The Fourth of July is a most appropriate time to recall a 'discussion' St. Paul had in his First Letter to the Corinthians. There, in a dialogue form, he hears someone(s) saying to him, "Everything is lawful to me". Paul's responds, "But I do not want anything to dominate me". He is thinking that one must distinguish why I choose what I do, that I know when what might issue from my will is not really a free choice. There are many situations, e.g., alcholism, wherein a person will say, "I am free to have one drink; it won't hurt me." We know that story, and many more - they make us careful that a so-called free act is not actually an act by something that dominates me so that in fact I am not free. Paul continues the dialogue: "Everything is lawful to me", only to counter, "Not everything is for my good". We are blessed with freedom, but with a freedom to choose what is truly good for us. Freedom is the tool of the intelligent being, born to choose the good, not be driven to it like animals. The Fourth of July makes us grateful again for freedom. May we reach freedom's goal, to choose what we learn to be for our good. It is hardly the glory of freedom, the glory of what we have so often fought to protect, when I 'choose' what actually dominates me and stunts freedom, when I choose freely what is not my real good. John Kilgallen, SJ

The feastday of St. Thomas the Apostle is over, but there remains a consideration that is valuable for undersanding the Gospel of John, in which Thomas's story occurs. The 'Thomas story' is the story that completes John's presentation of the Jesus event (John 21, while inspired Scripture, is a later addition to the Gospel; as such, it can be expected to have real 'punch' to complete the Gospel. The story, in brief, shows Thomas as unbelieving that the statement that Jesus is risen, alive. He says, "Unless I touch him, I will not believe." When Jesus appears and asks Thomas to touch him, the logical conclusion should be that Thomas, touching Jesus, now believes. But that is not the conclusion. John's conclusion is that Thomas says, "My Lord and my God". That is the proper, appropriate (and only reasonable) conclusion to meeting the risen Jesus. Thomas, as it turns out, is the (only) one of the Gospel who expresses the depth of who Jesus is. The entire Gospel has been at pains to have the reader confirm his profession of faith at Baptism; it has given many signs (and monologues of Jesus) to establish in the reader this deepest conviction, to know that Jesus is nothing less than the reader's Lord and God. The two verses that conclude the Gospel (30 and 31) tell the reader this fact: the entire work of John has been written 'so that you may believe Jesus is Messiah and Son of God, so that, believing this, you may have life'. Thomas is the one chosen to close the Gospel, to express a belief that will result in eternal life - which, after all, is the supreme benefit John ultimately offers to anyone searching for it. In a sense, the Thomas story is not just a story, but THE story which expresses John's reason for writing. John Kilgallen, SJ

Before I said my first mass an old priest gave me two great pieces of advice.

"You know when the congregation is filled with optimists. After you have given a long series of announcements at the end of Mass and then you say, "and finally" - people take out their car keys!"

The second was, "Never underestimate the burdens people bring with them into the Church. Often we have little idea of the difficulties and pain our parishioners will be carrying."

I can only imagine the anxiety and burden some people carry to the Eucharist. Whatever it is, Jesus invites us to let go of it, if only for a while, and be at peace.

Now all this "come and rest a while" talk can be very pious and not sound all that in touch with reality.

The Gospel, however, came from the community of the Apostle Matthew and was probably written in Jerusalem about 45 years after Jesus' death. We know that this community experienced intense suffering and heavy burdens. They had been expelled from the Synagogue and were being martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ.

No wonder they held so strongly to the words, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest". And they found consolation in Jesus' example, "take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart."

There have been times, however, when Christianity has been guilty of trying to spiritually wallpaper over some tough realities rather than preaching that God is our companion in facing up to whatever our reality is and dealing with it.

Our faith is not about praying away our problems or fears and wishing it were otherwise. Our faith means we have experienced the love of God in Jesus Christ so that we never carry our burdens alone. God is our companion and guide and as with every Christian community we are called to be the sort of place wherein we carry each other's burdens and rest with each other awhile.

What we celebrate here each Sunday is that God will have the last word, a just, joyous, loving and peaceful word, in this world and when we enter our final rest.

Jesus didn't come to us as a divine magician, waving a wand over our problems to wipe away all our tears. Rather, he accompanies us so he can show us that the gift of peace and a release from our life's burdens is often found in having the perspective to exercising the gift of right judgement. Making the best possible choices leads to the alleviation of our pain and difficulties.

This type of spiritual sanity reminds me of the story of the nun who was trying to be a trendy catechist with the communion class, and draw an analogy about how food is essential to life. She asked the class, "What's small and furry and eats nuts?" To which there was bemused silence. So Sister tried again. "What's small and furry and eats nuts?" There was now stony silence. Sister then picked out Billy and asked him for the answer. After several awkward moments, Billy tentatively replied, "Sister, I know the answer is supposed to be Jesus, because the answer to all your questions is always Jesus but, I got to tell you, it sounds like a bloody squirrel to me."

