The Resurrection: Fridays in Eastertide

So during this eight-days-in-one that we call the Easter octave, we've been reflecting about what the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, means.  We've looked at what the Apostles meant, and that the Church still means the same thing today.  We've looked at how the Resurrection manifests Jesus as Lord and God, with power over life and death - and how he plans to share his kingdom with us by giving us a new way of life.  We've looked at how that new way of life can begin now, and how it will lead us to an eternity of joy.

So what is the proper response of a Christian?  Let's look at Psalm 116, my favorite, for some suggestions.

I love the LORD, because he has heard
         my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
         therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
          the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
          I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
          "O LORD, I beseech thee, save my life!"
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
          our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
          when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
          for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
For thou hast delivered my soul from death,
          my eyes from tears,
          my feet from stumbling;
I walk before the LORD
          in the land of the living.
I kept my faith, even when I said,
          "I am greatly afflicted";
I said in my consternation,
          "Men are all a vain hope."
What shall I render to the LORD
          for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
          and call on the name of the LORD,
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
          is the death of his saints.
O LORD, I am thy servant;
          I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.
         Thou hast loosed my bonds.
I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving
          and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people,
          in the courts of the house of the LORD,
          in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!

The Psalmist is deeply grateful to the LORD for having saved him from the "snares of death," the "pangs of Sheol," and from anguish and distress.  When he was tearfully stumbling, consternated by the abandonment of human consolations, God "dealt bountifully" with him.  The Psalmist, as he often does, prefigures Christ with his prayers.  The Holy Spirit invites us to make the prayer our own, to pray like Jesus, and so the prayer is an invitation to the imitation of Christ.  Jesus was raised up from "the snares of death" by God.  What was Jesus' response to being raised from the dead?

He offered the Eucharist (Lk  24:30), a word that means "thanksgiving" in Greek, a ceremony that He made a sacrifice of His flesh and blood (1 Cor 11:23-5; Mt 26:26-8) by His sacrifice on the cross, a sacrifice that draws us into communion with Him, and thence to God, and thence to all the others in communion with God for an eternity of Joy (Jn 6:48-57).  The Eucharist is literally our participation in Jesus' sacrifice of thanksgiving.  It is how we thank God for what He has done for us.  Moreover, it is how God does for us what He has done for Jesus.

(hat tip to Veritas Vos Liberat)

"Whoa... wait a minute," you might be thinking.  "The Eucharist is how God saves me," you start, and then continue, "and it is how I thank God for saving me?"  Yup.  "But, I don't get it.  What does that mean?  What do I have to do?"  Nothing.  Just accept it gratefully.  Make it our weekly (daily?) act of thanksgiving to God, and we will have received what He would give us.  He doesn't want our actions - whatever you and or I can do, He can do better anyway.  He doesn't want our charity.  He doesn't want our money.  He doesn't want our apologetics or evangelization or even our prayers.  Doesn't need 'em.

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1

He just wants us.

The rest will follow.  So simple.  Die to yourself by going to confession.  A real deathblow happens there - the ego is given a tough kidney shot, at the very least.  Then go to Mass.  Pray silently along with the priest.  Enter into the prayers.  Enter into Christ.  Receive Him with an open heart to whatever He wants.  Give thanks and praise.  And then "do whatever He tells you," (Jn 2:5).

Friday is the day on which Catholics generally (at least in former times, though we are still asked to) give up meat, in honor of the day on which our Lord gave up His own flesh.  May I humbly suggest that, at least during the fifty days of Eastertide, we take up the sacrifice of thanksgiving by going to Mass an extra time, perhaps on Fridays, to sing the praises of God?

The Resurrection: Eyes on Jesus

Excerpts from the gospel reading for the day is one of the most excellent:

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?”  They stopped, looking downcast.

One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”

And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”

They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him.  But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place.  Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his Body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive.  Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.”

And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.  As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther.

But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”  So he went in to stay with them.  And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.  With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.  Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”  So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”  Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Luke 24:13-35

In his homily, Monsignor made a couple astounding points.  "[The disciples'] eyes were prevented from recognizing him," Monsignor conjectured, because they were "downcast."  The disciples were not looking for Jesus in those darkest days of human history; they were looking at the ground.  They thought that He was done and that they were abandoned.  We must not focus so much on ourselves and on our own problems that we miss Jesus even while He is there with us, teaching us, and setting our hearts aflame - if only we will look to Him and listen.

 

I would like to point out that the disciples actually recognized Jesus for who He is in "the breaking of the bread," the Eucharist.  Hearing the Word of God explained to them prepared them to receive the Word of God into their fellowship and into their very bodies.  I would also like to point out that the disciples conversed with Jesus, frankly expressing their troubles and their doubts to Him.  That honesty is part of sincere faith for those who have troubles and doubts.

If we bring our even our dashed dreams and deepest despair to Jesus, who knows what he might make of them?  Keep praying.  After you have said your peace, listen in prayer.  Speak with other disciples.  Read the scriptures.  Confess your sins, if needs be.  Visit the Eucharist at church, hear Mass, receive communion.  Don't give up on Jesus, and try not to be downcast, but fix your eyes on Him and look for Him.  He is risen!

(Lastly, here's a link to the Men of Emmaus, a Catholic fellowship for men based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for those of you who might be looking for fellow disciples and who live in the area.)

The Empty Tomb and the Power of the Resurrection

The deacon read this gospel passage at the Vigil last night at St. Matthew's Cathedral:

Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Mag'dalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre.  And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.  His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.  And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.  But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I have told you."  So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

Matthew 28:1-8

Here's my thought.  Most of us Christians live in this the morning of the first day.  By that I mean this: we Christians understand, mostly, that Jesus is risen from the dead.  We even understand that we are (supposed to be) somehow united to him in some way.  But we do not really understand what this all means.  It makes us happy, kinda; it makes a little afraid, too.  We are like the women, or Peter and the Beloved Disciple after them, staring into the empty tomb, confused and dazzled by the sunlight on the dawn of this new day in Christ.  Everything is different now.  We as individuals haven't all figured that out.  Some among us have.  Most of us kinda know things are supposed to be different now, but can't quite figure out what it means for our lives.  My hunch is that we, as a whole Church, are somewhere along these lines.  Among us there are some saints, radically transformed by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in everything they do.  There are others, who are bumbling about as if nothing happened, or worse, who have missed the point of God's love and are hanging themselves alongside Judas Iscariot.  Mostly, we are in the middle somewhere.  We are yearning for a new life that we have begun to live but to which we have not quite given ourselves over yet.
Jesus Christ has triumphed over death!  The very worst thing that the powers of this world can do to their victims, their most very potent weapon, has been neutralized.

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?

1 Corinthians 15:55

Jesus Christ is the "first fruits" (1 Cor 15:23) of the resurrection.  We will be the harvest.
The power of God has been fully unleashed in the resurrection of the Son of God.  Now the tide is turned.  Sin obstructs and obscures it, but only like a sandcastle obstructs the ocean: for a few minutes, and then the jig is up.  Death's last blow will have been struck, and it will itself be dealt a death blow:

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.

1 Corinthians 15:51-53

But what does all this mean for us here and now?  What does the resurrection of Christ mean in the life of a Christian?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Romans 6:3-5

It is not only at the End, at the Resurrection of the Dead, that we shall be raised, but even here and now!  Here and now if we live in Christ and let Him live in us, we can have His kind of life, a life that bears immense fruit - here and now:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you.  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing... By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.  This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends...  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.  This I command you, to love one another.

