Obvious to Some, Not to All

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Country star Randy Travis

    Country music is the best non-liturgical music there is.  Others may think differently, and they’re entitled to their opinions, but they’re wrong.  That’s not to say that there aren’t other good songs.  I grew up on lite rock (with bands and singers like Chicago, REO Speedwagon, Rod Stewart, Cher, etc.), and also listened to the great songs of the 50s and 60s, so I enjoy other types of music, too.  But, as a whole, country music is the best.  Now, what amazes me is that not everyone shares my opinion.  Even good people sometimes don’t appreciate fully (or at all) how wonderful country music is.  While country music is just three chords and the truth (which is part of what makes it great), others will joke that when you play a country song backwards you get your dog back, your truck back, and your wife back.      Of course, I jest…somewhat.  But sometimes things can seem so obvious to one person, but others do not appreciate the same things.  And we hear that reality in our first reading, which regards the people’s appreciation for something even greater than country music: the faith.  We skip what Paul said to the synagogue, but we get the reaction of those who heard: they start arguing with Paul and telling him that he’s wrong, all because the Gentiles, non-Jews, started to believe Paul and Barnabas and began following Christ.  
    But this makes no sense!  Paul was so learned in Judaism because he had been a Pharisee and had studied his faith deeply.  He understood how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, and could explain that to the Jews, who would understand those prophecies.  So how could they reject Paul’s preaching?
    Following Jesus is not just a matter of understanding facts.  St. James reminds us in his letter that the demons know who God is.  But they do not follow him.  They have all the facts in the world, but they do not love Him.  Catholicism is not just a matter of the head (though we certainly have things we need to believe).  Living the Catholic life means loving Jesus and conforming our lives to His.  So if we wish to be disciples, we do not only need to form our minds, but also form our hearts so that we love what God loves, and will what God wills.
    And this is where people struggle, because their hearts are not always totally given over to God, and their wills desire things on their own, contrary to what God wants.  We call this concupiscence.  We may know what is right, but because of some other factor, we reject what is right for what is convenient or less challenging.  God wants us to be His sheep, to belong to His sheepfold, but we wander away, because we would rather listen to a voice that does not lead us towards happiness, but leads us to temporary pleasure.

    Knowing the disconnect that can happen between the head and the heart is not only important in our own lives and helping us to follow Christ, but also when we seek to share the Gospel, like Sts. Paul and Barnabas did.  We might be able to give people facts about Jesus, but can we help them love Him?  Cardinal Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, recalled a time when he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  His Jewish classmates would ask him questions about the faith and he would respond, but without much success.  He said, “I answered as the catechism answers and I realized from her face that she had not understood anything.  I was unable to make myself understood. It took some time for me to understand that the Resurrection is not explained.”  He wrote that what makes the difference is helping people understand that “there is nothing better in life than to encounter Jesus Christ.”  Again, that goes beyond just head knowledge, and goes to the heart, to loving Christ.
    If, in times past, we erred on the side of the head, that we know what God teaches us, today we err on the side of the heart, which then seems to ignore sinful activity because a person is good in other areas.  In reality, we need to affirm both head and heart.  Simply hitting others over the head with the teachings of Christ often does not work, but neither is it helpful to ignore the teachings of Christ so that we pretend what is evil is, in fact, good.  Of course our actions, living the connection of head and heart out, needs the virtue of prudence and has to be motivated by true love for the other person and their eternal salvation.
    What can seem obvious to some is not obvious to all.  We should always be looking for new ways to share the Gospel, and finding ways to make the proclamation more effective.  This is the heart of the New Evangelization: the teachings of the Church are the same, but we find new ways to proclaim them in convincing ways to new generations of people who have new struggles and new needs.  We connect head and heart in sharing the Good News about Jesus and His teachings.  May the Holy Spirit fill us with wisdom, courage, and prudence to share the joy of the Resurrection, and all that Christ has revealed to us as necessary for salvation.  

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.