In A Post-Christendom Age

Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Much ink has been spilt of late on the idea of Christendom, or a worldwide or Western-wide Christian kingdom reality.  In case you’re wondering, we’re not in it.  Christendom often describes a reality where Christian values are the norm, and may even be the major underpinning of the legal system.  In the US, people often think of the 1950s as demonstrating the height of Christendom for Americans.  Certainly, in Europe that history goes much farther back, but also frayed during the time of the so-called Enlightenment, until its collapse probably around World War I, when many in Europe wondered how a Christian ethos could produce the “War to end all wars” between Christian countries.
    Again, in case you’re wondering, we’re not in a time of Christendom.  While our court system, perhaps the last bastion of sanity in our otherwise crazy political system, has upheld our rights as a church against the assaults connected with especially the Obama and Biden administrations (think of Little Sisters of the Poor, the redefinition of civil marriage, and the promotion of gender dysphoria policies), society generally has walked away from a Christian worldview.  
    And in some cases, we’re to blame.  When our lives as Catholics no longer act as salt and leaven, but rather are part of the rot and flatness of society, is it no wonder that others would not want to continue with Christians providing the overarching theme of society?  Two extreme examples from the past century stand out as acute reminders that simply being Christian doesn’t mean you live a Christian life: Hitler and Stalin were both baptized Christians: Hitler a Catholic and Stalin a Russian Orthodox.  But many more stopped living the faith in their work and in their homes, which had an even greater diminishment of trust in a Christian worldview.  
    So, as we celebrate Christ the King this Sunday, what do we celebrate in a post-Christendom world?  This is an important date for the Traditional Latin Mass community of Flint, but how do we celebrate Christ the King when He seems to reign less and less in our country and in our world?  
    In the first place, we have to ask ourselves if Christ is truly king in our lives.  Can people tell that I am Catholic when I work?  When I invite friends over to my house?  When I go on vacation?  The first and most important way to spread a Christian and Catholic culture is to live it ourselves.  If we do not live the Gospel at its roots, that is, in a radical way (from the Latin word radice, meaning root), then no one is going to listen to me encouraging them to become Catholic or to live with Catholic values.  One thing that people look for today is authenticity.  While we all fall short of our goals at times, living something in integrity convinces others.  Living Catholicism only as a mask does not convince others, and strengthens the point that it’s not worth trying, since even those who profess it don’t live it.  May our lives not reflect the quote from G.K. Chesterton: “The Christian idea has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”  If we don’t do what we can to live up to the standard Christ sets, why would we expect others to do so?

    Secondly, Christ told Pontius Pilate that His Kingdom was not of this world.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t advance the Gospel and Christ’s way of life, but that it will always be opposed.  Christ is King, whether we and the world accept Him or not.  And at the end of time, that kingdom will come in force.  But until that happens, our goal is to encourage others, by proposition, not imposition, to join in the kingdom, so that the inauguration of the full reign of Christ will be a day of joy for them and us, not a day of wrath.  The blueprint for this is what is called the Apostolic Model (in distinction from the Christendom Model).  Our key is to live like the Apostles did: filled with the Holy Spirit; committed wholeheartedly to Christ; willing to suffer persecution joyfully for the sake of the Name.  The first disciples were not theologians.  Maybe St. Paul could claim that title, but most of the first disciples simply opened themselves to Christ’s grace and were willing to die for their belief that He is God and saved them from sin and eternal death.  They lived in a way that showed they were ready for Christ’s return at any moment, not growing drowsy from the wait.  

    Living in such a way, and dying in such a way, transformed the first-century world.  The first generations of Christians did not participate in the all-too-common debauchery of public life.  They did not concern themselves with doing anything to gain power and prestige.  They loved those who persecuted them.  They lived innocent lives, but did not disdain to be martyred when confronted with false charges of treason or heresy against the Roman pantheon.  This convinced everyday people to convert and follow Christ then, and it will work to convince and convert everyday people now.  In a world that lacks logical consistency; in a world gone made by lust and power, those who live the truth (not their truth but the truth) stand out as beacons.  Yes, some will persecute those who are not mad.  St. Anthony of the Desert saw this some seventeen hundred years ago when he wrote, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attach him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’”   So we need to be ready for greater persecution, if it comes.  But when neighbors recognize that we are not buying into the cultural madness, and that we are even willing to suffer because we do not buy into it, they will slowly come to our side, and sense the power of the Gospel, just as ordinary Romans did in the first three hundred years of the Church.
    Christ is King.  And while His Kingdom has not advance in this world recently, and in fact has receded quite a bit, His Kingdom cannot, in the end, be stopped.  In the meantime, our goal is to live the faith in its fulness, doing all we can to follow Christ with all of who we are.  When we do this, we live as faithful subjects of so great a King, and can expect to be welcomed into the mansions prepared for us when His Kingdom comes in all its fulness at the end of time.  To Christ be honor and glory for ever and ever.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Not Safe, But Good

Feast of Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In his wonderful work, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis has a dialogue between the three children and Mr. Beaver, where Mr. Beaver introduces the character of Aslan.  Mr. Beaver says that Aslan is:

“the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea.  […]Aslan is a lion–the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “…Is he–quite safe?  I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mr. Beaver.  “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.  “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?  Who said anything about safe?  ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you.”

