Feast Day: December 29^th 

What is Jesus doing when He claims to have fulfilled Psalm 110 in Himself? St. Peter interprets it for us in his first sermon on Pentecost (and thereby underlines how critical it was to Jesus’ mission and identity). Hang on as we get a full taste of his understanding, and passion, having just received the Holy Spirit!: 

Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. [Acts 2:29-38]

Jesus, Peter tells us, by claiming psalm 110 for his own, is claiming two extraordinary things: that He is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed heir and son of David – yes, a lord, a rival to the Roman rulers – but also that He is son and equal of YHWH, God incarnate – yes, the Lord, not just a rival of the high priestly class, but the only one who fully interprets (and actually inspired) the scriptures. Rightly so then, when Jesus claims to fulfil this passage, both Pilate and Caiaphas know He is throwing the gauntlet before them. 

And Jesus is not only claiming those extraordinary identities by citing this passage, but is turning the whole thing on its head at the same time! It had always been read as a promise that one day a new David would successfully conquer all of Israel’s enemies. What if instead it was always a promise of a King and Kingdom that instead embraces Israel’s enemies? What if the carpenter’s son was in fact the true High Priest? What if the Roman occupation was not contrary to God’s Kingdom but the way in which God’s Kingdom will be carried to the world? What if death itself were the means to Eternal Life, and the descendent of David were in fact His Creator? What if this son of David were the Lord that David served?

And so we take another leap forward, one century, and another, and another. A cantankerous Church Father, the great scholar Jerome, found his way to another quiet cave near the village of Bethlehem and began to translate the Old and New Testaments into Latin. He came to the critical passage of Psalm 110, verse 1 and replaces the Hebrew “adonai” and Greek “kyrios” with the Latin word “Dominus.” And so, “The Lord says to my lord” becomes the splendid Latin line, “Dixit Dominus Domino meo.” Such were the words cited by Ambrose or Augustine in their preaching and teaching on the radical transformation of death that comes with Jesus’ Resurrection (Ambrose’s Exameron) and His equality with the Eternal Father (Augustine’s Tractate 99).

But first, just a few decades before all three of those great Fathers of the Church, we have a saint who depicts even more clearly the fulfillment and authentic Christian interpretation of this age-old prophecy. We are far from Bethlehem, beyond even Cairo, probably near modern Tunisia or Libya and we are watching eight men, Christians, refuse to uphold Diocletian’s divinity and offer incense in his honor. They are part of the Roman empire and Roman culture; their names obviously Latin: Dominic, Victor, Primian, Lybosus, Saturninus, Crescentius, Secundus and Honoratus, but they will not budge to their emperor’s demand. 

Their Lord, not Caesar, has conquered death and sanctified death. Their Lord, not Caesar, has both divinity, and authority. Their Lord, not Caesar, reigns eternally and death cannot cut them off from Him. And the first was named “Dominic”, the first St. Dominic in the history of the Church, and we know nothing about him except His name, “Dominicus”, “of the Lord.” Yet with that name, he carries in himself a radical claim: that The Lord and his lord are the same person, the God-man Jesus Christ.

– Fr. Dominic is just glad to have been introduced to another name-sake and intercessor this week. (AND, another feast day that ought to be adequately celebrated!)

Shortly after entering the seminary, I started to keep a list in my breviary (prayer book) which had names of people that I would pray for each day.  I remember telling my grandmother one day, in passing, that she was on the list, that I was praying for her each day.  Somewhat surprisingly, she brought that up on more than one occasion when I heard her talking with others.  I think she felt honored to be prayed for each day.  My grandmother did not really practice any form of faith, at least as long as I knew her.  I am not even sure that she was ever baptized.  At times, she was a little outspoken about her view of Christians, that they tended to be hypocrites, to which I responded one time to her: “There is always room for one more.”

I believe, however, that my daily prayers for her did have an impact.  As I was nearing the time for my diaconate ordination, my grandmother was not in very good health.  She expressed that she wanted to stay alive long enough to see me be ordained as a deacon, and thanks be to God, she was there.  Much to my delight she was also able to be there for my ordination to the priesthood, and it was clear that she was very proud of me.  Of course, my grandmother was always going to love me, but I think the prayers I offered for her each day had a way of softening her heart, such that she grew more and more open to Christianity.  My grandmother died shortly before I celebrated my first anniversary as a priest, and just one day before her and my grandfather would have celebrated their 66^th wedding anniversary.  I hold on to the hope that her openness to the faith in her final years would have put her in a much better position to make the decision to accept Jesus at that final moment of her life.

We all likely have people in our lives that are a little like my grandmother.  We have family members and friends who are far away from the practice of our Catholic faith in particular, or Christianity in general.  Some from our families may have been raised Catholic, even practiced for many years, only to have fallen away.  We can become discouraged about this, and it is indeed a point of great suffering for many, especially parents whose children have stopped practicing the Catholic faith in which they were raised.

