Bishop Vasa

Our Bishop of Baker Diocese is such a wonderful writer. He sends out an email every week to people who subscribe. I completely enjoyed his latest as he is vacationing at a town in the middle of nowhere. It's a wonderful place to visit, but there is not much there but open space and a few antelope. Here is his email. Thank you Bishop Vasa.

SOMETIMES IT TAKES FRESH EYES TO RECOGNIZE HIS PRESENCE

was reminded this week of something foundational to the life and mission of the Church. The concept is so basic and so much a part of the warp and fiber of the Catholic Church that it hardly bears repeating and yet I think it is important for us to reflect upon it and thereby hopefully better appreciate it. I refer simply to the Church's appreciation for the value of signs. God, Christ, His Church does not treat us as disembodied spirits but rather as concrete human persons with physical bodies, immortal souls, thoughts, feelings and emotions. This is shown throughout salvation history, but it is shown most dramatically in the fact that in the fullness of time God sent His only-begotten Son in the flesh to dwell among us. He sent not a pure spirit, not an illusion, not a word, but a Word made flesh. My reminder of this came in a very concrete way. God's grace is often enfleshed.A couple pulled up to the church in Jordan Valley, stopped and started taking pictures of the outside. They were taken by the distinctiveness and grandeur of this rural stone church. They did not come to Jordan Valley to see the church; they did not even know that it was a Catholic church. They were attracted and struck by the external appearance. That physical structure spoke to them of a hunger within. It spoke to them of God and of their need and desire for God. I told them the church was open and that they were welcome to go in and see. I went in with them. The man had been Catholic in his youth; he, his wife and their children identified themselves as Christian. I wondered if the woman had ever been in a Catholic church before. She just kept repeating, "How beautiful, how beautiful." Now I do like St. Bernard's in Jordan Valley, and it is a lovely church, but I have never had that strong of a reaction. Her newfound appreciation deepened my own. She commented on the stained-glass windows, the interior architecture, the crucifix, the statues, the stations and the "golden box." Each comment offered an opportunity for a brief explanation. Each comment reminded me of the need for appropriate and devotional external signs. Each comment reminded me that God chose the Incarnation for a reason. God's grace is often enfleshed.The summary and culmination of this couple's wonderful response was the comment of the husband, the former Catholic. He said, "You can feel the holiness of this place." Despite their lack of Catholic catechetical formation, they and the teenage children were beautifully respectful, even reverent. They had found a place of peace, and they instinctively knew that here was a place where God dwells among us. They did not dare to draw too close to the baptismal font; they did not venture up into the sanctuary or around the altar; they maintained a reverential distance from the statuary; and they did not approach anywhere near the tabernacle. There was a spontaneous and edifying deference to that which they perceived as having a connection with God. It was as if they understood that these things were really doorways to God and that such doorways were not to be taken lightly. Certainly one cannot underestimate the power of the Presence of Christ Himself in the Eucharistic Species in the tabernacle, but undoubtedly the external signs in the Church, grace incarnate, all joined in a unified chorus which proclaimed, "Here you are in the midst of the Holy." This family was not deaf to that chorus.I do not know what will become of the family passing through, but I strongly suspect that they will reflect long and hard about what they saw and experienced in our little church at Jordan Valley. St. Bernard's is not necessarily the most spectacular church in the diocese. Its windows do not rival those of the cathedral. The statuary represents Mary and Joseph. The crucifix is quite stunning, but the stations are very simple. Yet here these things all speak in a unified voice of holiness, reverence, peace. They speak of God incarnate. I am convinced that our travelers, perhaps pilgrims, will in some way continue to be haunted by the difference they found between what this simple Catholic church offers and what other denominations offer. It is an exceedingly bold claim to maintain that Jesus is really, truly, body, blood, soul and divinity Present in our Catholic Churches, but it is not an empty claim. Sometimes we need fresh eyes, ears and hearts to recognize the depth and reality of His Presence.Allowing the things which we encounter every day to become routinish, particularly the holy things of God, is a danger. I have been in Jordan Valley for two weeks, and I must confess that I have not yet gone to Jordan Craters or Three Forks or Leslie Gulch or the rim of the Owyhee Canyon, and that saddens me. It saddens me because it means I have lost something. It means I have lost a bit of the ability to see this country with the same eyes with which I first saw it. It means that my heart does not thrill in the same way today as it did a number of years ago. It means that I have fallen victim to a very secular quest for something new, something different, something innovative, something exciting, as opposed to appreciating ever more deeply that which I am only beginning to experience. I must admit that I was a bit envious of the family passing through, as I saw their hearts bubbling with enthusiasm for the holy place of God they had discovered. I found that I was energized by their enthusiasm. I also found that telling them of the natural beauty of southern Malheur County rekindled my own desire to see it again. Telling them about the significance of the "golden box" deepened my own resolve to reflect ever more deeply and passionately about and in the Presence of Him who is Incarnate, the Word made flesh who dwells among us.God does, indeed, speak to us through incarnational signs and in very concrete ways. Often, however, we are like travelers who see the sign to Three Forks or Jordan Craters or Leslie Gulch and think the detour is too long or too arduous and simply drive by. When we fail to recognize or respond to the signs, we deprive God of the opportunity to speak to our hearts. We fail to find, as if for the first time, that little stone church and we fail to speak the words of truth spoken by a pilgrim, "You can feel the holiness of this place."