John 15:1-17

How are we to live in Christ and let Him live in us?

Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world."

They said to him, "Lord, give us this bread always."

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.  But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.  All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven."  They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, `I have come down from heaven'?"

Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.  I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;  he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.  This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."

John 6:32-58

We need to eat His flesh and drink His blood.  But how can we do that ?

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is my body."  And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins..."

Matthew 26:26-28

Baptism introduces us into the death and resurrection of Christ so that we can share in His life.  The Eucharist brings us into the fullness of His life.  It brings His life into us.  This mystery is the great source of power of the Christian life.  Never underestimate its power.  By it, tyrants have been humbled, janitors have been made into great heroes, kingdoms of darkness have been made into harbors of peace, and martyrs have smiled at death.  So brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not be afraid or confused by dazzling sunlight of the dawn of this, the First Day of a New Week.  Instead, let us put on Christ, live His kind of life, and show the world a sort of love that transforms life, that is "stronger than death," (Song of Songs 8:6).

The Communion of Sinners

So, I've had this thought bouncing around in my head over the last few weeks.  Lining up for the confessional, I bumped into an acquaintance of mine.  Since I mostly make my confessions at the same time and same place each week, it's actually not that odd for me to bump into people I know in line at the confessional.  A smile or a nod passes between the two of us.  The smile or nod means a lot.  It means, "Hi."  It means, "Glad I'm not the only one I know that uses this thing."  It means, "Hey, another sinner.  That's great!"

 

Well, clearly it's not great that we are all sinners.  What is great, though, is that it's not just one of us.  Wouldn't that stink?  Literally, one person would be to blame for all the world's mess.  It would be easy for the rest of us to feel self-righteous, especially toward that poor slob, but I do not believe that would be a good thing.

Instead, we have the situation of all of us needing Jesus.  Our sins may be different in "species and number," and even in gravity, but not in essence.  In essence, our sins are all affronts to the will of our Creator and against our own dignity.  We are called to live in the communion of saints, the strong bond of those redeemed and sanctified by Christ.  For the time being, while we haven't left sin behind entirely yet, we might as well get on with the work of building up a strong bond of those being redeemed and sanctified by Christ.  This communion will only grow among us to the extent that we admit what we have in common: that we are all sinners.  There's no use pretending, acting like we don't see each other in line for the confessional.  Instead, it's probably best to admit to ourselves that we are sinners, and in very specific terms what sort of sinners we are.  We should also admit to each other freely, easily in general terms, that we are sinners.  We can do so, if in no other way, by making an appearance in our local parish's confessional line.  To the extent that we can safely do so with people we trust, it might not hurt to share with each other in more specific terms the ways we sin.  In fact, it might heal to know that we are loved, not only by God, but by our brothers and sisters... sins and all.  Confessing our sins to our priest and, when prudent, to each other can only build up the communion of sinners until, hopefully, one day we enter perfectly into the communion of saints.

Oh, wait a minute.  You weren't in line for the confessional?  Oh.  I see.  Well, I suppose there's one thing more priggish than a person who sins and then tries to act like he's perfect: someone who doesn't even think he sins.  You do sin, don't you?  Then 'fess up.  Join the confessional line, the communion of sinners - so that you can be made worthy to enter into that other communion line.

Thank You, St. Thomas Aquinas...

...for some of the most beautiful verse in the Western tradition.

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas; Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit.	I devoutly adore you, O hidden God, Truly hidden beneath these appearances. My whole heart submits to you, And in contemplating you, it surrenders completely.
Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; Nil hoc verbo veritátis verius.	Sight, touch, taste are all deceived about you, But hearing suffices firmly to believe. I believe all that the Son of God has spoken; There is nothing truer than this word of truth.
In cruce latebat sola Deitas, At hic latet simul et Humanitas, Ambo tamen credens atque confitens, Peto quod petivit latro pœnitens.	On the cross only the divinity was hidden, But here the humanity is also hidden. I believe and confess both, And ask for what the repentant thief asked.
Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor: Deum tamen meum te confiteor. Fac me tibi semper magis credere, In te spem habere, te diligere.	I do not see the wounds as Thomas did, But I confess that you are my God. Make me believe more and more in you, Hope in you, and love you.
O memoriale mortis Domini! Panis vivus, vitam præstans homini! Præsta meæ menti de te vívere, Et te illi semper dulce sapere.	O memorial of the Lord's death! Living bread that gives life to man, Grant my soul to live on you, And always to savor your sweetness.
Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine, Me immundum munda tuo sanguine: Cujus una stilla salvum facere Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.	Lord Jesus, Good Pelican, wash me clean with your blood, One drop of which can free the entire world of all its sins.
Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, Oro, fiat illud quod tam sitio: Ut te revelata cernens facie, Visu sim beátus tuæ gloriæ. Amen	Jesus, whom now I see veiled, I ask you to fulfill what I so desire: That on seeing you face to face, I may be happy in the seeing of your glory. Amen

Happy feast day, Domicans!

What Happened Yesterday Going to Mass

Yesterday, I got a minor reminder of something of what Deacon Dave preached about, and posted yesterday at this blog.

I drove to St. XYZ parish for its 12:10 p.m. Mass.  It was convenient to where I was working yesterday.  I got there, and a note on the door politely stated that the 7:00 a.m. and 12:10 p.m. Masses of the day would not be said.  I presume it was because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  It is a federal holiday and so federal workers, who populate my area plentifully, as well as students and teachers, had the day off.  "Priests apparently, too," I remarked to myself as I went into the church to pray for a bit, since I was there anyway.  There were twenty or thirty people inside, apparently also unforewarned about the cancellation - and apparently workers on their lunch break, as usual.  I became irritated.  Irritation turned to anger, resentment.  I tried hard to pray.  The best I could muster was to growl at God about workshy bureaucrats and priests.  None of this reflects well on me, I am afraid.

But then a moment of grace intervened.  I didn't detect it at first.  It simply arose as a quiet thought, "Well, I might have gotten my butt out of bed for the early Mass at my own parish, or even the morning Mass, and still been to work on time - or close enough to it."  Since I was there anyway, I tried to remember the words to a prayer of spiritual communion.  I couldn't, so instead I just prayed, "Jesus, just yesterday you came to me in love.  Please extend into today the union you gave me yesterday.  Help me to love like you.  I want to trust that whatever happens, it is your will.  Help me to trust you.  Amen."  As I walked outside after praying a couple decades of the rosary, another thought came to me.  "The priest might actually be very industrious.  I don't know.  He might very well need today off from his usual duties."  The sun was warm on my face during our little Spring Break in January.  I was grateful for having slept well on my soft bed in my warm house the night before, and for having a bit of work for the time being.  Resentment and anger faded away.

Taking responsibility for one's own actions, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and gratitude are good people-person skills.  They are also good attitudes.  They are also something of the natural virtue upon which supernatural sanctity is built.

I went back to the office where I was working and was able to make a valuable contribution to the firm.  That's something to take a bit of pride in, something to sleep well on.  I joined my dad and his wife for dinner and we had a pleasant time.  My evening tutoring session went well.  The day has ended nicely.  The bitter poison of anger, that might have slowly and imperceptibly tainted the rest of my day, was drawn out by an action of grace, to which I opened myself by a determination to pray, which was given to me by an action of grace, to which I opened myself by deciding to make use of the sacraments if I could, which was given to me by an action of grace...