We are always looking for the perfect plan that will bring these people back into the regular practice of the faith, but it is not so simple as following an equation that will yield the right answer every time.  We should be making efforts, to be sure.  But we must never forget that the first step, and accompanying every step, is prayer.  In the Book of Psalms we read: “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Ps 127:1)

Next weekend, we will have cards in the pews on which you will have the opportunity to write a name of somebody for whom you would like to commit to pray, asking the Lord to soften their hearts, that they might be open at some point to receive the invitation to accept the faith for the first time, or to return to the practice of the faith.  If you are comfortable, you can even tell that person that you are praying for them each day.  You do not need to tell them that you are praying that the Lord will get them back to church, just that you are praying for them.  We can never underestimate the power of our daily, fervent prayers for others.  Whether they be a blood relative or simply a brother or sister in Christ, this family that is the Body of Christ will always be strengthened through prayer for one another, and the Lord, who desires their presence with us far more than we do, will be doing His work of tilling the soil of their hearts, so that, in due time, the seed of invitation planted will yield fruit.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: December 29^th 

On the road up to Bethlehem walked a wizened man. He was leading a heifer and had a horn of oil slung over his shoulder. As he entered the little village in the shadow of the pagan city Jerusalem, he explained that he was there to offer sacrifice. Later that day when the consecrated oil ran down the ruddy hair of the shepherd-boy, it would become evident that he was actually there to consecrate a new king. Fast forward one decade, and then another, and David found himself on the run. Saul pursued this rival king relentlessly, seeing only threat in his charisma, faithfulness, and talented leadership. David finally found respite in one of the many caves where he would often stop and pray, and a promise from his God took shape in his heart:

“Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

God would find a way through. God would establish his throne. God would defeat the darkness and violence and establish a kingdom where He could dwell with His people. If only David would sit next to God, place himself in the shadow of the Lord’s throne. Fast forward one decade, and then another one, and the promise seemed fulfilled: David was king of all the tribes, lord in his new capital city Jerusalem, dancing before the Ark of God, preparing to build a Temple to the true God. David being a man of blood, that great project would be the task of his son and heir Solomon. And so God’s promise became a psalm, proclaimed and sung by all of Israel:

A Psalm of David
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
 until I make your enemies your footstool.” [Psalm 110:1]

The Ancient Hebrew has more punch to it: “The Lord” stands in for the unpronounceable name of God, YHWH. “My lord” is just the Hebrew word “adonai”, a master, leader, commander, or king, in this case David. Fast forward one century, and then another, and Israel – their hopes of victory and peace dashed, the Temple torched and empty – was forced to chant this psalm in exile. Eventually they would return, and rebuild, but the wound would be reopened, not by Philistines, or Babylonians, but by the Greeks of Alexander. It seemed the opposite of the psalm had come to pass: God’s people trampled underfoot, and yet it does mean that God’s people and His inspired words to them only thus began to spread throughout Alexander’s empire. 

Fast forward one century, and another, and we find ourselves at another little cave near Bethlehem where an impoverished couple cares for their newborn son. Now it was not the Greeks, but the Romans, under whose heel the Hebrews suffered. We pause on the night when the troops of Herod ride out to seek the child’s life, and the angel of God directs Joseph to take his wife and son into exile in Egypt. In God’s providence, there is already a Jewish enclave outside of Cairo, from those previous exiles from centuries before. It was a long walk from Alexandria in whose great library the scriptures had been translated but it is close enough for them to hear in that synagogue the ancient promise: “The Lord said to my lord”, now rendered in Greek, with “Kyrios” speaking to “kyrios.”

If we fast forward a decade, and then another one, the carpenter, his wife, and their little boy had long returned to Nazareth. From there the carpenter’s son, as it was supposed, began to preach repentance, and forgiveness of sins, and that the scriptures – all of them! – were actually fulfilled in Him. All was fine as long as it was just the lame leaping and the blind seeing, but then Jesus strode up into God’s city Jerusalem and into God’s Holy Temple, and there he lays claim to one, final, extraordinary prophecy:

Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet””? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. [Matthew 22:41-46]

From here, the son of David would leave the city, would prophesy the coming destruction of the Temple (and everything else) because it had rejected the time of its visitation. He will then be anointed in Bethany, and Judas will begin scheming with the leaders in the Temple to betray Him. This claim, this argument, citing this prophecy directly precipitates Our Lord’s crucifixion. Why did Jesus do it? What was He claiming? 

The full story (and to finally encounter our martyr St. Dominic) we will have to wait until next week. For now, let it suffice to say that Jesus is claiming to not only be a son of David, a lord with a lower-case “l”, but the son of God, the Lord, with every letter capitalized.

– Fr. Dominic had way too much fun taking 12 or 14 words from the Roman Martyrology all the way to a two-part saga spiraling up to St. Dominic. Goes to show how long God has been writing this story that we’re all part of!