2 Kings 5:1-27
Psalm 98:1-4
2 Timothy 2:8-13
Luke 17:11-19

Where Is the True Church?

Anyone who has read the Gospel According to St. Mark knows that the unveiling of God's great purposes is a shadowy and mysterious thing. For example, "the Messianic secret" (as seminary professors term it) points to a colossal paradox: on the one hand, the greatest wonder of human history, God dwelling with His human creatures, has actually come to pass; on the other hand, each person is left to detect and discern this world-changing fact only for him- or herself, and then immediately be told, "See that you tell know no one."

Similarly, God's intention to dwell with, and to save, all people, and not just the "lost sheep of Israel," is obvious from the beginning though it is veiled in secrecy. Three mysterious kings from the pagan East pay homage to Him at His birth. There is no retinue; there are no servants; only spendidly arrayed kings alone in the dark bringing gold, costly incense, and funereal spices for royalty. The pagan cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Ninevah are valorized over Judah and Israel. Other sheepfolds are mysteriously mentioned in passing. We must discern and reflect over all these things and what they might mean.

In this morning's lections, Jesus singles out the excellences of Samaritans as He has in the past. By healing a Samaritan leper, singled out as a man who is saved by his superior faith, Jesus recalls the great miracle of Elisha, the Samaritan prophet, who healed the leprosy of Namaan, one of the most powerful men of the Iron Age in the Ancient Near East. Jesus' affinities with Elisha and his teacher Elijah recur throughout the Gospels. Yet, these men are not of Judea. They had neither ties to Jerusalem nor to its Temple. They were Samaritans and would have thought of Mt. Gerizim as being the site of the true Temple, not Jerusalem. These are not minor points, for there can be one true Temple where sacrifice to God is offered and, by extension, one true Jewish religion and faith.

As you know, by Jesus' time a united kingdom of Jews was but a thousand-year-old memory, already vanished by the time of Elijah and Elisha, who lived eight hundred years before Christ. What had been a union of twelve tribes had disintegrated into a northern kingdom of Israel and a southern kingdom of Judea. Yes, both were part of the Roman Empire, yet their differences in cultic status continued to divide the south from the north. Synagogues might abound, for these were schools. But there could be one, true Temple, and furious anagonisms arose over where that might be. Indeed, Judeans, led by John Hyrcanus, destroyed the Temple at Mt. Gerazim during a siege in the years 111-110 B.C.

As the Judean Nathanael asked of Jesus, "Can any thing good come out of Nazareth?!" which was in the north. And we wonder what the Judean disciples thought when Jesus said that He "was sent only for the lost sheep of Israel," which stricly speaking did not include Judea. In this morning's readings, we must surmise that the nine lepers who did not give thanks were Judeans; else, why identify one as being Samaritan? Jesus must have been a mystery to the divided Jews of the Near East. On the one hand He was a Samaritan, from the village of Nazareth; on the other, He was born in Bethlehem and "son of David" as the people of the streets would cry out to Him. Certainly, from the time he was twelve-years-old and following the three-day debate in the Temple at Jerusalem, His very person posed a basic question about the nature of faith to all who encountered Him -- to Jerusalemites who knew Him to be from Nazareth and to Samaritans who snubbed Him because He was journeying to Jerusalem.

The signficance of this cannot be lost on a Catholic community such as ours, for our primary charism is to seek God however and wherever we are able. We seek God in communion with others though we live in the shadow of two declining civilizations, Europe and the U.S., which have fallen away from Christianity with breathtaking velocities. The Anglican Communion of the northern hemisphere has largely collapsed sacrificing all on the altar of homosexuality, transgenderism, and lifestyle permissions that scarecely could be said to square with Christian life.

The Roman Catholic Church has also lost its way being more preoccupied with sex, homosexuality in particular, than with the pursuit of holy life. Enforcing celibacy after 1500 continuous years of a married priesthood, the Roman Church has constructed a presbyterate and episcopate that today are mostly homosexual with estimates ranging up to sixty percent. During the past sixty years, roughly 14,000 credible sex abuse cases have been recorded by Vatican officials, nearly all male-on-male. As recently as 2005, a grand jury in Philadelphia found that fifty priests, many young men, had committed crimes of sexual abuse. In 2011 a second grand jury found that thirty-seven more priests in Philadelphia, including young priests, were credibly accused. The sexual mania suggested here is confirmed in other, tragic dimensions. A poll among Roman Catholic priests taken by the reputable Kansas City Star found that among 800 priest-respondents, 60% knew at least one priest who had died of AIDS and one-third of all priest-respondents knew at least one Roman Catholic priest presently living with AIDS. Describing this culture at ground level, Vanity Fair magazine has recently reported on the homosexual bathhouse culture in Rome frequented by Roman Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals. Meantime, one searches in vain among U.S. parishes for holiness; for beautiful, reverent worship; and for authentic faith among the clergy that produces true pictures of the spirtual life from the pulpit.