So yesterday I saw the co-mingling of grace and my own efforts - and saw a bit of water turned into wine.  Let's look for little reminders of grace, and in our actions, try to be for other people little reminders of grace.

Can Anyone Guess?

Can anyone guess what is the problem with the views expressed in this interview?

Well, that's a trick question. Problems would better state the matter. In case you don't know, the "Rev." Mary Glasspool has recently been elected by separated "Christians" to be their second gay "bishop".  She will serve as an auxiliary in Los Angeles. (The quotation marks are deliberate, and yes, I mean exactly what they imply.)

Her last comments are what are most profoundly disturbing and revealing about what's wrong in the Anglican Communion. On the surface we seem closest to them in theology, and for years, there was a more apparent similarity that has now broken down because of the Episcopalians' acceptance of every sort of sexual aberration.

Here's what's wrong. Mary Glasspool, and many Episcopalians with her, believe that as long as we can all gather for the Eucharist and share communion together, then we are OK. It doesn't matter if we all believe different things - some accepting the Gospel, others implicitly rejecting it and trying to reshape it in their own image; it doesn't matter if some are striving to live Christian lives dependent on grace, overcoming their vices and growing in virtue - while others do whatever the hell they want and call it living in grace rather than law (the Gospel calls this lifestyle lawlessness, e.g., Acts 2:23, 2 Thess 2:8, 2 Thess 2:9, 1 Tim 1:9, 1 Pet 4:3, 2 Pet 2:8, 2 Pet 3:17).  According to Mary Glasspool, now a "bishop" of the Episcopalian "Church," none of that matters, as long as we can come together for communion.  The Latin word means "strong union," it is exactly what does not exist within the Anglican Communion, and especially within the American branch - the Episcopalian "Church".  There is no doctrinal union - union in how they see the world; nor is there moral union - union in how they live their lives.  They haven't got any communion at all, really.  And their "Eucharist" means about as much.

The Anglican Communion started off with compromise - the Bishops of England deciding to go with Henry VIII's flow.  Then, to quell internal dissent about this doctrine or that, they came up with 16 and then 39 points of agreement, written so vaguely that anyone could sign in "good conscience."  The Communion has since then seen itself as a "Via Media," a broad, middle way between "Roman" Catholicism and "Reformed" Protestantism.  They'd have the best of both worlds, they would.  Two contradictory propositions can be held at the same time by a thinker or by a Church, given enough latitude between them so they won't fight.  That's their thinking.  Implicit in that attitude, as much as in Mary Glasspool's, is that none of it is really that true, or at least, not that important.  This is the very serious deadly sin, the dreadful decay, of sloth: seeing a good (truth) and just not caring about it.  From the moment one embraces this sin, even if one likes the various Christian doctrines, one doesn't accept them as true and conform one's life to them.  Instead, one just likes them.  If we treated our knowledge of gravity with such mental laziness, we'd fall very visibly.  But we cannot see spiritual truths quite so obviously as material truths, and so it is easier to fake them.  But precisely in thinking that contrary spiritual propositions can be held simultaneously as true, they reveal what they believe: spiritual propositions aren't real.

We Catholics have something of this tendency - but it is always about matters of practice and discipline - never about faith and morals.  That is, our latitudinarian expansiveness requires celibacy for priests in the West and marriage for priests in the East.  It allows colored vestments in the Roman Rite and white ones only in the Byzantine.  We can fast from meat on Fridays, or from whatever else is suitable.  We can read this spiritual writer or that, it's all of a piece, really.  We can depict Christ on the Cross as African, Asian, or Australian.  These distinctions are based on prudential judgments and aren't really from God, but by convention.  But it's all prudential judgments based on the same faith and morals throughout the Catholic world, and those are real and they are really from God.  What we are not free to do is to insist upon celibacy for all priests or to prohibit it.  We are not free to say, "Mass on Sunday isn't obligatory."  We must not say that because we can depict Christ as whatever sort of man we like, he was no man at all.  These things are from God and to reinvent them is to fake them, to lie.

We must do the hard spiritual work of maintaining real spiritual unity, based on real love and real agreement on the real essentials of Christian faith and morals.  Far from scoffing the erosion of Christian faith in separated Christian communities, we should take a warning from the direction they take, pray for them, and extend to them a hand, an invitation to rediscover Christ and the Church that He founded.  Otherwise, we will have abandoned Christ.

Mary, Latreia, Dulia, and Hyperdulia

Responding to a recent post on InsideCatholic, a commenter identified what he believed to be a failure of logic among Catholics and in our doctrine.  He wrote to the extent that Catholics have reserved worship for God not in practice, but merely in definition.  We treat Mary as we do God, but that we call the acts of reverence to her hyperdulia, and to Him, latreia.  He said that we define hyperdulia as whatever we do to honor Mary, and latreia as whatever we do to honor God.  It seems appropriate on the day before a great Marian holy day to consider such things, so I have decided to gussy my response up a bit and reprint it below:

Latreia has a very specific meaning. Latreia is not just "whatever is higher than hyperdulia." It is very clearly, specifically "ministerial service," (see any Greek lexicon) and it refers to the service of the altar - to sacrificial worship.

For Protestants, who have ejected the concept of sacrifice from their acts of worship, one act of reverence and devotion blends with another - prayers, catechesis, song. It is not so among us Catholics, because we have the Eucharist - not merely a memorial, but a re-presentation, a re-manifestation, a re-engagement - of Christ's self-sacrificial oblation. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the act by which Christ worshiped the Father, and it is the act by which Catholics and the Orthodox worship the Father, because it is the way that he instructed us to do so (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:19-22; 1 Cor 11:23-26). That is latreia, and it is reserved for God the Father alone, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Singing, prayers, preaching - those are nice, but they aren't what we mean by latreia. At the Mass and in the rest of our lives, they build up to the latreia. That's what they are for, but they are not the "source and summit" of our life - rather, they draw us closer to God. That is why we can devote them safely to the saints - because the saints draw us closer to God as well. It is impossible to learn about their lives and to attempt to imitate them without growing closer to God... because the saints are saints precisely because of their closeness with God.

Mary is the greatest saint because she is the closest to God. She was so close to him that she bore him nine months in her womb, and many more in her arms. He surely followed her example as a child, and she followed his as an adult. She restrained him when adolescent exuberance would have launched his ministry too early, and prodded him before it was too late. She followed him around as he preached, and she met him on the Way of the Cross as he died. She alone among women is named as among those present in the Upper Room at Pentecost - surely not at the periphery of the Apostles, but at their center as the one who knew Him best. The Holy Spirit descended upon her to conceive in her the Messiah of Israel, and descended upon her and the Apostles to bring the Messiah out to the world.

Whoever would denigrate such a relationship has either not thought it through. She is not one among many Christians or saints - she is absolutely unique among God's creatures. If we honor our mothers with dulia (devotion), surely something higher is owed the Mother of God.  And that is what is hyperdulia means: higher devotion.

God's Mighty Deeds

Yesterday, a good friend of mine was ordained to the Holy Order of Deacon, with a view toward ordaining him, if it please God, as a priest of Jesus Christ in the year to come. Dave Wells, the ordained man I have in mind, is generally a great guy. He is laid back as they come, yet not a slacker. He is intelligent, but does not think of himself as intelligent. At least, he doesn't come across as someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else. He's athletic and cocky, but mostly in a playful way. I've gotten to know him reasonably well over the last 4 or 5 years.

And today, on Corpus Christi, A.D. 2009, he preached for the first time. It's twelve hours now and I am still reflecting on his words, which never happens to me. Normally, it's all in one ear and out the other. His homily shocked me because it was not like I had expected. I am not sure I expected one thing or another, but this homily was not it. His theme might be summarized as God's Mighty, Saving Deeds. He rightly focused heavily on the factual reality of God's real, miraculous acts in real history - from the Red Sea to Calvary to our modern, individual lives. His interpretation of the scripture readings for the day (Ex 24:3-8; Ps 116; Heb 9:11-15; Mk 14:12-16, 22-26) was simple but powerful. His theological development was solid, and substantial without the density normally connected with solid meat, and without the fluffiness that often springs from trying to be simple. His words were eloquent without being pretentious in the least. Most importantly with regards to his rhetorical style, he was concise. He laid out the basic message of the Gospel more clearly and directly than I have heard in a long time from the pulpit.

And his passion! I kept thinking, "Where is this man from?!" and "Is this the same man that had beers and pizza with me last week at my kitchen table?" and "He golfs too much to sound like this!" It was his first public preaching, to be sure, but his very few slight stumbles were covered over by his passion. No fire and brimstone from Dave Wells - just the burning passion borne of solid conviction about an important message and, I believe, deep prayer.

I've "heard" the Gospel a hundred times; this morning it woke me up again.

I wish more people could have heard the Rev. Mr. Wells' homily this morning at St. Pius X parish in Bowie, Maryland. You can read it by clicking here and I highly encourage you to take three or four minutes to do so. Hearing him preach made it easier for me to be hopeful for the Church. It was good to be reminded that God still does mighty, saving deeds. Real miracles. Like getting Dave Wells ordained a deacon. (Ha ha! Just kidding, Dave.)

Why Do They Care?

I am not immensely intrigued by Protestants who want the Eucharist, because their desire makes sense to me. I want the Eucharist, too. It is interesting to note that most mainline denominations in the U.S. celebrated "the Lord's Supper" regularly until about a hundred years ago, when fear of seeming "too Catholic" caused their ministers to reduce the frequency of communion services dramatically, from weekly to monthly, or even yearly. A friend of mine, a conservative Presbyterian, recently shared his frustration with me at hearing from his minister on Holy Thursday how the Eucharist is spiritual food. He summarized his frustration thus: "Then why doesn't [that minister] feed us more often than once a year?!"

What does impress me is how many Protestants seem to take it personally that we (Catholics) will not share Communion with them. They seem to take it as a sort of snootiness or arrogance on our part, as if we feel we are better than them. Feelings haven't anything to do with any of it, though. Nor does the status of their communion celebrations, or their beliefs and feelings regarding communion. While few Protestants have beliefs about the Eucharist the same as ours, most that I know do believe that is Jesus is somehow manifest in the Eucharist. That's great. It's a start. It also has nothing to do with why we will not share Communion with them. What is forming our stance is a matter of fact: in very substantial ways Protestants are not in communion with us and to share the Holy Communion with them would be to falsify communion.

When a Protestant is submits in matters of faith and morals to the authority of Church, who teaches on behalf of Christ, then the Protestant will have moral unity with the Church, and may share in our sacramental communion. Sharing sacramental communion before there is moral unity is like sharing sexual relations before there is sacramental marriage: it puts the cart before the horse, falsifies the nature of the relationship, and thereby cheapens the sacrament.

And the thing is that this teaching isn't personal. It's not like the Church has it out for Protestants or think we are better than them (although, sadly, there are many arrogant asses like myself among us). In fact, Catholics living in sin (I don't just mean sexually) aren't to go to communion either. Nor are Catholics who have eaten too recently. Of course, when the pews empty at communion time, a number of Catholics are going to communion who probably should not be - either for committing some sin, dissenting from some teaching, or from casually eating Cheetos before going to Mass. This careless communion gives cause for scandal to our Protestant brethren. "If all those flaky Catholics can go to Catholic communion, then why can't I?" The question is pretty legitimate. It would be easier to explain our doctrine about reception of the Eucharist if we as a community lived it out better ourselves.
If, at communion time, a significant number of Catholics-in-the-pew refrained from communion, as used to be the case, guests in our community would probably not feel so left out in the cold. For now, a good second best is probably to encourage friends that come with us to Mass to go up to receive a blessing - arms folded across chest, head bowed, mouth closed. And of course, there is the old multiknife of solutions - prayer.

I think there really is a reason, though, that they want our Eucharist. As previously noted, they have been starved by their own denominations from the spiritual blessing of reenacting the Lord's Supper. But there's more. Because we have priests successively ordained from generation to generation back to the apostles and our Lord himself, we offer the sacrifice that He taught us, and in that we sacrifice have Him for Whom we were made, in what merely appears to be bread and wine. We haven't just got mere symbols, or memorials, or spiritual presences. We have Him. He's attracted such a magnetic relationship upon the world for two thousand years so that one must, after reflection, either love Him or hate Him. Our hearts were made for Him, and as He predicted, the more Holy Church lifts Him up, the more He draws all men to himself (Jn 12:32).

Piety and Fraternity

A beautiful excerpt from Abba Father, by Bonaventure Perquin, in my continuing quest to get sued by publishers:

Although [the] knowledge and love of the Father is of its nature personal, it must never be thought of as excluding the knowledge and love of other persons, be they angels or men. For the adopted child knows and loves his Father not only as his own, but also as the Father of countless other children. The Spirit of adoption never allows us to forget the immensity of the all-embracing Fatherhood of God; he will not countenance anything like possessiveness. The Father's love is such that its immensity is perfectly compatible with its intimacy, for though he loves so many, he loves each one for himself as if he were the only child. In this the Incarnate Son is a perfect mirror of his Father, as in all else, because he loved all his disciples and yet his love was perfectly adapted to the needs and the aspirations of each one individually. Thus the inspirations that come to us from the Holy Spirit through the gift of piety give us a true conception of God's Fatherhood, and in this way he gradually widens our vision and our heart until they embrace the vast family of all the Father's adopted children. And in this same family we can include our Lady, while at the same time we love and honor her as Queen and Mother.

All these children who share the adoption are therefore brethren. What an inspiration, then, toward fraternal charity is the prompting of the gift of piety meant to be. How difficult it is to practice this vital commandment unless we really see our fellowmen as children of the same Father and have grasped something of the intensity of the Father's love not only for ourselves but also for them. Then we see clearly beyond any doubt how impossible it is to love that Father and at the same time to be indifferent toward or to hate any of his children. The commandment of charity is the inevitable outcome of the common adoption of countless children by one and the same Father.

"And everyone who loves him who begot, loves also the one begotten of him. In this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do his commandments (1 Jn 5:1-2)."

The passage is beautiful.

Any devotion, even to the Holy Eucharist or to Blessed Virgin Mary, that is, any outward display of piety, that does not at least gradually expand our heart to encompass those kneeling next to us, has had only a partial effect on us. In the event that we find ourselves practicing some devotion and not living a congruent charity, we should suspect ourselves of superficial or defective love of God. Such a defect is natural enough. All the same, instead of being contentedly self-satisfied, we should add to our devotion a prayer to better love our neighbors. A failure in the love of our neighbors certainly diminishes the credibility of our love of God, as St. John wrote, "If any one says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen," (1 Jn 4:20).