Sometimes the answer is not simply "Jesus". As we all know, for some of our difficulties, there is no spiritual quick fix. There is no cheap grace. The answer is not simply Jesus.

In confronting issues, however, it is necessary for spiritual and mental health to take time out, to be as gentle with ourselves as possible and to know that the burden of life is best shared with others.

We often never know the burdens others are carrying. Our prayer is that all of might know a moment's rest, the companionship of fellow travellers and the gift of Christ's peace. Richard Leonard, S.J.

The Year of St. Paul began on June 28, 2008 and it seems right to make note of it before it recedes in the revelries of summer, beginning with Fourth of July celebrations tomorrow. Prior to St. Paul's conversion, he persecuted the Church and "was trying to destroy it" (Gal. 1:13). Paul recognized that his former sin marked him, calling himself "the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God" (1 Cor. 15:9). But Paul also knew why he was an apostle, a saint in the Church of God: "by the grace of God, I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:9). Sometimes, I think, the burdens of past sins keep us from the sainthood to which we are called.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it is told, know something about sin. It is not mine to judge, since I have never met them and they never return calls, but we all know something about sin, and we can find our own woundedness so great it seems impossible to rise above it. In a Rolling Stones' song, "Saint of Me", Jagger and Richards plumb the sins of a couple of saints, and their subsequent conversions, including that of Saint Paul:

"Saint Paul the persecutor was a cruel and sinful man Jesus hit him with a blinding light And then his life began I said yeah I said yeah."

In this verse they reference Paul's sinful past as a persecutor of Christians before his Damascus Road conversion, but in later choruses and verses boastfully, or perhaps humanly, state that they themselves are not on the same road as Paul:

"I said yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah You'll never make a saint of me Oh yeah, oh yeah You'll never make a saint of me."

Why? The threat of suffering and martyrdom seems to be one of the reasons:

"And could you stand the torture And could you stand the pain could you put your faith in Jesus When you're burning in the flames?"

The reality of martyrdom, of the suffering that St. Paul proudly states marks him as a follower of Jesus, can frighten those who fervently want to be saved:

"And I do believe in miracles and I want to save my soul and I know that I'm a sinner I'm gonna die here in the cold I said yes, I said yeah."

"Saint of Me" brings to bear a powerful force in human life: the sense of Augustine's "I want to be healed, but not yet". Anyone who reads St. Paul's story, scattered throughout his letters, sees a frail human being transformed by Jesus Christ into one able to persevere and accept all things that afflict him due to the power of his encounter with Jesus Christ and the Gospel. Jagger and Richards give us a sense of the human being faced with giving oneself over to the power of Jesus Christ, but drawing back from the possibility either due to fear or the sense that one's sinfulness is too deep to be healed. There is, indeed, a fear that to be a saint is possible, but it means giving up too much and, perhaps even more, accepting too much. As we enter the year of St. Paul, let us remember the model of the one who gave himself fully to Jesus Christ and who did not let his manifest sinfulness stand in the way of saying, "make a saint of me." In fact the term that Paul uses more than any other in his letters to describe his fellow Christians is the Greek hagioi, "holy ones," or saints. You'll never make a saint of me? Paul argues that this is our very call and it is to this that we need to answer "yes, I said yeah."

John W. Martens

'The Lord be with you. And also with you.' (Not, 'and with your spirit'). The rendering of 'Et cum spiritu tuo' in a sense which included the whole person raised eyebrows back then when it first came out. Had a fifth column of Anglo-Saxon, anti-metaphysician, logical positivists infiltrated ICEL some wondered!

Since then I have laboured under a delusion. I thought that liturgical English was unique in this particularly 'dynamic equivalent' translation. Another reason for my continuing delusion was that the indigenous South African languages also translate the Latin literally as 'And also with your spirit'.

I recently discovered I was quite mistaken. At a gathering of some fellow African Jesuits I asked each of them how the translation was made in the various languages that they spoke (and, as is common in Africa, some spoke several).

It turned out that English is by no means alone, and that 'And also with you' is precisely how it is rendered in Swahili, Lingala, Shona, Acholi, Lango, Alur, Jonam and Chewa. Those with some knowledge of African languages will note that some of these, particularly Swahili and Lingala, are very widely spoken in areas of Africa with a large Catholic presence.

Upon enquiring whether similar changes to those being proposed for liturgical English were being mooted for these African tongues, my confreres said they had not heard of any.

Chris Chatteris, S.J.

Two additions to our Web site this week may be of interest to readers of The Good Word.

