Tag: St. Mark

  • From Palms to Passion

    From Palms to Passion

    Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion: Mark 11:1-10, Isaiah 50:4-7, Psalm 22, Philippians 2:6-11, Mark 14:1 – 15:47.

    Holy Week is upon us. Three liturgical celebrations stand out in the life of the Church over the course of a year: The Nativity of Our Lord, Palm Sunday, and Easter. While we are invited to encounter Christ every day of the year — his Incarnation and Birth, his suffering and sacrifice, and his great Resurrection — these three celebrations stand out in the structure and content of the Mass.

    Corpus Christi Procession (La procesión de Corpus), 1887, Arcadi Mas y Fondevila | Image from artsandculture.google.com.

    Today is one of these three and it struck me as I marveled at the triple-normal attendance filling our pandemic-distanced chapel that we had all come anticipating the great and terrible narrative that was to fill the air. We knew that the initial hosannas would quickly fade into the long gospel reading detailing Christ’s betrayal, torture and death. Not only did we know it, we had gathered in numbers triple our normal size so that we could bear witness to it, mourn with Mary at his tomb, and receive sustenance from the very Body and Blood that was torn apart on that day. Even for people who weren’t completely engaged with the reason that they were there, something drew them to come, some knowledge imparted from the Church that instilled in them how important this day is.

    This entire phenomenon makes me reflect on the narrative that makes us who we are as Christians and how we participate in the telling of the story. 

    There is a grand scope to the narrative on Palm Sunday, and in the Catholic Church, we are asked to participate in its telling in a very performative way. Although this year was slightly different due to pandemic precautions, consider how the liturgical celebration starts: it starts outside the chapel. Before processing into the chapel as the Church, we read “Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out: ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” And this is what we do.

    We are a performative Church. We hold our palm leaves and sing a song of hosanna as we walk into the new Jerusalem with Christ. This is not “mere” theater. This is a huge reminder that what we do as a Church in every liturgy is performative as well as commemorative. By “performative,” let me be clear that I do not mean acting, as if we do not believe or actually live out what we’re doing. I use the word performative as in performing a ritual act.

    Religious ritual acts (in which the entire Judeo-Christian tradition is steeped, and is common to all religions) are special: done in a special place, in a special way, with special gestures and special words. This post is about interrogating the depths of meaning behind the performative acts in our liturgical life. So, to be clear, we actively celebrate Christ’s sacrifice in the form of the liturgy.

    The first reading connects Isaiah to Jesus who will come after him: “The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.” Both men are prophets who share the Word of God as a salve for humanity. And, then: “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.” Isaiah also lives out the mocking and beating that Jesus will, this very day, be subjected to. And, finally, the firm faith that enables such treatment to be endured: “The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.” We need to hear these final words of the first reading, knowing what we know about the Passion narrative to come. It helps us to endure our sympathetic suffering with Christ. It helps to palliate the treatment of our Lord.

    The responsorial psalm — oh, the psalm! It gives us the fuller context for Jesus’s final words on the Cross. The refrain of our psalm is the famous line “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” As Jesus utters these last words, we can both sympathize with the sentiment and be somewhat troubled by the implication. On one hand, we will see how the Passion narrative displays Jesus’s increasing abandonment by everyone who is close to him. If we take this line on its own, it seems to be that Jesus expresses complete abandonment, even by the Father. Theologically, this is greatly troubling, and actually makes no sense. The first Person of the Trinity would never (could never) abandon the second Person of the Trinity. Their love unites them in a way that is fundamental to the fabric of the universe. 

    What else could be going on here?

    Psalm 22:1-8 in the St. Albans Psalter (1100s). The first words of the Psalm in the Latin Vulgate are “Deus, Deus meus,” abbreviated here as DS DS MS. | Wikimedia Commons.

    The content of the psalm is not as dire as the first line makes it out to be. The words certainly express the distress of an individual in need of help, one who has endured scorn and who feels abandoned. But the psalm also includes verses like, “From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” Also, more to the concern of the opening line: “he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.” It also ends on a very positive note of praise and deliverance. We hear, “future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.”

    When taken as a whole, the psalm not only speaks to the emotional condition of a man like Jesus at the culmination of his torture, but also to his redemptive action in the world.

    Just like we should not take the opening line out of context from the whole psalm, we we can learn from the context of how the Jewish tradition employed it. Rabbis attributed this psalm either to King David or Esther. The connection to Esther is so strong, in fact, that it would be prayed annually during the Fast of Esther, on the eve of the festival of Purim. Christ would have grown up praying Psalm 22 during that day and night of fasting, commemorating the three days of Esther’s fasting and prayer before she presented herself to the Babylonian King Ahasuerus and advocated to save the Jews from slaughter. The Jews prayed Psalm 22 to link themselves to this great model of petitioning the Father. The result was that God heard her prayer and saved the Jews from annihilation. 

    So, we can conceivably interpret Christ’s utterance on the Cross as beginning this same fast, this three days where he will disappear from the earth, enter the underworld to rescue humanity from the grip of death. He will enact the deliverance of the world on Easter, but here on the Cross, as he begins this fast in great sympathy with the Jerusalem he had just cried for, he is imploring the Father’s help and praising the Father as he always has.

    Returning to the Palm Sunday Liturgy of the Word, it is difficult to encounter this great text in part because it stretches over many days and many episodes central to our religious practice. We will reflect more on the Last Supper on Holy Thursday and upon the treacherous death on the Cross on Good Friday.

    One of the things that struck me as I stood in our chapel today listening to the priest and two lay people read the parts of the Passion were some of the details supplied by St. Mark in his almost breathless account. These details act like symbolic signposts, standing in for the impossible spiritual depth of the action at that moment. For me, they help to orient me within the Church as I participate in Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Below are just a few of them.

    Alabaster candle holders | Image from entertheloft.com.

    She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head … They were infuriated with her. Alabaster is a gorgeous, translucent white form of gypsum, often used to hold expensive oils in the ancient world such as those given as part of a woman’s dowry to her husband. The gesture from Mary of Bethany is the gesture of the Church to her Bridegroom. Mark tells us that she “broke” the jar, and whether this means a wax seal or the neck of the jar, the action is absolute and the ointment cannot be re-sealed and reused. This is an absolute devotion, using the most expensively perfumed oil. Jesus himself notes the appropriateness of her actions: “She has anticipated anointing my body for burial,” and even christens it as an act truly representative of the Church to come: “wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

    Yet the other disciples were infuriated with her. Their rebuke of her is redolent with earthly concerns — noble, to be sure, in that they seek to help the poor — but these are at odds with the spiritual gravity of the moment as the ground is shifting to the Passion. Mary must have been seized by the Holy Spirit in a way that the others were not. She anoints the Anointed One of God just before he is to give them the Eucharistic sacrament.

    Jesus’s response to the disciples is one of my favorites: “The poor you will always have with you … you will not always have me. She has done what she could.” This is not just a carpe diem message, but a message of focus and intent. This is consistent with all he has said to the Pharisees about them fetishizing the law and what they “should do” over bringing the spirit of love into the world. There is supreme benediction in Christ saying, “she has done what she could.” What more would we like to hear when we are encountered with our judgment? 

    Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked. Who is this young man? He is not identified as a close disciple of Jesus. For me, he stands in as all of them, all of humanity in that moment. It’s as if the Holy Spirit has instilled in St. Mark a deeply felt memory of this moment when Jesus’s closest followers scramble away and disperse.

    Think about this — how does a person escape when seized, leaving behind the only piece of clothing he was wearing? It takes a good deal of panicked struggle, wriggling free, letting all sense and dignity leave you in your crazed flight response. This young man, these disciples, all of humanity, desert the Lord without their dignity in a wild flight away from the scene of his arrest. High-minded ideals are gone. Plan-oriented dreams of an ordered future disappear. Scandal has stripped us of our dignity and we run, like animals without a God.

    And so Mark records this ghostly image of a linen cloth glowing white in the darkness with nothing inside it. Why linen? Why empty? We will encounter this very same image when the stone is rolled away from the tomb! The human has left, has entered a new plane of existence. Just as Jesus Resurrects in Body and then ascends to heaven, humanity in the form of this young man disappears in its fright only to return as the Church, sanctified and Resurrected in Christ’s Spirit. The image, while representing the base betrayal of humanity, becomes an astounding promise in the midst of this horrible night.

    Young man fleeing Jesus’s arrest, unknown provenance | Image from thetinychapel.blogspot.com.

    The soldiers assembled the whole cohort. They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him. This image persists in most Catholic depictions of Christ — the brutal Crown of Thorns. Why? Are we fascinated in some way at this torturous form of mockery?

    Let’s pan out, to use a cinematographer’s term, and see the scene as Mark has described it. The soldiers take him away from the Jewish crowds and into the inner courtyard of Pilate’s palace. Jesus is first betrayed by an Apostle, abandoned by his disciples, and denied by his chosen “Rock,” Peter. His is now isolated, away from his own people, the Chosen Ones of God’s Covenant. He is utterly alone in pagan hands. It is easy to overlook his increasing isolation because the narrative is full of people — crowds greeting him in Jerusalem, guards and arresting mob, priests and soldiers, streets lined with jeering onlookers, and a crowd gathered at the base of Golgotha. But Jesus has been isolated completely. 

    So the soldiers assemble the whole cohort, which must include all of the soldiers stationed there as well as Pilate’s non-military court. Here, around him, is the entire pagan world. How do they greet our Savior? It is a telling image. They dress him as a King. Yes, it is mockery, yes it is in jest and, yes, they beat him and spit on him while doing it. But nonetheless we have a vision of Christianity in the world.

    It is impossible not to acknowledge the kingship of Christ, even while scoffing. For underlying all of the worldly disbelief we claim or the hurtfulness of our actions, the truth remains: Christ is King. We can’t escape that or change it. What’s more, those who walk with Christ into the greater world will be met with mocking and crowns of thorns as well. This is the reality of being on the Way to the Kingdom, given to us in a brutal coliseum of pain.

    Pilate was amazed that he was already dead. The seat of earthly power is amazed at the quick passage of time. This must make him take stock in his own mortality. This must make him wonder about that man he just had crucified. This is something weird; is it a sign? This thought might continue to nag at him for months, years, until he decides to do something about that nagging thought — perhaps inquire with one of this new group of Christians that has persisted long after this man’s death. This leads to another moment of astonishment as he is told about the amazing life of this Jesus Christ who he crucified.

    This is the way God works. This is the way God never gives up on humanity; the way He offers mercy and forgiveness even to the most detestable of us. We must be open to the fact that Pilate himself can be saved if he recognizes God, repents for his sins, and follows the Way. More than that — we must want Pilate to be saved. That is what it means to walk with Jesus. We must fill ourselves with the absolute, unwavering love of God that heals all. We must want every single one of his sheep to be with him forever in the Kingdom.