The Fulcrum of Reality

Our Lord was raised bodily from the dead, but we must not make the mistake of thinking that he was some sort of zombie. What Jesus underwent was not a mere resuscitation, although resuscitation was involved in a sense. The empty tomb is mentioned in all the gospels, in the Acts of the Apostles, and in St. Paul's writings. It was an important fact, and it cannot be minimized that a real, material body got up and left the tomb. The risen body was the same body that died, but now, at the resurrection, it was transformed into something new, a new kind of body. St. Paul calls this a spiritual body, writing, "It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body," (1 Cor 15:44). But we must not make the mistake of thinking that our Lord was a ghost of some sort, or that his body wasn't material. The word translated here as physical is psychikon in Greek, which normally refers to a human life, mind, or soul. The word rendered spiritual is pneumatikon in Greek, always refering in the New Testament to supernatural power - the life of God Himself. The sentence might be rendered better as "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a supernatural body." Evidence of this interpretation abounds in the resurrection accounts of the gospels. In John 20:19, we are told that, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." A few verses later, St. John tells us that Jesus appears again and charbroils real fish, and with his hands breaks real bread (John 21:13-14). Ghosts cannot do that.

Jesus' body after the resurrection, we begin to sense, is not less real than our own, but more real, because even his body is no longer merely material. We experience our bodies as limiting factors, especially in childhood and in old age. A little kid reaches up to grab something on a counter that is hopelessly too high, and that the child simply cannot reach. An old person finds that his body doesn't work as fast as his mind does anymore, and that he cannot run or swim as he would like. Even in the flush of virile manhood, some things are simply beyond reach, and one's appetites and bodily urges often overrule, or at least interfere, with one's better intentions. Jesus, on the other hand, after the resurrection no longer experiences limitations on his body. And that makes sense - God did not give us our body to trap us in death, but as a beautiful way of living life. Sin and death intervene and interfere, but in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth, sin is vanquished and death is slain: "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" (1 Cor 15:55). Time and space, dimensions that arise to accomodate our bodies, no longer bind our bodies or dominate them. In the body of Jesus of Nazareth, all that we "know" to be real is set aside, when it comes to "life" and "the way things really are," from unruly urges to hopelessness to death. Jesus of Nazareth changes all of that, and so we recognize Him as the Christ.

But Jesus wants to live with us, and knows we need to live with him, like we live with our family and neighbors and roommates. "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me," (Jn 15:4). Now Jesus did not come to be with us just to be with us, or rather them (the Apostles) for a few years and then to split, but to abide with us. Our God is NOT a deadbeat dad. Our God is a loving Father, more loving than any of us has experienced in human flesh. And he's not going anywhere, either. Jesus says to us, "I am with you always, to the close of the age," (Mt 28:20).

But how so. He certainly seems to have split, to have left the building, so to speak. Indeed.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Cor 11:23-26).

Already in just the decade following that in which our Lord suffered and died, St. Paul is reminding the early Christians in Corinth about the Lord's words. Jesus has left us his presence, not only spiritual, but physical as well, which is fitting, since he made us to be not only spiritual beings, but physical beings as well. We need both sorts of presence from the people that love us, and need to give both sorts to the people that we love. Nothing else will satisfy our whole person.

This explains the meaning of John 6. In that passage, Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes to feed the masses. They want to make him king, because, hey, he can get the economy going again, right? Free food for everyone. You'll never have to work again. "Ugh," Jesus must have thought, and then set out to correct their mistake. He does not want to nourish them with ordinary bread. They can do that themselves. He wants to nourish them with himself. He wants to BE their bread. Think about it, our God loves us so much that he wants not only to be with us, but to be in us, to be united to us in every way - spirit and body. This is the manner in which he wants to abide with us for eternity. But how can that happen?

The resurrection provides the missing key. Because at the resurrection Jesus becomes unbounded from the normal rules of reality, time, space, and all that, Jesus can be anywhere and everywhere, all at once. Jesus can physically be in me, in you, and in the golden box on the altar, and sitting on a throne of glory in a realm we cannot attain by our own strength and senses - all at once. This is weird, and outside of our immediate experience, but it makes sense. Why should we expect the ordinary conditions of time and space to limit the Almighty who made them, or the weaknesses of a human body to cage him in, when even the tomb could not?

At the Eucharist, in the act of praising and loving God, those baptized into his body receive his body, and the new, spiritual sort of body is planted in us anew, and the new sort of life grows stronger and more vibrant in us, bit by bit, hindered only by our own willfulness and sin. Our ability to attain heaven, the life of God in perfect bliss, will not come in this life by the removal of exterior obstacles, but by the removal of the interior obstacles that prevent us from handling them in peace. The spiritual life begun in us by baptism will be awakened as we embrace it and make a concerted effort to learn to live it. On the cross, Jesus defied death to its face, and at the resurrection he overcame it. In the sacraments, Jesus has transmitted to us in bodily form this way of sharing in his bodily resurrection. The resurrection is the fulcrum on which the old "reality" is lifted and overturned, and the new one set in its place.

Ashes: The Christian in Lent

Ok, so I am going to try, briefly, to tie a few things together.

1. Every Christian is by baptism a priest, prophet, and king (or queen, as the case may be). That includes every man, woman, and child who has been claimed by Christ under those regenerating waters. What does this mean, though? I am going to strip away the rhetoric for once and (try to) get to the point.

1A. Christ is the Great High Priest, the Great Prophet, and the King of All Creation. In baptism, we are united with Him and become part of Him, and adopted brothers of His, and adopted sons and daughters of the Living God with whom He is One, and we through Him.

1B. A priest, fundamentally, is one who makes intercession to God and offers sacrifices to Him on behalf of the people, and gives to the people God's blessings. Every Christian is called to be a man or woman of prayer, especially for others, and of sacrifice, especially of our own bodies and wills. We offer these prayers and sacrifices, in imitation of Christ, on behalf of ourselves, our loved ones, and the world. Ordained priests serve this role in a particularly acute, sacramental way within the Church, and the whole Church (that's all the baptized!) serves this role within the world in a less crystalized, more day-to-day way.

1C. A prophet, fundamentally, is not one who tells the future (though he might), but one who speaks for God - "pro-pheme" in Greek, a "speaks-for." Christ came as the final, fullest revelation of God's love for us. In His own flesh, He (God) manifests His desire to be with us intimate in bodily union, a union accomplished first in baptism and then most perfectly in Eucharistic Communion. Jesus' very existence makes this will of God clear to us. His words announced what He and His Father are about. We Christians, sharing in the mission of our Master, our Friend (John 15:12-17, esp., 15:15), also must speak God's word. We must put priority on living it out though. We cannot wait to live it perfectly before we speak it, or else we'll never speak it. But the emphasis in our lives must be on prayerfully hearing God, digesting and living His voice, and then amplifying it to the world in our own deeds and words.

1D. A king (or queen), fundamentally, is not one who bosses around and tyrannizes, but one who has been given authority by God to make a patch of the world more like the Kingdom of Heaven. That's all of us. We all have a patch of the world over which we have influence or even authority: our homes, friends, work environments, students, neighborhoods - all of these to varying extents are within our reach, as it were. We are, like Jesus, to use what the Father has given us to make our area more like God would have it be. We are to use our abilities, influence, and authority firstly for service - never for lordliness (Mt 20:20-28). We are to heal hearts, serve the weak and poor, right wrongs, salvage relationships, make good use of resources - all to make the world more like the Kingdom.

1E. These three dimensions of Christ's life and of our life in Christ are called the Triple Munera, the Three Offices/Duties/Functions of Christ. The Church, His Mystical Body, shares in them - our ordained clergy firstly and in a particular, sacramental and directing-leadership sort of way - and all the rest of us in a general and raw-horsepower sort of way.

