere workaholism, prayer without active apostolate also lacks authenticity. 

At this exciting time in the Church, lay people are specifically called to roll up our sleeves and actively participate in the great work of the new evangelization. There’s plenty to do to keep all of us Martha’s busy.

May we imitate the faith of St. Martha, who said, “I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God” (Jn. 11:27). And, like St. Martha, may we express this faith in active works of charity.

As we do so, we must keep in mind the clear teaching of Scripture. Our Lord said that Mary chose the better part, the one necessary thing (Lk. 10:42). Our Lord is truly present at every Mass and in every tabernacle throughout the world. If we truly desire to be saints, we do well--frequently and with much love and devotion--to return to the Source: Jesus, Our Eucharistic Lord.

I think St. Martha would wholeheartedly agree. 

I think the word “catechesis” can be part of the problem when it comes to embracing the Church’s catechetical efforts. It is the ugly step-sister of “evangelization.”

Think about it. Evangelization is hip. According to Pope John Paul II, it’s “new” and exciting and capable of energizing the youth. After all, evangelization is about proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. Everybody, Catholic and Protestant, is into that.

Catechesis, on the other hand, sounds foreign to many people. For all most people know, it’s an unpleasant procedure done at a doctor’s office. And even for those who might have an inkling as to what catechesis is, it certainly doesn’t conjure up the dynamic images of World Youth Day. Rather, to many it connotes the decidedly negative experience of mandatory CCD classes that bored them out of their minds--and often enough, out of the Church. 

Let’s look, then, at a more positive, biblically based understanding of catechesis, which nonetheless closely parallels the formal definition found in the glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Shortly before ascending to His Father, Our Lord commanded the eleven apostles to go “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you . . .”  (Mt. 28:19-20).

That is what catechesis is all about: forming disciples who sit at the feet of Jesus, leading them to the sacramental life of the Church, and instructing them in the body of teaching that Christ entrusted to His apostles (what we Catholics often call the “deposit of faith,” drawing upon imagery found in St. Paul’s letters to St. Timothy).

It would be great if the word “catechesis” were rehabilitated, but even more we need to foster a renewal of the substance to which the word refers. In other words, now is the time for us to recommit ourselves to the Church’s catechetical mission--a mission in which all of us share as members of Christ’s mystical body.