Thank you to Bishop McManus for his presiding last Saturday at the 4:00 Mass as well as installing yours truly as Pastor of St. Anne’s Parish, and then dedicating the newly created Pastor’s Plaque in the Fr. Smith Center.  And lest I forget, thank you to Bishop McManus for preaching at the 4:00 Mass, addressing the importance of the relationship between a Pastor and his people, and how a Pastor’s primary responsibility is to lead his people home to heaven.  It’s a blessing for the good people of God to hear their Bishop preach at their home Parish on any occasion.

One of the great “books” in the New Testament is one that receives little attention for the knowledge it offers to Christian readers.  At one time it was believed St. Paul was the author of this epistle. Subsequent research by Scriptural language experts in the past 75 years or so reveals the author of this deeply rich theological letter to be unknown.  Most every Scripture scholar today would agree that the Letter to the Hebrews was not written by St. Paul. This tells us how certain aspects of Scripture can change over time, in this case the author of an epistle.  Yet, the Divine message of what the Scripture teaches in faith and morals remains the same until Jesus returns.

In other words, what the Church has taught, and continues to teach, in her Divinely revealed teachings for the past 20 centuries is unchangeable with regard to faith and morals.  It’s essential for Catholics to understand and accept this basic principle of Scripture in our lives as we live in a time when many people outside and inside the Church are searching for ways to change teachings revealed to humanity through God Himself.  At the end of the day, who the author of a certain book or letter is, while important and beneficial to know, is not an absolute.  It is not equivalent, for example, to believing that Jesus is raised from the dead.  So, whether St. Paul wrote the Letter to the Hebrews, or your Uncle Sam wrote it, does not alter sacred interpretations of what is written in the Letter to the Hebrews since the time the Church solidified the books of the Bible, and well before that time.

One of the spiritual lessons taught by the Letter to the Hebrews is found in this week’s second reading. It refers to not losing heart.  This spiritual lesson can take a person in several different directions, depending on the individual and what struggle they deal with, be it physical, faith-wise, or something else.  When we put our hearts and souls into some worthwhile endeavor, we seek to finish in a positive way.

For example, every year the Boston Red Sox set out from spring training to win the World Series with a winning attitude, confident in their talent as a team to finish the job, knowing there are many obstacles to be met along the way - most notably, the New York Yankees.  With this year as an example, not all has gone according to plan.  Be it because of underachieving, or injuries, or bad luck, or all three, adjustments need to be made when the team begins to get too far away from its initial goal, such as owning a losing record two-thirds of the way through the season.  One option, at some point, is to lose heart. To give up. To succumb. To wave the white flag.  Comments have been made by certain media outlets and sports commentators on the radio (AKA bigmouths) to this effect.  This would not be the first time any team has done so, if in fact they have.  A case can be made for presently giving up or not having thrown in the towel.  But there comes a point in the season when seeing the writing on the wall becomes obvious.  Hopefully the Red Sox know they have not yet reached that point.

Transfer this idea to our spiritual lives and what the Letter to the Hebrews teaches us.  We hear proclaimed this Sunday how Jesus “endured such opposition from sinners.”  Opposition to the point of trying to force him to “give up the game.”  What did he do?  He faced the opposition head-on, like a prize fighter in boxing (if I may use that term about the world’s Savior), finishing the race, keeping the faithful promise made to his Father in heaven before being conceived in the womb of Blessed Mary his Mother.  When St. Peter tried to tell the Lord that he was not going to go up to Jerusalem to be handed over to sinners and put to death, the first Pope was sharply rebuked by Jesus with the words, “Get behind me, Satan.”  Forward Jesus must move, and forward he did move.
The same applies for each of us - forward we must move in our faith, and not backward.  As Hebrews says this Sunday, we must “not grow weary and lose heart,” but continue ahead, being joyful in our Catholic faith that promises life and peace the world cannot give.  And joyful too in the great, unchangeable truth that Jesus did in fact make it to Golgotha, to the point of shedding his blood for each of us, now opening the door to heaven that was formerly closed.

We pray the Red Sox do not give up until the numbers show it to be impossible for them to make the playoffs.  For us, there is no giving up on our faith in Christ until the day we no longer have the need of our faith.  That day, of course, is the day when the souls of the just are in the hand of God, secured for life eternal.                 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

HOLINESS
Christianity does not understand holiness (except for God's holiness) only as a given condition but also as a call.  The New Testament not only calls the followers of Jesus a holy people, but it demands, in the imperative voice, that they become holy.  The Corinthians, for example, are “called to be holy.”  In that sense, holiness may be understood as part of the conversion process: a move away from that which is not God (aversion) toward that which makes us closer to God after the manner of Jesus (conversion).  To use a traditional vocabulary, the call is the urging grace of God, while our conversion to God is a response to that prompting of grace.  Holiness, then, involves both a condition and a choice in response to an offer.                                                                                                                                                      

This turn to holiness involves decisions that are individual but accomplished within the context of the believing assembly.  In the contemporary Church this call to holiness is most solemnly set out in the fifth chapter of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) of the Second Vatican Council. The title of that chapter, “The Call of the Whole Church to Holiness,” is not ornamental but essential. Holiness is not the domain of an elect or cultic group within the Church but the universal vocation of all Christians: “… all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity.”  It may well be - and the conciliar document outlines distinct ways of life in the Church - that people find themselves in various circumstances of life; nonetheless, everyone is called to the same holiness that is rooted in the same bedrock of charity, i.e., the love of God above all things and the love of others for the sake of God.  Thus, a person may have the charism of virginity or the grace of marriage, but the holiness of each is tested by the same rule: Christian charity, by which we love all things in the love of God.”
                                                                                                                                                                                                     From The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality