Listening to Christ in San Antonio,
in Chicago and in our hearts
Last Sunday I was in San Antonio, Texas, celebrating Mass in that
city’s historic San Fernando Cathedral. I accepted the invitation
to be the principal celebrant for this weekly televised Mass in
Spanish in order to be present to Hispanic Catholics in the Archdiocese
of Chicago, where the San Fernando Mass is watched by many. In
an age of electronic communication, you have to fly to San Antonio
in order to be seen in Chicago!
It was a beautiful celebration of the Eucharist in this country’s
oldest Cathedral. Archbishop Patricio Flores of San Antonio concelebrated
and, while the ceremony was standard Roman rite, the beautiful
music was very Mexican. About half of the more than 850,000 Hispanic
Catholics in Lake and Cook counties are from Mexico or from Mexican-American
families.
Contemplation
The Gospel for the second Sunday of Lent recounts Jesus’ transfiguration,
during which the Father tells the apostles and us: “This is my
beloved Son, listen to him!” While the first Sunday of Lent called
us to penance, the second Sunday calls us to contemplation, intensive
listening to Jesus. Since most of us are very busy persons, we
might protest that time and disposition for contemplation are
not part of our lives. Contemplation is a gift, but we are usually
prepared to receive it by habits of regular prayer, in which we
attend carefully to the Lord. We need time to wait for him and
patience to allow his rhythm of action to transform our schedules
and plans. Setting aside time for daily prayer imposes a discipline
that can be part of our observance of Lent. The giving of time
is all the harder because there is no immediate “pay off” for
time invested in prayer. We can see results from our good works;
but the changes wrought in us by God during prayer are more difficult
to track. If we are to listen to Christ, however, we must be serious
about time for personal prayer.
Celebration
We listen to Christ also in the liturgy. The Church teaches that
Christ is present during the celebration of the Mass in at least
four ways. He is present in all the baptized gathered together
in his name. He is present in the ordained priest, who makes Christ’s
headship visible. He is present in the proclamation of God’s word
in the Scripture readings. All of these are spiritual presences,
and they are real presences because the spiritual is as real or,
rather, more real than the material.
Communion
There is a fourth presence of Jesus during and after the celebration
of the Eucharist, however, which is real in an altogether unique
manner: Christ’s presence in the bread and wine consecrated by
the priest so that the sacrifice can be offered by all the baptized
to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is a real
presence which includes every dimension of who Jesus is, body
and blood, human soul and divine person. The consecrated Eucharistic
species are the Lord and therefore command our adoration. We do
not adore ourselves, nor the ordained priest, nor the bible, even
though these are vehicles for Christ’s spiritual presence; we
do adore the Eucharist, this blessed sacrifice made really present
sacramentally. Some theorists today are impatient with objective
explanations of sacrament, content to emphasize the subjective
spiritual results in ourselves by reason of our participating
in the Eucharistic celebration. But this pragmatic tack eventually
erodes belief in how Christ acts to transform bread and wine entirely
and tends to value the Eucharist only because of how it changes
us. A gift which is given to draw us into self-forgetfulness in
Christ becomes judged in ego-centric fashion: “What do I get out
of it?” Only someone completely self-absorbed can ask this question
when looking at Christ’s self-sacrifice made truly present through
the Mass.
Because Christ is really present in the liturgy, we can listen
to him in hearing one another, in the proclamation of the Gospel
and in the words and presence of the priest. Most of all, however,
we listen to him in the stillness of our own heart after we have
received him in Holy Communion. Then, when we are truly united
to him sacramentally, he can shape us according to the desires
of his sacred heart.
Confession
Obstacles to hearing Christ clearly arise when our sins separate
us from him. Our sins make us deaf. Christ uses the sacrament
of penance to reconcile us to God and to one another. In Lent,
each Catholic is encouraged to make use of this sacrament in order
to hear God more clearly and set off afresh on the path to Easter
glory. In this sacrament, if it is celebrated with integrity,
we submit our sorrow and our sins, by name and number, to the
Church in the person of the ordained priest, who imposes a penance
to help do away with the effects of sin, our spiritual deafness,
and grants absolution. Again, in listening to the words of absolution,
we listen to the words of Christ himself: “I forgive you all your
sins.”
Conscience and Church
To prepare ourselves for confession and communion, we listen to
the voice of Christ who speaks to us through our conscience. Since
we are made in God’s image and likeness, when our actions do not
“fit” our created identity, we feel ill at ease, ashamed. God
tugs at us to bring us to return to him and to listen to the Church’s
teaching on sin and its nature. If everything is working as God
intends, there is no contradiction between our conscience and
the Church’s teaching, because God does not contradict himself.
God made us in his image and his Son left us the Church as his
body. The Church is mother and teacher and guide to our conscience.
The internal voice, conscience, and the external witness, the
Church, should speak as one. Cardinal Newman said this in his
famous toast to conscience and the Pope as guides: to conscience,
the internal voice, first, and to the Pope, the external witness,
second; but Newman himself was sure that both tell us of God’s
designs for his creatures. When both speak as one voice, which
is the normal situation for believers, we are sure of God’s will
and our hearts can be at peace.
Contemplating the Lord now, listening to him, prepares us not
only for Easter but for eternity. A few days ago, I was at the
funeral of a priest. His brother, also a priest, told us that
Father Frank Nikliborc’s entire life was ordered toward meeting
the Lord. This priest had taken to heart the words heard during
Jesus’ transfiguration: “Listen to him”. God bless you as you
continue in your observance of Lent.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Chicago