As we celebrate Christ the King, we celebrate the King to whom Aslan points, not safe, but good; the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, whom we, the sons of Adam and Eve, can embrace as our brother, but a Lion, nonetheless.

    Christ as a King is both a strong warrior who defeats the enemy at the gates, but also our brother, by our adoption by His Divine Father.  Words limp at such an apparent paradox.  Christ Himself tells parable about killing the enemies of the king, and says on the night before His Passion that the prince of this world is being cast out.  And at the same time He asks the woman caught in adultery, “‘Has no one condemned you?  Neither then do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on, sin no more.’”  He is the Good Samaritan who binds up our wounds, puts us on His beast, and takes us to the inn where He pays for our recovery; but at the same time He is the one who “will put those wicked men to a wicked end” for not taking care of His vineyard and harming and killing the messengers of the vineyard owner.  He is, in the Apocalypse, the Lamb who was slain, and yet who has a sword which comes from His mouth to strike down the nations that oppose Him. 
    Perhaps that is why we are presented with two distinct images of His Kingship in our readings: St. Paul’s description of the Lord as the firstborn of all creation, the head of the body, the Church, who has primacy over everything; and the innocent victim, standing before the merely temporal Roman governor, yet submitting to Pilate’s decision that would mean the sacrifice of Christ’s life.  Christ, like Aslan, is both approachable and terrifying; Lover and Lord. 
    Perhaps that is why our relationship with Christ the King is also so hard to explain and put into words.  The Lord says in John, chapter 15, “‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing.  I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.’”  But then St. Paul, who met the same Christ on the road to Damascus, refers to himself as “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus,” in his epistle to the Romans.  St. Ignatius of Loyola would “baptize” his former life as a mercenary, and talk about himself as a knight serving the King of Kings.  While St. Catherine of Siena would describe the Lord as “sweet Jesus, Jesus, Love.”  The responsory from the post-Conciliar Divine Office for the Second Reading on the Memorial of Sts. Cornelius and Cyprian says, “We are warriors now, fighting on the battlefield of faith, and God sees all we do; the angels watch and so does Christ.  What honor and glory and joy, to do battle in the presence of God and to have Christ approve our victory.”  While St. Theresa of Calcutta saw Christ hanging on the cross, telling her, “I thirst” and asking her to quench that thirst by serving the poorest of the poor.  All of those images are true, as contradictory as they may seem at first glance.
    His Eminence, Cardinal Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, recently issued a pastoral letter to the Patriarchate which also expresses this tension.  He meditates on words from the Gospel of John, “‘I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.  In the world you will have tribulations, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”  The Cardinal writes:
 

[Christ] addresses these words to His disciples, who will shortly be tossed about, as if in a storm, before His death.  They will panic, scatter and flee, like sheep without a shepherd.
    Yet, this last word of Jesus is an encouragement.  He does not say that He shall win, but that He has already won.  Even in the turmoil to come, the disciples will be able to have peace.  This is not a matter of theoretical irenic peace, nor of resignation to the fact that the world is evil, and we can do nothing to change it.  Instead it is about having the assurance that precisely within all this evil, Jesus has already won.  Despite the evil ravaging the world, Jesus has achieved a victory, and established a new reality, a new order, which after the resurrection will be issued by the disciples who were reborn in the Spirit. 
    It was on the cross that Jesus won: not with weapons, not with political power, not by great means, nor by imposing himself.  The peace He speaks of has nothing to do with victory over others.  He won the world by loving it.

This letter was written for the Feast of Our Lady of Palestine, celebrated on 25 October, in the midst of yet another war in the Holy Land, the Land of the King of Kings and Prince of Peace.
    What can we do as we celebrate Christ the King, which is also the anniversary our our own Traditional Latin Mass Community in Flint?  We do our best to live in imitation of our King, Conqueror and Victim, Conqueror because He is Victim.  We do our best to put to death the works of evil, starting with ourselves and the planks that are in our own eyes, but also working to promote life by opposing the evils without and the splinters in the eyes of our neighbors.  We seek the victory and the triumph which so often are made manifest through the rituals of this beautiful Mass, doing so by the reality to which this Mass points, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, lived out in our own lives daily.  We do not shun the cross, but realize that Christ reigns from a the throne of a tree, and so we seek to reign with Him through our own daily crucifixions. 

    Christ is a King, and He is our brother.  We kneel before Him in fealty, and we run to embrace Him in love.  We acknowledge that He is not a domesticated animal, that He is not safe, but that He is good, in fact, Goodness Incarnate.  Christus vincit!  Christus regnat!  Christus imperat!  Christ conquers!  Christ reigns!  Christ commands!  He who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.   

Already and Not Yet

Feast of Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we celebrate Christ the King, we celebrate what is, but also long for what is to come.  We see this even in our Lord’s description of His kingdom.  In the Gospel according to St. Mark, in the very first chapter, Christ says, “‘This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.”  In the Gospel according to St. Luke, in chapter 21, the same Christ says, “‘behold, the kingdom of God is among you.’”  And yet, as we heard today, Christ also says in the Gospel according to St. John, “‘My kingdom does not belong to this world.  If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over….  But as it is, my kingdom is not here.’”  So, which is it?  Is the kingdom at hand and even among us, or is it not here?

    Yes.  Yes it is at hand; yes it is among us; yes it is not here.  As with so many aspects of our faith, we need to unpack the idea of Christ’s kingdom.  The Incarnation is the presence of the Kingdom of God, where all is right.  Christ holds all things together in himself, and in Christ we have the perfect union of God and man, which is part of the kingdom.  In Christ, the human soul is subject to the will of God perfectly, and the body is subject to the human soul.  In Christ, love and truth have met, justice and peace have kissed (to cite Psalm 84).  
    But, and you don’t have to look hard to realize this next point, we’re not living in the fullness of the kingdom.  Our bodies do not always obey our souls, which do not always obey the will of God.  Love is distorted to mean delight or even license; justice is often available to the highest bidder and is applied differently if you have money and/or power than if you don’t; civil unrest, battles, and wars still plague our cities, State, nation, and world.  Sorry, Belinda Carlisle, but heaven is not a place on earth.      And yet, as followers of Christ live the Gospel, heaven does break into earth more and more, and the kingdom establishes itself more perfectly.  When we love to the best of our ability with the love of God, the kingdom grows.  When we proclaim the truth of the Gospel, the truth that the Church continues to unpack throughout the centuries, the kingdom grows.  When we not only give each other his or her due, but also help others to thrive, the kingdom grows.  When we are able to pray for our enemies and do good to those who persecute us, the kingdom grows.  This is not to say that we are the ones who bring about the kingdom; that work is always primarily the work of God, with which we participate.  The approach that we have to usher in the kingdom tends to go wrong pretty quickly, due to our own sinfulness.  Just look at the approach taken in Central America which sought to bring about the kingdom, but which ended up being Marxist regimes that oppressed the people and led to class warfare and societal instability.
    It is Christ who brings about His own kingdom, and He will fully establish His reign at the end of time, when His angels will separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, and will cast down the beast and its followers for eternity in Hell.  That will be a dies irae for those who work against God, and the battle will be swift and decisively victorious for Christ.
    It will be decisive because Christ already decisively conquered on a tree.  His sacrifice, re-presented for us in an unbloody manner on this altar, was the defining battle of all time, when Satan was conquered once-for-all, and sin and death were trod underfoot.  So Christ already achieved victory, but that victory has not been extended in totality yet.  And that is why we wait.
    And as we wait, we show if we want to be victorious in Christ, or conquered with the ancient foe.  We demonstrate whether we prefer to serve in heaven or reign in hell.  Our actions are our response to the invitation of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God.  Are we going to the wedding feast of the kingdom, or do we find excuses why we cannot attend?
    If we wish that kingdom to spread, if we wish to cooperate in spreading that kingdom, then it begins here.  If Christ is the kingdom of God in its fullness, then when we receive Holy Communion worthily, the kingdom of God is among us and even within us.  Coming to Mass, offering ourselves with the host and the wine, and then receiving in a state of grace the Eucharist allows the kingdom of God to be planted inside of us at least each week, or even every day.  The more that we receive the Eucharist in a state of grace, the more likely it is that we will respond to spreading that kingdom in our lives at work, at home, on vacation, at sporting events, etc.  
    That kingdom also spreads most easily through the domestic church, the family.  When parents demonstrate love, the children learn to do the same.  When children and parents tell the truth, God’s kingdom is strengthened among them.  When parents make sure that every member of the family has the ability, not only to survive but to thrive, the justice of the Kingdom of God grows.  When children learn how to say “I’m sorry” when they have done wrong, and when children see their parents apologize for their sins in confession and in the home, Christ’s kingship is established more and more.  And then those children are more likely to do the same in the homes and families that they make for themselves.  And the kingdom spreads even more.  
    If you wish to help the kingdom God, then love, not only your neighbors, but also your enemies.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, tell the truth, be honest in contracts.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, stand up for what is right, no matter how unpopular it may be, correct with charity, when appropriate, and administer discipline as your state calls you.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, admit when you’re wrong, and forgive when others have wronged you.  It will help show the “already” of the kingdom, and will allow us to persevere in the “not yet,” until Christ reigns fully, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Loyalty to our Team

 Feast of Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Yesterday there was a big game, at least if you’re a college football fan in the State of Michigan.  Undefeated University of Michigan Wolverines, ranked 6 in the US, played the undefeated Michigan State University Spartans, ranked 8 in the US.  While there are other universities and colleges in the State, there does seem to be a general division between Michigan and Michigan State.  In fact, that was one of the first questions Bishop Boyea was asked when he was announced as the newest bishop of Lansing back in 2008 (to which he demurred).  

