O humility! O sublimity! Both tabernacle of cedar and sanctuary of God; earthly dwelling and celestial palace; house of clay and royal hall; body of death and temple of light; and at last both object of scorn to the proud and bride of Christ! She is black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, for even if the labor and pain of her long exile may have discolored her, yet heaven's beauty has adorned her.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, In Cant. Sermo 27:14 PL 183:920D
Today, Monday 28 December 2009, is the feast of the Holy Innocents, those children slaughtered by Herod (Mt 2:16) in his demented plot to destroy the Christ Child, thereby winning the notorious distinction of being the first manifestation of anti-Christ in history. The Church recognizes his little victims as something like martyrs, even donning red on their feast day in honor of their blood. They did not voluntarily give their lives rather than deny Christ, yet their innocence poured out still bears witness to His.
In our times, anti-Christ has been powerfully active in many modern regimes. The Nazis and the Soviets were both explicitly anti-Christian. They were defeated, but we must not lull ourselves into thinking that anti-Christ was, or even that his plan was delayed. The Evil One is crafty beyond our reckoning. I believe that part of his plan was to discredit evil itself - he has done this by psychologizing sins into mere neuroses on the one hand, and by making us think that a plan or idea cannot be evil unless it is proposed by a short man with a funny mustachio and a German accent. We are mistaken if we believe either of those two lies. Sin is sin, and we are all guilty of it. Some sins are small, and others are immense. We must use our meager powers and whatever grace God gives us to resist it all. We cannot compromise with it, and must realize that the Enemy always tries to sell us sin by bundling it with genuine goods, because only a lunatic would pick sin otherwise. So intimacy and pleasure, both good, are used to sell adultery; adventure and profit, both good, are used to convince people to burgle or rob.
Now health care is being used to push abortion. Make no mistake - unless the law specifically forbids the funding of abortion, it will be slipped in as one more entitlement. If the developers of the health care proposals under consideration did not want abortions to be funded directly or with subsidies, they would include prohibitive provisions in their bills. And I can think of no better way - nor can Uncle Sam - to encourage something, other than to pay for it.
Please pray for Bart Stupak (D-MI) and the group he is rousing to resist this atrocity, this holocaust to Moloch. Rumor has it that he and his group are already being brought under tremendous pressure from the highest levels.
Fellow Americans, we are capable of helping each other out without paying to kill each other's babies. America, we can do better than abortion!
It’s often said, “Christmas isn’t about the gifts.” You know what? I never really bought that as a kid and I don’t really buy it now. In a certain sense, Christmas is all about giving and gifts. Specifically, it’s about the Gift: Jesus Christ, God-made-man.
As I begin this homily, I want to address all of the children here. Now, my younger brothers and sisters, you know that Christmas is one of the happiest days of the year. It’s filled with cookies, toys, laughter, fun, hugs and all other sorts of happy things. It’s one of my favorite days of the year and is probably yours as well. But, I have to warn you that sometimes there is sadness and even tears on Christmas. Let me explain what I mean. You come running down the stairs at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, or for those families that are lucky, 7:00 am. Your parents say, “Ok, take it easy, one gift at a time. Let’s go slowly.” But, of course, your deaf to all of this and you immediately start pummeling presents. One after another is torn from its wrapping, and you’re barely done unwrapping one before it’s on to the next. Then, you come across the present you desired so much or at least one that catches you off-guard by how cool it is. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that your little brother or sister sees this present too, takes an interest in it, and comes waddling over. They politely ask, “Can I see it?” “No! It’s mine!” you respond. “But I just want to see it for a second.” As if it weren’t firm enough the first time, you reiterate, “I said it’s mine!” Then, suddenly, at 6:30 am on Christmas, the happiest day of the year, there are an abundance of tears.
I tell this story because that response, “it’s mine,” is actually true. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against sharing at all. But, who gives you a gift if they don’t want it to be yours? There’s something essentially true in the response of the six year old to his four year old sister. The gift is yours to have, to enjoy and to use.
