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Keeping Vigilant

The Gospel of Mark 13:24-32, begins the Adventen turn toward the End Times and the Second Coming of Christ. It is a passage that carries no warm and fuzzy messages, but rather messages of warning. We do not know the day nor the hour when this life will end and we will come face-to-face with our Maker. Are you ready to make an account for your life?

This passage reminds us to keep ourselves vigilant, ready at any moment to face judgment. It reminds us of our true priorities: all that belongs to this world will pass away. It is only Christ that remains. Do I live my life in a way that embodies the eternal nature of Christ, but the fleeting nature of worldly goods?

Furthermore, it is not just our salvation that we work for. As part of the Body of Christ, we are also called to work for the salvation of others. As we are reminded with the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, we are not isolated beings pursuing holiness, we are part of a communion of saints. We belong to each other. How are you praying for those around you? How are you sacrificing so that they might come to know Christ or deepen their relationship with Him? Do you notice people missing at Mass? People who used to come? What are you, personally, doing to invite them back to Mass?

We do not know the day nor the hour when Christ will come again. Nor do we know the day nor the hour when our individual life on earth will end. But we do know eternal life awaits us. Let us live our lives in such a way that we get there, and bring as many people with us as possible!

The Third Commandment

In the Third Commandment, we are asked by God to spend six days ‘doing’ and one day just ‘being.’ That is the essence of what we will be exploring today, God’s third Commandment: Keep the Sabbath Holy. While most of us will consider this the imperative the Catholic Church uses to demand attendance at Sunday Mass under penalty of sin (something many generations call our Sunday obligation), this request from God is perhaps THE most humane request an all-powerful, transcendent God can give us. The origins of this day being declared holy goes back way before Christianity commanded attendance at Sunday Mass. This commandment was given to Moses as the God of the Hebrews formed his relationship with his people. In addition to offering laws on cleanliness, work, and food consumption, God ordered that his people rest as well. Mimicking the “Day of Rest” God took after six days of creation, honoring the Sabbath meant not only a respite from work.

Did God need a day of rest after working so hard to create the universe? Certainly not, and with this understanding we can look at the request for a “day of rest” not just as a break from work, but as a devotion of gratitude. God rested on the seventh day to, in a manner of speaking, stop asserting his mastery over our world. In our six days of work we are, in a sense like God, exerting our mastery over our world. On the seventh day we are asked to relinquish that effort to the true master, God. In addition, we are honoring and celebrating, “letting nature happen.” Unabated by our interference, we are allowing God’s plan to unfold. So honoring the Sabbath comes not as a ‘rest stop,’ but as a memorial to emulate through imitation, when God stopped creation for a day. In doing this, we are “to remember” what God has done for us in the past and what he does for us now. The Third Commandment is a commandment against vanity. 

For us Catholics, recalling that Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week," our “Sabbath” becomes the “eighth day” of the week, and for us the first of all days (CCC#2174). Whereas the celebration of Sabbath was Saturday for the Jewish faith, this “eighth day” becomes Sunday for us. This Sunday celebration also offers something new, and it was given to us by Jesus himself, “Do this in memory of me.” Without going into theological detail, our Sunday celebration is a participation of the unending sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass is NOT a “symbolic remembrance of the Last Supper.” Rather, the Sunday Mass, every Mass, is a participation in the unending sacrifice and encounter with Jesus, a sacrifice that breaches the chasm between heaven and earth. In this sense, the Mass is a live encounter with God through Jesus in a great mystery. St John Vianney said of the Mass, “If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy.” The Mass is the closet event we have next to seeing God face to face on this earth. So attending Mass is not an obligation by its nature, it is a supernatural gift extraordinaire.

So, attending Mass is just the beginning of a day of celebration and accommodation to the great gift we have received in Christ. Just like you spend time recalling some experience of great importance in our lives, so we offer each Sunday as a chance to stop doing and just relish in being a child of God. And what can we offer to God in return for his great gift of his son? We can offer him time. You may say how much time. What is the value of time? In a poem from an unknown author, we have a reminder of times’ value:

• To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who has failed his final exam.
• To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
• To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.
• To realize the value of ONE DAY, ask a day laborer who has eight children to feed. 
• To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask a couple waiting for the wedding ceremony.
• To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who has missed a train.
• To realize the value of ONE SECOND, Ask a person who survived an accident.
• To realize the value of a millisecond, ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

We all exist in a “time paradox” where we know time is chasing us like a rabid hound, and yet, most often we act as if we have all the time in the world. This paradox dissolves when we prioritize this day of rest as a day of ‘being’ rather than ‘doing.' When we just “be," there is no time lost, no time goes by. When we just “be” God gives us the opportunity to “enter his world” of being, a world in which there is no time. What are we to “do” in this world of God’s? We are offered to create quality experiences devoted to our family, our community, and to God. So any “work” that needs be done on Sunday is anything which supports ‘being.’