2. We have just begun Lent. During Lent we are commended to remember our sinfulness and God's mercy in a particularly acute way in order to prepare for the remembrance of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our blessed Lord. The Church has three ways of life that are now more than ever to be lived out with diligence - prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

2A. Prayer is time spent opening our heart and lifting it toward union with God. It might be while we do something else, but like everything else, if we want to really get good at it (like all communication, it takes practice) we need to set aside time for it daily. Lent is an especially good time to adapt some new prayer discipline - a daily rosary or morning offering, weekly Stations of the Cross, something. Prayer is especially important for living our our priestly office, but also for our prophetic office, and even for our royal office. After all, if we are to govern as God would have us, we had better be listening to Him.

2B. Fasting is, broadly speaking, abstaining from some food, drink, (or other other pleasure) or food and drink in general. The Church's rule is minimal: on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday we must carry out a simple fast, which means we take no meat, only one full meal, and up to two other meals that combined are smaller than a meal, without any snacking in between. Only those who have reached adulthood and haven't yet reached old age are required to fast. Everyone else merely abstains from meat, and everyone abstains from meat on Fridays in Lent. Really, the Church encourages us to abstain from meat on all Fridays, or to do some other sacrifice instead. During Lent, we pick an additional Lenten abstinence or fast that can hopefully be a sacrifice we continue in altered form after Lent, something that will change our lives for the better, for the godlier. Fasting is especially important to the prophetic office because one who preaches the Word of God had better feed on it, and remember that it is his primary food (Mt 4:3-4). Because priests offer sacrifice, a sacrifice of our time and even of our own bodily needs and desires, is perhaps the most concrete way to sacrifice our will to God. But good kings also sacrifice to God because they know that they are not the real top-dog, but that God is.

2C. Almsgiving is giving to the poor. It should be a near daily way of life for Christians, something we plan into our budget and not just something we do if we have anything left over (who really ever does?). Living a Christian life, or working for the Church, is not a substitute for generosity to her poorest children. I used to work for the Church and was given a small salary, and did not give to the poor very much. I am very embarrassed of that now. I might have given something. I earn less now, because I am studying full time, but give a lot more than I did then (it is still not much, lol). Even homeless people can give a bit of change. At least I know now that I am doing what I can to support the Church (the tithe) and care for those in need (almsgiving, properly speaking). Almsgiving is especially important to our royal office as Christians because as Christian king-lets and queen-lets, we are not to lord our Christianity over others ("See how holy I am!") but to serve them. The neediest first. Almsgiving keeps us oriented in that direction.

2D. As per Matthew 6, we are not supposed to do these things SO THAT others can see them. But as per Matthew 5, we are also supposed to be a good example to glorify God by our good deeds. How do we reconcile these two things? We should do our good deeds as part of our ongoing interior conversion. The quieter the better, generally speaking. If, for the sake of another, it is useful to the other that he should know of a good deed of ours, then we may allow him to know. And we need not be ashamed of our good deeds, either, especially when we are doing them as part of a group activity of the Church, as part of a public gesture of the People of God. If you are as vainglorious as I am, then it is probably best to keep your personal good deeds as private, tucked inside your vest when possible. The whole idea is to lose ourselves a bit in the heart of God and in the needs of the world.

2E. For each of our disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we should pick something that fulfills all four of the criteria that follow:

1. It should be difficult. A challenge, people. Lent is not supposed to be easy, but a reminder of our weakness.



2. It should be doable. Lent is not setting us up for failure, but setting us up to remember that we need God.



3. It should be permissible. We must not do anything contrary to our real duties. A student cannot give up homework for Lent. Nice try, kids.



4. It must be good. We can commit to going to Mass on Wednesday evenings. We can commit to giving up sweets. Mass is a good thing. Sweets are good things. We are supposed to be giving Jesus good gifts, whether we give him prayers or sacrifices or acts of love to his poor brethren. We must not give up fornicating. Fornicating is bad. We should have given that up ANYWAY. Although, frankly, I suppose Lent is a good time to do so if you haven't already. But give up sweets, too.

2F. And don't forget to go to confession before Easter. It is the solemn duty of a Christian to so. In fact, we call (confession) + (receiving holy communion during the Easter season) our "Easter duty," or the "Easter obligation." By secretly confessing our sins, we loudly proclaim not only our sinfulness (our true, current condition) but also the Lordship of Jesus. It's the only time of year that we are required to go to communion in order to maintain our communion with the Church. And to do so, we should prepare by going to confession. Especially if we haven't been in a while. If it kinda hurts, or you can think of ten reasons not to go, or you are scared - that's all pride and fear waging a spiritual warfare in your head to keep you from God. Don't listen. Just go to the priest and receive Jesus' mercy like the Bible tells us to (James 5:16 and John 20:23). You won't regret it.

Happy Lent!

The Sacrifice and the Body

In my Greek class we are reading the Gospels of John and Matthew this semester. We are just about finished with John, and yes, that's a LOT of Greek for new-ish students to read. Our professor pushes us hard, and throws facts, theories, and interpretations at us like you cannot believe. It's more like being force-fed too much chocolate cake than anything else: there is no time to chew on what you would enjoy if you had leisure to do so. I am trying to counter act this by rereading the relevant texts on my own at a more relaxed pace.

In class we are reading the Passion as recorded by St. John, and so I decided to savor it in adoration. I was enjoying chewing on (what is for now) my favorite Gospel, and felt my meditation was fruitful. The narrative is electrifying. I started looking around at the other folks in the Crypt Church of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. I was startled by a familiar sight: a big, athletic college student on his knees; an aging Latina woman on the same pew; some Africans or African-Americans; a couple religious sisters from Korea or maybe China; some more college students, some dressed like it, and others dressed more nicely, both young men and women in ample number; a few professor- or administrator-looking men and women; and more of the same representing probably about a hundred people. What leaped to my mind was the prediction of our blessed Lord: "Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself," (Jn 12:31-2).

How amazing is Jesus! He likewise brings to their knees both the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the local and the foreigner, workers and professors, the young and the old. Is there a nation whose people are not represented in the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ? And here was a cross-section of that Body, and indeed thus of the world, kneeling before the Body of her Lord. When our Lord spoke, I think it is most likely that He was predicting His ascension and the formation of the Church by the Holy Spirit's descent upon His disciples. That prediction kinda gets at a deeper spiritual principle, that God has a sort of magnetism or force of gravity that draws people toward Him. But here, before my eyes, that prediction was being fulfilled in a very particular way. As we the Church get back to basics, back to lifting up Jesus, all these people are being drawn toward Him, the Crucified and Resurrected Lord still present among us. The seek Him, to love Him, and to receive from Him what only He can give: a share in the blessed life of the Holy Trinity and all its implications: undying courage, friendship, love, healing, peace, joy, immortality.

The shared life of God is shared with us by means Jesus' body, sacrificed for us on Calvary. We partake in that sacrifice, as the Jews partook of the Passover Sacrifice, by eating the sacrificed One. Having shared Holy Communion with Jesus, we are united with each other and with Him in one seamless movement - the two unions cannot be separated, only distinguished. The Body whose consumption sanctifies us is adored, drawing out and deepening the sanctification, the communion. What happened on Calvary was once-and-for-all (Heb 7:27) because it is once-drawn-out-forever (Heb 9:11-14; 13:20). Because Christ sits eternally at the right of the Father (Heb 7:25; 8:1-2) offering His Resurrected Body and interceding for us, we as a people from all nations gather daily to recall the sacrifice and to adore the Body that saves us.

