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 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).

And The Ayes Have It!

One lesson that leaps out on the Feast of the Annunciation is obedience to God.  Mary's yes to God literally revolutionized the entire world and all of human history.  It rerouted us from the downward spiral of sin and slavery onto the upward path of redemption and grace.

But how can a single yes be so powerful?

A clue can be found by delving into what happens to be my favorite beatitude, if beatitudes are the sort of thing that can be ranked.  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Mt 5:1) provides deep inside once we understand what is meant by meekness.  Meekness is not door-mat-ishness.  Meekness is the acceptance of reality.  Now, that doesn't sound too hard, but when we consider how much time, energy, money, thought, and emotion are invested into iPods, movies, shopping sprees, expensive vacations, distracting hobbies and enterntainment, and worse, darker things like addictions, we can quickly see that a lot of people prefer to avoid reality.  When we look at the power politics in a place like Washington, D.C., the micromanagement in our own office, or the violent behavior that often dominates in places like the Beltway, we can quickly see that a lot of people prefer to control reality.  The meek person, far from passively giving in to adverse forces, evaluates reality, understands what is possible to him without sinning against God or his neighbors, and then works within those parameters.  The meek person realizes that not only he or she, but also reality, is real too.  The meek person realizes that God is God, and that he is not.  Reality is real, and lying, cheating, or stealing won't make it go away.

This message can be really hard.  Some people feel very deeply that they have been jipped by life, and all of us have some hard knocks, from time to time, that tempt us to lash out against them, against somebody in our life, or against God.  The meek person, trusting in God's providence, rolls with the punches.

The virtue of meekness makes me think of a favorite movie of mine, Slumdog Millionaire. If you haven't seen it, you should.  Two of the movie's main characters are brothers.  One spends his life in tremendous violence, always grasping for a better life.  The other sets his heart on love, accepts circumstances as they come without letting them deter him, and refuses either to do wrong or accept discouragement along the way.  The characters are not Christians, but they come very close to a perfect illustration of the polar opposition between the one who does whatever it takes to get what he wants, and the one who accepts reality as the framework for living life.  If to the latter way of life we add humble trust in God's will and fatherly providence for us, we have the Christian virtue of meekness, the virtue that wins us the whole world.

If we, moved by grace, can be open to God's will and say, "Yes," whatever may come, we will be amazed by what follows.  Since we are not immaculately conceived, we'll typically have years or decades of spiritual grime clogging our heart.  But even this first yes will begin to move things along, open things up, turn things around.  God will begin, perhaps slowly, but certainly surely, to move in our life.  He will not suddenly transplant us to a rose garden of a life - that wouldn't be real.  But as long as we keep saying, "Yes," to Him, He will keep giving us more and more of the raw stuff that joy is made of - love, peace, service, friendship, virtue, a clean conscience, and a sound relationship with Him.  He will give us all the things that we can never seize for ourselves or control like masters.

A great way to say, "Yes," to God, to accept the reality of our own sinfulness and to proclaim the reality of God's amazing justice and mercy, is to go to confession.  Especially during these last days of Lent, and especially if you haven't been in a few months or years, consider going.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, understanding, and will.
All that I have and am You have given to me,
And I surrender it now to be governed entirely by Your will.
Your grace and Your love: these are wealth enough for me.
Grant me these, Lord, and that shall be enough for me.
Amen.

The Suscipe Prayer of St. Ignatius Loyola

Beautiful Snippets from the Fifth Sunday of Lent

From the first reading, Is 43:16-21:

Thus says the LORD,
who opens a way in the sea
and a path in the mighty waters,
who leads out chariots and horsemen,
a powerful army,
till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,
snuffed out and quenched like a wick.
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!

After starting with a reminder of God's powerful, demonstrated by mighty deeds in real history, the prophet tells Israel, and us, that God is going to set us on a new path, in which former sins are transcended.  The joy that His plans for us will bring is described in Ps 126:

When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion,
we were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with rejoicing.

