Which Gospels Do You Want—The Four In The Bible, Or The Ones Written By The Gnostics?

(Third Sunday of Easter (B): This homily was given on April 14, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Acts 3:13-19; Psalm 4:2-9; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Third Sunday of Easter 2024]

Which gospels do you want?  Which gospels do you want to use as the basis of your religious beliefs?

The ones that were inspired by the Holy Spirit?  The ones that were written in the first century by the four men whose images adorn the back wall of our sanctuary: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

Or the ones that were written much later, by the so-called “Gnostics”?  I’m talking here about writings like the Gospel of Judas (which was in the news a lot in the mid-2000s); the Gospel of Thomas (made famous a number of years ago in the movie, Stigmata); the Gospel of Peter; and the Gospel of Philip.  (Now please don’t be fooled: these Gnostic gospels weren’t actually written by the apostles themselves.  Rather, Gnostic authors put the names of the apostles on their writings in order to deceive real Christians and lead them away from the true faith.) 

At this time, let me say a brief word on Gnosticism itself, since people today are still buying into it!  Case in point: Dan Brown, the much-celebrated author of The DaVinci Code.  I hope you realize, all the so-called “deep insights” about Jesus and Christianity that he shares in that book are nothing more than ideas he ripped off from ancient Gnostic writings!  They’re not new truths; they’re simply old lies!  The latest popular manifestation of these lies, incidentally, is in the transgender movement (of all places)—especially in how people in that movement view the human body.  More about that in a minute.

The name itself—Gnosticism—comes from a Greek word (gnosis) meaning “knowledge”.  Gnostics were people who considered themselves to be “in the know” with respect to the deep mysteries of God and the universe.  They thought they were smarter and more spiritually enlightened than everyone else—which is one reason why the philosophy is still very popular today.  In our pride, we like to think we know spiritual secrets and other secrets (like our true sexual identity) that other men and women—“ordinary” men and women—don’t know.

In the early centuries of Christianity, the followers of Gnosticism were a lot like people in the contemporary New Age Movement.  That is to say, they weren’t members of one single organization.  Rather, they were people from many different groups who embraced similar ideas about life, God and salvation.

For example, the Gnostics did not believe that Jesus Christ was truly human (as genuine Christians did).  To them, his humanity was merely an illusion.  Consequently, in their view, Jesus did not experience death on the cross.  He only appeared to die.  As one author put it, his crucifixion was really a “cruci-fiction”.

Nor did they believe that Jesus was God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  To them he was an “aeon”—a created being who was on a level somewhere between God and humans.

Gnostics sometimes disagreed among themselves on particular issues, but nearly all of them agreed on this crucial point: physical matter is evil (and that includes the human body), but the human soul or spirit is good. 

This explains why, in the Gospel of Judas, Judas is considered a hero for helping to get Jesus killed!  That’s why, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus says to his betrayer, “But you will exceed all [the others].  For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

In other words, “Judas, by betraying me and getting me crucified you’ll be doing me a really big favor!  You’ll be helping me to get rid of this evil body that I have.  You’ll help to set my spirit free from this flesh that holds it in bondage.”

Now, when you stop and think about it, you have to admit, there’s something rather appealing about this particular Gnostic teaching.  You see, if your body is truly bad, then it obviously doesn’t matter what you do with it.  You can get drunk every day; you can have any kind of sex you want as often as you wish.  You can mutilate your body and take harmful drugs to try to become a member of the opposite sex.  When it comes to your flesh, there are no rules you have to follow!

Sounds rather appealing, does it not?  That’s why people like Dan Brown think it’s great!

This, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John teach in their gospels.  They teach that matter is good, not evil.  In John 3:16, for example, Jesus doesn’t say, “For God so hated the world”; he says, “For God so loved the world.” 