On the subject of gifts, do you know who gave us the greatest gift ever? Mary, our Blessed Mother, gave us the gift which surpasses all gifts, that of Jesus Christ. Without Mary’s consent, God doesn’t become man; without her consent, Jesus is not born. When Mary freely consents to Gabriel’s request at the Annunciation, she allows salvation to come into the world. And who is this gift for? When we look at the manger scene, we a whole host of characters adoring the baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph are of course there. There are the shepherds, who are poor humble Jews. In a couple weeks, the Magi will be there as well, and they were rich powerful Gentiles. We see the animals surrounding the scene and the angels hovering above. In essence, there is a microcosm of all of creation to adore the newborn baby Jesus. Mary gives this gift to all of creation, to all of us. I can give a gift to a family member or even a group of people, but Mary alone is able to give a gift to all of creation. On this blessed night, we thank Mary who holds the savior as her gift to all of creation. People ask us why we love Mary so much. I think a good answer is that in a real sense, she gave us salvation. That’s a pretty good reason to love somebody.
Almost everything we say about Mary, we can say about the Church. For example, we say that Mary is holy. The Church is holy, as well (one of her four marks). Just as Mary is filled from her conception with the Holy Spirit, the Church is always filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary gives us Jesus, but the Church does as well. Through Mary, God gives us salvation, and through the Church, God offers us the same gift. Just as Mary gave us the gift of salvation some two thousand years ago, so the Church gives us that same gift of salvation today. Like the person who opens up their Christmas present and exclaims, “it’s mine,” so we can respond to that same gift of salvation offered us today. That gift is ours to possess, ours to enjoy, and use.
Let me give an illustration of what I’m talking about. The Charismatic Renewal emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit and his tangible, powerful presence in our lives. One of the ways the movement does this is through “praying over” people. The members lay hands on the person they’re praying over, and they call down the Holy Spirit, while uttering a prophetic word or maybe a Scriptural passage which may be relevant to the person. It can be a very powerful experience. A group of people were praying over me once, and one of them, a priest, said to me, “Dave, I think the Lord wants me to tell you something. He wants to let you know that he is yours.” I immediately thought that I must have heard wrong. He meant to say that I am God’s. I can understand that; I’m his because he made me. But the fact that the utterly transcendent God is mine seems too incredible. But that is exactly the case. God is mine. He is mine to possess and to love.
This is the novelty that comes about as a result of the Incarnation. The Jewish people knew that they were God’s and certainly had some idea that God was theirs. But the extent of the imtimacy, the depths of their possession of God, was beyond their (and anybody’s) ability to understand. The first reading reflects the notion that God will become ours in a profound and unimaginable way. “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; And as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” God uses the union of marriage as a symbol of the manner in which he will unite himself with us. Even marriage, through which man and woman become one flesh, is not capable of describing the depths of the mutual possession between God and man: we possess God and he possesses us. In the second reading, St. Paul describes the effect of baptism on the Christian: “He saved us . . . by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” Even as the waters of baptism drip off us, and we dry off our heads, the Holy Spirit is poured more deeply into our souls—“richly,” as St. Paul says. The Holy Spirit, God becomes our possession, the gift poured into our hearts, at Baptism. He is ours to possess and we are to be possessed by him.
Like any gift, unless it is used it is so easily lost. Imagine opening a gift at Christmas, thanking the giver, and then setting it aside. Then you forget about it; you never use it or think about it again, or at least very infrequently. It’s likely that we’ll lose the gift. It’s no longer ours. This can happen so often with this priceless gift of salvation that we receive at Baptism. Unless our lives are centered on the sacraments; unless we have a relationship with God through daily prayer; unless we lead lives that are infused with faith, hope, and love, we can so easily lose that gift which we celebrate tonight.
On the positive side, the more we use the gift the more it becomes ours. Imagine opening a gift on Christmas, let’s say a Nintendo Wii. You play it for eight straight days. In the meantime, you don’t eat, drink, sleep or do anything else. Your friends think you’re crazy—and you are a little crazy. A friend comes over after eight days and watches you play a game on Wii. After watching you play, he’ll say, “Man, you own this game.” He’s right, the more we use a gift given to us, the more we own it, the more we enjoy it, the more it becomes ours. The goal of life is, to the extent that it’s humanly possible, to think as God thinks and love as God loves. This is possible, it’s our mission. It’s possible inasmuch as we possess God and let him work through us.
