No Sour-Faced Saints

Second Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the things I often preach and sometimes counsel in the confessional is how helpful ascetical practices can be.  Though forgotten by most, the Church asks us to observe all Fridays, except when it is a solemnity, the highest level of feast day, as days of penance.  This traditionally has meant abstinence from meat, but can be observed in other ways.  I have tried to encourage, and observe myself, the Ember Days: four times of the year when do extra days of abstinence and fasting.  Fasting and abstinence from meat help to remind our bodies that they don’t always get what they want, even when what they want is good, and fasting and abstinence can be especially helpful in living a chaste life, though it isn’t a silver bullet.  As the Lord said in the Gospels, we fast while the bridegroom is away, waiting for his return.  We also fast for one hour before we receive Holy Communion, as a way to prepare our bodies, minds, and hearts to receive our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.
    Catholics are often known for their penances, and it can be a good witness to the world that even the best things in life pass away; only God and what is rooted in Him is eternal.  Yet, our Lord, though He did fast, did not always restrict Himself.  In today’s Gospel, in particular, we hear about the Savior attending a wedding.  And not only did He attend a wedding, when they had the sad misfortune of running out of wine (a very sad misfortune, indeed!), He created more.  And the wine wasn’t just common, likely similar to that which they had been drinking, but was excellent, choice wine, as attested to by the chief steward.  

Hillaire Belloc

    I’m not saying Christ was a party animal, but He knew how to rejoice.  He inspired St. Paul to write to the Romans, “rejoice in hope…Rejoice with those who rejoice.”  Living the Catholic life does not mean that we have to be sad and downcast all the time.  St. Teresa of Avila said something to the effect of, “God save us from sour-faced saints.”  There is a rightful place for rejoicing in the Catholic life.  The Catholic historian, Hillaire Belloc wrote, “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, / There’s always laughter and good red wine. / At least I’ve always found it so. / Benedicamus Domino!”  
    In this time before we enter into Lent, it’s good to take advantage of the joy of the Epiphany, which overflows from 6 January and continues to guide us in these weeks before Septuagesimatide.  On Sundays and Feast Days, especially if it’s a patron saint of ours, we should rejoice and have a more joyful mood and food, because the Lord has risen from the dead (Sundays) and we have brothers and sisters who are already in heaven and who not only give us an example, but intercede for us before the throne of grace to help us get there, too.
    As Catholics, we can sometimes flirt with the heresy of Manichaeism.  This heresy, which the Dominicans have fought so hard to combat, teaches that the material world is evil, while the spiritual world is good.  The Dominicans combatted this ever-present heresy by living an ascetical life, to show that one should not abuse the things of the world, but they also used the things of the world well and rejoiced in what God had created because He created the world good.  They preached against the excess of, for example, drunkenness, but also preached against the opposite excess of teetotaling.  Wine, the psalms say, gives warmth to the heart and joy to the face, and can be used to help us have a good laugh and enjoy the lighter side of life.

    Sometimes we need Heath Ledger’s Joker character from Batman to ask us: Why so serious?  Are there horrible things in our world?  Yes.  Does sin run rampant?  Yes.  Do tragedies strike us and our friends and cause legitimate sorrow?  Yes.  But there is also good in the world.  There are also people who choose virtue over vice.  God blesses us and our friends with so many good things each day, if we are attentive.  And God has overcome sin and death and opened for us the path to eternal salvation.  And if there’s any reason to rejoice, it certainly is that!  The war has been won!  Yes, little skirmishes still have to be fought, but Christ is victorious!  
    Even on the slopes of Mount Doom, Samwise reminds Frodo about the joys of home to temper the last, difficult steps of the journey to destroy the ring.  Joys, even simple joys, give us strength to continue the fight and recharge our batteries.  If all we ever do is muddle through, we’re missing out on the good things the Lord wants us to experience: the hug of a loved one or friend; the texture and flavor of a juicy steak or a nice strip of bacon; the sweet, silky mouthfeel of a fine bourbon; the smell and warmth of a fire, whether in the fireplace or outside on a cool, summer night.  Are there times where we need to give up those joys?  Yes.  But to everything there is a season, and a time for everything under the heavens, including joy.
    So, while we must do penance and cooperate in Christ’s own suffering, do not forget to embrace joy and the good things that God gives us in this life.  “Rejoice with those who rejoice.”  Drink from the good wine that the Lord has made for us, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Being Transfigured

  [The parts in Italics were used only at the Extraordinary Form Mass]

Second Sunday of/in Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. When I talk about going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I talk about how visiting the Holy Land makes it so that you never read the Gospel the same way, because you see in your mind the places where these things happened.  This is certainly true for the Transfiguration.  I remember the first time I went to the Holy Land, as a seminarian.  We stayed with the Franciscan friars at the top of Mt. Tabor.  To get up there, there are shuttles you have to take for large groups; the big travel busses can’t handle the snake-back roads.  While waiting for the shuttle, I decided I was going to climb up the mountain, and hopefully save some time.  So, with my Birkenstock sandals on, on a warm, May day, I started walking up the side of Mt. Tabor.  It was not as easy as I thought, with all the thorns and bushes.  Sometimes the stones were a little loose, and I lost my footing.  But I made it to the top, quite sweaty and hot, probably a little dehydrated, but proud at my accomplishment.

