Deacon Jerry Franzen April 14, 2024 Cathedral
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19 1 John 2:1-5a Luke 24:35-48
Praised Be Jesus Christ! Good Morning
At our Baptism, we received
the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit:
knowledge, understanding, wisdom, counsel, fortitude,
fear of the Lord.
These gifts were then strengthened
with the further infusion
of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation.
They are to help us to improve
our relationship with God.
Knowledge, understanding and
wisdom, are the first three.
They are different and yet
connected.
Consider the recent eclipse.
People knew the date, time and
locations to view the eclipse
and not to view the eclipse with the naked eye.
They had that knowledge.
Many people had the understanding that looking directly at the sun
could focus the power of sunlight directly on the retina of your eyes
and damage your eyes.
Many people had gained the wisdom to use the approved glasses
to be able to directly watch the progress of the eclipse safely.
Knowledge is what we grasp from reality and store in our intellect
to be used as needed.
Understanding involves why
things are the way they are.
And wisdom uses knowledge and understanding to make correct decisions.
In the spiritual world, these words have similar meanings in our
relationship with God.
The gift of knowledge prompts
us to learn more facts about God.
The gift of understanding prompts us to learn more about why God is
the way He is and why He does what He does.
And the gift of wisdom prompts us to make the right decisions based on
what we know and understand about God.
Knowledge, understanding and wisdom in the spiritual realm must be
grounded in our faith in God.
I
In the reading from the Acts
of the Apostles, Peter said:
“Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance,
just as your leaders did.”
The implication is that IF the Jewish people had known that Jesus
was the Messiah, He would not have been put to death.
In the second reading, John wrote,
”The way that we may be sure that we know him (Jesus ) is to keep
his commandments.”
In the spiritual realm, the measure of the degree to which
we really know Jesus lies in what we do.
So we might ask to what
degree do WE make the wise decision
to follow Jesus by keeping the commandments
and following the Church’s teachings.
We should know a lot about Jesus.
We hear Jesus every Sunday; we
have no excuse for ignorance,
no excuse for not
knowing or not understanding
that Jesus
is our Messiah, our King, our Savior.
AND we should always be striving
to know Him more fully.
But the real test of knowing
Jesus is not what is in our minds;
not in our knowledge or understanding; it is in what we do,
in what decisions we make.
We should know
and understand the commandments of God
and the truths of the Catholic faith.
Knowing and
understanding should be the basis
for what we decide to do.
to see our lives in the way God sees them, but in a limited way.
The gift of understanding helps us to ascertain God’s reasons
for
placing us in our particular circumstances.
So how do we go about increasing our knowledge and understanding
of Jesus so we can make the right decisions?
Jesus, in today’s Gospel
reading, gives us two paths:
1.“He opened their minds to
understand the Scriptures.”
We can better know Jesus through
reading, studying and
contemplating the Scriptures.
2. He “was made known to
them in the breaking of the bread.”
We can better know Jesus
through what we do here today.
The “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” a document of the Second
Vatican Council, has a startling sentence:
“God is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks
when the Holy Scriptures are read in church.”
We are so accustomed to the real presence of Jesus under the forms
of bread and wine at Mass, that we may hesitate to speak of the real
presence of Jesus in the proclaimed Word.
When the lector proclaims God’s Word in the first two readings and
the priest or I, proclaim the Gospel, God is speaking.
The words are of John or Paul or Luke, but they are inspired by God.
Through these words God
speaks to us.
The question is “How do
these words affect our actions?”
“What is our response?”
We heard today a selection from Acts, NOT to learn that some people,
who did not know Jesus, had crucified Him.
WE would be challenged to consider our own ignorance of Jesus.
Maybe it was a broader challenge to our love for Jesus and our readiness
to follow Him.
I don’t know what you heard; but I do know that God
was speaking to you.
To hear the Lord, you cannot be passive and listen like one might listen
to a baseball game on the radio or a book on disk.
You must listen with your heart, a heart that prompts a response.
That is how people listened
to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
how young people of the past once listened to the peaceful protest songs
of Joan Baez, as people now listen to the homilies of Pope Francis,
listening as a heart speaking to a heart.
Secondly, we are also brought into a deeper relationship with Jesus
at the Lord’s table.
We offer Jesus to the Father
as the sacrifice for our salvation.
When we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we are united
in the Body of Christ with Jesus as the Head.
We are challenged to take
our part in the Body of Christ.
Both the Word and the Eucharist should help us to know Jesus better,
help us to see our lives as God sees them and to ascertain why God
has placed us where we are in His plan.
That should show us the way
to do what we are to do.
What we experience at Mass and what we read in Scripture
are
just first steps; these must be translated into action.
The Israelite knew with the
heart.
To know God was to experience God, to recognize Him in his words
AND his deeds –
from the parting of the Red Sea, to simply “Samuel, Samuel.”
from the covenant on Sinai to the “still quiet voice” speaking to Elijah
(1 Kgs 19:12).
Each of these
experiences prompted a response:
Praise for parting the sea, “Your servant is listening.” by Samuel
Obeying the commandments of Sinai and Elijah went to the cave
for more instructions.
To really know God is to
experience God and to respond.
It’s not just listening but
also responding in justice and charity.
It’s following God in faith and in action, opening our hearts
to further submissiveness, yearning for what is beyond.
To know God, then, is not a question of clearer vision or more words;
it means responding by delving deeper into how to follow Our Lord.
*Based loosely on a homily
by Walter J. Burghardt, S.J. in “Still Proclaiming Your Wonders” Paulist Press
New York 1984 pp 84-89