In the end, Christmas is all about gifts. It’s not about the toys, new clothes or gift certificates. It’s about the gift of Jesus Christ given to us through Mary and through the Church. It’s truly mine and truly yours. Let us seek to possess this gift all the more and let the gift possess us in love.
One of my favorite lines from the Scriptures is found in the Gospel of St. Luke, who recounts an interaction between Jesus and some Pharisees. Jesus processes into Jerusalem fresh from raising Lazarus (Jn 11), both followed and preceded by thousands of excited admirers (Jn 12:17; Mk 11:9), who are cheering "Hosanna," which means something like "God save..." or "Long live...", as in, "Long live the King!" The word hosanna is actually related to the proper name Yeshua, Jesus' name in his mother tongue. Trust me on this one. Now, as people are cheering, "God save the one who comes in the Name of the Lord," a reference to the messiah, the pharisees become perturbed (Mt 21:15; Jn 12:19). The Pharisees ask Jesus to tell the crowds to stop calling him King (Lk 19:39).
Here's what Jesus says to answer them: I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out, (Lk 19:40). That's it. That's one of my favorite lines. Think about it - even the paving stones under their feet are yearn, bursting forth with the news that God has come to his people, that God has returned to holy Jerusalem, that God is going to reclaim his holy people. Even the stones!
This idea doesn't originate with Jesus though, except inasmuch as he is God and everything originates with him. Read the first few verses of Psalm 19:
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
Yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
Which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy... (Ps 19:1-5).
Jean Corbon, who is said to have shadow-written the fourth part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which deals with prayer, wrote a book called The Wellspring of Worship. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand what is the heart of liturgy. By "liturgy" I am not indicating any migration to an Eastern Rite. Still less am I getting hippified and refusing to use the word "Mass," which is the correct English-language word designation for what we Catholics are required to attend on Sundays and other obligatory holy days. Liturgy is a broader term whose translation is often botched as "work of the people." The Greek term, and its Latin loan word, both meant "public work," which is different. Works of the people include things like potluck dinners, spontaneous singalongs, and quilting bees. There are obviously people in the Church who want the Holy Sacrifice to fall into this category and so continue to promote this incorrect translation. A "public work" is different. In ancient Greece or Rome, liturgia would have described such things as arenas like the Colosseum, a new sewer system, or a nice fountain. Modern things like the Washington Monument, Fed-Ex Field, or your local public school serve as modern equivalents. Then as now, the state built such things, and so did very wealthy, private benefactors. They were gifts to the people, and very often built by the people, and in those senses were "public works"; but they most certainly were not the brainstorms of people on the street, or for that matter, people in the pew. So it is with the Mass. The Mass is a gift to the people and not from the people. It originates in Jesus Christ's sacrifice of the cross because we need it, and not because he needs it. And the Mass is one instance of liturgy.
The Church has been entrusted with at least six other liturgies: one for each sacrament. The different liturgical churches within the Catholic Church each have their own liturgy, their own way of carrying out the seven sacraments. Liturgy is a sort of scripted, cyclical ritual given by God in order to orient us toward God. It is liturgy in this sense that Corbon examines in his book. I will attempt to summarize his central thesis in a single sentence: God has created all of creation to share in his joyous, loving glory, which pulsates throughout creation, drawing all creation back toward God; and God has designed creation specifically to bring as many people as possible back to himself. He might say that all creation is a sort of living, breathing, God-worshiping organism. we humans enter into the reorientation of self toward God that is worship by entering into the liturgy that is the universe, particularly the sacramental life of the Church, which Jesus has instituted for that purpose. (OK, I cheated by using a semicolon. It's a big book, with lots of points to make...)
I wish I could paraphrase Corbon better, but I haven't got my copy of his book handy. I gave it away in a moment of blind affection. Ah, well. It's on my Amazon wishlist. Lol. I mention all of this now because I came across the YouTube video below on the Anchoress's blog. If what I wrote above seems kind of abstract, watch the six minute beauty below. Heck, even if you got what I wrote above, which given my penchant for Ryanese strikes me as a bit unlikely, watch the video.
Do you see what I mean now? EVERYTHING: my car wreck a week or so ago that taught me a little obedience to the divine will, the snow that swamped DC this past weekend and made us rest and stay at home, baptisms and transubstantiations, animals in the zoo, sunny days on mountaintop meadows, all of it... it was all created by God because he loves us and wants to teach us to love Him in return. As we learn to enter into it, to discern his will, act charitably and as good stewards, respond with gratitude, we do in fact draw closer to him. Everything is meant to build this reality into us, and especially the sacraments are meant to do so in a way that nothing else can. Jesus, the Gracious God Made Flesh, became flesh precisely so that grace can operate in fleshly things. He would not have heaven and earth, the spiritual and the material, separated forever. In his nativity, God becomes a native of planet earth so that we can become strangers and exiles here, with a new citizenship in heaven.
It's just amazing what he did that day two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. Creation is still reeling with the ripples of God diving into his own creation, to change us from the inside, to teach us to praise his Father in every circumstance.
Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the LORD. Hosanna!
Here is an excerpt from a simple speech of the late Holy Father, John Paul II of venerable memory. I love this one:
Dear young people, many false teachers point out dangerous ways that lead to fleeting joys and satisfactions. Today expressions of our culture are mired in superficiality... Refuse to sell your dreams too cheaply! Dream, but in freedom! Plan, but in truth!
The Lord is also asking you: "Will you also go away?" Answer with the Apostle Peter: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6,68). God alone is the infinite horizon of your life. The more you know him, the more you will find out that only he is love and an inexhaustible source of joy.
But to enter and remain in contact with God it is indispensable to establish a deep relationship with him in prayer. When it is genuine, prayer spreads divine energy in every context and at every moment of life. It makes us live in a new way. Is it not prayer that made Francis a new man and Clare a source of light?
I love that speech to the second international meeting of "Young People to Assisi". You can read the whole, brief thing by clicking here. The quotation from St. John's gospel is among my favorite. It's a great one for prayer when I am tired of following Jesus sometimes, or feel like giving him an ultimatum to do things my way. "Jesus, you better... or else I'll walk!" So many times the words of Peter have drifted back into my heart and mind at those points. "Fine. I guess I'm still yours, thick or thin."
At this time of the year, we do especially well to reinvest ourselves in Jesus, who is the source and summit of authentic human happiness, and to ask him with renewed fervor to reinvest Himself in us. Come, Lord Jesus!
This carol is one of my favorites. I think it dates to the mid-Victorian period, so it's relatively modern. It has been used to start the Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, every year for almost a century now. It's not hard to hear why.
Leaders among pro-life Democrats in the House of Representatives include Bart Stupak, Tim Holden, Kathy Dahlkemper, James Oberstar, Dan Boren, Gene Taylor, and Jim Marshall. Of these, only one (Dan Boren) is non-Catholic. We've all heard about how many of the leaders of the pro-abortion lobby in the House describe themselves as "Catholic."
This is huge. It means, as far as I can tell, that what we are witnessing unfolding is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans over abortion or abortion-funding. We are witnessing a battle among Catholics, with the United States House of Representatives as the battlefield, and government-funded abortion as the current strategic target. This is huge. It may be apocalyptic in the truest sense of the word.
The Greek word apocalypsis means "unveiling" and is translated into Latin as revelatio, from which we get the word "revelation." The Book of Revelation, by prophesying about events at the end of the time, ought to expose us to ourselves. It ought to make us stop and think, "Say, what side am I on? Have I really given it over to Christ? Or do I just want to feel good about myself by calling myself a Christian?" We are seeing such a revelatory conflict now in our legislature. It is to some degree a microcosm of America, where the same conflict as a whole is underway. It is easy to call oneself Catholic and to play that card whenever convenient, as a sort of credential about having roots or deeper values or something. It is a lot more difficult to actually sink roots and stand for something, like, say Jesus Christ. It might sound revolutionary, I know, or radical, or even revolting, but that's what I thought "Catholic" meant.
Now we are seeing in our legislature and in our society as a whole who has actually believed that, and who has only used that popular belief to their own personal gain.
