Lin Wilder's Blog, page 22

You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy

You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy

Her name was Jane Marczewski (Nightbirde.) And she became known when she appeared on America’s Got Talent to sing her song, “It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok”. After performing a song which left the judges weepy and speechless, Cowell finally asked the thirty-year-old Jane how she could do this: make a song out of a disease which was killing her?

Her reply?

“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy.”

Cowell, understandably, was dumbstruck. And then reacted by giving Jane the “Golden Buzzer Award.”

Had my friend Mary not sent the link to the Christmas homily by Fr. Mike Schmidt, I’d never have heard of Jane Marczewski or her heroic battle with the cancer which began in her early twenties.

Yes, the Christmas season for 2021 is in our rearview windows and the decorations down and boxed up for next year. But the content of Fr. Scmidt’s homily warrents attention in mid-January and mid-July. Although I found the priest’s talk challenging, he got my attention when with the need to look up at the Glory of God, of the Glory of God which was evident above the Jerusalem Temple. Until the sins of the people caused the visible manifestation to leave Jerusalem.

Where do we find the infant Jesus?

In a kingly splendor?

Emphasizing the reality of the manger, the smells, presence of animal excrement he forces us to discard our romanticizing the savior’s birth. Fr. Mike’s used the now dead singer’s writings to exemplify our incapacity to find God “because we don’t look low enough.”

If you decide to listen to Fr. Mike’s semon, it begins on the fourteenth minute of the youtube video.

Happiness is something I think and therefore write about

simply because of my experience with its absence in my early life, in fact I’ve written more than a couple of pieces on the subject.

But not too long ago, after a conversation with my husband, I decided that the real goal may not be about happiness at all but rather, about avoiding unhappiness. Here’s what happened.

“So, are you happy now that I, Claudia is done?”

I stared at my psychologist husband and grudgingly admitted. “I was happier while writing it because now I’m wondering what to do in the next book…”

We’d been discussing happiness. That everyone says they want a happy life, happy marriage, they want. to. be. happy. But when asked how that is defined, often the answer is in the negative…”I don’t want to be poor”…”I don’t want to hate my job like…” or a generic,”I don’t want the life my mother had..”

Like me.

John’s statement, “What we really mean when conceiving of a happy life is learning how to avoid unhappiness,’ felt wholly right then and now. Here are just a few of the reasons why.

Happiness- it’s in the Bill of Rights but it says pursuit of, right? We are guaranteed the pursuit of happiness. Because that phrase describes the fleeting feeling of happiness perfectly.It isn’t as if happiness is a static state. We learn all too quickly that the degree, or the promotion, new boyfriend, or the raise confers happiness but only momentarily. Because then we’re off to the next problem, challenge, or crisis.But unhappiness is different, not fleeting but static, even paralyzing, isn’t it? Just ask someone who is unhappy, listen to the words…and I will wager that somewhere in her answer is something or many things that could have been avoided…or now could be changed. If she has the guts.Our happiness then largely rests on our ability to avoid the things that make us unhappy. That puts an entirely new spin on the subject of happiness…the methods of composing a happy life.Makes things far simpler, and in our control.Jane Marczewski’s reply to Simon Cowell,

You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy,” summed up everything I have thought and written on the subject.

But far more eloquently.

Fr. Schmidt was close to tears while reciting lyrics and passages written by the young woman called Nightbirde during her barely three decades on the planet. And certainly there is much to feel intense sorrow for. But stopping at the sorrow, loss and tragedy of a life cut short and filled with suffering deprives us of rare and precious wisdom.

In his ten or fifteen minute homily, Fr. Mike quotes Carl Jung’s pithy observation that The reason modern people can’t see God is that they won’t look low enough.”

I’ll wager that the reason this priest wrapped his Christmas homily around the Jane Marczewski was his recognition of someone who had found God in every crevice of her emaciated body.

Here are the lyrics of the song she wrote and sang:

I moved to California in the summertime
I changed my name thinking that it would change my mind
I thought that all my problems, they would stay behind
I was a stick of dynamite and it just was a matter of time, yeah

[Pre-Chorus]
Oh dang, oh my, now I can’t hide
Said I knew myself but I guess I lied

[Chorus]
It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok
If you’re lost
We’re all a little lost and it’s alright
It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok
If you’re lost
We’re all a little lost and it’s alright

[Post-Chrous]
(It’s alright, it’s alright)
It’s alright, it’s alright…

The post You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Thinking, yet again, about the Rule of Benedict

Saint Benedict holding his staff, a book and a cup with a black background.Thinking, yet again, about the Rule of Benedict.