    Christ before Pilate (1910), Jacek Malczewski | Image from wikiart.org. There are many artistic representations of Pilate, but none quite as evocative as this one, in my Mind. Malczewski delivers a powerful study of contrasts: Christ is adorned with the Crown, ropes, and blood in an almost feminine way, as if these trappings of His Passion have almost supplanted themselves as the narrative itself; He is presented as an ornament for Pilate. Meanwhile, Pilate is half-naked, self-absorbed, bored. Not so much contemplative as contemptuous. I am constantly amazed at the breadth of scriptural interpretation and imagination I find in painters! 

    There are, of course, many more images in the Passion narrative; indeed, in all of the gospels. This is how we can encounter Christ in a new way and in a new depth each time we turn back to scripture. 

    But more: let’s return to how our Catholic liturgy participates in the Passion. The Holy Spirit, as promised by Christ, guided the Church from its earliest days to put into practice the depth of imagery and symbolism we encounter in Christ’s life, Death, and Resurrection. The most obvious example is the Eucharistic feast and its remembrance and enactment of Christ’s sacrifice as well as the Last Supper.

    But the Church, living the liturgy every second of every day inside and outside of the chapel, performs the very work of the Bride of Christ in its anointings (sacramental as well as simple, such as the gentle touch and kind word to a stranger). The Church points to the empty linen cloth every time we choose humanity over politics or spirit over rules: for the cloth is made of this earth while we exist in a different spiritual plane on a specific spiritual path.

    The Church wears the purple robe and crown of thorns as our priestly sexual misconduct is paraded before the world, the evil that creeps in to mock our holy mystical Body of Christ. And the Church is made up of converted Pilates searching out other Pilates to bring to Christ for healing.

    All of these things reach a much more organized level of liturgical function in the Mass, however. It is performative in that we stand to greet the Lord, to collectively pray our Creed and the Our Father. We process to the altar both as the ministers at the start of Mass and as a people when receiving Communion, re-enacting Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We kneel with Christ as if with him in the Garden of Gethsemane as the Eucharistic blessing is prayed. We listen to the Word of God being proclaimed to us as every Christian once did since the first Apostles, for we are all converts to a New Covenant. There is so much more!

    The point is that if we want to live a deep Christian life, we must know and embrace the depth of our faith not just in its wisdom and words, but in its symbolic and real actions both inside and outside of our churches. 

    Holy Week is upon us, and it delivers to us so much meaning, so much density. Let us prayerfully try our best to take it in.

  • Internal Transformation

    Internal Transformation

    Friday of the Third Week in Lent: Hosea 14:2-10, Mark 12:28-34.

    Today we hear Jesus affirm the greatest commandment to love God first and then your neighbor. The short exchange with the scribe after his answer seems at first glance either to be unnecessary or to elevate the scribe as judge of Christ’s answer. But this exchange is very valuable because God had been trying to teach the Jews for centuries, if not millennia, that a transformation of heart is more important than the rituals of sacrifice. The first reading underlines the type of transformation God promises as you come to Him — one that involves every aspect of yourself.

    One question has bothered me: does it seem egotistical of the scribe to test Jesus about the commandments? Jesus doesn’t seem too put out by this, and we have to remember that this was part and parcel of the scribes’ work. There are 613 commandments in the Old Testament, and the scribes’ job was to know them intimately and come up with complex scenarios to test them as they teach their people. If a prophet and healer appears, it would be natural for a scribe to converse with him specifically about the commandments.

    The Torah Scribe (1914), Ephraim Moses Lilien | Wikimedia Commons.

    We all know Jesus’s answer, wherein he fuses two commandments into one great commandment of love: “The first is this:Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this:You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Actually, there are three parts to this (the opening of the Shema plus the two commandments); see the post Agape has Only One Source: God for a longer reflection on this.

    In short, Jesus is showing that the complete love of God has a transformative effect on us so that we are infused with his Love in return, which naturally must be shared with those around us on earth in acts of kindness and charity. Love of God, in other words, has consequences; great consequences.

    The Word of God shared this same truth of internal transformation with the prophet Hosea over 700 years earlier, as we hear in today’s first reading. The first part of the commandment occurs as the Israelites are urged to return to the Lord fully. This complete love of God has a few markers in Hosea’s short passage: 1. Contrition for past sins: “Forgive all iniquity,” 2. Acknowledgment that he alone is God and Savior: “Assyria will not save us … We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’ to the work of our hands,” 3. Complete giving of themselves and their fate to him and his grace: “in you the orphan finds compassion.”

    Then, the fun part: “I will heal their defection, says the LORD, I will love them freely.” Our God is a God of forgiveness and love. All it takes is our commitment to him. And what do we get in return? Hosea does a poet’s job of describing the transformation of a person when God’s love is given freely. Hosea involves the senses: 

    • Touch: “I will be like the dew for Israel: he shall blossom like the lily”
    • Sight: “His splendor shall be like the olive tree … They shall blossom like the vine”
    • Smell: “and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar”
    • Taste: “his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon”

    This has always been God’s promise for those who uphold his Covenant. He reminds them what upholding the covenant means: “Straight are the paths of the LORD, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them.” In other words, this transformation demands your continued fidelity to God and the moral precepts he has given you.

    Pilgrimage to the Cedars of Lebanon (1907), Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka | Wikimedia Commons.

    So, what about the “love your neighbor” part? Was that given by the Word of God to the prophets as well? It was, and we see it in the images they give us about the yield of the harvest. In today’s reading, we hear Hosea say, “Again they shall dwell in his shade and raise grain … ‘I am like a verdant cypress tree’ – Because of me you bear fruit!” God’s protection gives them the ability to “raise grain” and “bear fruit” — signs of a flourishing human community, one that cares for itself and prospers.

    The idyllic nature of these words describes a society where people care for each other and prosper under God’s guidance. Note how their ability to love each other is just as tied to loving/being loved by God as it is when Jesus ties these two in the greatest commandment. Not only does loving God come first, it also enables us to love our neighbor in the way he or she deserves.

    To return to the gospel pericope, the scribe hears Jesus’s answer and agrees, adding that this commandment “is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” This little addendum demonstrates to Jesus that this scribe has set aside the fetishization of the 613 prescriptions, an overly ritualistic understanding of a relationship with God, in favor of a simple call to true internal transformation. This is why Jesus responds, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” The Kingdom is this state of loving God, being transformed by God and spreading his love throughout the world. 

    The challenge is to stay on the Lord’s straight path, and that’s why Christ has been given to us as the Way. We are joined to Christ on this Way by being baptized into his mystical Body, the Church. We must continually pray to Christ to intercede for us to the Father — to grant us his grace in helping us stay on the straight path. We must continually feed ourselves on his Word and his sacramental Body. All of this describes the liturgy that has been given to us through his Resurrection, a new Way of obtaining the Kingdom of God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength.

  • A Glimpse of Heaven

    A Glimpse of Heaven

    Second Sunday in Lent: Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Romans 8:31b-34, Mark 9:2-10.

    Today’s readings demand that we stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zone. Parts of our faith are easy to accept — the Beatitudes, for example — they mirror moral truths we find in other religions and civic systems. But when it comes to actual encounters with God, which are the endgame to which we’re all drawn, I might add, we find some frankly difficult episodes.

    Sure, God is love, but is he also the one who tells a man to sacrifice his own child, and tests him up to the point of the knife going in? That sounds extreme, almost unhinged, to our rational minds. And the Transfiguration includes what some would call ghosts, voices from the clouds, and secrecy pacts. This would be the description of a skeptic, of course. As believers, we have to come face-to-face with the Transfiguration as reality, not make believe; the truth, not a story.

    Sacrifice of Isaac (1635), Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn | Creative Commons, courtesy the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. There are several famous paintings of this moment, but the action captured in this one really strikes me – not just the hand of the angel on Abraham’s arm and the falling knife, but also Abraham’s hand completely covering Isaac’s face, pushing back his head and bearing his neck for the sacrifice. Isaac is clearly depicted as a lamb about to be slaughtered, and the vulnerability is moving.

    Lest we think we have to leave reason by the door as we enter into these moments of faith, there are rational underpinnings to God’s actions with Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The covenant God makes with him is fundamental for the preparation of humanity for his Son’s entry into history. It’s appropriate, then, that the patriarch understand and commit to the type of love God has in store for his progeny, God’s Chosen People.

    In poker terms, this love is all-in. No chips are set aside, nothing reserved. Today, we read that “God put Abraham to the test,” and not to belabor the comparison, but he needed to see if Abraham would go all-in. Why, we might ask, is this necessary?

    We can’t forget that God’s love allows for our own assent and free will to meet his. He never wants to take away our sovereignty over our own will; if he did, this would be a lesser love that does not respect us as complete beings. Not only that, we would be incapable of truly loving him back. We would be automatons, doing everything he willed like marionettes.

    As God is establishing his People, he needs to have these moments where his leaders, prophets, and other figures exercise their free will in the direction of faith otherwise this spiritual muscle and determination can wither and become weak. I think this is a good way of looking at what the scriptures call “testing” — it is, in fact, a loving act by God to help his chosen ones to grow in faith, to enact and uphold their end of the covenant (this is the definition of “being faithful”). They gain spiritual determination, but perhaps even more importantly they serve as a lasting example and teaching for all of us who follow.

    Who is this God? A God who wants us to come to him, not a God who cackles with sadistic glee by making us march around doing ridiculous and dangerous tasks. Every moment of salvation history is infused with God’s superabundant love. In order to truly understand our scriptures and the Word of God, this must be our starting point.

    This is why all the details are so important in our recorded scriptures. God acts with great purpose in the world and the Holy Spirit guides the pen of the authors of scriptures in order to capture these details faithfully. Two details from the first reading jump out at me today. First, it is what God’s messenger tells him: “Do not do the least thing to him. I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.” I love how absolute the command is not to “do the least thing” to Isaac, displaying God’s absolute love for His creation. The angel acknowledges Abraham’s devotion to God (most translations write “that you fear God,” meaning you have great reverence, respect, awe, fear, and devotion), specifically because “you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.” As Christians, we see the significance of this episode because God, too, will be sacrificing his own Son (and not stopping it). God is not asking of us anything he is not willing to accomplish himself.

    The second detail that jumps out for me today is the ram. In a verse skipped over in today’s reading, Isaac asks Abraham where the lamb is for the sacrifice. Abraham replies, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Gen 22:8a). This is a sad-but-lovely double meaning for Abraham because in his mind Isaac is himself this lamb led to the slaughter. What prompted him to say it this way? Perhaps it was the Word of God placing this phrasing in his mouth.

    While some scholars see no significance to the fact that a ram was what God provided instead of a lamb, others see a great significance here. I tend to see significance in scriptural details as the Doctors of the Church teach us to. A ram is just an adult sheep while a lamb is a young one, and a ram’s horns make it easier to be caught in a thicket and so be delivered to Abraham. More significantly, we know that ultimately an unblemished lamb will be sacrificed once and for all; John the Baptist tells us, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The ram can be used for Abraham to sacrifice and save his son from physical death while Jesus, the Lamb of God, will be sacrificed to save us all from spiritual death.

    Agnus Dei (1635-1640), Fracisco de Zurbarán | Creative Commons, courtesy the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

    In the gospel reading, St. Mark’s account of the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John behold this spotless lamb: “he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.” The Transfiguration starts where Abraham finished — they have climbed the mountain with the Son and have found the lamb acceptable to God as a sacrifice. 

    But here God more fully reveals his Truth to humanity. “Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus.” We are invited, like Peter, James and John, to ask what this could possibly mean. On the mountain — the place of encounter with God since time immemorial — our teacher is transfigured into a vision of purity so dazzling white it hurts the eyes. Clearly he is someone special and this is a great confirmation of our decision to follow him. But now he stands in the company of the greatest law-giver and the prophet who was to return to us, talking with them as an equal would!

    To be on the same level as Moses and Elijah, well, we perhaps didn’t expect such an exalted teacher. Not to mention, these great men are dead and yet here they are, seemingly in the flesh once again and holding a conversation with him. Are they apparitions or spirits? Are we to think that they are there in some sort of resurrected body? Whatever the case, this encounter is miraculous and great. Praise be to God, and how exalted this spiritual encounter must feel to be in the presence of these three great men!

    Thus, Peter says, let’s build a tent for everyone and stay here. This is how Moses welcomed the divine presence of God to stay with them in the desert, obscured by the cloud. The tent has a sacred significance for the temporary dwelling of the divine here on earth. I can relate to Peter here. Have you ever been on a retreat or encountered the sacraments in a way that was extraordinary, when you felt the Spirit of God more palpably than you ever had before? I’ve felt that — like my soul was soaring. And above any other reaction (fear, confusion, uncertainty, nervousness) was the desire to have it continue, to keep that feeling going. Let’s build a tent and stay awhile!

    But this is not the Christian path, always on the move, always in the world. 

    And in response to Peter’s naïve declaration, the Father arrives: “from the cloud came a voice, ‘This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.’” Peter, James and John must have been thunderstruck. Their teacher’s specialness was confirmed in a way that far surpassed any expectation. Moses and Elijah now appear as minor players in the drama where the Father reveals his Son as the unblemished lamb, the Savior. And just as abruptly as Jesus was transfigured before them, it all disappears. Mark writes, “Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.” What was the point of having this revelation of the Son in all his Glory only visible to these three men for a few moments on a secluded mountain?

    Today’s Office of Readings gives us an explanation from Pope St. Leo the Great: 

    The great reason for this transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of his disciples, and to prevent the humiliation of his voluntary suffering from disturbing the faith of those who had witnessed the surpassing glory that lay concealed. With no less forethought he was also providing a firm foundation for the hope of holy Church. The whole body of Christ was to understand the kind of transformation that it would receive as his gift. The members of that body were to look forward to a share in that glory which first blazed out in Christ their head.

    This is a sharp insight. The Transfiguration occurs towards the end of Jesus’s ministry, shortly after he first shares with his Apostles “that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk 8:31). Peter’s response is to vigorously tell Christ not to say such things (and Jesus famously responds, “get behind me, Satan,” pointing out that it is a temptation of course to deny the bitter cup he is asked to drink and he must not be tempted away from the Father’s will). This shows us that there was likely some emotional upheaval going on with the Apostles.

    They had given up everything to follow this man they believed to be the Messiah and he tells them the endgame is great suffering and being killed. Pope St. Leo the Great recognizes the despair that must have gripped the Apostles and the fact that the Transfiguration is God’s way of showing them the truth and glory behind the sacrifice before it was made. It is a glimpse of Heaven. This vision, imprinted on the very hearts of Peter, James and John, gives them the image of their faith to share with everyone else in their time of darkest despair after the Crucifixion. Christ always is this immaculate lamb, even when pierced and covered with blood and hanging from the cross. It is his core being, the Truth. To this day, this gives us our undimmable Christian hope for our reunion with our undefeatable Savior.

    The Transfiguration of the Lord (mosaic, Church of the Transfiguration, Mount Tabor, Israel), 1924, Umberto Noni | Wikimedia Commons. The caption is Latin for “And he was transfigured before them.”

    When we recognize the great purpose and significance of the Transfiguration, it helps us start to digest and accept the wondrous event as it took place. But no less than the Resurrection itself, we are called to believe this without seeing it with our own eyes. Doubting Thomas would (without a doubt) doubt the Transfiguration as much as the bodily Resurrection of our Savior. God’s question to us is the same as it was to Abraham: are you all-in?

    Our faith demands ever fiber of our minds, bodies, and souls. We must give ourselves back to our Creator, in love, in order to enter the Kingdom. This is the same action of Christ, giving himself wholly back to his Father in love. If we are called to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, we are also called to believe in his bodily Resurrection, his Ascension into Heaven, and his Transfiguration on the Mountain that revealed his Glory to the apostles to plant the seed of faith, hope, and love in the Church.

  • The Power of Baptism

    The Power of Baptism

    First Sunday of Lent: Genesis 9:8-15, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:12-15.

    While on our personal Lenten journeys with Christ, we sometimes forget that it is also the season for the elect to formally pledge themselves to the Church, finish their preparation, and present themselves for Baptism, Confirmation, and First Holy Communion at Easter Vigil Mass. This form of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults is a modern way we grow the Body of Christ and has a rich tradition stretching back to the very first days of the Apostolic Age.

    During Roman persecutions, catechumenate faced execution for attempting to join the Church, and this act of faith was a truly courageous act. In the third and fourth centuries, adult initiates had a long, three-year process of formation (at least) that impressed the seriousness of their conversion and salvation. Over the centuries, this catechism devolved into “mass baptisms” of many people and the seriousness of their training and conversion was rightfully questioned.

    In any case, today we have a formalized process that is by no means as rigorous as the early centuries but does impress both the seriousness of the sacramental union with the Church and an understanding of our teachings (our Catechism of the Catholic Church). Lent is the season of the catechumenates’ final preparations to join and grow the Church.

    The Catechism Lesson (La Leçon de catéchisme), 1890, Jules-Alexis Muenier | Wikimedia Commons.

    The three-year cycle of Sunday readings reflects this aspect of Lent, doing the work of reminding all of us of the major tenets of our history and faith, not to mention the importance of our sacraments. This transitions, of course, during Holy Week to recount the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Savior, but it might be surprising to learn that the Church has ordered her readings on Sundays in Lent to help serve the formation of our catechumenate.

    So we can approach today’s readings with this framework in mind. Appropriately enough, we encounter the theme of baptism, particularly as spiritual protection. The first reading from Genesis recounts the upshot of Noah’s faithful obedience to God in building the ark. God tells him, “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you: … there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.” The Church sees great symbolism in the flood story. It is God’s second great covenant with humanity (the first being with Adam and Eve); the ark — the saving vessel in the face of God’s purifying force — prefigures the Church that will arise through Christ; the flood is a type of baptism, in this case a baptism that wipes away the evil of the world and blesses and ties Noah to God in a new covenant. The great tropes of baptism have been established: spiritual purification and a binding covenant with God through water.

    The first letter of St. Peter makes the connection to the flood in Noah’s time and clearly states its significance: “… a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience …” This last statement is a bit confusing; is baptism an appeal to God for a clear conscience? I suppose it is, although the NRSV translation’s footnote says “Or a pledge to God from” a clear conscience. Interesting that our pledge could be perceived either as “for” or “from” a clear conscience.

    When I start wondering about translations, I often consult a few others, and I think the David Bentley Hart’s New Testament translation serves admirably (along with his three very long explanatory footnotes for this section): “… prefigures the baptism that now saves you — which is not a removal of the filth of flesh but rather the pledged consent of a good conscience to God — through resurrection of Jesus the Anointed.” He has a nice footnote to justify his translation of “pledged consent” and it does seem to wrap up the “to” vs. “from” debate by implying that God requests our good conscience in entering into the baptismal covenant and we give it to him. This reinforces the fact of our own free will and choice in baptism — something much more apparent in adult baptism than in infant baptism and thus very appropriate for this RCIA formation period.

    Noah’s Flood (Всемирный потоп), 2013, by Olga Glumcher | Image from useum.org.

    This whole discussion of conscience was initiated in the verses just prior to today’s reading. Peter encourages us to not be intimidated by those who seek to destroy our belief: “Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God” (1 Pet 3:16-18). A good conscience, which is part of the baptismal covenant, is important because Christians should be “living in the light.” Moreover, Peter points out that Christ, who is ultimately righteous and bears a clean conscience, suffered for all of us unrighteous souls, so he set the example of the Way we must walk. 

    All of this baptismal rubber hits the road when we encounter the gospel reading. St. Mark’s gospel, commonly seen as the earliest gospel, upon which Matthew and Luke drew, is very brief regarding the start of Christ’s ministry. There is great profundity; we must simply read it a bit slower and ponder each word.

    The setup to today’s reading is the Baptism of our Lord by St. John the Baptist. Mark writes: “And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Mk 1:10-11). So early in the first chapter of the first gospel we see the Holy Trinity in its unity as well as its diverse Persons! Consider how deep this revelation of Christ as the Son of God is: we see the outpouring of love from the Father, the participation of the Spirit, active in the earth, and Son’s willing acceptance of the covenant with His Father, which he will crown with his Blood. Christ’s Baptism reveals for all to see the endlessly flowing love of the Trinity that has burst upon the earth with his presence. This is something wholly new, and when we are baptized in Christ, it is this supernatural love and glory that is bestowed upon us as well. What a gift to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father, thanks to our great brother and teacher, Jesus Christ.

    As if sharing in the supernatural love of the Trinity was not enough, Mark shows us today how transformative a Christian baptism can be for us. He writes: “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” (NRSV translation). The dove-like Holy Spirit fills Jesus and immediately drives him into the desert. Matthew and Luke write that the Spirit “leads him” but Mark is undeniably writing something more forceful. The Greek word he writes is ἐκβάλλει (ekballei), the very same word used throughout the gospels when Christ “casts out” demons. Mark seems to be saying that baptismal sanctification by the Holy Spirit causes something more extreme in us than a gentle “leading into the light.” It casts the domination of worldly concerns out of our soul. This is what happens when Christ is cast into the desert, with wild beasts instead of human concerns. The supernatural force of his Baptism is so great that he cannot stay with humans who are so ordered by their passions and designs; these are not the Way to the Father.