God doesn’t hate the material universe or consider it to be evil.  After all, he’s the one who made it!  In fact, he uses matter to give us his grace in the sacraments!  As the Vatican reminded us in a document that was released just this past week, which made reference to the transgender phenomenon: “The dignity of the body cannot be considered inferior to that of the person as such. … [And] It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”  (Dignitas Infinita, 60)

God made it a material universe, and he also made it a moral universe, governed by laws and commandments.  St. John says in today’s second reading, “Those who say, ‘I know [the Lord],’ but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them.  But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.”  A staunch Gnostic of the first century would wretch at a statement like that.

Following the teaching of the real gospels is obviously much more difficult than following the teachings of Gnosticism, because it requires discipline, repentance and sacrifice.  But, in the long run, it’s really much better.  Trust me.  Because if “matter” is really as bad as the Gnostics said it was, then it becomes almost impossible to argue against evils like the Holocaust and the terrorist attacks of 9/11! 

You see, according to strict Gnostic principles, the Nazis did those 6 million Jews a big favor during the Second World War by setting them free from their evil bodies!  Thus, they weren’t murderers; they were liberators!  They did for the Jews (and for many others) what Judas did for Jesus (according to the Gospel of Judas).

The terrorists did the same for those who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Do we really want to say that?  Do we really want to rewrite history and call both the Nazis and the terrorists of 9/11 “liberators”?

I hope not.  But we would be forced to, if we believed the Gnostic gospels.  We would even be forced to say that suicide is morally good, since the person who takes his own life frees himself from his own evil body.

The real Jesus took on human flesh out of love, and he redeemed it through his resurrection.  That’s the Good News!  Jesus didn’t just come to save our souls from eternal death; he came to save “all” of us—body and soul—from eternal death!  At 66 years of age, incidentally, that’s a thought that appeals to me more and more.  I like the thought of having a transformed, glorified body that’s free from Parkinson’s Disease and prostate cancer and multiple myeloma—and every other illness!

Notice in today’s resurrection story from Luke 24 how determined Jesus is to get his disciples to understand that his resurrected body is real!  Even though he doesn’t need to eat (because his body is immortal), he does so anyway.  He has a nice fish meal with his apostles, and he tells them to touch his body.

The Gnostics must have freaked out when they first read this story.  It must have made them sick!

That’s why they felt so compelled to write their own fictitious accounts of Jesus’ life.

So which gospels do you want?  Which gospels do you want to use as the basis of your religious beliefs—the four we have in the Bible, or the Gnostic ones? 

I would tell you my personal answer to that question, but at this point I really don’t think I need to.

I’ll only say that I hope and pray that your answer is the same as mine.

 

Easter: The Only Answer to the ‘Walter Jameson’ Inside Each of us

Walter Jameson and Sam Kittridge

(Easter 2024: This homily was given on March 31, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Easter 2024]

“Long Live Walter Jameson” was the title of an episode of “The Twilight Zone” which aired during the program’s very first season.  If you’re old enough, you may remember it from its first showing; others may recall it from the reruns of the Twilight Zone that currently air on the Sci-fi channel.  The story concerned an extremely popular history professor named Walter Jameson.  Jameson was not your stereotypical, sleep-inducing history teacher; he had the uncanny ability to make ancient events “come alive” in the minds of his students.  In fact, when he spoke about certain historical figures, he did it with such insight that it seemed as if he had known them personally.

Well, it turns out that he had known them personally!  (This, remember, was the Twilight Zone!)  One of his fellow professors, an elderly man named Sam Kittridge, happened to be reading a book on the Civil War one day, and in it he found a picture of Hugh Skelton, an officer in the Union Army.  He noticed that Skelton looked exactly like Walter Jameson—down to the ring on his finger and the mole on his face.  After initially denying it, Jameson finally admitted to his colleague that he was the man in the hundred-year-old photograph.  It seems that two thousand years earlier, he had paid an alchemist a great deal of money for the gift of never growing old or getting sick.  Here’s how Jameson explained it to Kittridge:

“I was like you, Sam, afraid of death, and when I thought of all the things there were to know and the miserable few years that a man had to know them, it seemed senseless.  At night, every night, I dreamed as you dream of immortality.  Only if a man lived forever, I thought, could there be any point in living at all. . . . [However, after I met the alchemist and he gave me this gift of never growing old], I saw my wife and my children aging, my friends dying.  This was something I hadn’t considered, you see. . . . Think about it.  I tell you that somehow I can stop you from aging.  Where do you want to stop?  At thirty?  Then you watch everyone around you grow old.  At seventy?  Do you want to live forever the way you are now?  Old, sick?” 