The Prologue of the Rule of Benedict is some of the most lryical, lush and arresting prose ever written. These words from the 5th century summon, urge and admonish with utmost delicacy.

L I S T E N carefully, my child,
to your master’s precepts,
and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20).
Receive willingly and carry out effectively
your loving father’s advice,
that by the labor of obedience
you may return to Him
from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.

To you, therefore, my words are now addressed,
whoever you may be,
who are renouncing your own will
to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King,
and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.

And first of all,
whatever good work you begin to do,
beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect it,
that He who has now deigned to count us among His children
may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds.
For we must always so serve Him
with the good things He has given us,
that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children,
nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions,
deliver us to everlasting punishment
as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.

Prologue-The Rule of Benedict

Even though it’s been over twenty years, I can clearly visualize that small red booklet,

The Rule of Benedict. Having decided to become a Christian Catholic at St. Benedict’s Abbey in Still Water, Massachusetts, I’d grabbed the red booklet from the gift shop to purchase and adopt as my own. Along with the two tomes I’d been assigned by Brother Andrew, the monk who was assigned the task of teaching me the rudiments of our faith, I was ready to work. I wanted it all: Now.

In those initial years, I bought at least five of those small booklets, each time, hoping that the words would make sense, that it wouldn’t feel like reading gibberish.

But they never did make sense.

Of course they didn’t, I barely could spell catholic. So easily I forget that I can’t do it alone, that the timing is not mine.

It would be another six years before the Rule became my school. Yes, school:

…And so we are going to establish
a school for the service of the Lord.
In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome…

For as we advance in the religious life and in faith,
our hearts expand
and we run the way of God’s commandments
with unspeakable sweetness of love (Ps. 118:32).
Thus, never departing from His school,
but persevering…

During my years as a Benedictine Oblate, I’ve read the little rule over fifty times, for all us read through the entire Rule three times each year. And yet each time we begin anew, I look forward eagerly to the Prologue. We’ve just completed it in this past week between Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord.

Always, it feels new-thinking, yet again about the rule of Benedict.

When it happened, my initial conversion felt sudden. Even impetuous and precipitous. Certainly that was how it felt to me when I decided to become a Catholic Christian-as if I’d jumped off a cliff. That is until pondering all that came before and accepting that the real precipice had been the one of unbelief.

It’s odd, isn’t it, how clearly we can see when looking through the rearview window?

My favorite phrases in the Prologue?

“…by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience…my words addressed to you who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Jesus Christ, and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience…

Therefore we must prepare our hearts and our bodies to do battle under the holy obedience of His commands; and let us ask God that He be pleased to give us the help of His grace for anything which our nature finds hardly possible. And if we want
to escape the pains of hell and attain life everlasting, then, while there is still time, while we are still in the body and are able to fulfill all these things by the light of this life, we must hasten to do now what will profit us for eternity.”

Obedience.

That word’s a lightning rod and has been for almost as long as I remember. But is there anymore critical a virtue?

Or habit?

Or practice?

It’s why He came, right?

He came to show us that the only path back to God the Father is obedience.

Maybe it’s easier for converts like me to grasp the need for ongoing conversion: Conversion as in repentance-rethinking. Especially so for those of us whose faith did not just become lukewarm, but we who decided that it was all a myth: the Bible, faith, God. And believed ourselves to be atheist.

I remember, as a brand new Benedictine Oblate, now almost eighteen years ago, being fascinated by the word stability. Axiomatic of Benedictine spirituality- a promise we make when we make our oblation, the word connotes stasis…an inner permanence despite external turbulence. We vow to stay put, regardless of what is happening in our marriage, our body, or our family.

To many in this change-loving culture of ours, this concept of permanence, of a changeless inner core, evokes constraint, regulation-lack of freedom, even that word we see everywhere: slavery. But I’ve learned that it is when I am most uncomfortable, even frightened, that if I stick there, accept the anxiety of all of it…that the view from the other side is breath-taking.

If…only if, I look through His Spirit…desiring only His Will.

Used by permission copyright 2020 Jeff Haynie Our Byzantine friends call today Theophany

Theophany is defined as a visible manifestation of a deity, a visible manifestation of God to man by actual appearance. The glory of these Christmas days which end with this day, can we ever even glimpse the immensity of the graces showered on humanity with the Baptism of Our Lord?

One of the many reasons I remain a Benedictine Oblate is the promise we make each day to read, study and ponder the words of the Daily Office or the Breviary. Saint Maximus, Bishop of Turin, writes in the Second Reading of the Office for the Friday after Epiphany that the baptism should be called the feast of Jesus’ birthday. “Reason should demand” that the Baptism should follow so close to the incarnation even though 30 years separate the two events.