Our bondage to sin and its ugly consequences will be broken.  St. Paul tells us how much this new life should be worth to us in the Epistle, taken from Phil 3:8-14:

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him...
depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

St. Paul continues to encourage us with his own efforts:

...forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward to what lies ahead,
I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

He would like us to share in them, no doubt.  Not only that, he wants us to join him in forgetting our spotty pasts except in as much as they humble us and become fertile soil for wisdom.  But guilt and shame from our past must fall away.  And lastly, Jesus' beautiful, beautiful words to the woman caught in adultery, whom he saved from stoning (Jn 8:1-11):

Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,
“Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

Let's use these last two weeks of Lent to our great advantage.  Let's enter into it with our whole hearts, praying fervently for the grace to rise higher in Christ, leaving behind sin and the scars it leaves, to be transfigured with Our Blessed Lord.

What Does It Mean to Be a Spiritual Child?

Today, as on most Saturdays, my mother and I pick up my baby sister Keelin, about whom I've written before, and take her for a car ride. Keelin looks forward to these rides, and on the odd occasion when they cannot happen, she is disquieted. She does not understand. She wants her car ride. And it is worse if, for some reason, either of us has to go by her group home on such an occasion for some business. Today I had to drop off some articles for her. I took some pains to avoid having her see me, because the weather is very inclement, and in such situations the briefer one's time on the road, the better. I spoke with her aide quietly, never going into the house. As I took my leave, I saw Keelin in the background, standing on her tippy toes and craning her neck to see over the aide from a distance. I do not know if she identified me with my hood on, by I know that she knows the time of the week and whom she expects to arrive for her. What she probably does not understand is what snow and low visibility have to do with her car ride.

It is also so between us and God. We know what we want and are expecting, and we know them to be good things: successful career; family happiness; freedom of movement; good health; a rhythm of diversion, leisure, and fruitful labor; and so on. What we do not understand are the reasons for which God withholds these things from us, or at least permits them to be withheld.

It is at these times when we can internally rebel against God, even if we continue to go through all the motions of a religious commitment to Him; or we can pray for the grace to accept that our Father knows what we need and is giving it to us, even when it feels like a very bitter pill to swallow.

This is faith: knowing that God has a plan for our good, even when we cannot see it.

Haiti and God's Providence

There's been a lot of nonsense lately about Haiti - everything from remarks about it being divine retribution, to attempted pleasantries about it all being for the best.

Something I've been focusing a lot on lately, for personal reasons and because of more public affairs, is the authentic meaning of joy and hope.

St. Therese of Lisieux asked in a letter how it was that Jesus, without ever being deprived of the joy of the beatific vision, could yet experience such utter emptiness and abandonment on the cross. She answered herself that she did not know, but only knew that it was possible because she herself was experiencing it during her own painfully fatal conflict with tuberculosis. Joy, for a Christian, isn't mere happiness any more than love is mere warm feelings toward another. Joy is the knowledge of the presence of God's Kingdom, the knowledge of His will at work - even when it is hidden-and-not-yet-present.

The cheapness of religious cant isn't that it's false to say that God's Providence includes even the catastrophic suffering of innocents. If God's Providence doesn't include suffering and death, then it's worthless. It isn't false to say, "God has a plan, and this, eventually will be drawn into the good." But also isn't the point, and it is cheap to say to someone who is in the throes of suffering, unless you are darn sure they are prepared to hear it.

The cheapness of religious cant is that it subsumes one reality - that of pain, suffering, and death - into another one: the victory of God. It tries to make the sorrow "go away," and not for a commitment to truth or to the person suffering, but simply out fear of the discomfort of facing the truth of the person suffering.

When we are suffering, it is good to remind ourselves of God's Providence, and that He is as displeased with the pain we are experiencing as we are, and to ask ourselves, and Him, honestly, what role this might play in His plan for our lives. When others are suffering, it is probably better just to listen presently at whatever length, help them practically in ways they might need or request, let them ask their own questions in their own time, and let our presence in persona Christi serve as an unspoken answer.