His fellow professor responds, “It’s better than dying!”  Jameson snaps back, “No.  You’re wrong, Sam.  I was wrong.  It’s death that gives this world its point.  We love a rose because we know it will soon be gone.  Whoever loved a stone?”

A little later in the conversation, Kittridge says, “I thought if a man lived forever, he’d grow wiser.  But that’s not true, is it?”  “No,’ Jameson answers, ‘You just go on living, that’s all.”

The program ends when one of Jameson’s most recent former wives tracks him down and shoots him—not wanting him to marry the woman he’s currently engaged to.  As Jameson lies dying, he speaks these final words to his friend Sam Kittridge: “Nothing lasts forever—thank God.”

Walter Jameson, after living for 2,000 years, came to the realization that nothing on this earth completely satisfied him.  In spite of all the knowledge he had accumulated, in spite of all the friends he had made and the wonderful experiences he had lived through, there was within him a fundamental dissatisfaction with this life.

And it didn’t go away for 2,000 years!—in fact, if anything, this feeling of dissatisfaction got stronger and stronger as time went on.  That explains his dying words to his friend Sam Kittridge: “Nothing lasts forever—thank God.”

Do you recognize this dissatisfaction within yourself?  You should.  I certainly recognize it in me.  Even if we’re well-adjusted and happy there is still something within us that always longs for something more.  Most of us know about the conversion of St. Augustine.  His mother—St. Monica—prayed for him for many, many years while he lived the life of a hedonistic playboy.  He would have fit in perfectly at “spring break” in Ft. Lauderdale.  Finally Monica’s prayers were answered and her son changed his life.  Later he became a bishop and one of the greatest theologians in the history of the Church.  On her deathbed Monica said these words to Augustine: “Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure.  I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world.  I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died.  God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant.  So what am I doing here?”

Even the great saints were not perfectly satisfied in this life.  Why?  That, I would say, is the crucial question.  Why this dissatisfaction?  Why is it that we’re never completely content on this earth?

Well, as I see it, here are the two most likely reasons:

Possibility number one: a defect of design.  Mentally we just didn’t evolve properly.  Something went wrong back in pre-historic times causing this internal weakness within us.

Which brings us to the second possible reason: We’re never perfectly satisfied here, because we weren’t made for here!  Our true and ultimate destiny lies somewhere else!  So of course the things of this world don’t bring us perfect happiness—of course we’re always longing for something more—of course we’re never perfectly satisfied.  We’re only meant to live here for a time; we’re not meant to live here forever!  As St. Augustine said after his conversion, “O Lord, you made us for yourself; and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  This is the Christian response to the “Walter Jameson” inside each of us!

And it points us directly to Easter!  Easter means that at long last we can have what we were made for!  We can have perfect happiness; we can have perfect joy and peace; we can know perfect love and have the fullness of life our hearts long for!  We can have it, because Jesus Christ has obtained it for us by his passion, death and resurrection!  That’s the reason for all the alleluias!

In his conversation with Sam Kittridge, Walter Jameson said something worth repeating.  He said, “Only if a man lived forever, could there be any point in living at all.”  Jameson, of course, was referring to an endless life here on earth.  As he meant it, he was wrong; but on a deeper, Christian level, he was absolutely correct!  If there’s no life after this one, then what’s the point of this life?—To accumulate more knowledge?  (That’s what Jameson thought—until he started seeing his loved ones dying all around him.)  What’s the point of this life?—To make more money?  To have more toys than everyone else?  To become a sports or media superstar?  To have lots of sex?  (The pornographers of this world seem to think so.)  What’s the point of this life?—To get to the top rung of the corporate ladder?  To party as much as possible?  To have other people like you and think you’re important?

