Today’s
readings bring to mind for me the time, more than twenty-five years ago,
when we were planning the renovation of the cathedral. We were at
the point where we needed to make decisions about the altar, the
baptistery, the bishop’s chair, the ambo, or pulpit – their design and
their placement. For the design of the ambo – this ambo - we
commissioned a young Jewish artist by the name of Randall Rosenthal,
whose extraordinary carvings and sculptures in wood had gotten our
attention.
But choosing an artist is one thing; settling on a
design, quite another. Mr. Rosenthal sent us some preliminary sketches
from his studio in New York. To be honest, we weren’t all that taken
with them. I remember one drawing in particular. It had three
crosses on it with a tendril of ivy twisted around one of them. I
don’t mean to be irreverent, but it looked a little like a Hallmark
Easter Card!
When I called Mr. Rosenthal to give him the reaction of
our design committee, I told him that there were already a lot of
crosses in the Cathedral (more than I could count) and that something
else might work better. When he asked if I had something in mind,
I told him about a favorite passage in the 55th chapter of the Prophet
Isaiah. I’m sure he couldn’t have missed the irony of a Catholic priest
steering him away from the cross in favor of a passage from the Jewish
scriptures. In any case, he liked the idea and went with it!
The passage from Isaiah was today’s first reading. It’s
about the power of God’s word: “Just as from the heavens the rain and
snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful…so shall my word be that goes forth from
my mouth…It shall not return to me void but shall do my will, achieving
the end for which I sent it.” The power of God’s Word! It’s that
very Word that God spoke through Isaiah that stirred the creative
imagination of a gifted artist to speak a word of his own – this word,
this remarkable work of art – which is today’s first reading in delicate
and dazzling detail. If you’ve never looked at it closely, you should.
Not only is it strikingly beautiful, it almost shouts ‘Pacific
Northwest!’ because it has our clouds, our rain, our trees, our foliage.
Whenever I give a tour of the Cathedral I tell people that this ambo is
about the only thing in this Italian Renaissance cathedral that speaks
boldly and unmistakably of the Pacific Northwest!
More importantly, it speaks boldly about the Word - the
human word and the divine Word. It speaks about a word I spoke in a
conversation with a remarkably gifted artist; it speaks about the word
the artist spoke through his art; and it speaks about the Word God spoke
long ago through Isaiah: the Word God never stops speaking, the Word
that, like rain and snow that water the earth and bring forth living
things and growing things, always achieves the purpose for which God
speaks it.
The Word of God. So important is it that we devote the
whole first-half of the Mass to reading from it. For some of the
readings – the lessons, the letters - we sit in a receptive posture like
students or disciples. Then, for the gospel, we stand out of respect for
Jesus who speaks to us directly through the words of the evangelist.
Standing for the gospel also speaks of our eagerness to go forth from
this place to preach that gospel by living it.
It’s unfortunate that, for a long time, the Church gave
little prominence to the proclamation of the Word. The polemics of the
Reformation are to blame for that. The Word was treated almost as an
optional warm-up for the really important part of the Mass, the
Eucharist. In fact, every Catholic school child of my generation
was taught that the Mass had three “principal parts”: the
Offertory, the Consecration, and the Communion. The Word of God wasn’t
even mentioned and we were told we fulfilled the obligation to attend
Mass as long as we arrived in time for the Offertory (well, maybe in
time for the collection which came just before it it!). Happily,
the Second Vatican Council put that impoverished theology to rest,
making it clear that the Mass has two parts, not three: the Liturgy of
the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Both are vitally important.
We should be no more willing to forego the nourishment of God’s Word
than we are the nourishment of the Eucharist!
Today, very fittingly, the Church reinforced the
reading from Isaiah about the power of God’s word with the familiar
parable of the sower and the seed. In the parable, the seed that is sown
is the Word of God. God sows this seed - this Word – in us.
We are the soil. But the question arises: what sort of soil are
we? Rich and receptive? Or rocky and thorn-infested? There
is really only one way to tell, as the reading from Isaiah makes clear.
It’s this: does the Word that God speaks achieve the end for which God
speaks it? Does it water the dry ground of our hearts, making them
fertile and fruitful? In the imagery of the parable, does the
gospel take root in us, grow in us, change us, and bear fruit in us:
thirty-fold, sixty-fold, one hundred-fold. In other words, are we any
different for hearing the Gospel? Are we changed, animated, energized?
My friends, during these days when so many are deprived
of the Eucharist, that’s an especially pertinent question because God’s
Word, like the Eucharist, has the power to bring about real change in
us. It does. The question is: do we want to be changed!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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