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.  

Walking through Pagan Lands

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  By now we’re probably all aware of the debacle that was the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics.  I didn’t watch it (I’m honestly not that big of an Olympics fan).  And I’m sure there were some nice parts to it.  However, the story quickly became how the opening ceremonies mocked Christianity by mimicking da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” with drag queens, transitioning to a mostly-naked man depicting Dionysius, the pagan god of revelry and debauchery.

    Bishop Barron had some good commentary on the whole thing, including the so-called apology after the fact.  And bishops from across the United States and the world have condemned this unnecessary antagonism towards Christianity, some noting that no such thing would have every been done concerning Mohammed or the Buddha.  I’ll let those commentaries speak for themselves.
    What struck me is how we really do live in pagan times.  I’m sure I knew this subconsciously, but the opening ceremonies certainly cemented it in my mind.  None of us lived during the first few centuries of Catholicism, before the Emperor Constantine legalized it in the early fourth century, but I doubt it was much different from what we saw on our screens (there’s just an easier way to share the depravity now with television and social media).
    So what do we do?  How do we live our lives in a post-christendom age?  I would suggest our Gospel gives us a clue.  The pagan world is like the man who was deaf and mute.  It is a world that is alive, but is not as it is supposed to be.  It lacks the ability to live up to its fullest potential.  The Decapolis was a group of ten city-states not far from the Sea of Galilee that had some Jewish population, but was mostly pagan.  The Lord, though his primary mission was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, walked through a thoroughly pagan territory (this is one example; the other famous is His journey where He encountered the Gerasene demoniac).  So Christ then, like us today, walked through pagan lands.
    What did Christ do?  He opened the deaf and mute man’s ears and loosened his tongue.  In this way, the man could then hear the Gospel and share it.  Now, at this point, I do have to address the admonition that Christ gave the man who He healed to tell no one.  Mark’s Gospel is full of these warnings not to speak about what the Redeemer had done.  Why?  Part of St. Mark’s point, I believe, is that the Lord wants belief through faith.  The miracles He works demonstrates who He is, but they cannot take the place of faith.  And so He wants to draw the people to true and abiding faith in Himself as the Son of God, not just amazement and the miracles.  
    But back to the man, who, in some sense, represents paganism.  He needs someone to open his ears and to allow him to speak.  And not just speak anything, but speak the truth.  Paganism, a rejection of the true God, struggles to hear what is true and speak what is true.  It has some truth (think of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, for example), but that truth is muddled in with so much error.  Only when Christ come can the truth that the pagan world recognized be purified so that it doesn’t lead others astray (think of the Christianization of Plato and Aristotle by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, respectively, for example).  
    So, our role, as little christs, little anointed ones, sealed with the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel, is to go to paganism and open their ears to the truth so that their lips can proclaim the Gospels.  Our mission is to take the water of baptism and apply it to paganism as we cry out to God and say Ephpheta, that is, be opened.  This is done, not by force, but by the witness of a life lived in fidelity to what Christ has taught, and sharing the reason for our hope.  That is how the Christians of the first few centuries secretly and very successfully converted much of Roman society, which was itself marked by polarization between the rich and poor, the increased stretching of the Roman military apparatus across the known world, and the licentiousness of those who had power and money (sound familiar?).  
    The early Catholics were known for not discriminating between Jew and non-Jew (Gentile was the word used, also sometimes Greek).  They didn’t practice enslavement.  They didn’t consider women and children property, but equal sharers in the new life that Christ won by His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  This is what St. Paul meant when he wrote to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  He wasn’t talking about gender identity or power struggles.  He was talking about how everyone was welcome to follow Christ, on Christ’s terms, and that the most important identity was that of a disciple.  In our invitations to others, we should have the same approach–invite everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender, socio-economic status, etc.–to follow Christ as He instructs us.
    Early Catholics drew people in by the way that they were happier because they didn’t worry about the power struggles, and the never-ending pursuit of riches.  An ancient Christian apologetic letter called The Epistle of Diognetus, showing how Catholics were not subversive but followed a higher law, wrote that Catholics “share their food by not their wives.”  They care for the poor, they exercise hospitality, but they do not share the perverse Roman sexual mores.  We, too, can live in such a way that we care for the poor, we show kindness to others, and exercise chastity and modesty in our relationships with others.  
    This was the way that pagan Rome became Christendom (albeit over centuries).  This was the way that the Church moved from being a bunch of small communities of maybe 30-50 people to metropolises of Catholic life and culture.  It worked then, and I believe it will work now.  We may not have the power we used to; we may not be able to keep public debauchery and indecency at bay anymore; but we can witness to Christ and the freedom and joy that come from living the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.