This last Sunday, I helped my daughter rake her leaves. It was work, but it was fun doing a service for her, playing with Moses, Millie, and baby Eli…and ‘being’ with my extended family. Being with your family on Sunday lets our children see that  our relationship deserves at least one day of total attention. In short, this day give us an appreciation for life, with a right re-orientation of our values and gratitude to the one God who has made us. The Sabbath is not about time ‘off,’ it is about being ‘on’ sacred time.

The Second Commandment

God's Second Commandment: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. In the Jewish faith, this is the Third Commandment. 

If we believe and follow the First Commandment, and respect God as our one true creator, we owe him respect according to his station. Before I go into the practicality of what this commandment calls us to do, I first want to speak of respect. There actually is a philosophy of language that explores the use and meaning of the words we use. Not to belabor a point, but you can understand the importance of words in translation. Our sources for the New Testament are in Greek, and translating the words accurately can make a great deal of difference as to the meaning. One classic example is our word for love which in Greek has several different permutations: agape/apgapao - unconditional regard, storge - parental, sibling love, eros - romantic love, and - philia /phileo (philadelphia-brotherly love) friendship love. Knowing which is inferred when we read about love in the bible is helpful knowledge. This philosophy of language has taken permutations from the time of Plato, as to what meaning a name signifies. A name can be construed as anywhere from just pointing to something to actually carrying something of the identity of what is named. Why does it matter? Respect for God’s name comes from the association that when we speak the name of God, we are saying something about him. Persons who may use the Lord's name in vain, may discount it and say, “It’s just a name, it doesn’t mean anything.” It is a mistake to take and use the name of God as if it is any other name. Because names hold meaning. Respect for God’s name is an expression owed the mystery of God himself and to the whole sacred reality it evokes (CCC #2144). It is hard to worship an imageless deity, and to have no name for such a deity is even more difficult to explain. Moses was given God's name-one common translation, "I am that I am." In Hebrew this is "YHWH." No one really knows the correct Hebrew pronunciation of this name. YHWH is the condensed form of the Hebrew words for 'was', 'is', and 'will be.' The Jewish faith held such revere for God’s name that it was only spoken by the high priest once a year in the Holy of Holies. It was not only a blasphemy to misuse it...was a sin to speak God’s name at all.

The Second Commandment calls us not just to be careful with our speech in using God’s name, but “the faithful should bear witness to the Lord’s name by confessing the faith without giving way to fear (CCC# 2145).” This means the Second Commandment implores us to not just NOT use the Lord’s name in vain, but profess his name as Lord from the mountaintops. 

There are a few other caveats that go with this Second Commandment: It applies to the name of Jesus, Mary, and all the saints. It also forbids us from making promises in the name of God so as when they are broken, it doesn’t imply that it was God who deceived them. This commandment also forbids us from using God’s name to swear an oath we do not intend to keep. To invoke God’s name when you promise something means you are using God as a witness to your veracity. If you do not intend to keep that promise, you have sinned against this commandment.

Finally, it prohibits speaking ill of God either inwardly or outwardly. This is a sin many of us may have committed and not realized, when we are angry with God, we may curse him, defile, or be disrespectful to him. We may do it out of misdirected feeling, but using God’s name as if he was one of our associates here on earth, is not honoring him. And it is in this area of sin which we all have seen the Lord’s name be frequently used. It is blasphemy to use God’s name to promote your agenda. It is certainly blasphemous to use the name of God to justify violence but also to use his name to criticize persons and their behaviors. It is taking “what would Jesus do” out of the light of a positive action and passing judgment or condemning a person. I know of circumstances where a person who was a bit different or non-conventional, was made to feel unwelcome in our church by another, all under the auspices of supposedly knowing what God would like or not like. This commandment tells us to be very careful about pontificating God’s choices. Any claim that what we are suggesting is from God, is a sin.

Our Church feels very strongly that it is sinful to use God’s name inappropriately, but this commandment also warns us about misusing or besmirching the good name of another. We are to uphold the good name of another by mainly avoiding gossip. Another corollary comes from Jesus’ response to his own testing by the devil, do not test the Lord your God. There is a rabbinic teaching that states, “Do not stand in a place of danger and pray for a miracle, lest it not happen.” We often put ourselves in harm’s way expecting God will save us, that is a sin. Another interesting aspect of this commandment is that it tells us to not make God “look bad.” Any time we behave badly, we bring shame to our family, and the Body of Christ. There was little room in Jesus’ mind for hypocritical behavior- such as for us, attending Mass and then going out into the world and acting badly. Not striving to have your insides match your outsides is a sin against this commandment.