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.

Cana and God's All-Powerful Word

The good news is that I was on a five day silent retreat this past week and so I have had plenty of time to meditate and pray on today’s readings. The bad news is that I wasn’t allowed to talk for five days (so maybe I’ll make up for that now). During this silent retreat, I of course had no connection to the outside world; no internet, no cell phone or newspaper. When I met with my spiritual director on Tuesday, he told me that there had been a huge earthquake in Haiti and that thousands upon thousands had died and everything was in ruins. I was completely taken aback, and I have to admit that my first thoughts were along the lines of, “God, couldn’t you have prevented this?” I’m sure all of us had similar thoughts go through our heads. In times like these, we’re tempted to think of God’s powerlessness. We’re tempted to think he doesn’t care or can’t help us. This is Satan’s temptation, to have us think that God is powerless against evil.

It may not be because of what happened in Haiti. It may because of financial ruin, the death of a loved one, seeing a loved one suffer, or a sin we can’t seem to conquer. For many different reasons, I’m sure that all of us have had the temptation at one time or another to think that God doesn’t care, that he isn’t here with us in our suffering, or that he’s powerless against evil. Because it’s so easy to fall into that temptation, it’s such a great thing that we have the Mass. At Mass we profess our faith together: “We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty.” We proclaim God’s mighty works in Scripture, the living Word of God. It is at Mass that we are brought back truly and spiritually to the crucifixion: the moment when it seemed evil had triumphed, but in reality God had won his most powerful, decisive, everlasting, and glorious victory. With all of this in mind, the message of today’s readings is God’s Word is all-powerful.

Imagine sitting in a ramshackle church in Haiti right now; you may have lost family, friends, or all your possessions. Now imagine how you would hear this line from the first reading that could have easily gone in one of our ears and out the other: “No more shall men call you forsaken or your land desolate.” Just think how resonating those words are for Haitians who may have dug their way into church this morning, who truly feel forsaken and whose land is clearly desolate. The prophet Isaiah wrote these words as the Israelites were in exile in Babylon. The Israelites had been torn from their land, the promised land which Yahweh had given them. In their time of great suffering, what does God promise them? He says, “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet.” God will speak, and simply by speaking they will be saved. Later the reading says, “You shall be called by a new name pronounced by the mouth of the Lord.” For the Israelites, God’s Word was all-powerful. Just by his speaking, their fortunes would change. They would go from being called “forsaken” to being called “my delight.” Their land would go from being called “desolate” to being called “espoused.” In the midst of great suffering for the Israelites, Isaiah declares that just by God’s almighty word, Israel would gain freedom and be restored to its land. If you’ve ever gone to the sacrament of reconciliation, burdened and broken by sin and heard those words of the priest, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” you know as the Israelites did that God’s word is all powerful. The ruins of our soul are restored to beauty.

The Gospel also testifies to the fact that God’s word is all-powerful. We might be tempted to think that Christ changing water into wine was a simple act of kindness to an embarrassed groom. Certainly, it was a kind act, but it was more than that. It was a powerful act. Notice that one of the last lines of the Gospel reads, “Thus did he reveal his glory.” I don’t associate glory simply with kind gestures, but with powerful, miraculous actions.

Notice how Jesus performs the miracle of changing ordinary water into the best of all wines. He simply commands, “Fill the jars with water.” He does it through the power of his word. It takes nothing more; no praying over the water or blessing it; he doesn’t need to touch the water or do anything else. By those simple words a great miracle takes place. This reminds us of a later miracle when Jesus offers to go to the centurion’s house to heal his servant. The centurion responds with incredible faith and humility. He knows the Lord doesn’t have to come to his house to heal his servant. He has no need of praying over his servant, touching him or even seeing him to heal him, so the centurion says, “Lord, only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” We take the centurion’s line and apply it to ourselves before every Holy Communion: “Lord only say the word (your all-powerful word), and I shall be healed.”

Jesus changing the water into wine through his simple instruction also reminds us of what will take place later in this Mass. The priest, who during the consecration is really acting in the person of Christ, will say those sacred words, “This is my body,” then, “This is the cup of my blood.” Just by repeating Jesus’ words, the greatest miracle in heaven and on earth takes place: the bread and wine become Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity. Instead of water being turned into wine, wine is turned into Jesus. Rather than prolonging a marriage reception, Jesus allows us to participate in the heavenly wedding feast of God. Instead of supplying wine which will provide drink for a couple hours or days, we receive the food and drink that provides our nourishment for eternal life. This all happens through God’s word. God’s word is truly all-powerful.

We are tempted to think because of certain sufferings of our own or of others, that God is powerless against evil. Nothing is further from the truth. This same God who created the world through his word, who changed water into wine through his word, and who changes bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood through that same word, will change our mourning into dancing, our suffering into joy.

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.

It's Over - But Really, It's Just Beginning

Well, folks, it's over. Christmastide, that is. Now we are back in the day-in day-out of ordinary Christian living marked governed by the ordinary ordinances of Ordinary Time. And it's no coincidence that this period begins today with the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. Isn't it baptism that begins all of our lives in the Lord?

Here is the first reading from today's Mass (Is 42:1-4, 6-7):

Thus says the LORD:
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased,
upon whom I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
not crying out, not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
a bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

So many messages for the Christian life:

"Here is my servant whom I uphold": God upholds us, as a Church and each of us individually.  We can rely upon Him.  He does that not upon our own meritorious character, but because of our intimate union with His Son: the "chosen one" with whom he is actually "well pleased."  In the beginning, all of creation was "very good," (Gen 1:31) but sin damaged all of creation very badly.  Now, in Christ, we can be a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) that is again pleasing to God the Father (Heb 13:20-21).

The Christian follows Christ in bringing forth "justice to the nations," but he does not do it with riots, rebellions, crying out, or "shouting... in the street."  Instead, the Christian brings uprightness to the nations without breaking even anything as fragile as "a bruised reed."  The ways of the world are not the ways of a Christian, who is always on guard to be delicate, delicate with souls, lest he "quench" the "smoldering wick" of someone's embryonic faith.  He persists in his pursuit until the very edges of the world, the "coastlands" hear his teaching - because they are eager for it.

The LORD, the great I-AM, calls us "for the victory of justice."  He grasps us by the hand as a father takes his little boy, his little girl, and leads them step by step.  The distance seems far to us only because we are small, but our Father is very great, and he will grow us, form us into Christian men and women.  We will serve as a living covenant, a living sign of the commitment of God to His creatures and of those as of yet unruly creatures to their God.  The very way we live our lives - uprightly, doing what is right whatever it cost us, merciful to the weak and the poor - will make us a "light for the nations."  Our life in Christ will "open the eyes of the blind" so that they too can come to know His immense love for them.  People who are "prisoners" to the "confinement" and "darkness" of sinful ways of life - irresponsible borrowing and spending, excessive eating and drinking, shallow and broken relationships, promiscuity, lies, wrecked families, dependency on glamorous false solutions to life's problems - these people will see Christ in the conduct of our lives, and they will come to follow Him and be saved.

Or not.

The difference could very well be in how effectively we set our egos out of the way and let Him work in us.  We will do this setting-aside by taking up our cross daily (Lk 9:23) and following Him, even if it is to a place we would rather not go (Jn 21:18).  In this daily voluntary setting-aside of our desires when we cannot legitimately set aside our sufferings, we will know joy.  Joy is not ecstasy.  Daily ecstasy would be too much to bear for us right now anyway.  Joy is knowledge of the of the acting of God, of the providence of God, kingdom of God, in our daily lives.  It does not make the suffering go away, but it makes everything fit into a big picture, and makes even our sufferings sufferable.  Ordinary Time is the time to practice this daily joy in the midst of daily suffering for the daily sanctification of the world.

Ordinary Time doesn't sound so ho-hum now, does it?