For more than 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has proclaimed to the world the true answers to the crucial questions about the meaning and value of human life:  Why are you here?—You’re here because God willed that you be here, and because he loves you.  And this incredible, infinite love led him to send his only-begotten Son into the world to die for the forgiveness of your sins. 

The point of your life is not to do your own thing (despite what the hedonists of our culture believe); the point of your life is to live for God—to live by faith in Jesus Christ and to follow the plan the Lord God has for you.

Thus the point of human existence—as the old Baltimore Catechism put it—is to know, love and serve the Lord here on earth, so that we will be happy with him forever in heaven—our true home—where the deepest longings of our hearts will finally be satisfied.

Do you believe this?  Do you believe that’s why you’re here?  Do you believe that’s the point of your life and the point of human existence?

·        If you do, then you’ll certainly be at Mass next Sunday—and every Sunday and Holy Day!

         If you believe this, then you’ll make your relationship with Jesus Christ your first priority in life.  Nothing else will occupy that spot—not your work, not the casino, not sports, not anything else.

         If you really believe this, you’ll examine your conscience frequently and confess your sins often.

         If you believe this, you’ll make every effort to be more charitable, more forgiving and more virtuous at home, at school and at work.

         And amazingly, if you believe this, you’ll actually start to enjoy THIS life a lot more—because you’ll have the right perspective on the fleeting pleasures of this world. 

Sadly, however, if you don’t believe this, then no matter how much money you make and how much power and pleasure you experience, the Walter Jameson inside you will continue to cry out—and you’ll have no answer for him.  In the deepest recesses of your mind and heart those nagging, troublesome questions will never, ever go away: “Why am I here?  What’s the point of this life?  And why won’t the pleasures of this earth bring me peace, even when I gorge myself on them?”

Because the only answer to the Walter Jameson within us is the answer of Easter!  May Almighty God give us the grace today to accept it—and believe!

What will you Leave Behind This Holy Week?

(Palm Sunday 2024 (B): This homily was given on March 24, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 50: 4-7; Psalm 22; Philippians 2: 6-11; Mark 14:1-15:47.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Palm Sunday 2024]

 

Here’s a suggestion for the producers of the Jeopardy program (that’s the game show where they give you the answer and you’ve got to figure out the question):

The answer is: The only Gospel in which the following line appears: “There was a young man following [Jesus] who was covered by nothing but a linen cloth.  As they seized him he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.”

Do you know the question?  You should—if you were paying attention to the account of the Lord’s Passion that was just proclaimed.  The correct question is: What is the Gospel of Mark?

Now the fact that this verse appears only in Mark has led many Scripture scholars throughout the centuries to scratch their heads and ask: “Why?  Why does Mark (and only Mark) include this seemingly unimportant detail in his account of our Lord’s suffering and death?  What’s the point?”

Well, some, like Scripture scholar William Barclay, have come to this conclusion: Mark adds this rather obscure detail to the story, because he was that young boy.  It’s Mark’s way of saying, “I was there.  I saw it all happen right before my eyes.”  (Remember, Mark was not one of the twelve.  Many years later he wrote a Gospel, but he was not one of the twelve Apostles.)

Based on what we are told in the Book of Acts, Barclay theorizes that the Last Supper had actually taken place in the home of Mark and his family, which is where Judas initially took the temple guards.  However, our Lord and the Apostles had already left for Gethsemane.  The arrival of Judas and the soldiers woke up young Mark, who had already gone to bed.  He then overheard Judas suggest that they go across the Kidron Valley to Gethsemane, since Jesus often went there with his disciples.  Mark decided to follow.  And so he wrapped his bed sheet around himself and went out into the night.  Hence, he was there in Gethsemane when the arrest occurred.  Now, that’s just a theory—William Barclay’s theory—but I think it makes a lot of sense.  It’s quite plausible.