    And while we can find profound meaning in the specific temptations that Satan imposes upon Jesus (see last year’s reflection, Getting to Know the Tempter, for thoughts on Matthew’s account of Jesus in the desert), Mark’s point is different. He notes that Jesus is tempted by the devil, but the emphasis is on the action of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s Baptism. The Spirit, let’s remember, has descended upon the Anointed One of God. While the Divine Persons undoubtedly can never be separated, we reflected last week on how Jesus put aside his divinity while taking on human form. He never stopped, on the order of being, to be the Son of God, but his time on earth in mortal form included a complete assent to being human. With his Baptism, Jesus the man is fully revealed also as a Person of the Holy Trinity, and the Spirit can dwell with him in a new way within that mortal lifetime.

    Icon of the Baptism of our Lord, provenance unknown | Image from ricochet.com.

    So he is impelled by his Baptism and the indwelling of the Spirit to eschew the human ordering of self that occurs within civilization and go to the desert. This is something we are given in our baptism as well: a radical new orientation of ourselves within salvation history where we fully enter the End Times with Christ. This doesn’t mean we are outside of the fallen world, which is ruled by Satan. Christ is tempted by Satan, just as we shall be, even after our baptism in Christ. But Mark shrugs aside these temptations as if inconsequential, for this is the Son of God, blessed by the Father and graced by the Spirit! This is why the more important point for Mark is that “the angels ministered to him.” Christ has opened a new way of living that bests the temptations of Satan and dwells in the company of angels. This is the promise of our New Covenant that we enter into in Christian baptism.

    Mark’s final verses in today’s gospel reading affirm this new state of the world. The time of John the Baptist has passed with the Baptism of our Lord. Jesus announces: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Note that he fulfills and concludes the very words of the Baptist, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:2). The kingdom is no longer near, it is “at hand.” The command to repent remains, for none are on the new path of Christ yet, and repentance and baptism await us all as a prerequisite to entering the Kingdom of God.

    I don’t know about you, but there is something of the fire-and-brimstone Southern preacher in the call to “repent” that may deaden our ears to this call. It’s refreshing to look at Christ’s words in a new light outside of some of our cultural stereotypes. Here again is Bentley Hart’s translation: “change your hearts and have faith in the good tidings.” Yes, this is repentance: a change of heart. It is what Baptism entails as part of our covenant with God — our promise to convert our hearts to Him. We remind ourselves of our baptism and conversion of heart every time we enter our church and bless ourselves with holy water. While on the earth, we will endlessly turn our hearts back to God, return to the Way any time we stray, and employ the sacraments to strengthen us, absolve our sins, and draw us closer and closer to our Lord.

    May we all walk the way of the catechumenate this Lent, repenting and re-affirming our covenant with God.

  • Leveling Mountains and Valleys

    Sunday in the 2nd Week of Advent: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11, 2 Peter 3:8-14, Mark 1:1-8.

    The second week of Advent is marked by this phrase: Prepare the Way of the Lord! We hear it from Isaiah, and 800 years later from St. John the Baptist, and 50 years later from St. Mark in his gospel, and 2,000 years later we hear it in our churches. This is our Christian clarion — the loud, clear, brassy call that something of ultimate importance comes this way. It is our King, our Lord and Savior. We must make way for Him, prepare for Him; but how exactly do we do this?

    Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven (1423-1424), Fra Angelico | Image from fineartamerica.com. Note the clarions (long medieval-style horn) being played by the angels and the wide, straight path that is made for Him.

    Today’s readings provide the answer: we are to make way for Him in our hearts and in our minds by leveling mountains and valleys, by acknowledging our sins, and by living in holiness and devotion. But we should not get too wrapped up in what we are doing because all of this is a job of scouring of ourselves in order to let the Lord come into our beings and reign there. It is only the Lord who can do the work of sanctifying, of saving, of pouring out saving grace. We must simply scrub the house and make it as pristine as possible for the Lord to inhabit.

    Isaiah uses imagery of the land to emphasize the level of preparation that must be made: “Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.” Remember, this is Isaiah’s vision of what John the Baptist will be saying. We know that John’s message was a spiritual one: “I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Thus, let’s understand that Isaiah is speaking of a spiritual landscape. So, speaking of one’s soul, what vision does Isaiah provide? One of a great leveling — mountains lowered and valleys raised to create a wide plain, rough country tamed and made into a broad valley. This is a type of domestication, an ordering. What might loom in our hearts as a mountain? Perhaps unfilled ambitions. What stretches out before us like a deep valley? Our fears. What is rough country, hard to traverse? Perhaps distractions, little events in the grand scheme that we make into large things. Isaiah sees that John will ask us to perform an internal ordering, to wipe out the worldly ambitions, fears, distractions, and sins.

    In return, John baptizes people in the Jordan River. Jews had long practiced mikveh, a ritual cleaning in “living water” (a natural, running water source). Mikveh is practiced so that the person can be considered ritually pure and resume religious rites. It is used for men after normal emissions of semen and for women after childbirth or menstruation (among several other reasons). But something else is going on with John. As St. Mark relates, the Jews “were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.” Could these sins have been the same as those for mikveh? Perhaps, but the verse seems to encompass more than these physical impurities. Especially as it is linked to Isaiah’s prophecy and the spiritual leveling as part of the anticipation of the coming of the Lord, John’s baptism is a ritual that signifies the cleaning of their souls, not their bodies. John is clearly outside of the religious establishment, living apart in the desert, eating locusts and honey, clothed in camel hair. Something new and different is happening. And John’s message is loud and clear: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” The people coming to John are not there for themselves, they’re there for the Messiah. They aren’t being ritually cleaned to resume normal religious worship, they’re being spiritually cleansed in order to properly await one who will truly give them a new birth in the Spirit. 

    Icon of St. John the Baptist (c.1300, Constantinople) | Creative Commons, courtesy the British Museum. Their notes: “He is identified by a Greek inscription in red on either side of the halo: ‘St John’ to the left and O Prodromos (`the Forerunner’) to the right.” He is usually depicted in icons with wild hair.

    So John’s message in the second week of Advent is that we must prepare ourselves for the one coming after him, the Christ. Jews in his time understood this to mean that they should confess their sins and undergo a ritual spiritual cleansing in the Jordan River. The second reading from St. Peter connects this same awaiting for Christ that they experienced before his ministry to the waiting we are doing now in the End Times, awaiting His return in glory. Peter tells us how and why we should be preparing ourselves: “what sort of persons ought you to be, conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” He recommends conducting ourselves in holiness and devotion and hoping for (hastening) the “day of God.” Thanks to Christ, we have a perfected understanding of holy conduct and godliness; He has given us a Way to follow. But are we doing these things just to be upright and moral? Are we hoping to be patted on the head for our goody-two-shoes ways?

    Both John the Baptist and Peter speak of readying ourselves for Christ’s coming (the kairos moment that occupies at least two major historical moments). He is the reason; we want to be ready and acceptable for Christ to reign. But let’s think this through. If God is all goodness, love, and purity, then His reign is one where those qualities dominate the heavens and the earth. What room is there for hate, sin, greed, or evil? None! Do we really understand why we’re preparing in the way we are? We are awaiting the end of the world, which Jesus tells us could happen at any moment. What do we imagine comes next? Peter tells us: “we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.” And there it is: since we await a new world where righteousness dwells, we should be eager to be found without blemish and at peace so that we can inhabit this world. I’m beginning to understand that my spiritual preparation must also include a deep contemplation (and yearning for) a world where righteousness reigns without challenge. If I don’t understand and yearn for this, then my preparations, confessions, and penances are just window dressing. There is no substance to these preparations unless I am doing them with the right goal and person in mind: Christ’s Reign of righteousness. It must be for Him and His Kingdom, not for me and my desire to “be good.”

    Christ in Glory between the angels and archangels (1621), Guido Reni | Creative Commons, courtesy wikiart.org.

    But let’s be honest, we are much better at dreaming of conflict and sin than we are of goodness alone. From Dante’s Inferno to pornography (one a great and thoughtful piece of literature and the other sheer sin), we are fascinated by the fallenness of the world. Whether it’s a sick addiction to watching evil as a voyeur or a moral lesson for ourselves or a mirror where we recognize our own failings, we are drawn to stories that contain evil. Consider horror movies. Consider detective shows that delve into the worst of crimes. We entertain ourselves with these depictions. The adage behind good novel writing and good screenplays is that there must be a conflict. Without a conflict, there’s no story. We would get bored. Is this why we barely put effort into imagining “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells”? Since there’s no story here but the end of time, is there anything to imagine?

    If so, I think this is a real failure of the Catholic imagination. Some philosophers have gone so far as to call God a tyrant who imposes His magisterial will on everyone and everything in heaven; they impose a sinister heaviness on heaven and cast God as an authoritarian. What on earth is going on here? How far this is from the scriptural “fear of God” that reveres Him as the merciful and just Creator of the universe who loves His people above all else!

    Why can’t we imagine and long for “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells”? I have a theory that it has something to do with lives of comfort. It’s hard to long for something so much greater when what you’ve got is pretty good to begin with. On the other hand, for Eritrean or Syrian refugees fleeing war in their home countries, the desire for a better future is all-consuming. The poor, the hungry, those who have been humbled — they are the ones graced with a true Christian imagination and longing for God’s Kingdom. This is why Christ teaches us, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3). This is why it is so important to be humble (or humbled), to eschew riches and worldly desires: these things keep us from focusing our hopes and desires squarely upon “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” If we are too comfortable, we have no desire or need for a greater eschatological vision. This is why Jesus proclaims, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mt 19:24).

    In closing, let’s consider that today’s gospel is the very first passage from St. Mark. How would you start if you had to explain something that most people would be primed to disbelieve? The great claim is there in the title: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.“ One way to begin is to trace the historical prophecies of the Jewish nation through bold figures like Isaiah and John the Baptist. The connection is undeniable between God’s promise to Isaiah, “I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert” and the figure of John the Baptist, who “appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” But there’s more than just a play for legitimacy here. St. Mark shows us that crowds listened to the clarion call from John: “People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.” What’s important is not just that the clarion is blown, but that people respond. This testifies to the power of the call and the truth that the messenger delivers. This is the journey of faith to which we are called: to respond to God’s call in our lives. St. Mark illustrates for us in the very opening scene of his gospel what Christianity is all about.

    May we all be people with eyes on the horizon, awaiting the coming of Christ and His Kingdom. May that vision inspire us to prepare our souls to meet Him in this glorious Kingdom.

  • For What are we Waiting?

    Sunday in the 1st Week of Advent: Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7, 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 13:33-37.

    We are reminded at the beginning of Advent that we are entering a liturgical season of special significance: one where we pare back distractions and excesses as we wait for the birth of Christ. These short days and long nights of winter are supposed to be marked by prayer, almsgiving, and acts of penance. All of this while we wait for a blessed event, often cast in a heartwarming holiday glow. But the Church is clear that this is not all that we await. Christ Himself tells us in today’s gospel reading that we are also awaiting Judgment Day and our final union with God. How many of us put this awful and awesome vision in our sights as we putter about during these 4 weeks before Christmas? It’s a reminder of what a Christian should be doing: embracing this life while achingly desiring the next life. 

    For me, today’s readings ask me to consider what exactly I’m waiting for during this Advent “season of waiting.” As a child, I was waiting for that great Christmas morning of gift opening with my family. As a young adult, it was the feeling of warmth as my family gathered for the holidays; later it was the re-enactment of the “magic” of Christmas morning (and the preparations and decorations along the way) for my own children. I have to admit that on the balance my Advents haven’t been terribly spiritual. Church punctuated these years of Advents sometimes as a way to punch through the ersatz Christmas haze with moments of solemnity. Other times, Church simply heightened the anticipation for Christmas; for instance, part of the experience of Christmas Eve Mass was the relief of finally getting out of those dress clothes and into pajamas, knowing that gifts and goodies came next. I can tell myself that it’s hard to stay focused on the Christ event – that is, His coming to the world in its entirety, both as a babe and as King in judgment – when the Charlie Brown Christmas album is making me want to scamper about the house with abandon. But that’s a cop-out, and so is blaming “commercialism.” As Christians, we’re called to much, much more. Part of our journey is learning the discipline required to keep God front and center.

    Christmas Illustration 1294 – Vintage Christmas Cards – Season Greetings – Cathedral (2017), “Tuscan Afternoon” | Image from fineartamerica.com.

    There are many reasons to love the prophet Isaiah, and today’s first reading gives me another. He has such a clear understanding of God’s loving perfection and our dismal abilities to live upright lives on our own. The reading starts with a crystal clear lament over the dangers of free will: “You, LORD, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever. Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” Isaiah identifies God’s plan and permission that we have the freedom to wander from His ways and even choose to harden our hearts against Him. Isaiah asks the question that a holy man must ask: why? In other words, if you love God with all of your heart, mind, and soul, then you despise the worldly temptations that lead away from God. Wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t have those temptations or if we weren’t so easily distracted from our father and source? But God is not a tyrant; He grants us the free will to cook our own goose if we choose to.

    And cook our own goose we do! Isaiah is blunt in his assessment of how successful we’ve been with this free will of ours: “all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.” Two fascinating images here – the first is the uncleanliness of who we are, so much so that even what we consider to be good deeds “are like polluted rags.” I believe that what Isaiah calls pollution is the prideful belief in ourselves as authors of goodness soiling our actions. The scriptures remind us again and again that all good comes from God, not from us. When we wander from Him and do not “fear” him (i.e., revere Him as the author of all goodness), we pollute our good deeds by believing that we are creating goodness. The second image is the withering, the dying, of our souls, and the stirring image that “guilt carries us away like the wind.” Maybe because it’s autumn and I’ve been out raking leaves, but this image really touches me. Guilt, of course, requires a knowledge that what you’ve done is wrong. And as a prophet to the Chosen People, there is no room for Isaiah or his listeners to wriggle out of this one. Likewise for us, we know the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have been raised with the Good News of the gospels as our mother’s milk. Guilt should and would carry our withered husks of souls away like the wind were it not for the sacrament of Confession. Note that Isaiah also calls God “our redeemer, you are named forever,” that is, the one who rescues us from error and wipes away our sins. Before Christ, this involved rituals and sacrifices at the temple; after Christ’s great sacrifice, this entails our intentional and remorseful confession to God in the presence of a priest. Both acknowledge God’s work as redeemer.

    Study of a Spray of Dead Oak Leaves (1879), John Ruskin | Image from artfund.org.

    The hard truths about our human condition lead Isaiah to implore God with a sentiment we will hear echoed by Jesus in the gospel reading: “Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways!” I think Isaiah answers for us what we’re really waiting for during Advent: God coming to meet us. What an interesting and theologically deep event! “Would that you might meet us doing right” means that it is God who chooses the meeting at a time and place over which we have no control. We’re used to thinking that we go to meet God when we die – that’s what we hear at every funeral, after all. But here, it seems that God is actually coming here while we’re still alive. Isaiah’s words mean that we march on in our free will existence until He comes, like children running around the house while their parents are away. Will we be going to bed at a decent hour and not eating junk food? Or will we be torturing our sister and not feeding the dog?  

    The gospel reading comes from the 13th chapter of St. Mark’s gospel. This chapter details Christ’s words towards the end of His ministry, just before His Passion, death, and Resurrection. It is almost like the Book of Revelation in miniature – He foretells the destruction of the temple, the persecution of His disciples, a “desolating sacrilege” being set up, false Messiahs, cataclysmic events in the skies, and the stars falling from heaven. This frightening series of events culminates in: “Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (Mk 13:26-27). This is Christ’s return for the Final Judgment when he gathers his elect, that is, those who are to be saved. This is the context for today’s reading. This is what Jesus is referring to when He says, “You do not know when the time will come.” Jesus’s words of advice for us is to be alert and watch for this final coming. He says, “Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, … May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.” The unspoken but obvious bit is that we want to be part of the elect, of those who are brought to heaven to live with God forever. We do this by not “sleeping” on the job, by living out a moral life according to Christ’s teachings.

    The Last Judgement (1536-1541), Michelangelo | Wikimedia Commons.

    This is one way to look at Advent, reminding ourselves to watch for the end times. In this vein, we are taught that Advent is a penitential season where we pray, give alms, and practice small acts of penance (perhaps time spent in prayer or service, perhaps small deprivations of our desires to focus us on God rather than things of this world). This is spiritual training camp. What a different perspective than “I need to get my shopping done and put lights on the house!” But this is our challenge. Yes, we can live in the now, with its joys, desires, disappointments, and victories. But we have to be constantly training for that heavenly kingdom, too. We have to find time for daily prayer and giving glory to God. Otherwise, we’re sleeping on the job.

    And God bless St. Paul for giving us the positivity and hope that we need when considering God coming to meet us. In the second reading, he reminds us that “in him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He reminds us that Christ Himself has guaranteed the spiritual gifts and enrichment to prepare us for God’s coming. All we have to do is remain faithful to His teachings and invite God to accomplish His will through us. Advent sharpens the edge on our Christian lives. In the midst of our fat, jolly, and drowsy Christmas personas, we have to also be lean, sharp, and awake.

    There is another way of looking at Advent, with less emphasis on the spiritual training camp aspect and more emphasis on the anticipation. I’d like to explore this through the play Waiting for Godot. For those familiar with Samuel Beckett’s celebrated tragicomedy, you’ll recall that it’s a play in two acts where nothing happens. Two men wait for Godot (whoever that is, although many see God in this character), but Godot never arrives. The play explores the human traits of forgetfulness, anxiety, over-intellectualizing, boredom, suffering, despair, nihilism, and absurdity. In the light of Isaiah’s reading today, it’s as if the characters are stuck in the wandering phase of free will, far from the light of Truth and purpose that is God. Their sometimes nonsensical banter reminds me of “polluted rags” and “withered leaves” blowing in the wind. It is possible to experience this play as a poignant truth-telling of the modern condition. While true, how sad it is! Theirs is a waiting with no real purpose, to the effect that the audience is convinced that they’d be better off not waiting at all and getting on with their lives. And this is the great sin described by the play and the worst temptation of our existence: to convince ourselves that we need not wait because no one is coming.

    Waiting for Godot, text by Samuel Beckett, staging by Otomar Krejca. Avignon Festival, 1978. Rufus (Estragon) and Georges Wilson (Vladimir) / photographs by Fernand Michaud | Wikimedia Commons.

     

    But the more fundamental error of the characters (if we read the play through a Christian lens) is that they do not know Godot, the one for whom they are waiting. Take this exchange, for example:

    POZZO: (peremptory). Who is Godot?
    ESTRAGON: Godot?
    POZZO: You took me for Godot.
    VLADIMIR: Oh no, Sir, not for an instant, Sir.
    POZZO: Who is he?
    VLADIMIR: Oh he’s a . . . he’s a kind of acquaintance.
    ESTRAGON: Nothing of the kind, we hardly know him.
    VLADIMIR: True . . . we don’t know him very well . . . but all the same . . .
    ESTRAGON: Personally, I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.
    POZZO: You took me for him.
    ESTRAGON: (recoiling before Pozzo). That’s to say . . . you understand . . . the dusk . . . the strain . . . waiting . . . I confess . . . I imagined . . . for a second . . .
    POZZO: Waiting? So you were waiting for him?
    VLADIMIR: Well you see—

    This reveals the absurdity of waiting for someone you don’t know, yet having the meeting be important. Such a meeting creates only anxiety and questioning. This is not the type of waiting that we are called to in Advent. The concept was explained beautifully to us today by Fr. Gabriel, OP, at St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center this morning. He spoke of his childhood, when he and his brother got ready for the annual visit of their aunt, uncle and cousin. They would lay out all of their cousin’s favorite games and get everything ready so that the moment he came in, they could jump into their loving friendship with great joy. This is the type of anticipation that we might use as an analogy for the anticipation of Advent. The key is that you can’t truly anticipate someone without knowing this person already. And this is so very true of Christ. He gave the Church His Spirit so that we can know Him intimately now – in the Eucharist and sacraments, in our communal prayer as a Church, in the love that infuses the world in so many actions by the faithful. As Fr. Gabriel said, we are not waiting for a stranger or a distant judge, but for the source of love itself, our Lord Jesus Christ.

    What great joy there is in this type of Advent anticipation! It encompasses and eclipses all of the giddy night-before-Christmas moments I’ve had with my brothers, sisters, and children. Waiting for the coming of love in the person of Christ is something that can completely overtake our beings, thrill us with the exciting anticipation of being a part of that love for ever.

    In this light, I can be less critical of the “glow of the season.” It shares, however intentionally or tangentially, in the anticipation of the coming of love. All of that holiday cheer and joy is this love already present on earth, from people knowingly or unknowingly allowing God to work through them. Consider: generosity is perhaps the virtue we most associate with the season. Generosity is the loaves and the fishes, the Passion, the Eucharist, forgiveness and absolution. Generosity and charity are palpable acts of God in the world. In Advent, we are simply called to acknowledge God in these works and work to conform our entire lives to His commandments and will. We can’t be perfect, but we can try.

    In closing, I acknowledge that part of the Advent message falls flat for most modern ears. It smacks of hard work and joyless self-flagellation. I don’t think this is the case. Advent can be joyous anticipation, but also one that recognizes that all is from God and for God. The only check on our joy must be that we don’t lose ourselves in the pleasures of this world and thoughts of ourselves – the One we wait for, the One in whom we place our joy, is Christ.

  • The Challenge of Fulfilling Your Ministry

    Saturday of the 9th Week of Ordinary Time: 2 Timothy 4:1-8, Mark 12:38-44.

    Today’s readings follow a theme from our last reflection: giving ourselves fully to the Lord. At least this is what jumps out at me, likely aided by the fact that I’m also reading The Life of St. Catherine of Siena by Blessed Raymond of Capua for our Dominican formation, and the descriptions of how she was “all in” with her devotion to God are simply astounding. Today, we hear more from St. Paul’s final letter to Timothy from the Roman jail as well as Jesus’s comment on the poor widow who gave two small coins to the temple treasury. The message from both is clear: we are called to go “all in” for God.

    Let’s start with Jesus’s commentary on the widow and then see how St. Paul relates to this as an evangelist for Christ. Jesus first points out a problem with the scribes who accept “seats of honor in synagogues” and “devour the houses of widows” (presumably taking food and riches from these vulnerable widows and offering “lengthy prayers” in return). Jesus is uncompromising in his judgment here: “They will receive a very severe condemnation.” What is He pointing out with this speech? I think the problem is not just what the scribes do, but the way they are internally ordered. Their actions reveal a deeper problem: they delight in the honors, recognition, and riches of this world. They are consumed by selfishness and pride. But worse is their casual bartering of prayer for worldly concerns. With this, we see that they do not fear God; that is, they do not offer Him the awe, reverence, and devotion He is due. Their prayers are used like a commodity, like money, to get other pleasures they can enjoy in this world. Here is the ultimate example of people who know the law and the scriptures but have ordered themselves internally to seek only their own gratification. We start to understand why Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees “hypocrites”: they preach unstinting devotion to the Lord but practice unstinting devotion to themselves.

    The Widow’s Mite (1872-1876), Gustave Doré, woodcut for Holy Bible illustration | Creative Commons, courtesy Pitts Theology Library at Emory University.

    As we understand the scribes’ use of prayer as a commodity, like money, the transition to the passage about the temple treasury is much more natural. We begin to wonder, is prayer commodified here, too? Jesus and his disciples are situated in a place of the temple where they observe people putting their offerings in the treasury box. At first glance, at least worldly offerings are used for spiritual things (the temple and furthering the work/glory of God) rather than prayers being offered in order to receive worldly commodities. But Jesus takes us deeper and says that this seemingly virtuous act is not the point. I love His message here because He is so radically centered on God that God is always the measure as well as the destination. He measures the worth of a person’s contribution not on the value of the money they donate but on the faith they have as they make the donation. He says of the widow, “she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” His point is not that one should bankrupt oneself when donating to the Church (although this may be part of His point), but that the widow’s faith in the saving grace of God is greater than her faith in the value of money and worldly security. Money, in fact, is blown up as any kind of measure of value. The only value in this world is the slippery currency of faith that we must always cultivate within ourselves, and its inestimable value exists only because the object of faith, God, bestows it thanks to His awesome nature. Value has nothing to do with us or the things we create (like money), and everything to do with God.

    This widow is “all in,” to use a poker metaphor. The fantastic thing about being “all in” for God is that we aren’t trusting luck or gaming skill to “win,” but trusting in the One who loves his children. We are trusting the divine promise — not much of a gamble, it’s a guarantee! Also, the payout is not riches on earth but everlasting life with God. This last point must shift our entire perspective on the “game” we’re playing in life: the stakes are more profound, the One who bestows the eternal payout is waiting with welcoming arms but wants us to use this life to grow in perfection of spirit and action in order to be united with Him. He has given us a Way, His Son, to show us how to find Him.

    St. Paul Preaching Christ Crucified (2010), Dmitry Shkolnik, in St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church in Dayton, Ohio | Image courtesy Fr. Ted Bobosh on Flickr.

    Before turning to St. Paul in the first reading, I’d like to reflect on just how far this perspective is from the one we encounter every day. Let’s look beyond the joke that is popular culture with its uber-rich rappers, athletes, and socialites (not to mention my mother’s pet peeve, American Idol, which transparently disobeys the first commandment). Let’s consider contemporary events where we have a chance to put our faith into action. From the senseless and shameful killing of black men by the police to the sexual and economic exploitation of women, what does the discourse of the morally correct sound like? Let me point out the parallel here to those donating money at the temple treasury — we’re all doing “the right thing,” but there is a qualitative difference for Christ in how people do it. And the difference is not earnestness. The difference is God-driven; it is faith and constant focus on our Creator, the Alpha and Omega. Back to our contemporary events. The discourse I hear is driven from many perspectives: racial, economic, political, pragmatic, idealistic. But I rarely hear one that is Christocentric. People, if we are Catholics, our primary objection to these injustices must be that they abuse God, God’s creation, God’s gift of love to humanity, our promise to uphold our end of God’s Covenant. Where is God in this discourse? There have always been horrors on the earth and likely always will be. Why, when Canaanite children were sacrificed to Moloch, humans could decry this as an affront to God, and today, when we encounter atrocities we find only socially-defined objections to shout (race, economy, politics, ideals). Are we embarrassed to bring up God because people will scoff? Even when we do hear people object from a “religious viewpoint” it is shown as one (often marginalized) perspective among many, others of which are assumed to be more convincing. We’ve strayed far from acknowledging that all comes from God. I firmly believe (as does the Church) that any moral sense comes to us directly from God, nowhere else. We don’t create moral right and wrong. Thus, when we align ourselves with reasons to object to injustice and atrocities that omit God (consciously or unconsciously), we are fooling ourselves and not proclaiming Christ in the way we are called to do.

    Let’s bring this discussion to St. Paul’s letter to Timothy. In his exhortation for Timothy to keep the faith and fulfill his ministry, Paul writes: 

    For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine
    but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity,
    will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth
    and will be diverted to myths.

    I believe that this “time” has been with us for a while and we are living solidly within it. Many of my friends and colleagues who are atheists simply “will not tolerate sound doctrine.” They are offended whenever God comes up in conversation. This offense over God in the public sphere has become institutionalized in our society. I’m not arguing that we should become a religious state, simply that Christians should not fool themselves in thinking that we live in a “Christian society” — we live in a fully secularized and atheistic society. Speaking of God, using Him as a basis for orienting our lives and making decisions, is seen as ludicrous, if not dangerous. Catholics should not be complacent or comfortable with the state of culture in the world. We are even farther away from the widow and her two cents than the rich donors or even the hypocritical scribes, for it is not acceptable to even utter the word “God” in polite society.

    St. Paul Guides St. John Chrysostom (2010), Dmitry Shkolnik, in St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church in Dayton, Ohio | Image courtesy Fr. Ted Bobosh on Flickr.

    What to do? Let’s return to our scripture for inspiration and instruction. St. Paul “charges” Timothy to “proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.” Well, it’s certainly inconvenient in today’s age. And let’s note that we should eschew contemporary shock journalism and debate by convincing and encouraging “through all patience and teaching.” Isn’t it refreshing to hear a measured voice in debates? One that is not worked into a frenzy but instead reveals patience and learning? This takes self-control and a knowledge that one’s way of being (our demeanor should model Christ for others) is as important as any sort of “winning” of an argument. This is why Paul urges: “be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.” I love these words. We must listen to them. I talk to people in the Church who have an edge of hysteria in their voices, who are sidetracked on issues of Latin Mass vs. vernacular Mass or receiving the eucharist by mouth vs. in your hand. They speak of these things wildly as if the fate of the Church rests on their interpretation. This is very much contrary to what Paul is telling us. First off, let’s focus on the real problems in the world. Secondly, let’s be self-possessed, patient, and encouraging. How we evangelize is as important as what we say.

    Finally, I am struck by Paul’s phrase, “fulfill your ministry.” Certainly, we don’t all have the same vocation, calling, or ministry. And we all have the freedom and latitude to accomplish our calling with our own gifts and in our own way. But what strikes me is that we can’t forget that our calling or ministry is already there, given to us by God, waiting for us to fulfill it. We can’t go through life thinking that we can just do the motions (go to Mass on Sundays, say a few kind words to people, give to the Rice Bowl). God has a relationship with each of us, a specific calling, and gave us His Son as a guide, a gate to Him, and an intercessor. Are we yearning for God, searching to fulfill our ministry?

    Are we “all in”?

  • Souls: Our Nature Under the God of the Living

    Wednesday of the 9th Week of Ordinary Time (Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs): 2 Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12, Mark 12:18-27.

    Today’s readings present an incarcerated St. Paul, sincerely encouraging Timothy even as he faces his ultimate fate, and the gospel reading shows Jesus telling the Sadducees that they are “greatly misled.” Together, these readings shed light on what makes us who we are, especially as Christians baptized in the Holy Spirit.

    What a lovely opening to the 2nd Letter to Timothy. Paul, writing what we believe to be his final letter from the prison in Rome, sweetly greets his old friend Timothy and blesses him from afar: “to Timothy, my dear child: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” What follows is an incredible statement of surety and courage from someone who is at peace with his relationship to God. We must remember the trials that St. Paul has faced by this point: a lackluster acceptance by the mother Church in Jerusalem that is dominated by Jewish converts to Christianity, beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, attempts on his life, and even witnessing the backsliding of the Christian communities he founds, some of which will completely fail. It’s fair to say that most of us would have been discouraged, if not in despair, that is, if we had not given up long before. But not Paul, for he is a man who lives in and with the Spirit, who graces him with legendary perseverance in spreading the Word of God and confessing the nature of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the World. He is like one possessed, but this possession is a strengthening and lifting of his character, not a diminishing of his person. He is an incredible example for us of someone who singularly does God’s will, and in so doing is transformed into something greater. 

    St. Paul in Prison (1627), Rembrandt | Wikimedia Commons.

    No, he does not express despair but instead thankfulness: “I am grateful to God, whom I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did.” This is a pattern we will see through the ages: saints who exhibit serenity, peacefulness, and gratitude while accomplishing the work of God, especially as they approach their own deaths. And this work never ends as they submit their own will to God; Paul has a clear exhortation to Timothy in this passage: “I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.” Let’s dig into this for a moment. He clearly references Timothy’s baptism in water and the Spirit — the same baptism we all share — and reminds him to “enkindle” or “stir into flame” the “gift of God” that he received through his baptism. Two things we might note: we, like Timothy, must do something, must engage with and “stir into flame” the gift given to us at our baptism. Second, Paul tells us that the gift is God Himself. He doesn’t speak of various “gifts of the Spirit” like he does in other epistles, nor should we take him to mean specific charisms, talents, or skills. He reminds Timothy that we receive a share in God Himself as we are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, as we are anointed and initiated into God’s saving plan for us. God dwells within and works within us, but as Paul says, we must stir this gift into flame.

    Paul goes further to characterize the spirit of God that is the gift within us: “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” When I heard this, the first thing that came to mind were the several historical fiction shows I watch on Netflix and Amazon about Christians and Vikings in the middle ages. Perhaps it was the close proximity of the words “cowardice” and “power.” Images of Christian soldiers fighting (and hating) pagan enemies come across my mind. Sure, it’s cinema, but we know from documents surrounding the Crusades and historical records throughout Europe that Christians conflated their insistence on the truth of their faith with the peacekeeping efforts of secular powers. In fact, there was little separation in many countries between the secular power (king & queen) and the religious hierarchy (bishops). Let’s be clear: the loser in this equation has always been the faith. Secular interests like expanding a country’s power in the region work in direct opposition to what Christ taught. The sad result for the faithful is that they see their faith as an instrument of power or their religion as something that demands respect and authority. How off-kilter is this from what St. Paul tells Timothy today? Paul writes that God’s gift is not “a spirit of cowardice,” but this does not mean an aggressive attitude towards others; rather, it is a way to encourage Timothy not to hide and be quiet in the face of persecution. He tells Timothy, “bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God;” this is the opposite of cowardice. Paul also writes that our baptismal gift is a spirit of “power and love and self-control.” The “power” can only refer to the indefatigability of the eternal Word as well as the eschatological power of everlasting life. It is not earthly power as measured in swords, treasure, and territory. The other two nouns used by Paul accompany this type of heavenly power: love and self-control are not things typified by battlefield berzerkers but by kindly saints. I’ve always struggled a bit with the “Church Militant” terminology and perspectives like a “muscular” Christianity. Proponents of this terminology are tempted to relate spiritual warfare with the devil to secular warfare with non-Christians. Spiritual warfare is a very real internal struggle to uphold the purity of our souls, not an external campaign to wipe out anything non-Christian in the world. I simply think that military metaphors are overplayed in some religious rhetoric, and in the light of today’s example that Paul gives us, we should instead have a model of the suffering but persistent saint, unfazed by seeming earthly failure, serene in proclaiming the Good News, non-violent, and filled to overflowing with the Spirit of love and self-control. Our model is this man who writes, “I am not ashamed, for I know him in whom I have believed and am confident that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.”

    St. Paul at His Writing Desk (1629-1630), Rembrandt | Wikimedia Commons.

    What kind of person is this saintly Christian? What kind of person does not define himself or herself based on accomplishments, wealth, property, or children? This is someone whose focus is unrelentingly God-centric. This is what we are called to be. Yet how much of the time are we unrelentingly God-centered? 5% of the time? 1% of the time? We should be exhorting one another to “stir into flame” our baptismal gift, just as Paul writes. 

    It seems to me that St. Paul demonstrates how he has located his own soul here at the end of his life. He is intimately in touch with that “gift of God,” the spirit that anointed his soul when he himself was baptized. He has gotten to know, prioritize, and hold up for all to see the spiritual aspect of his human person. How thoroughly absent this is in our contemporary lives! We relegate this type of spiritual person to the cobwebbed corners of our society — perhaps the bearded monk blissfully praying away in the monastery or the chaste nun slaving away in the inner city. We settle with a laughable concept of “spiritual” that winks at us in mindfulness exercises or New Age retreats. Meanwhile, we revere the intellectual and the physical: scientists with Spock-like logic and rationality are seen as one type of paragon while athletes are seen as another. I’m not suggesting that intellect and physicality are unimportant parts of who we are, but if we want to be Christians, we have to be serious about our souls as the most important part of our person.

    To my mind, Jesus says just as much in today’s gospel reading. The Sadducees, a powerful political and religious group among the Jews, do not believe in resurrection; more specifically, they don’t believe in the immortality of the soul, which rules out resurrection. This is why they become one of the primary enemies to the early Christian Church, which proclaimed Jesus resurrected. They attempt to challenge Jesus with a tortured question about whose wife a woman would be in the afterlife after successive remarriages. Jesus points out this ridiculous line of questioning from the get-go: perhaps “you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?” He poses. First, He points out that there is no marriage for those risen from the dead because they are “like the angels,” united with God in a bond more significant and profound than any marriage. This is a point-blank insistence in the immortality of the soul, contrary to the Sadducees’ beliefs. Further, Jesus pulls an example from Exodus, a book in the Pentateuch that they revered and read literally. He points out that God identifies Himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in other words, patriarchs who were hundreds of years dead. Jesus seems to be saying that God was not just mentioning the patriarchs as a memory of ones once alive but as ones alive and dwelling with Him. Indeed, Jesus completes his answer by stating, “He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.” Some have commented that Jesus is frustrated in this passage or that he rebukes them, but I think that this is a great example of self-control and plain truth spoken by our Lord. He doesn’t call them fools or tell them that their question is stupid. Instead, he hears their question, as duplicitous as it may be, and re-directs the conversation to the fundamental question that needs to be addressed with the Sadducees: that of the immortality, the ongoing life, of the soul.

    The Pharisees and the Saduccees Come to Tempt Jesus (Les pharisiens et les saducéens viennent pour tenter Jésus), 1886-1894, James Tissot | Creative Commons, Courtesy the Brooklyn Museum.

    Let’s consider the importance of this teaching. At the heart of it is who we truly are and who our God truly is. We are promised to be “like the angels in heaven,” where even fundamentally important human relationships like marriage no longer matter as we come face-to-face with the Great I AM. Our God is the God of the living, not of the dead. What part of us participates in this rising from the dead? The Church teaches that it is our entire being, body and soul, although we hear St. Paul emphasize over and over in his letters the importance of the soul and detachment from the worldly. This is significant not in order to discount the rising of the body, but to elevate the importance of that invisible part of us, easily overlooked and ignored. As Jesus insists here in the gospel reading and as St. Paul demonstrates in his serene encouragement of Timothy, we are made of something that is immortal, that communes with our God of the living, and that thing is the soul. It is the organ that is perceptive to the Spirit and most in communion with God. Elsewhere, Jesus notes the importance of the soul for our true, everlasting lives: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). This instruction to his disciples is right in line with today’s first reading from Paul, albeit more ominous in tone. Do not be ashamed or afraid of earthly trials, instead focus on the One who can preserve your soul in everlasting life.

    I am left reflecting on how much I may or may not be “dwelling in my soul” rather than in my mind and body, and what that might even mean. I think it must start with a desire, a thirst for God; a desire to connect that invisible part of me with the invisible God. This is the seed of faith, and my goal is to water that seed with prayer, study of divine scriptures, and loving action in the world. This last bit — the loving action — I have the feeling is the true soul-expander. 

  • Agape Has Only One Source: God

    Agape Has Only One Source: God

    Friday in the Third Week of Lent: Hosea 14:2-10, Mark 12:28-34.

    Today’s gospel reading should be very familiar to us. Not only is it one of Jesus’s most straightforward sayings, it’s the answer to what is the “greatest commandment,” which is shorthand for saying, “cut to the chase, what do I need to do to get into Heaven?” Everyone perks up their ears for this answer. It sounds simple; it’s a nice sound bite. But we really have to dig into this to understand what defines Christianity beyond simple morality or concern for the social good.

    Although this episode occurs in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), here in Mark it is the most positive of all the run-ins with scribes in the gospels. A scribe, evidently impressed with his teachings rather than simply seeking to test him or trap him, asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Remember, there are 613 commandments in the Old Testament, and the scribes’ job was to know them intimately and come up with complex scenarios to test them as they teach their people. While we can rightly understand Jesus’s response as a joining of two commandments — loving God and loving neighbor — his response has three parts:

    The Shema inscription on the Knesset Menorah (the Israeli national legislature building in Jerusalem), 1954, Benno Elkan | Wikimedia Commons.

    1a. Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! This is the opening verse of the Shema (she-MAH), a highly important prayer recited by Jews to open their morning and evening prayer. It is spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4. Praying the Shema is a religious commandment in itself (a mitzvah). This prayer distinguished our God as only one in the midst of a world dominated by polytheism. But it applies today; the gods vying for our attention may not be Baal, Ishtar, or Zeus, but they most certainly are self, as seen in pride, power, riches, and pleasure.

    1b. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the continuation of the Deuteronomy passage (6:5), and while it flows directly from the first declaration, it is a different mandate. The only difference between Mark’s account of Jesus’s words is the addition of “with all your mind,” which may be an addition for his Greek-speaking, non-Jewish audience since Jews had a concept of the mind being intertwined in the heart, akin to the concept of intention (and was therefore implied in already in Deuteronomy). In either case, it is clear that we should love God with everything we have: intelligence, emotion, intention, courage, endurance, etc. It is from this whole-person love of God that we receive the gifts to accomplish the last part of the great commandment.

    St. Magdalene in the Desert (1848-1852), Honore Daumier | Creative Commons, courtesy WikiArt.org.

    2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The Word of God first uttered this commandment to Moses as recorded in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. It comes after a series of verses that describe ways this love should be manifested, reading much like the second half of the Ten Commandments. And when we consider Jesus’s answer to the scribe, we do see a reflection of the Ten Commandments, the first half dealing with loving God and the second half dealing with love of neighbor. The “greatest” of the commandments is a consolidation of God’s law that does not omit a thing.

    More than just a summary, however, this commandment demonstrates the great movement and flow of love between us and God. What is this love that has a life of its own, that gains energy as it gets passed along? Let’s examine the classical Greek categories of love. This is not eros, or erotic love, that is the irresistible desire between two people; although desire is a part of this love. This is not philia, or the fondness and brotherly love that binds us in friendship; although this type of love is a part of it. This is not storge, or instinctual love like that towards your family, although, again, instinctual love comes into play.

    This love is agape (ἀγάπη). It is considered the “highest” type of love, transcending the others. This word for love was seldom used by Greek writers prior to Christianity and meant a selfless love solely for the benefit of another. Agape was used by the New Testament writers and found its truest, purest definition in God. As we explored in If You Knew the Gift!, the love we call agape is at the heart of the Trinity. The river of life, the love that endlessly flows between the three Persons of the Trinity, is the “self-opening of our thrice-holy God.” Here we see that agape originates in God, before the world was created. 

