A reading from the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. Hope that's the right one, but it's still from Saint Mark, so let us be consoled. You can't go wrong with Saint Mark. We all know that. Jesus came back to Capernaum after a lapse of several days.
Remember, that's up in the Northwest corner of the lake. And word got around that he was at home, so he had a home. At that time, they began to gather in great numbers. There was no longer any room for them in the house, even around the door. While Jesus was delivering god's word to them, some people arrived bringing a paralyzed man to him.
The four who carried the man were unable to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd all around the door. So they began to open up the roof over the spot where Jesus stood. When they had made a hole, they let down the mat on which their paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, my son, your sins are forgiven. That that practically was his death warrant.
Now some of the scribes were sitting around there asking themselves, why does this man talk in this way? He commits blasphemy. That's one of the charges that put Christ on the cross. Who can forgive sins except god? They were absolutely right.
Only god can forgive sins. Jesus was immediately aware of their reasoning, though they kept it to themselves. And he said to them, why do you harbor these thoughts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, stand up, pick up your mat, and walk again. That you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
Now note, if that is true, he's god. You can't escape the logic of this thing if you still accept the verdict of logic. So our lord said that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He then said to the paralyzed man, I command you, stand up, pick up your mat, and go home. The man stood up, picked up his mat, and went outside in the sight of everybody.
They were awestruck, and everybody gave praise to god, saying, we have never seen anything like this. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you. The name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen.
This is one of the most significant passages in the New Testament as far as I'm concerned. Because here, it is absolutely explicit. Notice, I said explicit that Christ claims to be God because it's a perfect syllogism here. I mean, if you still have any confidence in logic, which of course many people today do not. The worst thing you can say about something today in many instances is that it smacks of Aristotelian logic.
That really damns it to hell. And I'm not exaggerating those words. Stronger language than that is used. I want to talk to you very briefly, in a very summarized form of some of at least a conclusion that I got after spending four delightful days in the companionship of my fellow priests down on the Loyola retreat house on the Potomac. First thing is a note of irritation.
I pick up a book and it says it's supposed to be a it's by a Carmelite. Of course, a Carmelite gave the retreat. I was reading the life of Saint Teresa of Avila, and the two the two of the days were devoted to Saint to Saint Teresa of Avila, the third day to Saint John of the Cross. And in between, we had sensed a day dedicated to Carl Jung. May he rest in peace.
Wish he would. Now, you open a book and it says that this is a great book to introduce us to the spiritual life. Point number one, I'm not interested in the spiritual life. I'm interested in being a Christian. I'm being interested in living the life of Christ.
I could care less about the spiritual life. Gandhi was There have been plenty of people right now. There's there are plenty of people going into East, and they think they're discovering something over there of how to get into the spiritual life with the mystics. There have been plenty of good, honest to God people in this world who who knew a lot about the spiritual life. It didn't come with the coming of Christ.
The only thing that came with Christ is Christ. That's all that came with Christ is Christ, the son of God. I could care less about the spiritual life. I want the life of Christ. Now here and I say this after a heck of a lot of years spent in dabbling with all kinds of of great and noble and sincere philosophers and geniuses and all the rest.
I I welcome I've spent time with them. I've read their books. I've argued pro and con. It's a great game. It's better than chess.
But when you talk to me about being a Christian, the only word that strikes strikes me there is Christ. What do I care about Carl Jung or any of the rest of these people? I want Christ, if that's what I want. Now, the thought the thing that struck me right here in reading the life of Saint Teresa, her her own words, in father Kuhn and Kavanaugh's translation, which is I think of an excellent translation, at least it reads well in English, is that Teresa in nobody on God's earth is going to deny that she was a mystic. Not that I'm a mystic, I, you know, I leave those people alone.
But I just happen to have that book there and have time on my hands, so I read it. You know, God has a funny way of working on you. It's it's really dangerous business. So anyway, what what she insists of and remember, she had all kinds of religious experiences. She had a well, it's a fantastic life.
