Jeremiah faced clever enemies, who resolved, “Let us destroy him by his own tongue;
let us carefully note his every word.”  They would pick apart what he said, using it against him.  He turned to God for help:

Remember that I stood before you
to speak in their behalf,
to turn away your wrath from them.

This is what prophets did, of course: they addressed God on behalf of his people.  When they prophesied, told the future, it was when going back to the people to tell them what would happen if they did not obey God.

The Psalmist turned to God all the time, of course, as with:

You will free me from the snare they set for me,
for you are my refuge.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.

That’s how Christ talked on the cross, we will recall.  Meanwhile, Jesus (the Christ, anointed, messiah) had to deal in Matthew 20 with a pushy mother.  She wanted her two sons to be given places of honor in his kingdom.  Not mine to give, he told her, but his father’s.

The other 10 apostles got bent out of shape by this motherly advance, and Jesus told them to forget it:

Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. 

Quite radical stuff, honored in the breach by every ecclesiastical climber who claims advancement was not his idea.  So it went then, so now.  It’s up to us to get over it, and on with faith, hope, and charity.

Christian preachers have to be nervous as they go at today’s Gospel reading, about how Pharisees behaved badly, because it might strike too closely to home for them.

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.  [So] do . . . [what] they tell you, but do not follow their example.  For they preach but they do not practice.  They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.  All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.  They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’

Unless we think the Pharisaic impulse died with first-century Pharisees, that is.

It’s an excellent passage for a clergyman’s retreat, to be sure, but what of us lay people?

This, I think: We don’t believe and practice what we believe because Rev. or Fr. (or Rabbi, for that matter) So&So says so, do we?  If not, why do we believe?  Damn interesting question, if you’ll pardon the word.  Not damning, however, of us or the clergy.  Most of us do what we can.  Divine Providence enters in.  Somehow we believe, a lot of clergy doing their part.

But in a time of heavy criticism of clergy, especially Catholic, it’s good to remind ourselves that sitting on the chair of Moses or holding a pulpit or heading a parish by sufferance of a bishop means one can do good somehow.  And one does.  But we in the pews can do with a reminder that the sitter or pulpit-holder or pastor need not interfere: the pew-sitter ought not be distracted by him or her if tempted in that direction.

1. John Kass mixes politics and religion — it’s about time — and continues to keep us informed, providing a program by which we tell the players, but that’s another metaphor, is it not?  See Day of reckoning at shrine of St. Richie on this day the Lord has made, on which we celebrate Term Six, on which also we have to wonder who’s next in the Ruling Family.  At least four more years, less than that actually, before we have a glimmer.

Election Day in Chicago still is a political day of obligation, and though Tuesday’s low voter turnout suggests many have fallen into apostasy, even heretics like me know the rituals must be observed.

There you have it.

2. Mention is there of priest who praised the felonious Sorich, who defrauded taxpayers by keeping the fix in place when hiring public servants.  He is Reverend Daniel J. Brandt.  It’s “a Gospel-based Catholic community that truly strives through worship, ministry and service to live, grow and be challenged by the message of Jesus Christ,” which is good to know.  Also good to know is that “Here at Nativity of Our Lord Parish, all are welcome.”

Even federal prosecutors?

3. It was probably Father Brandt who made the Trib with an Oct. 11, 2006, letter to the editor signed Daniel J. Brandt, Chicago, in which he castigated an earlier letter writer for “anti-Catholic bias” for saying church leaders “always” cover up “inappropriate” actions.  “In fact,” he wrote, Catholic clergy commit “far fewer” such acts than their “counterparts in other Christian and non-Christian denominations.”

Pastors in Protestant and other churches have an occurrence more than twice that of Catholic churches. Public school teachers, five times greater. Coaches, seven times greater. Stepfathers, 11 times greater!