Smell Like the Sheep; Make God Your Escape Key

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Pope Francis has a knack for metaphorical speech. So far his best may be noting that shepherds should get so close to the ewes and rams that they “smell like the sheep.” One archbishop told me he was trying to work that into advice for new priests in his homily at their ordinations but hadn’t figured out how. Maybe he worried that the pungent image wouldn’t fit at an illustrious ritual or might draw laughs, but it certainly was worth consideration.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York at World Youth Day used metaphor as he spoke about how God moves people. He told the crowd, "We want a microwave, but God works like a crock pot." That message sticks with you, like dog hair on a couch in the den.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley used metaphor and simile. In a Q&A session at World Youth Day he quipped that witnessing to your faith in a secular society isn’t easy. “Being Catholic in Boston is a contact sport,” he said. That’s not only memorable; its incongruity makes it funny. On the Eucharist, he said, not going to Mass is like being a branch cut off from the vine. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what that branch eventually becomes.

Scripture relies on such literary devices: God’s love is like a mother’s love from Isaiah 49:15, and our relationship with Jesus is like the branches to the vine, John 15.  One image gives us comfort; the other says gently hold on.

Word pictures that make for memorable homilies do not come easy. Reflection on God present in today’s world might help us develop some modern ones.

When I am in pain can I ask God to be like the computer escape key: take it all away?

Should I consider God to be like the Wi-Fi that I search for:  unseen but there?

Is God like my mobile device, always with me?

Is a favorite prayer is like a favorite cookie, a source of comfort.

One goal of the U.S. bishops this year is to improve homilies at Mass. Homilies and music are integral to helping people experience God’s presence. A priest once told me that if I want to introduce someone to the Catholic Church I should look for a parish with good preaching, good music and well-read Scripture, in that order. Reaching people through their senses comes first. There is much to be said for ambiance, why Catholicism uses smells and bells to lift us to God.

Some years ago a young priest asked me to critique his weekend homilies. With opinions about much, I agreed quickly. I couldn’t do it however. I didn’t know what to say because I couldn’t figure out how I’d do better. I gained a new appreciation of the preacher’s challenge. Since then I’ve heard some really good homilies and recognize that solid metaphors enhance them. But I’d sure hate to be a homilist coming up with one every day or even every week. It would be like finding a literary image in a haystack of words or an oasis in a desert mind. It might have to come from the sounds of silence.

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

The Council at 50: Vatican II’s Word on the Word of God

Welcome to one of the series of blogs on the Second Vatican Council. Each piece reviews one of the 16 documents produced by the Council Fathers during the extraordinary occasion in Church history. Vatican II, which drew together the world’s bishops, opened fifty years ago in St. Peter’s Basilica, October 11, 1962.

(Photo courtesy Catholic News Service)

All documents are not created equal.  Of the 16 produced by the Second Vatican Council, only two got top-tier religious ranking:  Dogmatic Constitution. Those two are Lumen Gentium (On the Church) and Dei Verbum (On the Word of God).

In Dei Verbum (DV), the Council Fathers responded to common misunderstandings about the Church and the bible. The following five highlights show how they answered these challenges from the world.

1. Tradition:  People often ask why the Church puts faith in Tradition, especially if it’s not found in the bible.  Dei Verbum teaches that before the Word was written (Scripture), it was preached and lived. It is the preaching and deeds of the Apostles, which the Church calls Tradition. Scripture and Tradition, that cannot be separated. They are living and interconnected –
both expressions of Christ (cf. DV 7-10). 
Yet they cannot interpret themselves, and so Tradition and Scripture also have the successors of the Apostles, the bishops, to interpret them.  Dei Verbum gives us a tripod of Tradition, Scripture and teaching authority, “so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others” (DV 10).  Together, they lead securely to salvation with God.

2. DV affirmed the bible as inspired and therefore without error.  Some biblical scholars have tried to understand our world using only the power of human reason, leaving out faith or the supernatural – effectively sidelining God to the act of creation and then to heaven. They search for “natural” explanations for any mention of “supernatural” happenings in the bible. DV states that the whole bible, Old and New Testament, was “written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”  Therefore, they have “God as their author,” (DV 11) who can act supernaturally.  DV affirms that  the bible must be read with faith as well as reason.  It states that the bible teaches “faithfully and without error” and is given to us “for the sake of salvation” (DV 11). 