The Birth of the Word that Made the World

When God created the world, according to Genesis 1, he did so by speaking a word. "Let there be light," He says, and again, "Let there be a firmament," and so on. The world that He made "very good," (Gn 1:31) quickly fell away from Him. It might be more accurately stated that Man, His finest creation, was seduced into a rebellion against Him by an evil spirit. Man, in his turn, brought the greater part of the material world with him.

God promised through the prophets to create a new creation, a new heavens and a new earth (Isa 65:17; 66:22), where justice and peace would "kiss," (Ps 85:10). Genesis recounts what we might consider a "false start" of sorts in this new creation: God floods the earth as if to wash away sin. The same account, of Noah and the flood, tells how the flood killed most human beings, but failed to kill sin living in each human being. A mere bathing of the world would not suffice - in this new creation, in which we would have not stony hearts, but soft hearts of living flesh (Ez 36:26), we would need a bathing of conscience (Heb 9:13-14).

The new creation would start with a new Man (Eph 2:14-16). And just as the first creation began with a word, so would the new creation. The new creation began when the Word became a man. So it is fitting that the first mass on Christmas day, at midnight, starts with an antiphon the first words of which are, "The Lord said..." The eternal Godhead, the divine origin of reality, the transcendent unmoved Mover became a little baby in the womb of a little woman in a little corner of a little province. And that virginal conception was the hidden beginning of the new creation. When He emerged from her womb, leaving intact her virginity unruptured by His miraculous conception therein, the new heavens truly made their first appearance on an earth being recreated by Him as His mother swaddled Him in her arms. The event was so momentous that heaven could not contain itself. Angels burst forth from heaven to celebrate and announce the fact.

St. Peter, after our Lord's death, resurrection, and ascension made more clear what sort of thing this new creation would be, continued speaking about it (2 Pet 3:13), echoing the very words of the prophet Isaiah before him. From the time of our Lord's ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, we have in the Church the means to share in our Lord's new way of existing, in the new creation. Baptism, firstly, is the sacrament by which we are scrubbed more deeply clean than the flood could manage. It washes us in the sacrificial blood of Jesus that wins the forgiveness of sins. Confirmation seals us and ratifies this new life in us. Penance restores that purification when we squander it, and the holy Eucharist sustains and strengthens it, and most perfectly unites us to Him. Marriage draws the otherwise-natural union of a man and woman into this supernatural way of living. Holy Orders configures men to represent Christ more perfectly to the rest of the Church. Anointing prepares us for the final transition from the last stages of this life, to the fullness of the life that Baptism begins in us.

This new creation in Christ, that every baptised person carries about in his soul, necessarily overturns the existing world order of sin, or else is overturned by it. The two cannot coexist forever. We must be standing with God and waging war, even if slow and faltering, against sin in our hearts and around us; or else we are standing in sin, and sinking, even if slow and faltering, into deeper and deeper sin until we can stand no more.

Christmas presents to us more than a new baby boy. It presents us with a challenge to choose between that Baby and all that He came to undo: sin, suffering, and death. We do ourselves a great disservice if, as we pay homage to the King, we neglect to mind His Kingdom.

That said, it's only a heavy thing if we do not want to choose Jesus. If we love goodness and are even willing to suffer a bit rather than sin, having God in our corner is very, very good news indeed. Merry Christmas.

A New Conception of Humanity

We shouldn't think that any of the graces given to the Blessed Virgin Mary are weird, or out of place, even if they are singular and just for her. Everything that God has done for the Blessed Virgin in a particular way, He wants to do for us in a general way; everything for her in a miraculous way, for us in a progressive, natural way.

The Immaculate Conception is a perfect example of a grace that we shouldn't find odd. He spared her from the curse of Original Sin and all its effects from the moment of her (immaculate) conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne. By our baptism he cleanses us of all sin, including original sin, the sin we inherit from our origins, and its effects upon us are loosened for now, and eventually, at the resurrection, obliterated entirely. Mary was granted the particular grace of the Immaculate Conception so that she would be a fitting mother to bear God into the world. We are baptized so to receive God when He comes to us, and by virtue of our baptism, are able to bear Him to others in the world. God gave Mary the grace never to go near death. He gives us daily the grace to walk away from it.

Because of her Immaculate Conception she never needed, nor ever did, taste death. She was a living challenge to sin and death, just by her manner of living and being. As the culmination to a sinless life, she was brought bodily into the realms of light before death yet scarred her. We who, unlike the Virgin of Virgins, are born into the sinfulness of the human family, taste death in our daily life - anger, hatred, mockery, violence, malice, sickness, suffering, warfare - and will finally taste death in its fullness; but not in its finality. By living a life structured by the sacraments and soaked in the Sacred Scriptures, in unity with our Christian brethren, and in as nearly constant prayerful union as we can manage, we ourselves will push back the domain of sin wherever we go, undoing hatred, suffering, and even death. Since the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have a hope that the world just doesn't get, doesn't understand - the hope of resurrection for ourselves. Because of this great hope, we can even freely embrace life's sufferings and so will not be cowed by them into sinning. Death, which does us in, is undone by Christ. This process begins for each human in baptism; it begins for humanity in the Immaculate Conception.

Don't forget that today is a Holy Day of Obligation. Yes, you just went to Mass yesterday. Sweet! We all get to go again, and praise and worship God at the Sacrifice of His Son, today for the great gift He has given us in His Mother.

A Couple of Notes

Today is the feast of St. John Damascene. Last year on this date, I wrote a piece about him, and rather than repeat myself, I will just provide a link to it. Click HERE.

For now, I will just share a brief thought I had this morning after Communion.

What a blessed people are we Christians, who may break our nightly fast by feeding on the flesh of God himself! What an amazing mystery.

"For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?" (Deut 4:7, KJV).

"You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame," (Joel 2:26, RSV).

"He has not dealt thus with any other nation," (Ps 147:20).

Zeal and the Fire of Faith

My politically-liberal, religiously agnostic office mate and I came upon what I think is a very good analogy for the zeal, the ardor of faith. As a bit of background to my thinking, reflect for a moment on the ideas of fundamentalism and dogmatism. Both of them get bad reputations that aren't necessarily so.

If fundamentalism is the idea that it's good to stick to the fundamentals, well, don't we all agree? I mean, who thinks it best to get off on irrelevant tangents, or to build mental castles in the sky. "Keep it simple, stupid," is a pretty American maxim. When we speak of fundamentalism as a bad thing, we don't mean architects who want to build simple buildings, or even of Christians who just want to believe in Christ. We mean people who get overzealous, irrationally (by which we usually mean unpleasantly or inflexibly) dogmatic, people who get abusive or violent. That's why we can speak of "fundamentalist Christianity" and "fundamentalist Islam" as being something alike, when adherents of either way of thinking are ready to nuke each other, and when there are, in fact, stark differences in their beliefs, worldviews, etc. What they share in common is a certain out-of-place rigidity in their thinking and overheated zeal in their attitude.