But isn't the Roman Church "the Church Jesus founded"? No Roman Catholic scholar or theologian makes this claim today, certainly not Pope Francis' chief theologian, Cardinal Kasper, who has argued against this notion throughout his career. Jesus did not journey to Rome to set a cornerstone for any particular Church. The Church is made of living stones as the Apostles have written. For it is imperishable, and humans alone among the creatures God has made are permanent and holy. The Church was founded upon twelve living Apostles and then upon the bishops they created through consecrating prayer and the laying on of hands.

But doesn't Peter have a "primacy" over the others? Serious Catholic theologians no longer make this claim. If Peter were bishop over any city, it would have been Antioch, not Rome; he most certainly was not the "first Pope." But the Prince of the Apostles? The Lord asked Peter three times, "Do you love me" with all your heart and strength (αγαπε, or agape)? And Peter answered, "No," three times giving the answer, φιλια (filia). In effect, Peter says, "I will devote myself to my duty," to which the Lord replies, in effect, "Then see that you do": Feed my lambs, feed my sheep."

What are we to make of the claim that Simon-Peter is first among the Apostles and all their descendents? If any modern Church were to press such an unchristian claim, as the sons of Zebedee had attempted (prodded on by their mother), it would be the Orthodox East, for Constantinople, or Byzantium, was the center of theology and learning, the Church's heart, and the center of the Roman Empire. But the Eastern Orthodox have done no such thing. In fact, the other Apostolic and Catholic Churches have behaved liberally and charitably toward the Roman Catholic Church, which cannot trace its own Apostolic descent back more five hundred years, to an Italian cardinal named Scipio Rebiba. Ninety-eight percent of all U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, including the last three popes, can trace their line only as far back as Rebiba.

Where might contemporary Christians find the true Temple? Catholic-minded Christians are deeply committed to a life that is founded on two Dominical statements: "This is my Body ... This is my Blood" and "Do this!" The first is a divine truth claim; the second is a divine command. Both are enshrined in divine law -- perfect, inerrant, and not subject to repeal. Accordingly, our lives revolve around the Gate of Heaven, where we receive supernatural nourishment and where our friendship with God is renewed daily. As Catholic lives run their course (and for some, unravel), we also are in need of sacraments: to be married when we find our soul's true mate; to be reconciled when we err; to be annointed when we are sick; to receive extreme unction when we are dying; and to be buried with the meet and right ministrations of the one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church when we die. Upon the threshold of Heaven or of Hell, a Catholic finds it unthinkable not to die in the arms of Holy Church.

We at the Hermitage have cause to rejoice, for our lot is not to languish in the shadow of vast ruin, but to live in the light of holiness. For our Bishop Protector, Bp. Keith Ackerman, SSC, and our Diocesan Bishop, Bp. Alberto Morales, OSB, both descend from St. John, St. Peter, and St. James the Less. (They have Apostolic descent in both Anglo-Catholic and Roman Catholic lines.) Moreover, we are in the care of a Church that is scrupuously Catholic, for to be Catholic is to practice the historic Catholic faith. And we enjoy terms of communion with the third largest expression of Christianity on earth. Most important, our Church is holy. Our bishops and every Anglo-Catholic priest I know are men who place the highest premium on holiness of life, for themselves and for the many people in their care.

But what of our Protestant brothers and sisters? We know so many good men and women who are devoted to the Lord with a bountiful and beautiful love, yet who do not share our commitments to Catholic life and worship. Our Bishop assures me that terms of communion are favorable as we consider these precious lives. We seek communion with all those who truly love the Lord Jesus, who know Him to be Lord, who uphold the historic Creeds (e.g. of Nicaea), and who are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Spiritual journey is a highly personal matter; we seek fellowship with all who journey to God (and that is everyone made in His image), and we seek communion with all those who wish to journey with us.

We do well in this perspective to remember the Lord Jesus standing beside a woman at a well not far from Mt. Gerizim: