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.

The Word Became Flesh

This post is written with my anonymous agnostic poster in mind. The rest of you may listen in as well, and I am happy for the feedback you might provide.

Jesus is the Word of God - not mere words spoken by men - but the Word become a Man.

That's the point that Fr. Johnson and I lost you, right? You wrote:

Up until that, Father Johnson's points were fairly clear and encouraging. Then, however, out comes a statement which makes no sense. What exactly do you mean? How can a word transform into a person? I'd have an easier time of it if it was worded like 'God magically created a humanoid embodiment of His defining characteristics and called it Jesus'. At least then I know that there's an indescribable plot device involved.

OK, so first, let's look at what we mean by a word. A word is a bit of sound, but it's sound intentionally formed to convey a meaning. Now, as Christians, we believe that everything is for a purpose because God, when making everything, had a purpose in mind. Everything that's happened since has had a bit of that purpose. The purpose of words and of language is to convey meaning, but not just any meaning. They are meant to convey truth, that is, reality as sincerely understood in the mind. I might be mistaken, but yet speak truthfully, if I speak what I truly believe to be real, true. We can call this communication. We could also call it something similar in meaning: sharing. The purpose of me doing so is to take what is in my mind and put it, by means of my mouth, voice, and your ears, into your mind.

But if I deliberately speak not truth, but falsehood - saying not what is true, but merely what will get me what I want, then I deceive and twist. Now God does not speak falsehood. It would be contrary to his nature. That's a separate conversation that we can go into later, but now, suffice it to say that he cannot lie. He knows the universe because he made it and permeates it, exists outside of it and everywhere inside of it.

It is at this point that we enter into a mystery. A mystery is not, for a Christian, a whodunnit to be solved. Rather, it is the result of contact with the divine. God is so freaking big, infinite, that we can never understand him - except little bits here and there. It's like laying on your back and looking up at the clear blue sky - we can never see the whole thing at once, but only parts of it. Have you ever noticed that? It's because we're finite. So when we encounter God, it always leaves us feeling a sense of being small, but in a good way, or of him being big, but not in a bad way. Encountering him is like standing at the base of a Rocky Mountain and looking up at it.

So here is the mystery. God, who needs nothing and is complete in himself, decided to share himself, to communicate himself, with us who rely on him for our daily bread, our every breath, whether we realize it or not. Infinite him wanted to put something of himself into finite us. He does so first by speaking into the hearts and minds of the prophets. Now, he is a pure spirit, so even referring to him as he is selling him short. But in English, it is only worse. For other reasons, we tend to stick with he, but it's nothing we need to get stuck on right now. The point is that as a pure spirit, God doesn't communicate with soundwaves from a mouth, but by inserting thoughts and evoking feelings - "Heart speaks to heart," a very wise Englishman once wrote. We see something like this phenomenon between people who know each other very, very well. A simple glance across a crowded room is enough to let one spouse know the other's heart. They sometimes anticipate each other's thoughts while physically absent from each other. In ancient times, God spoke to the prophets in this way. The quality of their lives opened them up very deeply to receive whatever he might want to share with them, and he shared with them so that they could speak aloud to people whose ears worked, but whose hearts were harder. This belief is shared by Christians and Jews, and we call those ancients the prophets, because the Greek word means one who speaks on behalf.

Now, God employed the prophets to teach people his will, the way of life that he designed to bring them optimal happiness. And he taught them successively deeper lessons. They started simply, "There's one God, who saved you from slavery and will provide for your needs. That's me." The messages to the prophets became more intense, but never really got much more complex. He started adding hints of a deeper message though, but it was a hard one to believe. The message he started to add was, "And I love you."

That's the hard one. In a world broken by violence so badly that even families are broken by violence, it can be hard to believe that the Mind-Behind-Everything cares about a little individual old me, can't it. Atheists try to make it out like believing in God is some big leap of faith. But, my dear Agnostic Reader, you and I know that it's almost commonsense. God virtually screams at us, "HERE I AM!" everywhere in nature. The leap of faith isn't that Someone made all the stuff that couldn't have happened by accident or chance. The leap of faith is that Someone loves us.

So the Christian belief is that God made the leap of faith for us. In the most fabric-of-the-universe-shredding leap possible, he himself became a human being, just like the rest of us, so he could show us in terms that we'd understand that he loves us. When we say the "Word became flesh," or the "Word became man," we mean a lot of things. For now, it is enough to say that God took what he knows of himself, his own self-knowledge, and using the same infinite power that created the universe, made it into a man who was conceived in a woman, born as a baby, and grew up to be known as Jesus, a man of Nazareth.