Not that rigidity or zeal are always out of place. Dogmatism, you might say, is not so much holding this dogma to be unquestionably true, as it is the attitude that makes into matters of dogma things that are really practical matters, or matters of opinion. After all, we all have dogmas - the goodness of democracy is a very American dogma, for instance. Virtually anything we don't bother to question (and we can't always be questioning everything) can settle into a sort of dogmatic position in our thinking. Dogmatism is an attitude that says "Red is the best color, and if you disagree, then you are stupid." Favorite colors aren't matters of dogma, but of preference. A dogmatist might get very dogmatic about the best route to get from A to B. Provided that A and B are both morally acceptable places to be, and that the routes in consideration are morally acceptable, the best route is really a matter of practical planning, rather than dogmatic preaching.

Now add to that dogmatism a dose of zeal, which for now we'll define as passionate self-investment. Not only is one practical path the best and others worse, as for the dogmatist, but the zealous dogmatist might very well shout you down or even shoot you down if you have you beg to differ and make your own decision. He might even bloody your nose red for having disliked the color red. This sort of person is what we usually mean by a "fundamentalist," and I think that it is becoming increasingly clear to most folks that atheists, agnostics, and skeptics might be "fundamentalist" in this sense as well.

A particularly American thought-disease to to think that everything, simply everything, is a purely practical matter: the dogma that there should be in our thinking no dogmas, just practical results. "Whatever gets the job done," is another very American saying. A first problem is that this sort of thinking gives no guidepost in our dealings, even with other people, other than efficiency. This efficiency is a very rough way of handling human hearts, aspirations, and lives. Any decent worker who's been laid off rather than retrained or relocated, for the sake of efficiency, knows what Efficiency is an ugly god to worship, or at least an ugly dogma to live by. Combined with shortsightedness, this worship of efficiency will cause disaster for all involved.

In a culture that worships dogmalessness to the point of turning her into a goddess, Efficiency, Practicality, or whatever you want to call her, the Catholic faith very easily seems very rigid and doctrinaire. "So many rules," people say, and, "How unreasonable, if they'd just change X belief or do Y or Z, they'd solve all their problems." But in reality, the Catholic faith is shockingly practical and undogmatic. One or two brief examples will do:

(1) Sunday attendance of Holy Mass, even when one cannot receive communion for some reason, is an absolute non-negotiable of the Catholic religion. Unless. Unless? Yes, unless you cannot. Then, you don't have to. If illness, care of an ill person or infant, physical obstruction, dangerous weather, or some other very serious obstacle arises, then no problem. It happens. See you next week. Now the soccer game is not a legitimate reason. Miss the game. But the blizzard? Well, these things happen. No biggy. The idea isn't one more "rule," but a new heart. Worshipping God should be our central purpose and top priority, not an obligation. Having been established in this new way of thinking, we'll probably stay on the right track. We should feel the soccer game less important, and be disappointed when a hurricane or sick baby keep us from leaving the house on Sunday. Once we've gotten to that point, the "rules" about attending Mass seem aside from the point.

(2) Marriage requires witnesses for each party and a cleric to witness the vows in a public setting. Unless. Unless? Yes, unless the right number of witnesses is simply unavailable. Then you can make do with fewer. Unless. Unless? Unless a serious fear of reprisal for undertaking the marriage requires it to be kept secret, then it can be done secretly. So if having a public marriage would reveal one's Christian faith to a hostile culture, or to parents who oppose the plan, then a secret marriage is OK, too. Unless. Unless? Unless a real impediment causes a cleric to be unavailable, then any baptized, or even in the case of no other Christians around, an unbaptized person can witness the vows, and the marriage can be registered later, and undergo any necessary regularization when things change. Unless. Unless? Unless no other person can be found to witness the exchange of Christian vows, and then the couple may do so privately, provided they regularize things when they have a chance, and provided they really intend a Christian marriage. Now a Christian marriage, what that is (the permanent, exclusive sexual union of a man and a woman for their mutual support with an openness to children) is completely non-negotiable. But the nitty-gritty details? No need for dogma, just good practice to protect the main thing - the marriage.

Now, many of us have known new Catholics, converts, reverts, etc., who, in their new found faith, have become quite "zealous." Dogmatic. Rigid. Harsh. Fiery, even. "Ardour" and "ardent" come from the Latin word for "burning." "Zeal" is related to the word for "jealous," again with the ideal of a driven passion. Such people can have an overly-rigid and simplistic understanding and bring it to the table with a fiery vengeance. They have sometimes been known to damage family relationships, alienate friends, and in general make the holy Catholic faith look terribly unpleasant. They can be like people who inadvertently burn down their own house because they weren't careful with candles or a fireplace. In their more self-righteous moments, they might think they are being persecuted for their faith when in reality they are being asked to quite down about the latest papal encyclical and to please pass the butter. These people can find themselves hemmed in and surrounded by tired or distant former friends, struggling to attain the virtues they very loudly proclaim, and running out of fuel for their fire.

I speak here of myself, but I hope in the past tense.

Two things to note about our Lord on this matter of zeal and passion for God:

(1) Our Lord was indefatigable, untiring, in His work for the good news of the Kingdom. He healed countless sick, gave His undivided attention to anyone who needed it, spent hours and hours teaching. His zeal made Him, in Mother Teresa's words, "Our only human ideal." Yet, he wasn't some kinda social worker just trying to help people. He knew the truth, and knew that only truth could really be a basis for living a real life in reality, and he wouldn't budge on the truth. Not a little bit.

(2) No weird personal, emotional baggage made it a lot easier to keep His cool. His deep, passionate desire to love and obey the Father, the zeal that fed Him and gave him energy late into the night, never once went astray and burned the wrong person. When He got angry, He didn't lose His cool but gave the exact right amount of anger to the right person for the right reason - to help that person. No temper tantrums for Jesus.

(3) Our Lord's unquestionable passion for righteousness led him not to rebuke sinners, but to the most unfathomable gentleness with them - tax collectors felt He wouldn't hold their livelihood against them; prostitutes felt He wouldn't treat them as countless men doubtless did - an object of lust or of self-righteous indignation. He never wrote somebody off or treated them as a nobody.

(4) His zeal led Him to willingness to be misunderstood even by His closest friends, without lashing out against them. At His trial, when He was arguably being most wildly misunderstood, He was arguably at His calmest. The will of His Father so consumed Him that He hardly seems to have noticed what was being done to Himself.

So, now here's the metaphor. Faith is like a charcoal fire, like a barbecue fire. An initial bit of grace, like lighter fluid, will cause a big, flashy fire. But it isn't good for much because it is so wild and uncontrolled. People standing nearby will be well advised to take care lest they get burned. In fact, such a zealous faith might, if not properly nurtured, simply burn itself out in a puff of smoke when just a bit of the first grace is withheld. A faith must be properly protected and nurtured in order to gain a deeper, more authentic zeal: baptism, honest self-examination and confession, Holy Eucharist and prayer, good spiritual reading, a strong, mature Christian community - these are the way to go. Such a faith might seem to simmer down, or never even to have flashed, but like the charcoal fire, the fire of faith is most intense, most heated, and useful when it has simmered down. Such a faith burns intensely and continually draws from the springs of the life of Jesus himself. It is not the sort of faith that sears or burns passersby, let alone burns bridges unnecessarily. But it is the sort of faith that can cook a burger, that can get the job done for Jesus. No decent person, Christian or otherwise, will hate such a faith, but be amazed by what it accomplishes.

The psalmist writes, "For zeal for thy house has consumed me,and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen on me," (Ps 69:9). If our zeal for the House of God consumes other people, maybe they should taunt us a bit. Such a faith will injure others rather than draw them to Jesus through us; such a faith will flicker and fizzle when we fatigue, because it won't have been genuinely rooted in Jesus and a life together with Him.