I mention all this today because we are at the beginning of what should be the most important week of the year for us (spiritually speaking): Holy Week.  This is a special time, a grace-filled seven days, in which we all have the opportunity to leave some things behind that we need to leave behind.  Think again of this verse of Scripture.  There we’re told that Mark left something behind.  He left behind a linen cloth in the Garden of Gethsemane.  (Now, please don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that we leave our clothes behind during Holy Week.  I wouldn’t want any of us to spend the next seven days in jail!)  But there are some things that we should leave behind and can leave behind us—if we choose to make Holy Week holy.  You know, I think it’s tragic—absolutely tragic—that for many Catholics and other Christians it’s “business as usual” during this sacred time (except perhaps for some extra shopping or cooking). 

All that having been said, here are some (just some) of the things which we could happily leave behind during the next seven days:

Number 1: We could leave behind our misconceptions about God.  Some of us may think of God as the big policeman in the sky.  Some of us may think of God as the heavenly IRS man whose sole purpose is to get us to “pay our dues” in this life and in eternity.  On the other end of the spectrum, some of us may think of God as the “heavenly creampuff” who doesn’t care how we live or how we treat one another.  Meditating deeply on the love and holiness of God during Holy Week can correct those misconceptions.  We can leave them behind us, as we should.

Number 2:  Holy Week gives us an opportunity to leave behind any anger we may have in our heart toward God, because of our sufferings.  The more we understand what Jesus Christ suffered for us—the more we understand what he went through for us on Holy Thursday and Good Friday—the more we will see the relative smallness of our own crosses and the more we will desire to offer up our small sufferings, in union with his, for the salvation of the world.

Number 3:  Holy Week is an opportunity to leave behind confusion and doubt.  If we’re confused about the meaning of life; if we’re confused about why we’re here on this planet; if we doubt our value as human persons created in God’s image and likeness, then we need to drink in the message of Holy Week; and we need to drink deeply.    

And finally (and most importantly): Holy Week is an opportunity to leave behind our sins—especially any sins that we haven’t been willing to face and confess in the past; any sins that we’ve rationalized; any sins that we’ve been burdened by but too ashamed to mention.  And here at St. Pius, you’ll have the opportunity to do that on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, because we’ll be having confessions on each of those days here in church from 12-1p.m.

What will you leave behind this Holy Week?  I invite you to ponder that question today; it’s an important one.  It’s my prayer this morning that each and every one of us will leave behind everything—and I mean everything!—that we need to.

 

Learning Obedience from What We Suffer

Stuart Scott
1965-2015

(Fifth Sunday of Lent (B): This homily was given on March 17, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:3-15; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fifth Sunday of Lent 2024]

 

Stuart Scott was a sportscaster and anchor on the ESPN television network.  He was definitely a familiar face to anybody who watched SportsCenter on a regular basis a decade or so ago.

In 2007, he had what was supposed to be routine surgery to remove his appendix.  However later on, when the doctors tested the tissue they had removed during the operation, they discovered that it was cancerous.  For the next seven years Scott battled the disease courageously, and for the most part he continued to work at ESPN.  However, on January 4, 2015 he passed away from the cancer at the young age of 49, leaving behind a wife and two children.

But before he died he wrote a book—a book that was co-authored by a man named Larry Plath.  The book is entitled (appropriately enough), “Every Day I Fight.”

Now the reason I mention this today is because I saw Larry Plath interviewed on television not long after Stuart Scott’s death, and one of the things he said about Scott during that interview really struck me.  You know, it always strengthens my faith when I hear people in a secular environment echoing the truths of the Bible and our Catholic religion (especially when they do it without realizing that they’re doing it!).

And so it was here. 

In today’s second reading the author of the Letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered.”

Well Larry Plath said something very similar about Stuart Scott with respect to his battle with cancer.  In fact Scott also said it himself.  He said that his suffering had taught him some very important lessons that he might not otherwise have learned in his life.