This belief is lunatic and weird, and insane, and how it can be other than "God is all-powerful," I cannot understand. But it is exactly what Christians believe happened in a particular town in a particular country at a particular time and place. So this man, Jesus of Nazareth, was both fully a human being who bled if cut, had feelings, had to grow up, learn to tie his sandals, and all of it - and yet was also every bit as much God. He was God revealing himself, communicating himself, wording himself to us, if you will. He was God sharing himself with us.

And he did it because he loves us. He wanted to show us how much he loves us. Everything that happened to him afterward flows from that.  Jesus of Nazareth lived and worked among particular people and built up a following of people who are in part intrigued by his interpretation of their moral laws, and in part eager to experience one of the wonders that he had been said to perform.  He did not let them down, either, but worked numerous miracles without ever seeming chiefly interested in them.  He began to intimate to his followers that he was God, or the Son of God, or one with God.  It must have been hard for them to tell exactly what he was driving at because they don't seem to have understood for some time.  His teachings became more radical and he directly challenged the religious leaders of his day because of their hypocrisy.  They conspired against him and had him executed.  But on the third day he rose from the dead, his body transformed and his mannerisms wholly different.  For a bit over a month he walked among them again, but never stayed with them for very long.  At this point, he seems to have been mainly interested in them knowing that it really was him, and that the one who had been slain had been raised.  Then, in a last supernatural feat, he was taken bodily to heaven, which is weird, because heaven is not at the moment a bodily place.  But taken he was.

Now we Christians believe that 2000 years later, he is still speaking to any who will listen.  He can do this because he is not dead, but is risen, because his human body is not rotting but is raised and transcends mere physicality.  He does this as he as spoke to the prophets, by provoking his message to arise in our hearts and minds.  If we are too busy racing around doing stuff, his message will only occur to us as some sort of irritating or unanswered twitch in the back of our mind, or some sort of unease in our heart, an unexamined stirring of our conscience.  But it will not get through to us very easily unless we take time out to attend to it.

Now, I don't believe that this is all mumbo-jumbo, because I have experienced it.  I believe that on a number of occasions God has given me clear instructions while I prayed, and has also consoled me by changing my heart in ways I could not do myself.  But I also know myself somewhat, and know that I am more than capable of making up mumbo-jumbo.  It is entirely possible for me to think, "Oh, God told me X," when in reality I merely have indigestion, a short temper, or a bad night's sleep.  It is important for me not to take too seriously the things I think that God has said until I arrive at some sort of verification that is more objective.

So, dear anonymous reader, I hope that this response addresses your concerns, even if - I am sure - it doesn't exactly clear them all up.  Keep seeking God.

A Little Culture, pt. 1

Lately, I have been trying to build my scant knowledge of classical music. A lot of it is very beautiful and moving. It is like a language of its own.

Check it out. The Ancient Greeks, I am thinking especially of the Pythagorean philosophers, studied music and harmonics extensively, and influenced Plato heavily. These folks believed that music, which they arranged in harmonic ratios that mirrored those they found in the ratios of distances of planets in the solar system, was the language of the soul, binding us directly to the cosmos by a common tongue, if you will.

The Jews believe(d) that in the final fulfillment of God's promises, all the holy ones will join the hosts of angels in singing God's praises for eternity. We Christians have built on this idea and even gone so far as to say that this purpose is the highest purpose of a person: to sing God's praises with his whole being. Victor Hugo gives a glimpse of the Christian rationale for this expectation. Though the French Romantic poet's sympathy with workers' rights seemed to him incompatible with practicing the Catholic Faith of his youth, he came from a deeply Catholic background. He wrote, "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent."

Confucius wrote, "The inner nature of man is the province of music." He explains this in some further detail: "Therefore, the superior man tries to create harmony in the human heart, by a rediscovery of human nature, and tries to promote music as a means to the perfection of human culture. When such music prevails, and the people’s minds are led towards the right ideals and aspirations, we may see the appearance of a great nation. Character is the backbone of our human nature, and music is the flowering of character." He even asserted that by means of listening to the music being played in a city, the agents of a ruler could assess the moral condition of the people therein. And finally, "When music and courtesy are better understood and appreciated, then there will be no war," (all from the Analects).