What the Priest Told Me in Confession Today

The priest to whom I made my confession today told me the coolest thing:

When you wake up in the morning, that is God saying to you, 'Get up! I've got something important for you to do today!' And you want to get in the habit of asking yourself and asking God throughout the day, 'OK, God, so what's the next thing I do today?'

I believe that he was bearing in mind that, being underemployed right now, I have more free time than normal. Such time is often squandered unintentionally on frivolities, and the long term effect of such leaking is demoralization.

Psalm 116

This psalm has been very important in my prayer for several years now. Enjoy!

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!

Another Gross Copyright Violation...

I hope to be excused my copyright violations by my intent to promote others to purchase and read the books from which I copy willy-nilly.  Here is an awesome passage from Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J.'s He Leadeth Me.  It's about his time in the prisons, gulags, and Siberian villages of the Soviet Union.

Whatever the trials of the moment, whatever the hardships or sufferings, more important than all these was the knowledge that they had been sent by God and served his divine providence.  I could not always fathom the depths of his providence or pretend to understand his wisdom, but I was secure in the knowledge that by abandoning myself to his will I was doing as perfectly as I could his will for me.

Spiritual freedom of this sort, as I knew from bitter experience, is not something that can be attained overnight or ever possessed in its final form.  Every new day, every new hour of every day, every new circumstance and situation, every new act is a new opportunity to exercise and grow in this freedom.  What is required for growth is an attitude of acceptance and openness to the will of God, rather than some planned approach or calculated method.  Even as ascetical (sic) practices such as penances, fasting, or mortifications can can be hindrances rather than helps if they are self-imposed.  Striving instead to eliminate all self-will, to accept God's will revealed in the circumstances of daily life, is the surest way to achieve growth in conformity to the will of God.  It will provide more than enough virtue to be practiced, suffering to be sustained, pain to be borne; more importantly still, it will make us fit instruments to achieve his designs, not only for our own salvation but for others as well.  The service of God must take preference over all else.

There is more, but you'll have to pick up a copy of the book and read it.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux on the Church

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

The Slaughter of the Innocents Goes On...

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!

Christmas Eve Homily--The Gift is Mine

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.

Stones Crying Out

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!

Dear Young People

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!

Give Me, Good Lord... a Prayer of St. Thomas More

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

Faith, Hope, and Love in a Book I'm Reading

Here is a quote from a short but deep book that I am reading, Fr. Jacques Philippe's Interior Freedom.  Check it out:

But always it is through an act of God, hidden or open, that faith, hope, and charity are possible.  The theological virtues awaken and grow in human hearts bu the work and teaching of the Holy Spirit.  That divine teaching is sometimes quite disconcerting.  Let us look at the way the Holy Spirit acts within us.

There is no way to chart all the Spirit does in any life.  We can't set rules for it or plan it.  "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes," (Jn 3:8).  Yet, certain constants can be traced.  The mysteries of the Rosary can help us see that.

The Rosary is a very beautiful prayer through which we entrust ourselves to our Lady in order to enter into communion with the events of Christ's life.  But it is also a kind of symbol of every human life.  Just as the Rosary contains joyful, sorrowful, and finally glorious mysteries, it could be said of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that there are "outpourings" that are joyful, sorrowful, and glorious.  (That is the order of their importance, but they occur in a cyclical way.)

Some outpourings of the Holy Spirit illuminate and reveal, some strip and impoverish, and some confirm and fortify.  All three kinds are necessary: the first to give birth to faith, the second to teach us hope, and the third to give us the courage to love.

The author then proceeds to use details of the life of St. Peter that are recorded in the gospels as illustrations of his interpretation.  When I read this tonight in adoration chapel, I literally jumped in my seat.  "Holy crap!" I thought.  I know, not terribly pious - my apologies. "That's my life."

There's a lot of brain food in Fr. Philippe's words.  The book is simple to read, yet thick - one doesn't rush through such things.  I hope my mind isn't doing cartwheels still when I lay me down in a little bit.