3. DV’s embrace of humility in Scripture:  Just as God humbled Himself to become human in every way except sin, so the Word humbled itself to be written in human language in every way except error (DV 13). The humble appearance of God in Jesus is compared to the humble appearance of God in the written word.  Both require faith to see the divine in the human.  This means that just as people without faith failed to see Jesus as the Son of God, today people without faith will fail to see the bible (because of its humble nature) as inspired and without error.

4. Perhaps, the biggest development in DV states that the bible’s truth is expressed according to the “literary form” of each book or part.  Historical truth will be expressed differently from prophetic or poetic truth; and these “forms” follow the “time and culture” when they were written (DV 12).  DV also says that every line of Scripture has to be understood in relation to the bible as a whole, as well as in relation to the whole Tradition of the Church. The bible is a unity.

5. Lastly, DV shows a desire for dialogue and evangelization when it encourages translations of the bible for non-Catholics and even non-Christians. Such translations, it counsels, should include footnotes to explain the biblical verses in accord with the religious background of those reading it (DV 25).

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Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock, Arkansas is a member of the Subcommittee on Scripture Translations of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Mass on 9/11: Scripture on the Mark

Scripture can speak personally to each of us, but this Sunday readings at Mass on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 seem to have been penned just for this occasion.

Catholic Churches worldwide use the same scripture readings each Sunday. They follow a set, repeated pattern—a three-year cycle— from week to week and year to year. People who go to Mass often hope to find special meaning in a reading and often do. When worried, they might hear Scripture’s oft-repeated message: “Be not afraid.” Yet there is a certain randomness to it all, which is why I was stunned to read the Scriptures for the tenth anniversary of 9/11. They are right on the mark.

The first reading comes from the book of Sirach and starts “Wrath and anger are hateful things.” It adds, “Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord?” My first instinct is: Take that, you terrorists!

But on the same day the Gospel reading from the Book of Matthew delves into how often we must forgive others. It recounts the tale of the ungrateful servant who after his own debt was forgiven by the master unmercifully dunned a man indebted to him. When his master heard of his unforgiving behavior, he called him a “wicked servant” and asked, “Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” Looks like a word for the wronged here.

Scripture’s message of forgiveness begs for hearing at this critical time. As a nation, anger abounds against those deserving and undeserving. There is anger at raging Muslim terrorists who masterminded assaults. When they cannot be reached the anger is then turned on innocent and peaceful Muslims, just because they hold on to faith in Allah. In a most obvious example, some months ago it meant people opposed a Muslim center with a mosque two blocks from the 9/11 site in New York. Recently it has meant that New York’s Mayor Bloomberg won’t have a prayer at the city’s commemorative ceremony to mark 9/11 because he can’t figure out which religious figure, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or other, would be acceptable to all.

In other areas, there is anger at bureaucracies because they ineptly armed firefighters and policemen with radio equipment that proved useless in New York skyscrapers. There’s anger at bureaucracies with such a proprietary sense that one government agency wouldn’t share information with another.

Overall, there is anger at anyone who is different, speaks with a foreign accent, or dares not speak English in America.

Scripture advises that anger clouds our vision and hardens our hearts. It makes us base rather than noble. It blinds us to our own failings and encourages a dangerous arrogance. It makes us forget we need forgiveness as individuals and as a nation.

In the coming days, media will captivate us with stories of heroes of 9/11, people who forgot themselves and rushed to help others. People terribly injured who struggled against the odds and became whole again. We’ll meet the children of 9/11 who lost a parent but gained a hero in heaven. We’ll meet many whose lives were changed by the experience.

Sadly, we’ll also see anger, some justifiable, but much the kind of anger that spawns a thirst for vengeance and weakens us as a people and as a nation.

Yet I am sure that as we mark 9/11, we will meet those who will inspire us because they embraced forgiveness. Some may have found the ability to forgive almost immediately; others, over time. They will be the ones who have touched into the divine and carry an unmistakable grace within them. Such forgiveness has not come easy for them, but those who have found it will stand as a touchstone of goodness for us all.

Benedict on the Bible

Today the Vatican released Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic exhortation on the Word of God, Verbum Domini. This document is basically the pope's way of summarizing what was articulated at the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. A Synod of Bishops involves hundreds of bishops meeting in Rome for weeks at a time to discuss a specific topic relevant to life in the Church. This fall saw a synod on the Middle East, and 2009 saw a synod on the Church in Africa.