What have all these wise people, from so many times and places, known that we modern Westerners have forgotten?

It is interesting. The classical music of China is very different from that of the West. I have no idea how different, only very. But I'll bet that even with different instruments, different preferences for tempo, and different arrangements of chords, etc., it is still based on tonality and harmonization - though different tones and harmonies may prevail there than here. I'll bet.


Yet in the West we have abandoned tonal harmony in our music. How symptomatic. One of my hopes is to drink in a deep appreciation of the classical Western culture that is so informed by the Incarnation of God as a man, so informed with the aspiration that the material and the human can bear witness to the spiritual and the divine, and can even transmit them to us, so in deeply hopeful that the material world means something. As I drink more of this appreciation, I hope deeply to share it with others. Thus the ideal of the West was preserved by Christianity during the Dark Ages, and rebuilt (resurrected?) during the Medieval. Thus, as modernity expends itself will the West be preserved amid the wash of postmodernism and God knows whatever will follow, and thus will it again be resurrected by the Church, if Jesus does not return first. Needless to say, I think it a very good thing that some Catholic parishes, cathedrals, and universities are beginning again to promote culture through music and the visual arts in particular.

For putting up with this little lecture, I'll give you a treat. Click here for free MP3 downloads of classical music. Go on, you know you want to. On me. Make your day a little more beautiful.

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.

Populus Sion

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent. We're getting closer. Last week, as a Church we cried out to God, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul," and this week God gives us His reply: "Populus Sion, ecce Dominus veniet ad salvandas gentes." People of Zion, He says through His prophet, Behold the Lord comes to save the nations.

We call out to God and He responds. His entrance into the world is, of course, the fullness of this response. The Lord came to the world to save the nations. That's you and me, our neighbors, our families, our towns, our country, the whole world. The work of God in this respect has clearly not yet been brought to its fullest fulfillment. He will return to finish the job, though. In the meantime, when He returns, He expects to find us busy helping to get things ready. Let's pray and get to work.

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).

The End of Days

Today, for the Catholic Church, is the last day of the liturgical year. This evening we begin a new year in Christ, the year of our Lord 2009, with the vigil of the First Sunday of Advent. The introit for the First Sunday of Advent, the first words spoken in the liturgy, are Ad te levavi animam meam, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul," (Ps 25). I hope I won't sound impertinent by saying that the various caretakers of our holy liturgy have, over the millennia, decided well by using verses from this psalm to open the liturgical year.

The liturgical year might be thought of as our life in Christ lived out over the course of a year. The first half of the year celebrates Advent and Christmas, the time in which we remember our Lord God's incarnation and entrance into the world as an honest-to-God human being. Then comes a liturgical pause, known as the Ordinary Time, in which all the regular rules and ordinances of Christian living apply. In this period, the Mass readings focus especially on the basic teachings of our Lord. During Lent, the next phase, we focus on renunciation of the things of the world and interior conversion. Faith, hope, and love, so prominent in the Christian life, crystallize into prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We remember the suffering and death of our Lord during the brief period known as Passiontide that comes at the end of Lent, followed by the Triduum, the three most sacred days of the year, in which the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are made manifest to us again in the liturgy. The explosion of joy at the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the God-man, at the Easter Vigil and the fifty days of Eastertide (to trump the forty days of Lent) is marked by baptisms, bonnets, confirmations, May Day, parish picnics, and the rest. So the first half of the liturgical year concludes. The second half resumes Ordinary Time and its weekly, daily reflection on what it means to live as a follower of Jesus, as one who wishes to follow Him even into eternity.

And it all begins with a psalm, and sung poem inspired by the Holy Spirit, "To Thee I have lifted up my soul." The world moans in exile from Eden, riddled with sin, mourning in death and death's fall-out zone: bickering friends, starving children, despair, frustration, suffering, and all the things that God never desired for us but that we have brought upon ourselves collectively by our collective sin. We lift up our soul to God, like a mother holding a dying child, like our Blessed Mother grief-stricken and holding her murdered Son. Our heart groans and cracks under the weight of the sadness we are expected to bear, our exile from Eden, our slavery in Egypt, our bondage in Babylon, our weeping in this valley of tears. And God, in his unfathomable love and mercy, stoops down to lift us up, to lift us from the dunghill and set us on a firm rock (Ps. 40), to live with us and to love us face to face. In Advent, we reflect upon our sinful condition, we remember what God has done for us, what God is doing for us, what God will do for us. We remember His first coming into the world, about 2000 years ago; and we attend to His daily return in the People of God, in the proclaimed Gospel, in our private prayers, and especially in the Sacraments and in our sufferings handing over to Him. We look forward to His final return in Glory, the Parousia, at which He will fully, finally manifest His Kingdom, His way of doing things, and set everything to rights.

