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» In Light of Faith
 
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Cycle C, June 10, 2007
by Richard Linneberger
We stand in a long line of those who have handed on the faith from one generation to the next.
In today’s second reading Paul wrote: “I received from the Lord what I handed on to you.” From the time of Paul and the Twelve to today someone has said to another person “I received… what I handed on to you.”
If you were baptized as an infant, a parent or grandparent most likely began the handing on of faith to you. If you were baptized as an adult even as recently as this past Easter, someone handed the faith on to you that he or she had learned and experienced.
What someone received was handed on to you and me — the line became longer and longer. If you’re a parent, grandparent or godparent today, you join in that long line.
If you’re a catechist, you are in that long line. If you are a participant in scripture sharing, a Eucharistic minister, a lector, you are in that long line. Any and all ministries stand in that long line.
Today is the feast of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ also known as Corpus Christi. We remember in a particular way today what Paul handed on to his followers and thus to us: “Jesus took bread… and said, ‘This is my body that is for you’… and the cup… ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood… Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”
For centuries Christians have gathered in remembrance of Jesus. For centuries Christians have handed on what they learned and experienced about their faith. For centuries Christians have gathered with bread and wine and proclaimed “the death of the Lord until he comes.”
This weekend is no different. We gather in remembrance of the Lord Jesus. We gather to hand on what we have learned from others and experienced about our faith. We gather with bread and wine to proclaim Jesus’ death until he comes again.
The line continues on again — the line from Paul and the Twelve is now longer and longer.
To whom have you handed on the faith? And on this Sunday of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, who helped you appreciate and understand this mystery of our faith? Who is or has been in your line of faith? Who is or has been the person(s) who have helped you appreciate and understand our faith?
Give thanks to God for those in your long line of faith heritage. They are your family of faith. They are our mutual family of faith.
We stand with them this weekend and once again proclaim “the death of the Lord until he comes.”
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Making mistakes in judgment
by Mary Hood Hart
Any regular reader of this column would know that I have great admiration for teachers. My admiration extends from the profession in general to specific teachers. Over the years, I’ve had lots of contact with many fine teachers.
All four of my children are products of the public school system, and one daughter is now a high school teacher.
Teachers are, for the most part, underpaid and under-appreciated. The best teachers are capable of changing lives. This is the time of year when we pay tribute to our teachers, and they are deserving of our thanks.
That said, because teachers are so influential, we are also obliged to call attention to the times when they fall short. Recently, media attention was given to a major error in judgment perpetrated by an assistant principal and a teacher in Tennessee. Chaperoning a group of sixth graders on a field trip, these educators staged a phony gun attack.
The students were repeatedly told that this was not a drill, and the educators went so far as to have one teacher wearing a hooded sweatshirt pulling on a locked door, pretending to be the gunman.
When the parents of the sixth graders expressed their shock and outrage over this event, the administration attempted to explain it as a “prank” and a “learning experience.”
Try as I might, I can’t comprehend how these adults failed to understand the damage they were doing to these kids by staging this attack, especially with the Virginia Tech killings so recently in the news.
At this writing, the assistant principal and teacher have been suspended, without pay. Imagine if the students themselves had perpetrated such a stunt. They would have been expelled immediately.
Even assuming the adults involved were attempting to “teach” the children how to respond to a threat of violence, the adults’ judgment was so flawed one has to seriously question their competence in any area of education.
On a much smaller scale, I had an experience with a school official who showed similar poor judgment. When my daughter was in first grade, a school guidance counselor regularly came to her class and shared stories with the children.
One afternoon on the drive home from school, my daughter, then 6, told me the counselor had narrated to the class a graphic story of a woman whose husband tried to kill her by setting fire to her bed as she slept. I was stunned that a guidance counselor would find such a story appropriate to share with small children.
It seems to me that, in the guise of attempts to “protect” children, some adults make serious mistakes by overexposing or frightening children with information or experiences they are too young to process.
When adults make these mistakes in judgment, they are abusing the trust children place in them. When this occurs in a school setting, by authority figures, the damage can be quite serious.
Of all people, faculty and school administrators should be the most attuned to child development and make every effort to be sensitive to children’s psychological and emotional well-being.