    It is only in this sense that we can begin to understand what is meant in the First Letter of John: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (Jn 4:16). Yes, St. John uses the word agape for love. And this famous passage provides a good lens for understanding the greatest commandment. If God is love, then by “loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength” is to give God (love) back to God. It is to be God, for God. We are asked to somehow give this selfless river of life back to God.

    And we can see how the second part of the great commandment flows naturally from the first, for what characterizes God’s agape other than the care and cultivation of his Creation? God does this gratuitously and with unending forgiveness. When we allow the agape originating in God to suffuse us and pour from us back to Him, we are at the same time loving our neighbor since this is part of the nature of that agape to begin with. That’s why love of God always must come first. Loving our neighbor cannot be an aim in its own right, divorced from loving God first. It is our very acceptance, understanding, and reciprocation of God’s own agape that enables us to truly love our neighbor as Christ intends.

    The Prophet Hosea (c.1510), Raphael | Wikimedia Commons. This was a preparatory study for a fresco in the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria della Pace in Rome.

    Here we see a great connection to Hosea, one of the earliest prophets, to whom God revealed the nature of his love. As Pope Benedict the XVI’s points out in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love):

    Hosea above all shows us that this agape dimension of God’s love for man goes far beyond the aspect of gratuity. Israel has committed “adultery” and has broken the covenant; God should judge and repudiate her. It is precisely at this point that God is revealed to be God and not man: “How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! … My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst” (Hos 11:8-9).

    So when we hear in the final chapter of Hosea in today’s first reading, “Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God,” it is God in his forgiveness and love who is imploring them to return. As we discovered in our reflection a few days ago, mercy is the master principle for our religion because it is the act of passing on the forgiveness God gives us. Through mercy, we take in God’s agape and reflect it, share it with others.

    You might ask if God is really a necessary part of the loving others equation. Atheists who donate to food banks and agnostics who volunteer at homeless shelters are fine examples of philia, brotherly love, or even perhaps storge, instinctual love, but not agape. Because the atheist and the agnostic turn their backs on God, they refuse to receive and then give the agape that originates in Him. No Christian can truly live the greatest commandment to love his or her neighbor without having that love originate in and be a reflection of God.

    Why does this matter? Because eternal salvation rests in us uniting ourselves with God, with that agape. 

    It feels like our readings and reflections this Lent have been building to this point, which is roughly halfway to our Lord’s death and resurrection. We have been growing in our understanding of God’s nature: how he thirsts for us and we reciprocate in thirst for him (see If You Knew the Gift!), how he wants us to turn from our sin and follow him in spirit as well as adherence to the law (see Salvation is Based on our Core Person), how each of us is on a path of reditus back to the Lord and once we get there we can start to love selflessly like him (see Rejoice for the Pardon of the Prodigal), and how our granting of mercy to each other in the same manner he grants it to us is the master principle of our faith (see Mercy is the Master Principle). We are left with a question: how do we follow the greatest commandment? With what strength will we possibly be able to love God completely and treat others like we treat ourselves? We know that we constantly fall back into temptation and sin. It is our nature and the way of the world. How can we be re-sanctified and raised beyond this world in order to follow this greatest of commandments?

    The answer for all of us Christians is, of course, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is the fount of our strength, purification, and salvation. It endlessly pours upon us divine grace and enables our true communion with God.

    The Sacred Heart of Jesus – the Golden Arrow (2017), Ingrid Blixt | Artwork from ingridblixt.wordpress.com.

    Pope Benedict XVI writes, “Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34)” (Deus Caritas Est, 7). Yes, Christ is the ultimate example of agape for us. God not only gives his Son as a sacrifice for us in a stunning display of love, but he opens the door for us to become sources of life for the world. The Christ event opens a new reality specifically through the flesh and blood of Jesus, in which he enables us to mystically partake in every liturgy.

    How exactly are the Church and the great Sacrament enabling us to live out the greatest commandment in an even more unanticipated and deep way? Pope Benedict XVI explains:

    Communion draws me out of myself toward him, and thus also toward unity with all Christians. We become “one body,” completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbor are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself. we can thus understand how agape also became a term for Eucharist: there God’s own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us. Only by keeping in mind this Christological and sacramental basis can we correctly understand Jesus’ teaching on love (Deus Caritas Est, 14).

    Over the second half of Lent we continue to contemplate God’s nature and works but we also pivot to begin contemplating the majesty and mystery of his Son. The internal logic of the readings and their relationship to the liturgical seasons becomes more apparent. Yet the fullness of God’s message was always there, at all times. It was Christ, the Word, who first gave this greatest of commandments to Moses as recorded in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The one great difference, the great change, is the New Covenant given by Christ in the person of Jesus, where agape descended from Heaven and manifested in a bodily and spiritual sacrifice, made once and forever.

    Let us embrace this second half of Lent and immerse ourselves, prepare ourselves for the gift of agape that we are asked to celebrate and carry with us throughout our lives.

  • Passions and humility before God

    Tuesday, 7th Week of Ordinary Time: James 4:1-10 and Mark 9:30-37.

    What a nice connection between the two readings today. James asks in his letter “where do the conflicts among you come from?” and likewise we hear Jesus ask “What were you arguing about on the way?” The answer in both cases is our lack of humility before God.

    First, let’s consider the Letter of Saint James. He puts the blame for our sorry state of affairs — that is, war, conflict, covetousness — squarely on our unbridled passions. We’ve all seen people with uncontrolled passions: drink until drunk beyond belief, eat until overfull, sex with whomever and whenever, power at the cost of our morality or basic humanity. Heck, we might be those very people at times. St. James tells us there are grave consequences here: “Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?” Even more forcefully: “whoever wants to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” God wants us to be with Him in perfection and glory, and we betray his desire for us when we desire the world more than Him.

    Allegory of Avarice, 1590, Jacopo Ligozzi | Creative Commons license, courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

    Jesus and the apostles were clear on this point. Epistles from St. John, St. Paul, and St. Peter all have a version of “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 Jn 2:15) or “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2). Just before his arrest and Passion, Jesus prayed on behalf of his disciples to the Father: “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one” (Jn 17:14-15). So there it is: we Christians do not belong to the world, we must tame our passions and ask for God’s protection from Satan.

    Why, then, after 2000 years of hearing this message, do we still cling to this world and its passions, knowing that it’s an affront to our new state of grace won by Christ? As our small morning mass congregation was reminded today by Fr. Erik Richtsteig, it all stems from The Fall of Adam and Eve, when our human desires and intellect became warped and out of sync with God. This is our human condition. How, then, do we return to God from our fallen state?

    St. James quotes scripture: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” His instruction for us is to “submit yourselves to God … Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.” Ah, yes, that frighteningly difficult virtue of humility. While I’m not very good at being truly humble, I do appreciate the way St. James tells us that the act of humility here is submission to God. It’s not a submission to other people, a type of meekness in the face of others. This I can begin to do. In my mind, it’s much easier to humble myself before the awesome wonder of the Creator of the Universe than a self-righteous co-worker arguing with me. (The harder part is seeing our Lord in that co-worker, and loving that person because the Lord resides in her, too.)

    Author: Jean-Luc Ourlin | Wikimedia Commons

    St. James’s dialectic of world/God reminds me of the words of our reluctant Nobel Laureate and national folk-rock treasure, Bob Dylan: “Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” If Bob is right (and St. James), then we are fooling ourselves if we believe that following our self-interest is somehow our most “free” state of being. Following our passions is just being a slave to the world (whose prince is Satan, as we are told). We’re literally serving something/someone who has no care for our salvation, someone who deviously makes us think we’re serving ourselves in the process. Wouldn’t it be better to serve God, who yearns to give us eternal salvation?

    Fr. Erik deftly reminded us that this is a great reading to have the day before Lent starts. Taming the passions through fasting and giving up things during Lent “exercises our spiritual muscles,” in his words. These things serve a real purpose (aside from what looks like sadistic torment to non-Catholics) — they bring us closer to God by helping us detach from the world and our passions. Fasting and little deprivations help us prepare for bigger temptations and challenges that come our way. The saints’ lives are a grand tapestry of testimonials to this effect. Bring on Lent!

    This brings us to the gospel reading from St. Mark, where Jesus finally opens up to his disciples and tells them that he will “be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.” In hindsight, we can grasp the immensity of these prophetic words, that they are in fact the inauguration of the New Covenant and our saving grace, but the disciples did not understand and “were afraid to question him.”

    St. Mark, in all his brevity being the shortest of the gospels, is a master at pointing out the awkward failings of humans. When Jesus asks what they were arguing about along the way, Mark states in the dry cunning befitting a police procedural: “But they remained silent. For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.” It’s easy to imagine the embarrassment of being called out for such hubris. Maybe some flushed cheeks while they stare at their sandals, shifting uneasily on the ground as they stand there in ashamed silence. Awwwwkward.

    Jesus (we must wonder if he suppresses a big sigh at this point) simply sits down, calls the Twelve to him and explains that “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” This only makes sense if we understand that “being first” is not measured in this world, by people in this world, but by God, in His Kingdom. This is the type of teaching echoed in St. Paul’s “Do not be conformed to this world.”

    Jesus follows this up with the gentle gesture of putting his arms around a child in their midst and saying “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.” Several things are happening here. First, if important men such as chosen apostles spend their time receiving a child into their arms, they are performing an act of humility. This is the first level of meaning. Second, Jesus constructs an analogy between himself and the child — by acting as he acts, they receive him. He is the child, not just figuratively, but literally, the Son of God. And this sonship is an important perspective: the good son is wholly prefigured by and attentive to his father. Being humble like a good son is humble before his father is the entire message here, and the apostles will be able to receive that type of humility by following Christ’s example, yes, but also because of the mystical nature of this Christ, this God-become-man. Thus, the second part of his statement, “and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” This is the nature of our salvation as adopted sons and daughters of God through Christ. He opens the doorway of true filiation with God. He is the example, but more importantly, both the herald and the very means of salvation. His saving Passion and Resurrection, which he was just trying to share with them, is the event that will enable them (and us) to not be slaves to our passions but receive divinification when we are humble before God. 

    Whoever is skeptical about the Word of God, about Christ, needs to just read and understand the import of passages like this in St. Mark to realize that this isn’t something a writer can just “make up.” This revelation of the Lord’s presence, ways, and plan for us is something so densely a part of Christ and his dealings with his disciples that every gesture and word recorded resounds down the centuries. St. Mark admits that the disciples didn’t understand what Christ was talking about, and it’s possible that St. Mark himself didn’t realize the full import of the events and words that he faithfully wrote down for us. This is the revelation of God, and as important today as it ever was.