In the Gospel reading for the I Sunday of Advent (Is 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7; Ps 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37), our Lord warns us to watch, to pay attention, because we do not know when the End will come and so we must stay ready. Moreover, if we do not pay attention, we will miss Him here and now as He begins and continues His saving work in our life. Emmanuel means "God with us," and He is truly with us, and He is coming. This year, lift up your soul to God and watch to see what He does.

The Real Scandal

Christ is risen, alleluia!

The real scandal of Christianity, it's real shocker, isn't that Jesus died on a cross. Please don't understand me here to mean that Paul was mistaken to call the cross a scandal. Not at all. It's just that the Romans crucified people all the time. That's no secret, nor is it a shock.

The real scandal is that God loves us that much. The idea that the Force behind the Universe is really a Being - that much can be accepted by almost all. That the Being behind the Universe is really a Person - that too, can be accepted by almost all. That the Person loves us, so much that He entered into our pitiful condition - that is something many of us, even practicing Christians, don't really buy very easily. And even if we buy it, we usually brush over it. We think we "get it," when we've only just begun to fathom what that means.

The Resurrection of our Blessed Lord, which we celebrate this Easter Week, is a direct consequence of God's immense love. In the words of the Song of Songs, "Love is strong as death," (Sng 8:6). The same Love that brought the Son of God to take on human flesh led the Son of God to die for the sake of that human flesh. The same Love that brought the Son of God to die for the sake of that human flesh overpowered death in all of its manifestations and implications (disease, suffering, hatred, etc.) and conquered the grave. That Love restored the Son to His Father, and bound to Him in that Love we now have the hope of being restored to the Father as well. Christ is risen, alleluia!

We need to be clear what is meant by "Resurrection" because there has been renewed confusion about it in recent years. Four major points need to be laid out that come to us from the Scriptures and the Gospel Tradition.

1. The resurrection is historical.
2. The resurrection is witnessed.
3. The resurrection is bodily.
4. The resurrection is supernatural.

The articles that follow over the next few days will address these points, each in turn. In doing so, the articles will lay out a brief apologetic regarding each point. Finally, the last article will be devoted to drawing out some basic implications of the Resurrection of Jesus. In the meantime, rejoice, for Christ is truly risen, alleluia!

Images of the Invisible God

St. John Damascene, priest and doctor (Dec 4)

St. John Damascene (b. 676) is considered the last of the Church Fathers, a priest, monk, scholar, and he heavily influenced the last (Seventh) Ecumenical Council recognized by all Christians, the Second Council of Nicaea (787). That council was convened to settle a great controversy and threat that had arisen in the East.

The controversy was regarding the use of sacred images (icons, but also statues and other depictions) in worship. The Jews had generally resisted such things holding that one could not depict the Invisible and Living God - no image could capture his essence, and any attempt at an image of God was merely an idol. Christians had generally always tolerated images as a matter of course.

Now Arabic raiders and hordes fueled pressed in against Christendom. They were fueled by passionate conviction in their new religion - Islam. It had only two essential tenants - that God is One, and the Mohammed is His prophet. Yet, part and parcel with those convictions was a third - depicting God was to be forbidden. Everywhere the Muslim Arabs struck, they conquered: Christian Palestine, Christian Egypt, Christian North Africa, Christian Spain, Christian Syria, Christian Persia all fell to the Arabs by the mid-700s. Many Christians became suspicious that they had been mistaken to allow the use of icons. They became fearful that God was punishing Christianity for heresy, heresies that may have even spread by the use of icons. They pointed out that Islam - so crystal clear and simple - forbad icons. The Jews forbad icons. Why should Christianity permit them?

It was in this turmoil that John grew up, as his native Syria was being overrun and taken over by the Arabic hordes. The Muslim Arabs had a modicum of respect for Christianity and Judaism, and what wasn't destroyed in initial conquests and sackings was generally left alone - including the interiors of churches and homes. So it was the Christians continued to have their icons. But in fear was rife in Constantinople, the capital of the Christian East, where the remainder of the Eastern Roman Empire still held on by a fingernail. Several times the Muslim Arabs struck and were repelled, but a seige mentality of fear settled upon that great city.