    I had another experience at Mt. Tabor, as I went inside the church.  There is a beautiful mosaic of the transfiguration in the apse of the church, and as I was praying, the sun shone just perfectly so that it hit the image of Jesus, and illumined Him.  I remember thinking that this must have been something like the apostles saw when our Lord was transfigured.  Combining those two days, it’s even more amazing when Christ was transfigured, as He and the apostles would also have likely been hot and sweaty, and yet Christ’s clothes became as white as light.
    That’s all well and good to understand some very realistic background, but what, we may ask, does the Transfiguration have to do with us?  How does the Transfiguration change my life?  Well, as with so many aspects of our Lord’s life, what He showed us is what He desires to happen to us.  We are supposed to be transfigured as well.  We are supposed to go from earthly dirty, sweaty, and tired, to clean, bright, and glorified.
    That process started for us in baptism.  At our baptism, the voice of the Father may not have been heard, but He said that we are His beloved.  We became configured to Christ for the first time (but hopefully, not the last!).  And from that moment on, we were destined for glory, the glory that Christ shone forth as a foretaste at the Transfiguration.  We call this divinization, or deification.
    God wants us to be like Him.  We cannot be the same nature of God (as we are limited and He is infinite), but He wants us to be transformed so that we are images of Him.  This is the whole idea of the Christian life.  From baptism until death, we are called to become more and more like Christ, the new Adam, and less and less like the first Adam.  St. Paul will talk about this using the terms “old man” and “new man.”  
    How does this happen?  Some of it happens through the sacraments.  I already mentioned baptism, but the Sacrament of Penance helps us be more like God through having our fallen actions (sins) washed away by the Blood of Christ.  Confirmation empowers us to act like Christ in public.  The Eucharist is meant to transform us from the inside out, so that as we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we become more like Him in what we do because we have Him inside us.    Marriage helps us to live for the other, as Christ did for His Bride, the Church.  Holy Orders allows one to act in the name and person of Christ the Head.  Anointing of the Sick strengthens us in illness to trust in God, even in difficult circumstances.  So when we receive the sacraments, it’s not meant to be coming up to receive some thing, like a prize for the just, but is meant to be a way of receiving God so that we can become more like God.  Which is why those in mortal sin have to go to confession first, because, among other reasons, you cannot become like God if you have separated yourself from Him.  Each time we receive sacramental grace, God wants us to utilize that grace to act more like Him in daily life.  
    Also, askesis, asceticism, is meant to help us be more like God.  We say no to things that we don’t need to rely more on the One whom we really need: God.  Especially in Lent, it can be easy to see penitential practices we do as something that we’re required to do, but only extrinsic practices.  Instead, in the Catholic spiritual tradition, our penitential practices are the practical ways that we say no to our fallen nature, and yes to Christ’s divine nature.  Do we see our Lenten penances that way?  Did we choose penances that will help us transform into the people God wants us to be, people more like Himself?  Or is it just “I gave up chocolate or beer for Lent because I would like to lose weight, but I’m going to go right back to it, and maybe even more, once Easter comes.”  It is so easy to pick a penance, and not get to the deeper reality of that penance, or what the penance is supposed to do.  
    Daily prayer is also a great means of divinization or deification.  Our Lord was always in contact with His heavenly Father, and would take specific time away from His preaching and miracles to be alone in prayer.  Is prayer just something that we check off to get it done for the day?  Or do we see it as our privileged time of speaking to and listening to the Father, so that He can change us to be more like Christ?      [Lastly, St. Paul in today’s epistle talks about how even the gift of our sexuality is meant to be transfigured by Christ.  Specifically, he talks about how to find a spouse in a Christian manner, not a pagan manner.  The Christian seeks someone whom they can help go to heaven, not just someone who looks good and satisfies bodily desires and lust.  In Christian marriage, personal happiness is not the goal; the holiness and happiness of the other is the goal.  Again, this is different from a pagan or secular point of view, which views the other as a means to the end of personal pleasure.  The way that we utilize our God-given gift of sexuality changes because of our relationship with Christ, whether we are single, married, in consecrated life, or ordained.  God wants to divinize all of us, not just parts of us.]
    Life is tiring, sweaty, and sometimes a hot mess.  We may always feel like we’re climbing, but never reaching the top of the mountain.  But if we allow God’s grace to be active in us; if we are open to the sacramental graces that we receive on such a regular basis; if we do penances that help us die to our old, fallen self; if we take time to really speak our heart to God and listen for what His heart says to us, then we will arrive at the top of the mountain, and find that God has transfigured us as well, to be a reflection of the glory of His Son, [who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is Lord, for ever and ever.  Amen.]