    It is interesting that we put so much weight on loyalty to a particular football team.  Some have loyalty because they attended that school.  Others like a winning record, or the history of a particular program.  I must admit that I have supported both schools in the past, as my parents both went to Michigan State, but I have some very good friends who attended Michigan.  Some, like me, go back and forth, or try to split their loyalties, especially if you have kids who go to either university.
    But today, as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, and the thirty-second anniversary of the Traditional Latin Mass community in Flint, we deal with something much bigger than college football.  We are invited to renew our loyalty to Christ the King, to a King who will suffer no rivals, at least not in the end; to a King who is head and ruler of His Mystical Body, the Church; to a King who has myriad of angels waiting on His command; to a King who suffered and suffers our rejection patiently, hoping for us to convert.
    Those may seem like contradictions, but in Christ what would normally be a contradiction is held in the tension of the truest reality that exists.  Christ is both King who has no equal, but who also humbles Himself.  We see it in His exchange with Pontius Pilate.  St. John is very clear in His Gospel that Christ is always in control.  And yet, He engages in a kind of dialogue with Pilate, sometimes responding, sometimes in silence, which propels Christ to the Cross, which is His perfect throne on earth.  He admits that He has angels who would protect Him from any harm.  And yet, a chapter later, He will allow His sacred hands and feet to be pierced so that our rejection of our King could be healed and forgiven.  
    Christ is a patient king, and that should give us hope.  He allows us time to turn back to Him after we have turned away, because we are part of Him, and He wants us to be a part of His Kingdom.  This is not an excuse to be lax, or to presume on His mercy, but it does encourage us that, when we are not the subjects that we are supposed to be, because Christ wants to be generous with His mercy.  
    Further, since Christ is the Head of His Mystical Body, and we are members of that Mystical Body by baptism, Christ wants us to remain part of Him, reigning in heaven, just as we would like to retain all of our body.  Only those parts of the body that are dead need to be cut off, so Christ does all He can to nurse back to health ailing parts of the body.  So we should never be afraid of running to Christ for mercy when we have sinned.
    But at some point, both individually and collectively, our opportunity for mercy will come to an end, and our decisions about which kingdom we are loyal to–the kingdom of darkness, as St. Paul says, or the kingdom of light–will be a final decision, with no chance of turning back.  For many, that comes after death, when our loyalty or disloyalty to God will be locked in for all eternity.  Or it could come when Christ returns in glory at the end of time.  But we don’t know when that will be, in either scenario.  And that calls us to prepare.
    As we enter into November, we can spend especially the next month (and every day of our life) we call to mind the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.  We shouldn’t be neurotic about it, and so concentrated on death that we lose the joy of life and the blessings Christ our King gives to us.  But, as we are faced with temptations, when we consider that we are choosing our loyalty to heaven or hell with each choice, it helps us to make better choices and become more and more each day a part of the Kingdom of Christ.  
    Yesterday, before the game at noon, no one knew who would win: Michigan or Michigan State.  People had their loyalties based on their own reasoning.  But when it comes to the Kingdom of Christ, our Lord has already won; there is no competition or challenge left from the enemy.  But while our Lord has won, we are still in the last seconds of the contest of eternal salvation, and these last seconds will decide, not who wins, but whether or not we’re on the winning team.  Choose your loyalty carefully.  Be sure you know which kingdom you’re trending towards.  Long live Christ the King!  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

"The Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity"

 Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

Calvary, where Jesus died

    “But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”  As we come to this Good Friday that was, at its face value, anything but good, this line can echo in our hearts and minds.  “But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”  Why?  Why was God the Father pleased to crush Jesus?  Why let Jesus undergo the cruel agony of the crucifixion: the unspeakable pain as nail pierces flesh; the utter humiliation of being naked on the cross; the gasps for breath as His lungs filled with fluid?  This seems too cruel for the one Jesus told us would run out to meet us when we had been prodigal, wasteful, with our inheritance; for the one who goes after the one sheep who has gone astray while leaving the other ninety-nine.  It almost seems sadistic.  
    We have no doubt that this was the Father’s will.  How can we be so sure?  Because it happened.  God the Father never allows anything to happen that is outside His will.  We hear this in the Gospel of John time and time again, when the authorities want to arrest Jesus, but He always seems to slip past them, until the Garden of Gethsemane.  Perhaps it wasn’t God’s original plan.  The great Catholic author and liturgist, Msgr. Romano Guardini, speculates that the desire of God was for the Chosen People to accept Jesus as the Messiah, in which case perhaps God could have saved us in another way.  But God, who stands outside time and could see what would happen because it is as the present to Him, knew that Jesus would be rejected, and would have to die the terrible death we enter into today.
    But why?  We can know that God allowed it, but the question still remains.  Why?  The only answer to that question is that God loves us.  We heard it in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but might have eternal life.”  God’s love for us was so strong, that not even the threat of annihilation could hinder it.  We know Jesus struggled in His human nature, as anyone would, to embrace what looked like defeat, and what was certainly going to be painful.  But Jesus, the Icon of the Love of the Father, could do nothing other than express that Love which He is by the shedding of His Precious Blood, the Blood of a truly unblemished Lamb.  
    Did we deserve love?  No.  A million times no.  But God loved us anyway.  How many times had we broken our covenant with God at the point of the crucifixion?  How many times would the members of God’s Church continue to break it afterwards?  And yet, God loved us anyway.  We all have been the unfaithful spouse in the marriage covenant with our Divine Spouse.  But God did not divorce us; He didn’t walk away.  He loved us more, giving not just His exhortations and example to return to that love, but even giving His Blood, even giving His last breath out of love for us.  As the hymn sings, “What wondrous love is this!”
    What is our response to that love?  What is our response to that gift of all gifts, the gift that can never be fully repaid, a gift which we have no right to receive, but which God offers us anyway?  If your husband brought home a winning Powerball ticket worth hundreds of millions of dollars, what would be your response?  If your wife told you that she had just inherited a Caribbean island with a mansion, the plane to fly there, with unlimited fuel to power the plane, and unlimited food and drink, what would be your response?  This gift is better than both of those combined, times infinity.  
    And yet, we still cry out–by our lack of love towards each other, by our spiteful words, by our lack of desire to spend time with Jesus, by our disobedience to God’s law–“Crucify him!  Crucify him!”  We still pound in those nails each time we sin.  We still pierce His side when we decide that something, anything, is better than spending time with Jesus in the Mass just for one hour once or twice per week.  
    “But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”  God the Father knew, as only He could, that this was the only way for salvation to truly be accomplished.  This was the only way to prove just how much He loves us.  And though the cost was great; though the agony was beyond that of any other person, since no other person was Life Incarnate; though all but a few gave in to cowardice and wouldn’t even be with Him in the last moments, God the Father allowed His Son to die; Jesus willingly, lovingly accepted death.  As we come to venerate the Cross: remember what Jesus did for love of you; remember how you have led Jesus here; remember the love we have rejected by our sins.
    But also remember: God loves us anyway.

The Hour

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
    When I was in elementary school, we would sometimes play a game called “What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?”  It’s not a complicated game.  One person is Mr. Fox, who stands at the far side of a gym or field, facing away from the other players.  Everyone else is, well, honestly, I forget what they are, but they all ask together, “What time is it, Mr. Fox?” and Mr. Fox calls out an hour of the day (say, 3:00).  The others then have to take 3 steps towards Mr. Fox.  If they get past Mr. Fox, they’re safe, but if Mr. Fox yells “Midnight,” then it’s a game of tag, and if you get tagged, you’re out.  The last person left becomes the next Mr. Fox.
    What on earth does this have to do with Good Friday?  Well, throughout John’s Gospel (we heard the Passion according to St. John today), Jesus talks about His hour.  At the wedding at Cana in chapter 2, Jesus says to the Blessed Mother, “‘Woman, how does your concern affect me?  My hour has not yet come.’”  With the Samaritan Woman at the well in chapter 4, Jesus says to the woman, “‘Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem….the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.”  In John chapter six, after healing a man who had been ill for 38 years, Jesus says, “‘Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God….the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life…’”  As the hatred of the scribes and Pharisees grow, St. John himself notes in chapter seven, “no one laid a hand upon him, because [Jesus’] hour had not yet come.” and in chapter eight, “But no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.”  In chapter 12, after the entry into Jerusalem, Jesus says, “‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’” and “‘Yet what should I say? “Father, save me from this hour”?  But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.’”  And finally, in chapters 13 through 17, which covers the Last Supper, Jesus talks about His hour 3 separate times, concluding with “‘Father, the hour has come.  Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you.’”
    Jesus’ hour has come.  The hour for the Son of Man to be glorified is precisely the hour at which the Son of Man, the Lamb of God, is sacrificed for the salvation of the world.  That’s what we’re celebrating here: the hour of the immolation, and yet the glorification, of Jesus.  All eternity points to this moment, to the death of the Incarnate God on the Cross.  All the past points to it, and all the future references back to it. 
    Why then?  Why at that hour?  Because it was God’s will.  That answer may not feel satisfactory.  But it’s the only answer we have, and before God’s will, we can only kneel down in wonder and awe and say, “Thy will be done.”  According to Divine Providence, God the Father chose that day at that time in that gruesome manner for His Son to save us from sin and death.  And so it was the most fitting day (the day that the Jews were slaughtering the Passover lambs), the most fitting time (at the time that the daily evening sacrifice was offered and the Passover lambs were usually slain), in a way that demonstrated just how far God would go in order to save the creation He had made in His own image and likeness. 
    So why are we going through this pestilence now?  Why can’t we come to church to celebrate the mysteries of our Lord’s redemption as the People of God?  All I can say is that this is part of God’s plan in Divine Providence, not to send us this virus, but to allow this virus to draw us closer to Him.  St. Paul reminds us that all things work for the good of those who love God.  Somehow, even our current suffering can work towards good.  If the death of the Son of God can bring us new life, then certainly our suffering, united to Jesus on the cross, can also bring us new life, new appreciation, new love of God. 
    Honestly, we don’t know why this hour.  But just as the crucifixion was the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified through His suffering, so this hour can be for the children of God to be glorified through our suffering.  That is our faith.  That is our hope.  That is our confidence.  We were chosen for this hour, to be a part of God’s plan for the glorification of God, and for our salvation.  Come, let us worship!