In true Vatican fashion (unofficial motto: "We think in centuries here"), the document released today accompanies a synod now two years past. Since the apostolic exhortation itself is over 200 pages long, it might be helpful to read the Catholic News Service report on the document. And for a more point-by-point analysis, Mary Sperry from the New American Bible staff here at the USCCB offers the following summary:

Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini (the Word of the Lord) reflects on the meetings and proposals of the Twelfth Ordinary Synod of Bishops which took place in October 2008. The theme of the Synod was “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.”

The exhortation begins by affirming that the word is at the heart of every ecclesial activity and likewise should be encountered and interpreted within the community of the Church. After a brief look at 100 years of Church documents on the word and the role of the Synod, the Holy Father divides the exhortation into three main parts.

The first section, Verbum Dei (the Word of God), addresses the multiple understandings of the term “word of God,” all finding their fullest meaning in the person of Jesus Christ. Still, the word of God is Trinitarian. God the Father is the origin of the word. Jesus is the word. And the Holy Spirit inspires the word.

After extensive discussion of the relationship between Scripture and tradition, Pope Benedict turns his attention to our response to Scripture, namely, faith. He holds up Mary as a role model because she heard the word attentively and allowed it to take flesh in her.

Turning his attention to biblical interpretation, Pope Benedict affirms the indispensability of historical-critical exegesis and other methods of textual analysis. The goal of all biblical interpretation is the come to an understanding of the meaning of the Bible as God’s word for today. Such interpretation requires both faith and reason, linking the reality of the faith expressed in the Scriptures to the experience of faith today. He cautions against interpretations which lead to fundamentalism or which are closed to the possibility of Scripture.

In the second section, Verbum in Ecclesia (the Word in the Church), Pope Benedict characterizes the Church as a community that hears and proclaims the word of God. Liturgy is the privileged setting for the word of God and every liturgical action is steeped in Scripture. Similarly, we must understand Scripture in light of the paschal mystery celebrated in the liturgy. Word and gesture are united in the celebration of all the sacraments. There is no separation between what God says and what he does.

The Holy Father offers an extended reflection on the unbreakable bond between Scripture and the Eucharist. In considering the Mass, Pope Benedict discusses the importance of biblical, liturgical, and technical training for readers and gives substantial consideration to the significance of the homily in helping people come to a personal encounter with Christ through the word. He notes that Christ must stand at the center of every homily. Similarly, Scripture must be a part of every sacramental celebration and blessing. The Liturgy of the Hours emphasizes the dialogue at the heart of our encounter with Scripture. As such, participation in at least Morning and Evening Prayer should be encouraged.

Pope Benedict calls the Church to a new season of greater love for Scripture. The Bible should inspire all pastoral work, fostering the personal encounter with Christ who gives himself in his word. Catechesis should be biblically inspired. All the faithful should know the important people and events of the Bible and should even memorize some key passages. Every household should have a Bible to be used for prayer and reading. Scripture helps us to grow in relationship to Christ and, thus, in our call to holiness whatever our vocation.

Turning to Scripture and prayer, Pope Benedict gives extensive consideration to lectio divina, an ancient practice of reading, prayer, and reflection leading to conversion of heart. He looks at traditional Latin and Eastern Marian prayers (including the Angelus and the Akathist Prayer) that help us come to a fuller understanding of the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.

The final section of the exhortation, Verbum Mundo (the Word to the World) states emphatically that the Church’s mission is to preach the word of God to the world. All the faithful must develop a missionary consciousness so as to become heralds of God’s word. This mission belongs to all the faithful by virtue of their baptism. This mission has two parts, the mission ad gentes to those who have never heard the word of God and the new evangelization to those who need to hear the word anew. The credibility of this proclamation requires an authentic Christian witness.

Proclaiming the word requires engagement with society, promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation, reaching out to migrants, the suffering, and the poor. Special attention must be given to young people who will find in Scripture the answers to many of life’s questions.

The word of God must have an impact on culture, through shared human values, the arts, and through communications, including new media. The word of God speaks to all peoples and cultures and the Church must give special care to ensuring that all people have a complete translation of the Bible in their own language. Finally, the word of God must inform interreligious dialogue, helping to identify shared values.

Pope Benedict concludes the exhortation by affirming that the proclamation of the word creates communion and brings joy.