Again, no need to worry. This stuff is all over the gospels and epistles. Jesus himself told us that these things would happen so that when they did, our faith in Him would be deepened rather than shaken. Let's keep praying, doing what we can, and trusting in Him.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) has said that he finds the Senate's "pro-life" amendment to be unacceptable. Some people are hoping he'll lead a sally of House Democrats to kill Obamacare when the reconciliation committee is done building its Frankenstein from the House and Senate bills.
I am not too worried about Obamacare passing - at least, not worried enough to go on a crusade about it. I think it will be a catastrophic mistake, but merely a economic-political one, that is, a merely this-worldly mistake. It will be a secular mistake rammed down the throats of Americans by a secularist minority. That's bad, but it's also nothing new. Entitlements are created, entitlements can be eliminated or privatized - look at welfare reform.
It's abortion that's the problem. Funding abortion, subsidizing abortion, paying for other things so that people have leftover money to buy abortions - it's all just one big encouragement, especially for the poor and vulnerable - to murder their babies and to lose their souls. Lost lives are never reclaimed, and alas, too many lost souls go unredeemed. We Christians cannot sit by idly and chatter aimlessly about such things.
I do not hope that Stupak will kill Obamacare, though that would be nice because our country is teetering on the edge of economic ruin - and I don't mean the recession - I mean the colossal debt we've racked up. I DO hope that Stupak will be willing and able to kill Obamacare, and will do so, rather than let it finance the slaughter of innocents.
We need to pray for Rep. Stupak, a fellow Catholic who is faithful to the teachings of the Church, and also for those Democrats especially that are aligned with him. He will certainly come under intense pressure from the unscrupulous faux Catholics that run the House.
Don't look to see what this link is about before you click it. Just trust me and click here and watch it for four or five minutes. We need to pray very, very hard for our country. We Christians need to lead the way in learning to live a life of disciple and self-sacrifice if we are going to get ourselves out of this mess in a morally legitimate way.
Glorious God, give me grace to amend my life, and to have an eye to my end without begrudging death, which to those who die in you, good Lord, is the gate of a wealthy life. And give me, good Lord, a humble, lowly, quiet, peaceable, patient, charitable, kind, tender and pitiful mind, in all my works and all my words and all my thoughts, to have a taste of your holy, blessed Spirit.
Give me, good Lord, a full faith, a firm hope, and a fervent charity, a love of you incomparably above the love of myself. Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with you, not to avoid the calamities of this world, nor so much to attain the joys of heaven, as simply for love of you. And give me, good Lord, your love and favor, which my love of you, however great it might be, could not deserve were it not for your great goodness.
These things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me your grace to labor for. Amen.
St. Thomas More, 1535 - a week before his martyrdom
I just got back from seeing "Invictus" with a friend at the movie theater. I can truly say that this movie is one of the more inspiring true-story movies I have seen. It is the story of how Nelson Mandela decides to promote the South African national rugby team, the Springbokke, as a means of advancing racial reconciliation in his country. He openly supported the almost all-white team, and gained the support of the team's sympathetic captain. Moreover, he encouraged and protected white South Africans' sense of their culture's place in the new regime. The team's white captain in turn encouraged the team to get on board. When the team began visiting poor black enclaves to give rugby camps, the team became more sympathetic to the situation of South Africa's black population, and South Africa's black population found themselves getting excited about the team. The movie does an excellent job of showing how Nelson's gambit of generous forgiveness pays off by bringing hostile factions together in a way that nobody could have expected. South Africa is today a testimony to how cycles of violence can be derailed by the intervention of grace and forgiveness.
I know lots of people who are having babies. Babies are beautiful. Now there is a documentary called "Babies," coming out, and it looks pretty... well, beautiful.
Here's the website. It seems to be about the first year in the life of four babies from different places around the globe. The people responsible have a few weird movies, but this one looks good. Thanks, Anchoress!
First Things has on its website a blogger who goes by the moniker, "The Anchoress." She is very lucid and recently wrote a post that is mind-blowing. Her language is simple, straightforward, and so elegant. Her theme important. Her thesis correct, I believe. And she provides excellent guidance for understanding President Obama and what we are to do about him, as Christians; at least, part of what we are to do about him.
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