First, the editorial in our July 7-14 issue looks at the upcoming synod on the Bible and the working document, or instrumentem laboris, for the conference that was released earlier this month. The editors write:

A significant shortcoming of the postconciliar reforms, according to the document, is the failure to communicate the sacramental nature of the celebration of the word in the liturgy. This is partly a result of poor preaching, it suggests, in particular the failure of homilists to open up "the treasures" of the Scriptures for the congregation....But it is worth pointing out that other pastoral priorities have frequently overtaken the appropriation of the Gospel as the center of Catholic pastoral practice and everyday culture. Signals that other things, like the catechism and pro-life activities, are of greater pastoral importance did not help. Setting up litmus tests for Catholic identity may also have shifted the content of some Catholic preaching in other directions.

Second, this week's In These Pages feature highlights Fr. John R. Donahue's article from 1993 on the history of Catholic Biblical Scholarship. Read it here.

Tim Reidy

In my view, it is irresponsible for us to preach on a text without clarifying, insofar as is possible, the circumstances under which it was produced. The information may not be useful, but we ought to try to find out what we can. Today's first reading, two verses from 'Second Zechariah,' make that challenge all but impossible. Scholars are uncertain and disagree about the circumstances relative to the book. So there is not much to do but lift its words out of context: The prophet longs for a time of peace and the end of war, for a king whose gentle dominion has no limit. Kings and broad dominions are rarely warless, as every era in which Zechariah could have written will have known. We can feel on safe ground, perhaps: Who wants war? Surely not we, Lord! Jesus, whom the synoptic evangelists and ancient commentators saw as Zechariah's gentle king, provides the nudge we need, as we hear him thanking his Father for sharing wisdom with the gentle ones. What wisdom is that, we may ask? Increasingly often and in multiple contexts we are learning that many things we value and even assume a right to have come to us violently and unjustly: food taken from the poor, resources exported from the less powerful, goods taken from the earth at a cost we didn't imagine and in a way unsustainable, even for us, let alone for all. Now we know, or we are being informed. And Jesus' prayer prompts us to examine carefully what we value, what we count on, with whom we stand. And he offers us a place near him, where our burdens will find rest. A good exchange. Barbara Green, O.P.

For all the great things the Church of yesteryear achieved, it also did some terrible things. One of the worst demands it made was that a Catholic who marries a person who is not a Catholic do so at a side altar, oratory or in the sacristy of the Church. How humiliating this directive was. For how long were we going to punish the Protestant Reformers and young Catholic woman or man who fell in love with someone from these denominations? In these ecumenical days, it's hard for us to understand these actions.

Today, especially at weddings, I hear older Catholics talk about this experience more than anything else. It's often given as the reason why the person or their family stopped practising their Catholic faith. Recently an older wedding guest told me that her wedding at the side altar of the Church was the last day she came near us of her own free will. She never had her children baptised and her painful experience was still palpable forty years on as she compared and contrasted her wedding day with the Catholic marriage ceremony of a couple in a similar religious circumstance to her own which we had just celebrated. All I can do in such circumstances is apologise for the hurt our shortsightedness caused and be full of admiration for those who were subjected to similar treatment but have remained constant to our Catholic community.

These days inter-denominational marriages are rarely the reasons over which a family will divide. But we know that other religious issues can still break up a family. It's always a tragedy when this happens. For example, maybe you've had a son, daughter or a grandchild join a religious sect or cult. It's heart-breaking stuff for parents who wonder what their child sees in the sect and where it will all end.

The Church has sometimes let families down in this regard. Appearing to prefer dogma to the complexities of people's lives, formal liturgy to creating communities of hospitality, care and justice, the church can appear to be out of touch, especially with our young. I know that every person in authority in the Church today knows that Catholic Church needs to listen to our young people, hear about the issues that concern them and present our faith in a way they find accessible and engaging. Very often it's not what we say about our rich faith, it's how we say it. Many people don't leave the mainstream churches because they are attracted by another group's doctrine, though some do want the world to be very black and white. Many leave for smaller groups offering a tightly knit community.

From today's Gospel we know that the same family heartbreak occurred in the early church. At this time, however, Christianity was the small sect drawing believers away from Judaism, to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. It ripped families apart. The early church became the new family of many followers who were disowned. They lost their life and found a new one in Christ.

There can be moments when a family's lifestyle, beliefs, behaviour or values are such that one member feels that, in conscience, or by conviction, he or she does not belong anymore.

When this happens we can listen carefully to reasons the family member gives. Maybe we have lost something essential in our life together that needs challenging and change. And maybe it's the family member who is in the wrong.

Keeping the lines of communication open, speaking the truth with calmness and love and remaining as compassionate as possible are the best Christian responses.

I can't pretend that any of this is easy, but when I have seen families do it, the prophetic, truthful and charitable reward Jesus offers in today's Gospel are powerfully in evidence.

