Pax...

August 17, 2025
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”

- Luke 12:51

 

“With these it is honorable to contend, and to set the battle constantly in array against them, and to glory in holding opposite sentiments, so that even though it be a father that believes not, the son is free from blame who contradicts him, and resists his opinions.”

- St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Sermon XCIV

 

“But in this passage, above all, we must strive to grasp the spiritual sense. To take it literally or in a simplistic sense would bring upon ourselves an accusation of harshness. But when you look deeply into the figurative and mystical sense, the seeming harshness is tempered. This is important because our holy religion has always shown humanity in its teaching, and has shown by example with what affection we must treat each other. By its kindness and humility it inclines even those who are exiled from the Faith to treat religion with respect.”

- St. Ambrose of Milan, Commentary on Saint Luke’s Gospel, Book VII

 

Before I started working here, my previous music director job was at a small UCC church in upstate New York. Their pastor at that time really wanted me to select music that matched her sermon topic for each Sunday, so she’d send me her itinerary of sermon topics that she had apparently planned out months in advance. I thought, “wow, that’s some next-level preparedness!” 

 

Bringing what I learned from that experience to my current work, I decided to play a little game with myself here at St. Joe’s: I’d challenge myself to predict how each of our Priests would preach on any given Sunday. I’d look at the readings and go, “Hmmm… What would Fr. Bryan, or Fr. Ssenfuma, or Fr. Charles say about these readings?” Sometimes the readings make it obvious, but other times, like with this Sunday’s Gospel in particular, I’ve found that Priests can vary in their interpretations. One thing I’ve started doing to help me in this little game of mine is to consult different Scriptural commentaries, usually ones from the early Church Fathers. Would you believe that the Church Fathers also varied greatly in their interpretations?

 

I recall when this Gospel came up a few years ago, I found myself thinking, “but… but… I like peace! Why would Jesus want to bring about division instead of peace???” So at the 5pm Mass, I played Let There Be Peace On Earth as a prelude. Fr. Joseph Kim, who was our Parochial Vicar at that time, seemed to sense my thoughts—when he began his homily, he said something like, “I’m reminded of the very beautiful hymn Let There Be Peace On Earth. Doesn’t Jesus want peace?” He then went on to share his interpretation of that Gospel, and I must say, it was an interpretation I would’ve never expected. He said that Jesus was ultimately declaring war on selfishness. I was like, “Ok, I didn’t see that coming, cause I figured this was gonna become about how some people believe in Christ and some don’t and how that’s gonna cause families to be divided and stuff.” I mean, that certainly seems to be the literal interpretation, and the one taken by Cyril of Alexandria, as in the epigraph above.

 

But as I’ve found after doing more reading into the Church Fathers’ commentaries, Fr. Joseph’s interpretation seems very similar to that of Ambrose of Milan, whose commentary on the Gospel of Luke is characterized by the recurring theme of God’s immeasurable mercy. For St. Ambrose, what Jesus describes as a divided household represents the human person, rather than a literal family of persons. Ambrose interprets “two against three” to refer to the human person (a composite of body and soul, hence “two”) being divided between three modes of being—rational, covetous, or passionate.

 

Are we to believe that He demands disunion among His dear children? How, in that case, can He be “our peace, who has made both one” (Ep 2:14)? How is it that He Himself said “My peace I give you, My peace I leave you” (Jn 14:27)? How can He say these words if He has come to divide parents from their children, children from their parents, and so dissolve the bonds that bind a family together? …It seems to me that we should seek in the passage a profounder meaning…

 

One household represents the human person in his oneness… “Two” we can take to mean body and soul… Now that we have seen who are the “two,” we must equally recognize who are the “three.” This is something we can reason out from the premises already established. The soul, you see, has three modes of being: it can be rational; it can be covetous; it can be passionate…”

- St. Ambrose, Commentary on Luke, Book VII

 