On Christmas, Jesus was born a man; On his Baptism, he is born sacramentally, in mystery: As an infant boy, he was held close to Mary’s heart; When He is born in mystery, he is held in His Father’s embrace:

This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

Listen to Him.

Christ is baptized not to be made holy by the water but to make the water holy. When our Lord is washed, all waters for all baptism for all time are made holy. He who led the Israelites in a column of fire through the Red Sea, through the Jordan, into Canaan does now, in the column of His Body, provide eternal light to all those who believe; all those who see Him as the Way.

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Football as Metaphor: American Underdog

Football as metaphor: American Underdog

Before I get to my subject of football as metaphor: American Underdog, some background about football and me may be useful- especially if football isn’t comprehensible to you. So, if you’ll permit a rollback in time, the following is excerpted from an article called 9 Lessons Tom Brady has taught me:

“It was late September 30, 2001, and my new husband insisted I watch the Playoffs between his beloved Patriots and Oakland. We were living in Connecticut, cold, snowy Connecticut. I’d decided to leave my career in academic medicine where I’d built a national reputation and join my husband in an online business about which I knew nothing. About sales. Or marketing. Or excel spreadsheets.

You know that stress scale? Where a move and loss of a job is about the highest? Add a new marriage and new faith to those two and there is most likely no measurement for the strain I had myself under…

My husband knew I didn’t like football and seemed to have no problem with it. Until the night of that game. When he insisted I stop working and come upstairs to watch Tom Brady’s first Playoff game. Now known as the ‘Tuck Rule’ game, the Patriots had no chance against Oakland. They were outmatched and had no chance of winning, a Patriots Super Bowl win was a pipe dream.

As I reluctantly climbed the stairs, watching the television as I did so, the camera happened to capture an expression on the twenty-three-year-old quarterback’s face. Mesmerized, I stopped and stared. At what was one of the more profound depictions of grit  that I’d ever seen. The intensity, determination, and sheer will screamed out of the screen at me.

And I was hooked. Football was nothing like what I’d thought. Always I’d dismissed the game as exactly what it appears to the uninitiated: Chaotic pushing, scrambling, and mindless mayhem.

I was wrong.

It was a mind game.

Just like everything I had done before, a matter of digging down deep and refusing to be bowled over. A matter of wholly changing the way reality is perceived. This, I got, I lived here, exactly what my new faith demanded of me, like everything that had come before.

What have I learned from Brady?

Don’t listen to the ‘experts.’ Not when they say you’re great nor when they say you’re finished. They don’t know what you know. After the 2008 injury, physicians at two of the nation’s best medical centers told Brady he’d never play football again. The damage done to the ligaments in his knee and by the subsequent infections could not be overcome.Food is medicine. Much of the chronic illness crippling and killing Americans derives from the SAD (Standard American Diet.) Extensive research has revealed the influence of high carbs, sugars and inadequate fat in causing arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.If you are not the arbiter of your well-being then no one else will be. Negativity merely hinders what you are trying to achieve. Stay away from it, way away.Life isn’t fair – sometimes people like Roger Goodell walk into your life. And never leave…”

Read more

Now you understand why I could not wait to see American Underdog.

A Christian film produced and directed by the Erwin Brothers, the story line is based on Warner’s book, All Things Possible. If you rely on secular reviewers to make your movie decisions, please don’t for this one. The NY Times calls it a “football fairy tale,” and the LA Times says it’s “too simplistic.” Whatever that means. Don’t believe them. Immerse yourself in the remarkable story of a guy with a hunger to be an NFL quarterback. And the raw honesty with which he tells his story.

Kurt Warner presents himself as self-effacing: a simple guy with a passion for football. Not just a love but a passion for the game. But the obstacles that he confronted were overwhelming. For instance, Warner attended one of the lower ranking colleges, hence the NFL scouts overlooked him. Upon realizing that no team was about to draft him and he needed money, Warner took a job stacking shelves in the local grocery store. Finally, desperately, Warner humbly accepts the invitation by Coach Jim Foster-brilliantly played by Bruce McGill- to be the Iowa Barnstormers quarterback in Foster’s Arena Football League.

There’s more, a whole lot more and I write this piece because this movie isn’t really about football. Instead, it’s a metaphor for life, yours and mine. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s a metaphor for anyone pursuing a dream. Eschewing all those voices whispering, “Stay safe.” “Don’t take the risk”… Regardless of age.

