mysteries: 17th week monday 2012 II

Our gospel today is supposedly a long gospel which started with a discussion on parables.  In fact the gospel we read this morning is the culmination of this discussion about why Jesus was speaking in parables.  Why speak in parables, why not speak plainly, the disciples asked?  And Jesus explained his use of parables by saying, “because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.” In other texts, this is translated as, “To you, it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom, which only a disciple can understand, but to them it has not been so given ” - secrets of the kingdom known only to a disciple; sometimes they are referred to as mysteries of the kingdom granted only to a disciple.

Mysteries.  Sometimes we think of mysteries as something which we could not understand.  Misteryo, madulom, mabudlay ukon indi gid gani mahangpan.  But this is not how the new testament of the bible used the word mystery.  Mystery is a secret, true, but it is a secret that is unknown to an outsider but is known to a disciple.  Mystery is something unintelligible to an outsider but something crystal clear to the disciple.  This is an important understanding about mystery, as Msgr. Joe would tell us in theology class, indi gani kamo magsiling mystery, mystery sa mga butang nga indi nyo maintiendihan.  Nag-mystery ina sa imo kay man wala ka katuon. Mystery is a secret, true, because it is unknown to an outsider but is known to a disciple.  Mystery is something unintelligible to an outsider but something crystal clear to the disciple. 

The use of the word mystery comes from the practices of the so called mystery religions.  The mystery religions practice rituals and tell and retell stories in these rituals which only the initiate can later understand and identity himself with.  Outsiders will never understand it.  To others they may even appear ridiculous, but to the insider it is precious and significant.  This is what the Eucharist is all about, for example - an outsider will never understand why we line up for communion, why we take pains preparing our rituals, and why we go through the rite over and over again, practicing it to perfection, performing it with precision and exactness.  IN the history of the roman persecutions they would accuse christians and feed them to lions because it is said that they eat babies during their nocturnal gatherings, they drink blood and eat human flesh.  To an outsider this may appear outrageous and meaningless and even laughable, but for the Christians then the rite can become a moving act of worship, something they would risk their lives celebrating.

The point of Jesus is this: there are things in the life of a disciple that only a disciple can understand, that there are things in our beliefs and creed that can only be understood from the inside.  That there are things that can only be understood through a personal experience, that there are things that can only make sense when we have personally encountered the Lord in our lives; that there are things that can only be understood through a growing consciousness of ourselves as church.  Only through these can we make sense out of the things we do in the church.  It is a mystery, a secret to an outsider but something fully understood and of value to a believer.

The point of all these is this - Christianity is best looked from the inside rather than from the outside and this is also what I shall propose this morning for your consideration on confession - the importance of confession in the mind of St. John Marie Vianney.

You won’t understand much less value confession by simply reading about it in a catechism book, or from what you can surmise by your logic, or by what you can picture out by your imagination.  It is one of those things only an insider can understand, it is one of the secrets of the kingdom, one of its mysteries only a believer can understand.  Confessing one’s sins to a priest is a difficult thing for outsiders to understand and by outsiders, I mean, even Catholics whose concept of religion is me and my God, when religion is something personal.  It is an insider thing because confessions or the sacrament of penance presuppose a strong anchor in ecclesiology - how sin and forgiveness for that matter operate in and through the church.  Confession does not make sense to an individualistic society, to a religion whose tenets very much include imo ulo imo kulo, imo kalag imo bakero.  Confession does not make sense to people who think that sins are private affairs and therefore should not involve others.  Remember you church history, how confessions gradually developed in the church because of a persistent question bugging the Christian community - could we accept a sinner back to the fold or not?  This is so because by committing sin a Christian severed the bonds the bound him to the community. So the question then was, can he be accepted back to our community?  Confession originated from that reality - that is why the early Christians believe it to be the second baptism - the first baptism that incorporated us to the community is the water of baptism, the second baptism that restores the bond severed by sin is the water of our tears in penance.  We were incorporated to the community by water - the waters of baptism, and we can only be re-incorporated through another water, the water of our tears, the tears of penance - the two waters of becoming church.

We go to confessions even if people nowadays in their individualism and lacking in their understanding of church and sin could not understand why we have to do so.  John Marie Vianney was a confessor of souls sitting it out from 15 to 16 hours a day in the confessional.  You cannot understand that through lectures and mere exhortations.  It is an insider's view.  It is a secret, a mystery only an insider can understand.  It can only come from somebody who has understood that we are a church, somebody who understood the effects of sin in our lives and in the bonds that bind us as a community, somebody who understood the compassion and mercy of God.  That is why our gospel today insists that getting a look at the inside is important.  Getting a look at the inside is important, it is a mystery precisely because we understand it clearly in our lives and in struggle for holiness.