Never before in American society have children been exposed to so much potentially frightening news. Try as we might, because of media exposure, we cannot always shield even small children from the most troubling stories.
What we can do, however, is calmly reassure them that they are in capable hands. When actual risks are minimal (child abductions and school shootings, horrific as they are, are not, statistically, the greatest threats to children) we should not exaggerate them.
In our own minds, we should remember that children are at much greater risk from accidents and abuse by relatives than from planned attacks and abductions by strangers. If we are afraid for our children, they will detect that fear and they will themselves become insecure and anxious.
Children should be reassured that the adults who care for them will do everything in their power to protect them from harm (both real and imagined). Their innocence, vulnerability and dependence demand nothing less.
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The greatest story ever told
by Barbara Hughes
In a recent television interview William Bennett described American history as “The greatest story ever told.”
In the same breath, he lamented the fact that declining test scores indicate that students continue to fall behind in their knowledge of American history.
“We ask young people to defend and even die for their country but do they understand what they’re dying for,” queried one of the most influential political voices in America.
The rhetorical nature of Dr. Bennett’s question led to my reflecting on a parallel but completely different set of questions triggered by his choice of words. The story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus has been referred to as the greatest story ever told ever since the ‘50s when a movie about the life of Jesus was released under the same title.
And so it’s not surprising that the phrase sparked an obvious Biblical connection.
I found myself drawing a comparison between the lack of knowledge of American history with the lack of knowledge about our history as a people of God. As the journey to Christian maturity continues, we are expected to defend and even die for our faith. But can we do this without sufficient knowledge?
Throughout the Easter cycle, readings from the Acts of the Apostles are being proclaimed during the liturgy of the Word. Those early days of the Church were an exciting time.
It was a time when miracles seemed commonplace but it was also a time of doubt, uncertainty and even persecution. The fact is our history has always been a mixed bag. In a world where good and evil exist side by side moral imperatives may not always be self-evident. Therefore, discernment of spirits must be based on an informed conscience. It comes down to knowing our history as a people of God and opening our hearts to lessons to be learned from that knowledge.
It’s been said that when history goes unheeded, mistakes get repeated.
The same can be said in regard to the history of the people of God. From the Israelites to the early Christians valuable lessons abound. Scripture is not just a story about people who lived thousands of years ago, it’s our story and it begs the question: how would we fare on a test?
The reality is we are tested every day and we need only look at our world to determine how well we’re doing. Knowledge of Scripture involves choices and those choices are reflected in our culture and in our world.
Important lessons can also be extracted from the archives of Church history and it’s our responsibility to be knowledgeable, to reflect and to pray over those lessons so that mistakes from the past are not repeated.
Our vision for the world must be rooted in the Word of God but when that vision is watered down by political correctness or when spiritual capital is sacrificed in favor of a spirit of individualism or nationalism, the vision of God is sacrificed on the altars of lesser gods.
In Pope Benedict’s recently published book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” the Pope cautioned that when God is considered a secondary concern that can temporarily or permanently be set aside for more important things, those things which are presumed to be more important fail.
Immigration reform, the war in Iraq, the availability of health care, abortion and global warming are all hot political topics. As people of faith we need to begin now — if we haven’t already — to embark on a serious study of the Word of God so that we can make informed decisions.
Issues of justice cannot be relegated to the politicians. We all bear a responsibility towards caring for the earth and often that means choosing the well-being of others over personal comfort. It means setting aside prejudices that support the rights of some at the expense of the rights of others.
In truth we’re being asked to die for our faith daily in both small and not so small ways. It may not involve a physical death but when we choose to live according to the Word of God and seek his will in all things, then we quickly learn that dying to self does not come without cost. It requires taking off blinders and looking beyond our own way of making meaning and drawing conclusions.
Dying to self means setting aside my will so that God’s will can be done. But how can we do that unless we know what God’s will is?
The answer to the question lies in the greatest story ever told and we have it from God’s own Son.
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, I was ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
His words provide much food for thought, food that must be shared just as generously as we share food for the body.
But how can we do it unless we know our history?
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Copyright © 2006 The Catholic Virginian Press. Articles from Catholic News Services, including Fr. Dietzen’s column, may not be reproduced here due to copyright considerations.
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