See, doesn’t that sound remarkably similar to Fr. Joseph’s interpretation that Jesus was declaring war on selfishness? I’m now wondering if that was something they took up in seminary. See, I’ve always wondered what types of things the Priests study in “Priest school,” but I suppose that’s a topic for another time! As far as music is concerned, I must confess that I’m still in the space of “but… I like peace!” so you can expect some peace-themed songs at this Sunday’s Masses. And if you so happen to attend the 5pm Mass, you may hear Eloise Mascitti from our children’s choir, whom I’ve invited to sing one of my favorite peace-themed songs…

 

With my peace,

Carlo Serrano, Music Director

On main quests, side quests... and the Beatitudes

One question I hear fairly often around this time is “how’s your summer going?” Honestly, I think I have waaaaaay too much free time! And I must confess that I end up spending more time playing videogames than I should… Now if you’ve played a bunch of Action/Adventure/RPG videogames (or if you ask your kids about it haha), you may have noticed how in most games, there’s a “main quest,” which is the primary thing you have to accomplish to beat the game, and then there’s “side quests,” which are other things you could do but are not essential. The game developers of course know that different players have different attitudes toward quests, so they design the game such that players have the freedom to play it the way they like. Some players want to finish the game as quickly as possible, so they focus solely on the main quest. Other players like to explore every single side quest, collecting every possible item, trophy, etc., since they feel it gives them a fuller experience of the game. Ok Carlo, why all the videogame talk?

 

Well, this Sunday’s liturgy deals with focusing on the things that are truly important to God. My friends know how I tend to think (and overthink!) about things a lot, and I’m thankful to have been able to talk through some of those things with our wonderful Pastor, Fr. Bryan. Among other things, we talked about distinguishing between “wants” and “needs,” how the word “deserve” is used in common parlance, and how one reconciles self-care with Christianity’s emphasis on self-denial. Underlying all of this was a question I had been wanting to ask different Priests for a while now: Assuming God wants us all to be happy with Him for all eternity in Heaven (our ultimate goal), and that God wants us to live good moral lives while on earth, does God also want us to be happy on earth? I think it’s a fair question, especially if we consider that there are a lot of people out there who live very good and moral lives yet seem… honestly… very unhappy. To phrase my question in videogame language: Assuming our main quest is to find eternal happiness with God in Heaven, and to live a good and moral life on earth, is happiness on earth also part of the main quest, or is it just a side quest?

 

As you can imagine, our conversation went on for quite a bit! I mean, just the word happiness itself has been the subject of much disagreement among philosophers, theologians, psychologists, and life coaches. Fr. Bryan noted how the original Greek word for blessed as it appears in the Beatitudes could also be translated as happy, and we acknowledged the paradoxicality of it—the types of people described in the Beatitudes, after all, would seem kinda… unhappy. I won’t go too much into the details of our conversation (and despite what I’ve shared here, I’d still prefer to keep most of it private), suffice it to say that it was very fruitful, and I’m privileged to be able to serve under a pastor like Fr. Bryan.

 

Speaking of the Beatitudes, sometime back in February, Mateo Sevigny from our Youth Choir played piano at Mass for the very first time. The song was Blessed and Beloved/Bienaventurados, hymn #726 in the current edition of our hymnal. If you missed the Family Mass on that day (it was a very snowy day!), click here to see Mateo singing and playing at Mass!

 

With my peace,
Carlo Serrano, Music Director 

Prayer, the dignity of causality... and some gospel!

Those of you who are social media savvy likely already know that the algorithms are designed to show you your “preferred content” based on your browsing habits, the stuff you click on, etc., right down to how long you spend looking at something. You can tell what a person’s into by simply scrolling through their Facebook feed. Care to know what’s on mine? Well, in my FB feed you’d find stuff like superhero movie clips, The Legend of Zelda clips, science-y things from popular science influencers such as Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox (Science!!!), stuff about healthy eating (that’s due the influence of Kathy Fritz!), relationship and dating advice (does God want me to be a monk…?), Christian apologetics responses to theological questions from the likes of William Lane Craig and Bishop Robert Barron, Catholic-Protestant debates, and yes, even counter-apologetics from prominent atheists such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris. 