Calvary, presently inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

115 Days Since Christmas

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

It has been 115 days since Christmas.  115 days since we celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ from the Blessed Virgin Mary, God-with-us, Emmanuel.  115 days since that joy of knowing that God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to become like us in all things but sin.  And every day, since Christmas, has been pointing to this day.

Recall that there was a tree in the Garden of Eden besides the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, from which God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat.  That other tree was the Tree of Life.  And when Adam and Eve had been expelled from the garden, God stationed a cherubim with a “fiery revolving sword…to guard the way to the tree of life.”  Humanity was created for life, but because of sin, they chose to seek after death.

Jesus, on the other hand, was, in a sense, born for death.  Now, to be clear, Jesus’ death should have never happened.  When God became flesh, we should have accepted Him and followed Him, and then God would have brought about salvation in some other way.  But, as we know that God knows the course of history, because all time belongs to Him as is as the present to Him, we also know that God the Father knew that Jesus, His Beloved Son, would be rejected.  God the Father knew that His Son would be “marred…beyond human semblance.”  He knew that Jesus would be “spurned and avoided by people, a man of suffering…pierced for our offenses, [and] crushed for our sins.”  And yet, God chose His Beloved Son to be born so that He could die.

Why?  Why would a loving Father–and we know God the Father is loving because Jesus revealed to us so many times how loving God is–send His Son to die?  God sent His Son to die that we could, once more, have access to the Tree of Life, closed off to us by sin.  And let’s be clear, it is not as if this was foisted upon Jesus.  Jesus willingly, lovingly, accepted His death out of that same love for us that God the Father has.  In the supernatural order, sin brought death, but, ironically, it was death that brought life.  And just as sin entered by a tree, so by a tree, the cross, sin and death were defeated by life itself.

We deserved death because of sin.  We had abandoned God, though He never abandoned us.  Jesus, on the other hand, did not deserve death, because He had no sin.  He was tested, as our second reading says, but He did not sin.  But He still took upon Himself our offenses, our sins, so that, by His chastisements, we might be made whole; by His stripes we might be healed; by His offering of His life, we no longer had to lose ours.  

The place of the Crucifixion in the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre

John’s Gospel makes very clear that, through it all, Jesus remained God and in control.  If He wanted to, Jesus could have called upon an army of cherubim with their fiery swords, and brought about divine vengeance upon all who wished to harm the Son of God.  But He didn’t.  He was killed in the most shameful way, the most painful way, and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, was “like a lamb led to the slaughter…he was silent and opened not his mouth.”  

In one sense it was our sin that led Jesus here today.  Even the smallest venial sin, the tiniest act of disobedience to God cries out for justice, and, as St. Paul says, the wages of sin is death.  We cannot simply blame the Jews of Jesus’ time for calling for His death; we cannot simply blame Pontius Pilate and his moral weakness for capitulating to the Chief Priests' and Pharisees’ demand for blood.  We also must blame ourselves because our sins, our personal sins, no matter how big or how small, closed off the tree of life from us.

But, in another sense, it was the love of God that led Jesus here today.  The love of God that is so strong that it leaves the 99 safe sheep behind for the 1 lost lamb; the love of God that is so strong that it runs out to meet the Prodigal Son even as he is far off; the love of God that is so strong that He would rather sacrifice Himself to death than see any of His ungrateful children suffer.  It was love that led Jesus here, to die for us on a tree, the tree to which He was nailed to become the Tree of Life for all who believe.  

In one of the most powerful scenes, I think, from the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” we see Jesus on the Via Dolorosa, the Sorrowful Way, the Way of the Cross.  Mary, the Blessed Mother, is off in the distance with St. John, the Beloved Apostle, shocked at what they are doing to her Son.  Jesus falls, and says, “Mother,” and Mary thinks back to little Jesus falling on a road on Nazareth.  She notices, and, as any loving mother does, she rushes to comfort the little Child who has fallen.  As she runs to the Child Jesus, she cries out, “Jeshua, Jeshua,” “Jesus, Jesus,” and it then shows Mary, now as Jesus walks to His death, and she runs to him again, saying, as she did when He was a child, “I’m here.  I’m here.”  She embraces the suffering Jesus, just as she embraced the Child Jesus.  And Jesus, clinging to His Cross, says, “See, Mother, I make all things new.”  Jesus was born to make all things new.  He died to make all things new; to have the cherubim sheath his fiery sword, and give all access to the Tree of Life which gives immortality, the wood of the Cross.  Come, let us worship!

