Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Lake Charles, Louisiana
April 16, 2014
Chrism Mass
“Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.” Luke 4:16
Let us return to the synagogue of Nazareth, but I wish to guide our excursion with a brief stop to an important historic spot.
On my recent Pilgrimage to the Holy Land with the Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulchre, our group of faithful pilgrims made its way to Nazareth passing the Horns of Hattin.
As citizens of the United States, we instinctively recognize the date of July 4th. But July 4th has another, lesser-known significance. On July 4th of 1187, the army of Saladin defeated the Crusaders in a decisive battle. Between two mountains, called the Horns of Hattin, the much larger Islamic force of Saladin lured the Christian army. The Crusaders numbering approximately 32,000 were either killed or captured, as was the fate of Guy de Lusignan, the King of Jerusalem. The victory marked the beginning of the end of the Crusader presence in the Holy Land. You will forgive me this little excursion into history, but my thoughts return to this consequential battle because of our visit to Nazareth.
The old battlefield of Hattin, now a tranquil enough looking site, showed none of the signs of the tension that seems to lie beneath the surface in the Holy Land. The exhortation of the psalmist is ever pertinent: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). But, as I gazed at the ancient battlefield, I was reminded of what difficulty humans can have with the truth. Try, as we might, peace does not come with purely human effort. Perhaps if we understood better what had gone on before us, we would have a better grasp of what is going on now. Often we look at the events of the Crusader period through a clouded lens of old prejudices or modern political correctness. But difficulty in looking truthfully at events and judging honestly the data is nothing new. Certainly listeners to Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth had problems with grasping the truth.
Walking through an ancient suk, we came to what is called now the “Synagogue Church” in Nazareth. The church one sees today had once been a synagogue. It was built over the ruins of an earlier synagogue, the one where it is believed Jesus would have spoken the words we hear in the Gospel today. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). Quoting Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1-2), Jesus reveals himself as a prophet in the style of Elijah and Elisha—anointed, speaking with authority, and bringing the good news of God’s care for the afflicted and oppressed. But it is not because of his care for the poor that Jesus is rejected by those who had known Him from childhood. Instead, his listeners reject Him because they think they know him well enough. He speaks the truth, and they cannot accept it. The truth is that the prophecy is fulfilled in Him.
After Jesus reads these prophetic words and declares them fulfilled, the crowd marvels “at the gracious words that came from his mouth” (Luke 4:22). Soon after, though, the fickle listeners ask, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” (Luke 4:22). And when Jesus refuses to perform mighty works for them, because “… no prophet is accepted in his own native place” (Luke 4:24), “… they were all filled with fury” and “… drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong” (Luke 4:28, 29).
In just a few moments, we priests will renew our commitment. Unworthy though we are, we have been anointed also. Our mission is “to bring glad tidings to the poor” (Luke 4:18). However, it is not for this that we meet at times with rejection.
Rejection comes for one of two reasons. Either we are not living up to the standard of truth set by our Lord in His anointing or we are indeed faithful but our listeners cannot abide the truth. In either case, we must remain open to the Lord and faithful to the truth in our preaching. A few words of humble advice are perhaps in order.
The Lord, whom we profess, is the Lord of truth. The readings from the Gospel of St. John in these late Lenten days move us closer and closer to the realization that Jesus is what He said He is, “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). It is this that the crowd in the synagogue of Nazareth could not accept. Jesus proclaimed definitively, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). The truth stood before them and they would not accept it. The same truth would ultimately be their judge. On the other hand, for those who accepted the Lord, the truth was their consolation and victory. Our Lord would later say in the Gospel of St. John, “[W]hoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God” (John 3:21). In a recent pastoral guideline on Fostering Vocations to Priestly Ministry (2014), the Congregation for Catholic Education reminds us how important the truth is to a priestly vocation: “… the Church continues to proclaim the Word of God and to communicate the Good News of salvation with the courage that comes from the truth” (ibid., #12).
Priests must continue the “works” of the Lord because they embrace the truth of our Lord. Since the truth is to be found in Jesus, then our pursuit is not centered on ourselves. The pursuit of truth is never directed to self. The truth is found in the Lord. Everything in priestly life begins with the Lord. All works of mercy and charity must have the Lord as the point of departure.
We must also recall that, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us, the truth is what conforms to reality. It is Jesus, as our truth, that moves us into that reality. It is in Him that we meet that which is the heart and center of the priestly reality. Everything else is pretense and fabrication.
On the road out of Nazareth, we passed a cliff. By tradition it was “the brow of the hill” over which the crowd sought to hurl our Lord. Across the road on an equally high precipice, sits a church. The church is called the Church of Mary’s Fright. It was believed that here Mary stood as she watched with fear the angry effort to kill her son.
Mary is our intercessor. She is the mother of priests, as she is the mother of the Church. We entrust our priesthood to her prayers, asking that we will always seek the Father’s will, as did her Son, and come to a knowledge of His truth that will see us free (John 8:32).