But the thing that she insisted upon was this, when you pray, get the image of Jesus Christ in your imagination. The humanity of Jesus. The humanity of Jesus, Teresa insisted upon. I repeat, the humanity of Jesus Christ. Now you that's you say, Oh, that's that's grubby Christianity.
I'm I told I told you I belong to that category. I'm a grubby Catholic. Now this is Teresa of Avila, who just finished reading, and she insists on this time and again, that we must go to the humanity of Jesus. We must we must think of Jesus in his bodily form, as a boy, as a man, as a victim on the cross, any way you want to think about it. As born in the manger, suffering, teaching, curing, preaching, forgiving sins, get get that into your mind.
From this pulpit, have I have launched many a barb against anthropomorphism. But you can't be anthropomorphic with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the son of God, is truly man. M a n, man, human being. N o w, to the contrary notwithstanding.
And so I ask you if I would and then you see, Teresa, and this was brought out very well in the retreat, that the whole point of Teresa's, the inner castle, the whole point of Saint John of the Cross and his Knight of the Soul, the whole point is union with Christ. Now there's a difference between saying the union with Christ and the union with God. Christ is a person and he's divine, but he's also human, and completely human. And so our our our whole thrust towards spirituality is to be in union with Christ, and that is exactly what Saint Teresa and Saint John are preaching in their in their figurative language. The interior castle and the dark night of the soul.
I can't the second thing I can't make much sense out of. But Teresa, she and I get along alright. The other, you know, Saint John is too much of a poet for me. Now the next point I want to make is this. We talk about in in all of these mystics and all this spirituality business, we talk about journey and pilgrimage and things like that.
And they're good figures. I am no objection. But they're wrong. They're essentially wrong. In in in trying to you in trying to bring yourself into union with Jesus Christ, the son of God, The problem is not so much going any place, it's a matter of discovery.
It's a matter of revelation. For example, if you go out and there's a cloud in the sky, you can't see the sun, and then the cloud disappears and you see the sun, you haven't gone to the sun. It's just that you and the sun have now made contact. And that's I don't know what how what words to use, but the point I'm making is what we have to see is Jesus Christ in our daily work. In our daily situation, in the contemporary, in the here and the now situation in which I find myself, I've got to see Jesus Christ.
The humanity of Jesus Christ. And that's not difficult. I you can you can call call up call up Holman Hunt's picture or any picture you want. But the point is, we're great we're grappling here with the concrete. And it is a matter of going any place, it's a matter of being where you are and realizing where you are, whether you're in a sick bed in Holy Cross, or at homesick, or in a glorious celebration of your wedding anniversary, or I don't care what it is, is to see Jesus Christ there.
That's not going any place. You're there. But the point is, we can be there and not see anything. We can be there and not realize anything. We can be there and not appreciate anything.
You can be looking on the I mean, you can be on the rim of the Grand Canyon and not see the canyon. The first time I came there, there wasn't a thing to be seen, because we just there had just been a thunderstorm, and they're just opaque. And that night, there was a full moon, and it was an absolutely glorious sight. I didn't go any place. I was where I was.
It's just a revelation of what is. Of what is. Not was or will be, but what is. And there I have to see Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, the son of God. That's that's as simple as it can be.
You don't have to read Jung to get that. And you see, then we have how do I do that? We get the we get the helps. We get the channels of grace. Jung doesn't know anything about grace of God.
He doesn't know anything about the soul's immortality. He doesn't know anything about the the grace that comes through the sacraments that help me to this, not to go any place, but to realize where I am and who I am. We go back to Moses in the burning bush when God spoke to him. And when Moses said, You were here and I knew you not. Because he didn't go any place.
He was right there before the burning bush. He had seen plenty of bushes. You were here and I knew it not. It's that realization. It's opening our eyes.
It's it's being Christian. It's following Jesus Christ and recognizing him at all times as our companion, and that is as close as we can come to union with him. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.