Truth and Beauty

Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

When is a king most a king?  That might seem like a very academic question, but it impacts how we understand and celebrate this Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  A king, I would suggest, is most a king when he has defeated his enemies, and his kingdom is secure.  The ideal of Jewish kings is King David, who conquered all of his enemies.  King Solomon, his son, is least kingly when he is conquered by his wives’ attachment to their foreign gods.  

So for we who celebrate this great festival, when is Jesus most a king?  When He has defeated His enemies, that is to say, Satan, sin, and death.  And when did Jesus do exactly that?  On the cross.  And so, Jesus is most kingly when He is on the cross, dying for our salvation, and, at the same time, destroying the reign of Satan over this world.  That helps us understand today’s Gospel, which is Christ being interrogated by Pontius Pilate.  Of course, this was right before Jesus was led away to His crucifixion.  Pilate asks about Jesus’ kingship, alleged by the chief priests, and Jesus answers that His kingdom is a kingdom of truth.  That truth was released upon the world in the most powerful way when Jesus was nailed to the cross, the truth that St. John the Evangelist also tells us, that, “God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Truth is related to something else: beauty.  We so often hear the false, yet ubiquitous statement, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  Beauty, though, is not subjective, because it is the splendor of the truth, and truth is utterly objective.  Something is beautiful as much as it is true, or reflects the truth.  Lies are ugly.  Tonight we enjoy beautiful music.  It’s beautiful not simply because of the number of people, not simply because of the instrumentation, nor even the notes themselves, but because it reflects the truth of heaven.  Now, maybe Mozart isn’t played 24/7 in heaven, but the genius of Mozart, why it has stood the test of time, is that he tapped into something otherworldly, something heavenly, which helps us recognize the grandeur, the immensity, the order of heaven.  And this particular piece was made for the Mass, where heaven and earth are joined in harmony with each other in this sacred space.  Mozart maybe isn’t played in heaven 24/7, but it helps us to recognize that in this church we straddle both heaven and earth as we worship Christ our King, which is true of every Mass.  

Today we worship Christ, the King, who reigned most perfectly from the cross, and who still reigns perfectly in heaven as He continues to pour Himself out fully to God the Father for Christ’s Bride, the Church.  May our adherence to the truth prepare us for what God destines for us, a place in the Kingdom of Christ the King, where we will experience the fullness of the Beauty of God, in which we participate today.

What Makes Him Beautiful

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

In 2012 one of the newer boy bands, One Direction, came out with the song, “What Makes You Beautiful.”  The song talks about how this girl, who is loved by the author, doesn’t realize how beautiful she is.  My guess is there are still girls who would love to be serenaded by One Direction with his song.

When it comes to beauty, we so often translate beauty into taste.  “Oh, that’s beautiful!” tends to mean, “I like that!”  “That’s ugly!” often means, “I don’t like that!”  “Beauty,” so we hear, “is in the eye of the beholder.”

But not for Catholics.  As Catholics, we believe that there is an objective standard for beauty, even though it is diverse in its expressions.  For us as Catholics, beauty is rooted in God who is, we can say, the truly Beautiful One.  And since God who is Beauty also identifies Himself as God who is Truth, we know that there is a relationship between beauty and truth.  In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas states that a beautiful thing is that which shows the truth of that thing.  Beauty, we can say, is the shining forth, the splendor, or refulgence, of the truth.  A beautiful duck is a duck that has two legs, two wings, and quacks.  The only ugly duckling is one that lacks in some way from what it means to be a duck. 

Today Isaiah prophesies about the Suffering Servant of the Lord.  And while that servant “shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted,” still that same servant shall be “marred…beyond human semblance.”  The Suffering Servant will startle many nations as one who has “no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.”      He will bear our infirmities and endure our sufferings.  He will be pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, chastised, and beaten.  That doesn’t sound like someone who is beautiful.  It does not sound like one of the beautiful people.  If you have ever seen a Spanish crucifix, you see the great lengths the Spanish would go to in order to show how much Jesus suffered.  Their crucifixes are covered in the red of Jesus’ blood, with dark bruises over Jesus’ body.  The way Jesus was portrayed in “The Passion” by Mel Gibson gives in movie form what Spanish crucifixes tend to look like in statue form.

So, given all these injuries, all this blood, the bruising, the agony in visual form, do we say that Jesus, on the cross, was ugly?  Do we say that Jesus lacks some truth as He hangs on the cross?  Was the marring beyond human semblance such that it made Jesus an ugly Person?

Of course not.  In fact, Jesus, even in His human nature, remains the Beautiful One, united as He is in substance, with God the Father.  Even in the one pierced for our offenses, Jesus is truly beautiful.  In one of the many paradoxes of our faith, there is no greater example of beauty than the Jesus who became disfigured for our sake.  And we can say that, because in His crucifixion, into which we enter today in this liturgy, Jesus most perfectly demonstrated the truth about God, and the truth about man.