Let me quote now Larry Plath’s words in the interview.  He said:

There was an element of wisdom that came [to Stuart Scott].  He learned patience as a result of cancer.  I mean, that’s the paradox—right?  [Stuart] says in the book that the paradox is that cancer just might make you the man you always wanted to be.

The sportscaster who was interviewing Larry Plath responded to that remark by saying, “Unbelievable.”  I think he said that because he was well aware of the fact that many people in our world today just get angry and bitter when they experience a cross like cancer.  They rebel against God in the face of their pain, such that they actually end up learning “disobedience from what they suffer!”

And even when people do respond positively to their sufferings with a greater obedience to God, that obedience sometimes comes after a period of disobedience.  For example, how often have you seen people come back to the practice of their Catholic faith after somebody in their family dies?

It happens all the time.  These men and women are living lives of disobedience to God, but suddenly their suffering “wakes them up” (so to speak) spiritually.

And that’s great!  Praise God that they’ve seen the light.  They’ve learned obedience to the Third Commandment (“Keep holy the sabbath day”) through their suffering—and that’s wonderful!  We should rejoice whenever that kind of learning takes place.  Better late than never! 

But this is where we differ from Jesus.  When we sinful human beings learn obedience from what we suffer, we often learn it after some disobedience; whereas Jesus, because he was perfect, learned obedience through obedience—always!  In other words, in every situation of suffering in which he found himself (like the Garden of Gethsemane), he said the same thing: “Thy will be done.”

He never said, “My will be done.”

We see this illustrated beautifully in today’s gospel text when Jesus says (in reference to his upcoming passion and death), “I am troubled now.  Yet what should I say?  ‘Father, save me from this hour’?  But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name.”

“He learned obedience from what he suffered.”

What have you learned through your suffering?

That’s a good question to reflect on during this last full week of Lent.

I did that myself in preparation for this homily, and I came to realize that I’ve learned a lot of things—a lot of good things—through my experience of having Parkinson’s Disease—and then prostate cancer—and now multiple myeloma.  That doesn’t mean I’m happy that I’ve had these illnesses!  (Don’t misunderstand me here!)  It just means that I am aware of certain blessings that I’ve experienced in the midst of it all.  For example:

·        I’ve learned to be more empathetic (and hopefully more compassionate) in dealing with the sick and the elderly.

·         I’ve learned to rely on God more.

·         I’ve learned to put more trust in him.

·         I’ve learned to take the power of prayer more seriously (since I believe that I’m doing as well as I’m doing in large part because so many people—even some people I don’t know—are praying for me every day!).

·         I’ve learned how important it is to focus on what I have, not what I don’t have; and I’ve learned to be more grateful for the health and abilities that I do still possess.

·         I’ve learned once again not to put all my hopes in this earthly life, because this mortal life is very fragile (a lot more fragile than you think it is when you’re young and healthy).

·         And I’ve learned that God is in control, and that I am not (even in those areas of life where I always thought I was in control).

Those are just some of the positive lessons I’ve learned from the otherwise negative experience of having these illnesses.  And that has made me more obedient to the Lord.

At least sometimes it has.  Unfortunately I have had those moments when I’ve allowed things like anger and frustration and impatience to get in the way of my obedience.  Usually that happens when I’m trying to do something “really difficult” like getting dressed in the morning or turning the page of a book or cutting a piece of meat at dinner—all those fine motor activities that you never give a second thought to when you’re healthy, but which become really big issues when you have a neuro-muscular disorder like Parkinson’s.

My point in sharing this with you today is that learning obedience through suffering is an ongoing process—for all of us.

But it’s worth the effort.

As Stuart Scott made clear, the sufferings of this life do have the potential of changing us for the better.  They can make us, as he said, into the people we’ve always wanted to be.

For a Christian, that means they have the potential to help us become what Matthew Kelly calls, “the best possible versions of ourselves.”

Or, as the Church would say, “They have the potential to help us become saints!”