Third Sunday of Easter - Dom Brendan
3rd Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2006
Cycle B
I received a strange phone call two weeks ago. The person on the phone said that she had just seen an NBC program called Dateline about Michael Baignet the author of the book “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”. Baignet claimed on the program to have seen a papyrus document that proves that Jesus did not die on the cross but was still alive in 45 ad. The document is purported to be a letter written by Jesus himself to the Sanhedrin stating that he was not divine and was unfairly treated by the Sanhedrin. Baignet says this papyrus was found under the foundation of a home in Jerusalem 20 or 30 years ago. It has since disappeared into the Vatican’s Secret Archives, or so he claims.
The woman on the other end of the phone wanted to know if I had ever seen this document or had any knowledge of it. I explained that I was merely a humble Benedictine monk and did not have access to the Vatican’s Secret Archives; moreover if every monk and clergyman had access to the Secret Archives they would no longer be a secret thus depriving people like Michael Baignet and Dan Brown from making millions of dollars on books fabricating conspiracy theories involving the Vatican and it’s Secret Archives. There was a moment of silence on the line. Then she asked if I had the Cardinal’s phone number handy.
As it happens I looked up the interview on the internet where NBC is kind enough to provide a complete transcript. At one poinet Baignet is asked by the NBC correspondent:
Correspondent: You believe that much of what we think we know about Jesus is a lie?
Michael Baigent: It’s a lie. It’s an obvious lie.
I find this story very interesting but not for the same reasons that my caller did. What’s interesting about this story is it’s timing. Next to Christmas, March and April are the most religious times of the year as Christians observe Lent and Holy Week and Jews observe the Passover. And every year around this time there are always news stories in the media concerning some new take on faith. Either John Dominic Crossan, the poster boy for the Jesus Seminar, telling us that Jesus body was left on the cross to be eaten by dogs, the Da Vinci Code, last year’s fascination with Mary Magdalene or this year’s favorite the “Judas Gospel”.
Some are inclined to dismiss the furor about these so-called revelations claiming that they are merely works of fiction. But its much more than fiction: it is a toxic blend of pseudo scholarship, half-truths, ideology and blasphemy packaged for maximum sales. And they sell because it feeds the public imagination for conspiracy rather than mystery: the X-files masquerading as theology produced by conspiracy theorists on ideological steroids who argue that Gnosticism is the real story behind the origin of Western civilization.
And here we get to the core of it all: these gnostic “discoveries” validate all of the inferences to be derived from the sexual revolution: we are free to make up our sexual identity, roles and relationships, as we go along; moral codes tracing back to biblical times are now obsolete; conventional notions of the Deity are simply a form of social control and ought to have no effect on human behavior.
Apologists for this form of theological pornography argue that the media barrage ultimately has no effect on believers who are already convinced of the truths of faith. I’m not so sure. Two years ago my 16 year old nephew did something completely uncharacteristic: he bought a book and read it. The book was the Da Vinci Code. And then he did another uncharacteristic thing. He announced to his parents that he would no longer be going to church with them because, to use his own words “I believe in God but I don’t believe in the Church”. All this took place within a month of his was Confirmation. In his case, as with so many others, the Sacrament of Confirmation was ritual graduation out of the Church.
At the heart of many of these programs, books and movies is a relentless hostility to the Church. In the end, the success of these “catechisms of suspicion” show the depth of the present cultural darkness and the willingness of the popular mindset to believe the worst of organized religion in general and Catholicism in particular.
The Passion, Death and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one truly piece of Good News that the world needs to hear. This is why it lies at the core of the Church’s liturgical year, her preaching of the Gospel, and the celebration of the Sacramental life. Why would anyone want to let this good news be taken from us?
What should committed Catholics do?
One response is to cancel your subscription to the papers and news magazines, boycott the movies and cut the plug off the television set. What will you have missed: news about Madonna’s latest husband or the perils of being Jessica Simpson? Now days the fine line between news and entertainment is hardly distinguishable. You can barely tell the difference between the news and the commercials. Remember what Fred Allen said: “Television is called a medium because it’s seldom well done”.
Unfortunately most people cannot not be persuaded by this kind of approach. Cutting off the plug to pop culture can seem, for some, like cutting off their nose to spite their face.
The best place to start is by taking a cue from the Gospel itself. It seems to me that one of the greatest arguments for the truth of the Resurrection are the apostles themselves. Gathered in the upper room they are 11 frightened men who fear that the news of Jesus’ resurrection might prove true and that when he returns he will have his revenge for their betrayal.
Instead Christ reconciles them to himself; befriends them once again. The power of their encounter with the Risen One changes them in ways far more convincing than any writer of fiction could describe. They become men willing to endure hardship and death for the sake of the gospel.
The greatest testimony of the truths of our faith is the witness of a holy life. Orthodoxy leads to orthopraxis, true believing leads to right living. If the church is ridiculed and mocked because Catholics are little better than pagans and unbelievers than whose fault is that? If we are accused of being a false Church and our faith an obvious lie because Catholics are too busy manning the barricades of the intramural culture wars then whose fault is that? In that case, arguing about where the sanctuary furniture goes is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. In some cases we’ve brought discredit on ourselves.
But if we live lives of courage, faith, honesty, truth and love then all the blasphemies and lies spoken and written about the Church’s faith will have no power to convince or confuse even the most naïve.
This is a homily not a program of reform or a political platform for another faction within the Church. Clearly, there is a need for pastoral action in our hyper critical culture. But whatever you do, don’t call me on the phone and ask if I’ve visited the Vatican’s Secret Archives lately. I lost my membership card.
April 30, 2006
Cycle B
I received a strange phone call two weeks ago. The person on the phone said that she had just seen an NBC program called Dateline about Michael Baignet the author of the book “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”. Baignet claimed on the program to have seen a papyrus document that proves that Jesus did not die on the cross but was still alive in 45 ad. The document is purported to be a letter written by Jesus himself to the Sanhedrin stating that he was not divine and was unfairly treated by the Sanhedrin. Baignet says this papyrus was found under the foundation of a home in Jerusalem 20 or 30 years ago. It has since disappeared into the Vatican’s Secret Archives, or so he claims.
The woman on the other end of the phone wanted to know if I had ever seen this document or had any knowledge of it. I explained that I was merely a humble Benedictine monk and did not have access to the Vatican’s Secret Archives; moreover if every monk and clergyman had access to the Secret Archives they would no longer be a secret thus depriving people like Michael Baignet and Dan Brown from making millions of dollars on books fabricating conspiracy theories involving the Vatican and it’s Secret Archives. There was a moment of silence on the line. Then she asked if I had the Cardinal’s phone number handy.
As it happens I looked up the interview on the internet where NBC is kind enough to provide a complete transcript. At one poinet Baignet is asked by the NBC correspondent:
Correspondent: You believe that much of what we think we know about Jesus is a lie?
Michael Baigent: It’s a lie. It’s an obvious lie.
I find this story very interesting but not for the same reasons that my caller did. What’s interesting about this story is it’s timing. Next to Christmas, March and April are the most religious times of the year as Christians observe Lent and Holy Week and Jews observe the Passover. And every year around this time there are always news stories in the media concerning some new take on faith. Either John Dominic Crossan, the poster boy for the Jesus Seminar, telling us that Jesus body was left on the cross to be eaten by dogs, the Da Vinci Code, last year’s fascination with Mary Magdalene or this year’s favorite the “Judas Gospel”.
Some are inclined to dismiss the furor about these so-called revelations claiming that they are merely works of fiction. But its much more than fiction: it is a toxic blend of pseudo scholarship, half-truths, ideology and blasphemy packaged for maximum sales. And they sell because it feeds the public imagination for conspiracy rather than mystery: the X-files masquerading as theology produced by conspiracy theorists on ideological steroids who argue that Gnosticism is the real story behind the origin of Western civilization.
And here we get to the core of it all: these gnostic “discoveries” validate all of the inferences to be derived from the sexual revolution: we are free to make up our sexual identity, roles and relationships, as we go along; moral codes tracing back to biblical times are now obsolete; conventional notions of the Deity are simply a form of social control and ought to have no effect on human behavior.
Apologists for this form of theological pornography argue that the media barrage ultimately has no effect on believers who are already convinced of the truths of faith. I’m not so sure. Two years ago my 16 year old nephew did something completely uncharacteristic: he bought a book and read it. The book was the Da Vinci Code. And then he did another uncharacteristic thing. He announced to his parents that he would no longer be going to church with them because, to use his own words “I believe in God but I don’t believe in the Church”. All this took place within a month of his was Confirmation. In his case, as with so many others, the Sacrament of Confirmation was ritual graduation out of the Church.
At the heart of many of these programs, books and movies is a relentless hostility to the Church. In the end, the success of these “catechisms of suspicion” show the depth of the present cultural darkness and the willingness of the popular mindset to believe the worst of organized religion in general and Catholicism in particular.
The Passion, Death and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one truly piece of Good News that the world needs to hear. This is why it lies at the core of the Church’s liturgical year, her preaching of the Gospel, and the celebration of the Sacramental life. Why would anyone want to let this good news be taken from us?
What should committed Catholics do?
One response is to cancel your subscription to the papers and news magazines, boycott the movies and cut the plug off the television set. What will you have missed: news about Madonna’s latest husband or the perils of being Jessica Simpson? Now days the fine line between news and entertainment is hardly distinguishable. You can barely tell the difference between the news and the commercials. Remember what Fred Allen said: “Television is called a medium because it’s seldom well done”.
Unfortunately most people cannot not be persuaded by this kind of approach. Cutting off the plug to pop culture can seem, for some, like cutting off their nose to spite their face.
The best place to start is by taking a cue from the Gospel itself. It seems to me that one of the greatest arguments for the truth of the Resurrection are the apostles themselves. Gathered in the upper room they are 11 frightened men who fear that the news of Jesus’ resurrection might prove true and that when he returns he will have his revenge for their betrayal.
Instead Christ reconciles them to himself; befriends them once again. The power of their encounter with the Risen One changes them in ways far more convincing than any writer of fiction could describe. They become men willing to endure hardship and death for the sake of the gospel.
The greatest testimony of the truths of our faith is the witness of a holy life. Orthodoxy leads to orthopraxis, true believing leads to right living. If the church is ridiculed and mocked because Catholics are little better than pagans and unbelievers than whose fault is that? If we are accused of being a false Church and our faith an obvious lie because Catholics are too busy manning the barricades of the intramural culture wars then whose fault is that? In that case, arguing about where the sanctuary furniture goes is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. In some cases we’ve brought discredit on ourselves.
But if we live lives of courage, faith, honesty, truth and love then all the blasphemies and lies spoken and written about the Church’s faith will have no power to convince or confuse even the most naïve.
This is a homily not a program of reform or a political platform for another faction within the Church. Clearly, there is a need for pastoral action in our hyper critical culture. But whatever you do, don’t call me on the phone and ask if I’ve visited the Vatican’s Secret Archives lately. I lost my membership card.
posted by Prior Peter, OSB | 7:50 PM
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