It was then, in 726, that Emperor Leo the Isaurian of Constantinople began his war against icons. He began passing laws to forbid their use in worship, and even to have them removed from public places. The Christian Patriarch of the city objected, and the emperor responded by ordering an ancient image of the Mother of God, hanging in the cathedral, to be taken down and smashed in the town square. He and his followers became know as the Icon-Smashers (iconoclasts).

At the time, John Damascene was the chief councillor of Damascus and served on the court of the Muslim Caliph who ruled that city and much of the Islamic world of the day. John was a Christian laymen serving the Muslim ruler of his city because he had a very important skill necessary for civil administration and lacking among the Arabs of the day - John could read. Not only that, but John had received the very best classical education available in his time - he read and wrote Greek, Latin, Syrian, studied philosophy, the natural sciences, theology, history, and music. He was a diligent worker, and served the Caliph well, helping to protect Christians from unnecessary difficulties.

While serving on the court of an icon-hating Muslim, John began to write letters to the icon-smashing Emperor, and to the Christian Patriarch helpless to resist the smashing. John, though far away, was anything but helpless. His letters were a brilliant defense of icons. He argued that in the Person of Jesus Christ, God has fully revealed Himself, and thus removed the danger of idolatry formerly attached to images. He quoted scripture, "He is the image of the invisible God," (Col 1:15). "Since God had begun to use images, mightn't we?" John asked. Before our senses could not take in God. Now, because of the Incarnation of the Word of God, the Enfleshment of God, our lowly flesh could take in God - we can eat His Body and drink His Blood. When he walked among us, we could shake His Hand and see His Face. To extend those experiences to later generations by means of images is surely not contradicting God's generous gift of Himself to us. John Damascene argued that denying the use of images was to deny the Incarnation of the Son of God.

The Emperor was embittered by John's scholarly resistance. He ordered that within the Empire, John be refered to only as The Bastard. But he went further. The Emperor had forged in handwriting very much like John's a letter offering to betray the city of Damascus to the Emperor. He then sent the letter to the Caliph. The Caliph had John's hand lopped off for writing the note, and dismissed John from his court. This sentence was lightened, compared to how most "traitors" were treated, because of the Caliph's great love and esteem of John for his virtue. When John's hand was miraculously restored, the Caliph offered John his old job back.

Understandably, John was hesistant, and decided to seek ordination rather that returning to the court of the Caliph. The Bishop of Damascus ordained him a priest. He continued his defense of icons, and wrote several beautiful sermons about the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He made an encyclopedic compilation of all the philosophy of his day called The Fount of Wisdom. The Arabic philosophers who would later influence St. Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics relied heavily on this book. His writings, and perhaps he personally, greatly influenced the Second Council of Ephesus, at which his doctrine of icons won out. He died sometime before or during the council (787), living to be perhaps as old as 111 (!), but exactly when is unclear.

Notably, as the Protestant Reformation (starting 1517) took its Calvinist turn (in the 1540s), Protestants began removing and destroying sacred images from their homes and from places of worship. While there isn't any argument made at the time connecting this new iconoclastic movement to Islam, one has to wonder. That was the same time period in which Muslim finally smashed through Constantinople and began overrunning Eastern Europe. By the time of Calvin, the Muslims were well on their way toward Vienna and Germany. Perhaps Protestants feared, like the Iconoclast Heretics of the ancient past, that the Muslim's success was due to their rejection of icons.

In our own day, we are grateful to see a renewed interest in traditional parts of Christian worship. The use of incense, consecration bells, icons, rosaries, statuary, and more in our liturgy and churches had shown a tremendous decline since the mid-1900s. Many of those responsible for removing and even smashing beautiful marble altars, replacing them wooden tables, throwing beautiful Stations of the Cross into dumpsters, and replacing them with abstractions entirely unrecognizable as artistry, have done so in the name of "updating" or "modernizing." That is, they were eager to aid and abet the great enemy of our time - the opinion of the "rest of the world," also known as secularism. For a generation or two, Catholics starting trying to fit in with their Protestant and secular neighbors who seemed so successful and powerful, just as Christians in St. John Damascene's day were so worried about their Muslim neighbor's plans. In the last decade or two, thanks be to God, we have seen a dramatic reversal in this trend. Can we doubt for a second that St. John Damascene has been pleading our case in the Heavenly Courts?

St. John Damascene, pray for us.