Richard Leonard, S.J.

The birth of John was miraculous: Luke tells us his parents were beyond the age of having children; Elizabeth, John's mother, was sterile. Still miraculously, John leaped in his mother's womb at the presence of Jesus, in the womb of Mary. That John is mentioned in the Gospels at all is miraculous: he never became a follower of Jesus, asking to the end, "Are you the one to come, or should we wait for another?" Why does Luke begin his story of Jesus with the conception and birth of John? Cartainly, later in life John defended with his total person the God he adored and served. But more to the point for Luke was his realization, then presentation in Gospel form, that the mighty salvation of human beings began with God's eruption into human affairs with the announcement that Elizabeth would have a child. With her conception of John the salvation of the world began. This salvation would be offere to the end of the world, Luke says: at the moment we are that 'end of the world'. Salvation comes from calling on the name of Jesus, but the beginning of God's decision to save began in the womb of Elizabeth. She was the first, but hardly the last of us, to rejoice at the kindness of God.

John Kilgallen, S.J.

A few years ago there was an English film entitled, "Secrets and Lies". It charted the story of a dysfunctional family who sat on terrible secrets and told many lies for decades.

Like many successful dramatic films, audiences flocked to see it, not only because of its compelling story, but also because it tapped into an important truth about family life as many of us live it.

When I was a boy I was often told that "what's said and done in the home, stays in the home." And to a degree, this is a good and loyal principle. There are, however, family secrets and lies that cause untold damage for generations because no one is allowed speak about them. Sexual abuse, domestic violence, suicide, incest, drug talking, alcoholism, theft, adoption and abortion are only some of the secrets and lies that many families sit on.

Jesus, however, tells us in today's Gospel that what you "say in the dark, tell in the light...what you whisper in darkness, shout from the housetops".

This doesn't mean that Christians tell everyone their personal business, but it does cut to the heart of what stunts spiritual and personal growth.

To the degree that something shameful remains buried, hidden and unhealed, then its power over us is increased. It remains the thing about which we can never speak. The bad spirit has a field day with this sort of stuff, feeding our fears and lowering our self-esteem.

In this regard some Christians make a false distinction between their spiritual and psychological lives. They hold that the exploration of one's personal history or emotional problems is self-indulgent or unimportant to how we live.

We all know people who, in the pursuit of emotional health, become obsessed by their own story, feelings, reactions and psychology. We also know others who never deal with the heavy hurts they seem to carry through the years, even though the pain of them seems to be as powerfully felt now as they were when they were inflicted upon them. Today's Gospel reminds us that there is a middle road between denying what should be acknowledged and dealt with, and being absorbed by it.

The Church, rightly, holds that the best psychological tools can bring out into the open memories and experiences that can be seen for what they are and dealt with. We just have to be sure that we don't get conned into believing that psychology and therapy is anything but a pit-stop in life, so that we can attend to the working order of our mental machinery, and importantly, get back on the road with everyone else. We can call in later for another pit stops if needs be.

Long before the therapist's office Christ enabled the Church to develop the Sacrament of Penance where we admit our most destructive behaviour and hear that we are forgiven and healed. At that moment the love of God is active in us drawing out what Christ wants in the light, spoken of, and healed.

Jesus invites all of us to find a person we respect and trust, and to end the tyranny of the power of secrets and lies. I promise you when you take this risk with the appropriate person, the presence of God won't be very far away either.

Richard Leonard, S.J.

The first reading, responsorial psalm and gospel offer a similar scene: Jeremiah reviews his journey from naivete to realism, aware now of the lengths to which his allies-become-opponents will go to stop him; the psalmist reflects on the grief arising from suffering imposed by one's own group; Jesus in Matthew sounds more upbeat, though he knows what lies ahead. He says what the others imply: It is less fearsome to be killed by opponents than to be tempted over to the other side. All agree that God is the taproot of the courage and integrity that are called for. Since we could relish our righteousness here, we might do better to find in the readings' mirror the opponents to Jeremiah, the psalmist, Jesus. Who is relentlessly urging us that we cannot go on as we have been accustomed to, as we love to do? Whom are we tired of hearing, do we feel irritated at hearing? What will we do to dismiss their words, how far will we go to get rid of their presence in our lives? One group that looms for me is environmentalist and new cosmology advocates who urge that we cannot consume as we have been wont to do, must realize what and whom we are grabbing and destroying by our habits. Paul's note to the Romans dichotomizes in a frequent way he has that readily sounds dismissive of Judaism. What I hear him stress, rather, is the persistence of our tendency to oppose, to thwart, to do whatever it takes to minimize our opponents, to eliminate them if it comes to that. And to justify it. A sobering picture, if we let Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Jesus describe us as opponent instead of as innocent sufferer.

Barbara Green, O.P.