Twenty-eighth Sunday of the Year -- October 10, 2004

    What is the Gospel? St. Paul wrote in today’s second reading, “Remember that Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, was raised from the dead. This is the gospel I preach....”
The word “gospel” means “good news.” And here it is -- that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, St. Paul says. But notice how the apostle identifies our Lord. He writes, “Jesus Christ, a descendant of David”: that is, Jesus Christ, a descendant of Israel’s ancient king, Jesus the Jew, a member of the Hebrew tribe of Judah, the son of Mary (also of that tribe), Jesus Christ, in other words, the Man. And so a man rose from the dead. Jesus Christ, who is true God and true Man, this man died and rose again from the dead. And that is the Gospel that we preach, or that should be preached in the Church through all the centuries.
    How can such things be? Like Paul, as he urges Timothy, we too must gaze into this mystery who is Christ, this One who from all eternity is God, and yet in time, in our history, He comes to be born of the Virgin Mary. Here, in this great miracle of the incarnation, the enfleshment of God, we can at least begin to see our question answered. Within the moment, the very second, of our Lady’s “yes” to God’s request that she be the mother of the Savior, at the utterance of that fiat, that yes, there occurred something that the angels, we are told, desired to look into but couldn’t; it is too foreign to them. God came to us -- Emanuel -- through the flesh of Mary. The appearance of God in His world that He created -- an appearance longed for for so long by His people -- this advent of God happened in a way that caught everyone off guard, except for poor shepherds and some wise men who had taken the time to learn to pray and see the hand and ways of God.
    Anyway, here in this split second of time, there occurred a thing of indescribable beauty, a kind of awesome and even terrible transaction. The Person of God took to Himself human nature and united it forever to His own divine nature. Thus we, through Mary, gave God our mortality -- and there’s that dreadful transaction -- that He might grant us immortality. We bequeathed God our ability to suffer that He might heal us with divine love and grace. We shared with Him our sins -- He bore them for us -- that He might flood our hearts with divine holiness. We handed over our terribly wounded nature that He might have us participate in His perfect nature. We gave to God through the incarnation our destiny of death, our predicament of dying, that He might in turn raise us to eternal life. Mortality, suffering, the consequences of our sins, wounded human nature and death entered into the very experience of God through His sharing in our humanity. Immortality, healing, justice, perfection of nature and eternal life are what is in it for us -- all from God.
    Once, when I was having a meeting with those inquiring into the Catholic Faith, the question was raised, How does this all work? How does this save us? all this stuff about Bethlehem, dying and rising again? Well, it makes little sense if we only think of this all happening “out there” somewhere, another fact of religion and maybe even history (and these are facts of history), with certain abstract applications here and there. No, St. Paul says plainly in today’s reading, “If we have died with him we shall also live with him.” How does it work? How does all this dying and rising again affect us? This is St. Paul’s answer, the Church’s answer: “If we have died with him we shall also live with him.”
    As always, let the Sacraments be our guide. Often, after or during Mass on Sundays, I baptize infant there in our baptismal font, the design of which was inspired by the idea of a tomb. That is, that precious child will die; he or she will sacramentally die -- and by that I mean really and truly under the sign of words and water – the child will be joined to Christ our Lord, who has joined our human nature to God. The one to be baptized will die with Christ. They come up out of that baptismal font with a whole new life, a new and everlasting life – if, as it says in the baptismal rite, “it is kept safe from the poison of sin” – because they will have also gone through the resurrection of Christ with Him. “If we have died with him we shall also live with him.”
    Every one of the Seven Sacraments illustrates this. When a man receives the grace of Holy Orders this death -- and life -- happens. As the holy people of God chant the litany of the Saints, he prostrates himself before the altar, signifying that the old life is over. I now die, he tells himself, as I am joined to this Priesthood of Christ, to Him who died and rose again for me. The same is true in marriage: a man and woman lay down their lives -- significantly before the altar, the place of sacrifice -- they lay down their lives for and to each other: a surrender that is a kind of death. And because they are joined to Christ in baptism, a veritable flood of life pours into their lives, and their children become, among other signs, a visible sign of that self-giving love, little “incarnations” of that self-sacrificing and therefore unifying love. In the confessional, when there is contrition for sin, confession, and absolution, there is a veritable resurrection of the penitent into a deeper participation (or complete restoration) in the life of God.
    Of course, this all reaches a climax in this life every time we celebrate the Eucharist, which is that most awesome occasion when cross and resurrection -- passing through the thin barriers of time -- come mysteriously yet really and truly down upon that altar. The Sacred Host that we eat, the chalice of His Precious Blood is His suffering and death for us. Yet in us it is life. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood,” our Lord Himself said, “abides in me, and I in him.” Abide in Him. Remain in Him. And so we are joined to the Son of God, the Son of Man in His death and in His resurrection.
    Let the Sacraments then be our guide. Die with Christ, so that you might live with Him. That is, offer up your hearts and minds to God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the awesome transaction that you, as members of the priesthood of the baptized, are to make at Mass. Even as the Priest offers up the Body and Blood of our Lord, you offer up your hearts and lives to Him. And then live out the Sacrament. Enflesh, incarnate, the work of redemption in your life, in the world, in the family, at work or school. You are joined to Him in your baptism; you are joined to His death and resurrection. Die with Him, so that you might live with Him.