 

So as I was scrolling through FB one time, I chanced upon an apologetics clip aimed at answering an all-too-common question which I’m sure you’ve asked at some point: “If God has a plan and He already knows what we’d pray for, why even pray?” As you can imagine, I came upon various answers, such as “Prayer is not aimed at changing God’s will, but rather aligning our will to His,” or this interesting one from Catholic Answers which went along the lines of, “God already knows what we’ll ask, but sometimes He makes things contingent on our asking so that we learn to depend on Him.” One particularly humble answer (perhaps the answer I respect the most) came from a certain Randall Smith, a theology professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. One of his students had asked, “But if I am totally surrendered to God, I shouldn’t be asking for things, should I?” And Smith admits to giving an answer which he describes as “not sophisticated theology or inspired apologetics.” His answer was “Jesus said you should ask for things you need. So maybe you should listen to Him because He probably knows what He’s talking about, being God and all.” I dunno about you, but I have great respect for theological humility!

 

Now of course, if you know me, or if you’ve read my previous posts, you know that despite my respect for humble answers, I have an insatiable urge to find all the possible answers I can when a question is stuck in my head, and questions have a very unpleasant way of sticking in my head for a long time! Sometimes they spiral into other questions, such as: If I ask for something in prayer, is the thing I ask is either aligned with God’s plan or not, or is there a middle category, i.e. not necessarily in God’s plan but not against it either, such as what food I eat for breakfast, or does God’s plan extend to my breakfast choice? If we ask for the intercession of the saints because their prayers are powerful, does that mean that the strength of my prayer is increased through a saint, and conversely, would my prayer be “weaker” had I not asked for the saint’s intercession? Is my prayer likewise strengthened if I say it while I’m right next to the tabernacle containing the Blessed Sacrament? Is my prayer strengthened by the number of times I say it? Is there like a baseline efficacy value for prayer which can be increased in direct proportion to one’s level of holiness, one’s spatiotemporal location in relation to the Eucharist, and one’s persistence? I could probably seek all kinds of theologically sophisticated answers from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae or William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith articles, but something tells me I’ll be more at peace with a humble answer…

 

I will say though that in that clip I mentioned, the speaker brought up a phrase that has stuck with me since: “the dignity of causality.” He was making the point that our prayers can cause changes in the world that would otherwise not happen if we didn’t pray. If you Google “dignity of causality” on your phone, the AI Overview will say “The concept of the ‘dignity of causality,’ coined by Blaise Pascal, refers to the idea that God grants humans the capacity to affect outcomes through their actions and prayers.” If the name Blaise Pascal doesn’t ring a bell, you may nonetheless have heard of his famous thought experiment, known as Pascal’s Wager, which argues for belief in God on the basis of risk assessment. Notwithstanding my criticisms of Pascal’s very problematic argument, I must correct a little error of the AI (yes, AI is not infallible…). Blaise Pascal did not coin the term “dignity of causality.” That phrase actually appears in… you guessed it… St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, written centuries before Pascal was even born:

 

…there are certain intermediaries of God's providence; for He governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures.

- Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I q22 a3

 

To put Aquinas’ eloquent prose in the vernacular: God causes stuff, but you can cause stuff too, cause God is so good that He gifted you with the ability to also cause stuff! I’ve often vented to my friend Danielle about how summer is such a bummer (lol summerbummer…) for me because school is on break, so I don’t get to cause the stuff that I normally enjoy causing. I go “Danielle, I’m wasting my dignity of causality! I need to cause stuff in the world but instead I’m at home playing videogames…” Just ask Danielle how many times I've texted her asking about how I should exercise my causality! So then I try to push myself to go out and do something. And then in the idle times, like on the train rides, I remember that clip and I’m like, “Oh, I guess prayer is also a thing I can do…” See, social media ain’t all bad!

 

Finally, speaking of prayer, if your Mass plan this Sunday (July 27) involves coming to the 5pm Mass, might I invite you to come a little earlier, say, 4:55-ish? My Worship Band colleagues Danielle and Michelle have been hard at work preparing a special Gospel-style setting of The Lord’s Prayer, which we plan to offer as a prelude before the start of Mass. That’s a few minutes before the 5pm Mass this Sunday, July 27th. We hope to see you there!

 

With my peace,
Carlo Serrano, Music Director