The truth is that God will go to the farthest lengths to save us, and we see that in Jesus.  God will sacrifice Himself if it means there is a chance that we will respond to His love.  Jesus, on the cross, most perfectly demonstrates that God is pure gift, and will pour Himself out for His creatures, even though He has no need of them.  Jesus, on the cross, shows us the great truth that God loves us, even when it means His own death.  The crucifixion of Jesus is the most beautiful example of love that ever has existed, exists now, or will ever exist in the future.  In terms of the truth about God, the crucifix is the highest form of beauty.

The truth is that man is most himself when obedient to the will of the Father.  The crucifixion is the utmost example of obedience to God.  Obedience to God is easy when it means doing something we enjoy, doing something where we see the fruits of our labors, doing something where we see the difference we make.  In the crucifixion, we see obedience in the face of pain, only trusting that it will make a difference without seeing any immediate results.  Jesus entrusts Himself to the Father, and so shows what a beautiful human looks like: one who does the will of God the Father for the good of others.  

What makes us beautiful is being like Jesus: sacrificing our good for the good of the other in obedience to the will of the Father.  The crucifix may not be to our taste, or something that we like, but it is the most beautiful thing we can look upon and think of in this world, because the crucifixion of Jesus shows forth most fully and dramatically the truth about God and the truth about us.

Mount Moriah

Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

Around 2,000 years before Christ, Abraham placed wood upon his the shoulders of the son of the promise, his beloved son, Isaac, and started up the mountain.  Isaac quickly realized that, while they had the wood, and they had the knife to kill the sacrifice, they had no lamb to place upon the altar.  Isaac, “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” did not know what was happening, and so asked his father where the offering was.  “‘My son,’ Abraham answered, ‘God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.’  Then the two walked on together.”  When they reach the top of the mountain, Abraham, an old man at this point, binds his son to the wood.  Isaac must have willingly let himself be bound, because Abraham was more than 100 years old.  And then Abraham took out his knife, ready to sacrifice the son of the promise: the promise that God would make of Abraham through Isaac father of many nations.  But, as we know, an angel of the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand, and did not allow him to sacrifice his own beloved son, but provided a ram in place of Isaac.  Abraham was rewarded for his faith in God, even to the point of letting his son die, and truly became the Father of Many Nations.  Isaac, who was as good as dead, was given new life as he was unbound from the wood.

Fast-forward about 1,000 years, and a temple is built, according to tradition, over the spot where Abraham had been willing to sacrifice Isaac.  It was there, at the place of an example of faith in God such that it put Abraham in right relationship with God, or justified him as St. Paul says, that the sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant would be offered, to remind God of the faithfulness of the Father of the Israelites.  Just outside of that place, almost 1,000 years later, another Son, a beloved Son, would be fastened to wood once more, and offered up by His Father as a sacrifice.

Isaac had asked where the animal was to sacrifice, perhaps his voice starting to crack as he began to realize what could lie ahead of him.  Jesus cried out, “Eli, eli, lema sabachtani?  My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” as the full weight of sin and the punishment that it deserves came crashing upon Him.

But where was the voice of the angel?  Where was the heavenly messenger telling the Father to stay His hand and not touch a hair on the boy’s head, and to replace the sacrifice of a Son with the sacrifice of a ram?  As the Roman soldier raised his arm, ready to hammer the nail into the exhausted flesh of Jesus, which had been scourged to a bloody mess and weakened on the Via Dolorosa, the sorrowful way, no angel stopped that hand, and the only sound was the pounding of the hammer.

Abraham proved his love for God by being willing to sacrifice his own beloved son.  God proved his love for Abraham and his posterity, not just by generation but by faith, not only by being willing to sacrifice His Only Beloved Son, but also allowing it to happen to save us from our sins.  All of the sins that came before that dark Friday, and all of the sins that would follow after it, were washed away as the crimson blood flowed from the mangled body of Jesus. 

What are our sacrifices since last Easter?  What are we willing to sacrifice in the year to come?  In the past year I have buried a father of a family who left behind a wife and 5 kids, as well as my own uncle; I have had friends discover they had cancer; today I bring my frustrations, my joys, my sins, all of who I am.  Many of you have lost loved ones, have found out family or friends are sick and suffering; some of you have lost jobs, or have children who have wandered away from the Church; you have your own frustrations, your joys, your sins, and all that makes you who you are.  Today, bring them here to our own Mount Moriah, and offer sacrifice to God; not the sacrifice of your progeny, but sacrifice of your life united to Jesus on the cross.  Offer to God not only the evil you want to get rid of, but even the things you want to hold on to with your whole heart.  Bring them to the wood which is prepared for this altar. 

Jesus says to us, from just outside Mount Moriah, “‘I thirst.’”  He thirsts for you, He thirsts for me.  Not just part of you or part of me, but all of you and all of me.  Have the faith of Abraham.  Be willing to offer your all to God.  “Take courage and be stouthearted, all you who hope in the Lord.”