It’s not a story about about self-promotion: “How great I am as told by Kurt Warner.” Instead, it’s raw and real. Warner fixates on football, it’s everything to him. So much so that everything else takes last place. Some of the more unbelievable scenes, like running out of gas and walking miles to get it in a freezing snow storm may be fodder for skeptics but the Warners attest to the truth underlying this and the entire tale.

His mentors- coaches- are beautifully depicted,

and may remind you of the people God placed in your life along the way of your life. The actors playing the coaches instrumental in Warner’s life: Jim Foster, Coach Allen and Jim Vermell are believable, their dialogue and delivery, excellent.

However, my favorite of the coaches?

Hands down, it’s Dennis Quaid playing the St. Louis Rams coach Jim Vermell. Here Vermell tells Warner why he’s hiring him for the St. Louis Rams:

Destiny. It belongs to the underdogs. You wanna prove that together?

There’s something special in you, son.

San Louis Rams coach (Dennis Quaid) to Warner (Zachary Levi)

If you decide to see the film, you’ll understand why the Erwin Brothers decided to release it during the Christmas season of 2021.

In the Nativity of the Lord, the cries of the world, the cries of the human heart, and the cries of God coincide.  These shared sighs and aches unveil silences overshadowed by Divine Power and out of which the Savior comes.

Though unaided reason is ignorant of His presence, God has never been indifferent to the plight of even the least of His creatures. He is always at work on their behalf. That is why we find Him throughout the Scriptures searching in the world’s silences and poverties as a shepherd seeks out lost sheep in a wilderness or a father his lost son.

The Living God implicates Himself in the misery of the most forgotten, overlooked, and rejected until He too is rejected, overlooked, and forgotten. 

Anthony Liles- The Word and Silence

Today is Epiphany Sunday.

The celebration that connotes events that are marked by history: the birth of Jesus, the long journey of the wise men and the Baptism of the Christ and ends the Christmas season of the Christian liturgy. No longer is our journey geographical, instead it is inward. Nor is it a one-time search, but rather day to day, even, at times, moment to moment.

Who were the wise men?

They were not God’s chosen people. They were not from Abraham or the root of Jesse, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The people with whom God had made an everlasting covenant. They were not Jews. They were the beginning of the new covenant. One that includes all nations, all peoples: 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. 

St. Paul writes of what must have driven those long ago travelers: Faith.

Before faith came, we were held in custody under law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed. Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian. For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 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. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendant, heirs according to the promise.

Christmas story. Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, Son of God , symbol of Christianity hand drawn vector illustration

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The Manger: Lessons from King Ahaz

The star shines over the manger of christmas of Jesus Christ.The manger: Lessons from King Ahaz

If the name of Ahaz rings a bell, it’s because we hear it twice at this time of year: In the daily liturgy of Friday, December 17th in the genealogy of Jesus Christ: “…Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah…” That so unbelievably colorful and earthy lineage of Abraham and King David: the Lord’s family tree.

And then a more detailed reading about the Israeli King Ahaz this past Monday:

The LORD spoke to Ahaz:
Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God;
    let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!
But Ahaz answered,
    “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” 
Then Isaiah said:
    Listen, O house of David! 
Is it not enough for you to weary men,
    must you also weary my God? 
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
    the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and shall name him Emmanuel.

Taken out of any historical context, Ahaz’s response sounds respectful, even reverent.

“I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!”

And so we wonder why the prophet responds with such anger?

Fr. John Farao celebrated the mass that Monday morning and explained that perplexing reading from the book of Isaiah. He informs us of the “backstory” that clarifies the confounding conversation between Ahaz and Isaiah.

Hence the backstory

At the time of Isaiah’s writing, Ahaz faced the combined forces of Assyria and the northern kingdom of Israel and was terrified for his small army was no match to those of the invaders. Impelled by the Lord, Isaiah instructed King Ahaz not to fear Rezin, the King of Assyria or Pekah, the King of Israel, that he and his people could rely on the Lord for protection. All the king needed to do was ask.

We citizens of the 21st-century know-or should- the risk of judging actions and situations without understanding the context-the backstory. And sometimes, if we’re willing to see them, we witness the consequences of judgements made in haste, without all the facts .

Ahaz found himself hard-pressed by the united armies of Pekah and Rezin. The position of Jerusalem seemed very precarious. The Prophet Isaiah tried his best to encourage Ahaz and assure him that G‑d would save the city from the hands of the enemies. But Ahaz had no trust in G‑d. He sent a delegation of noblemen to Tiglath-Pileser, the powerful king of Assyria, with presents of gold and silver taken from the treasures of the Temple and his own palace. Ahaz instructed his envoys to hand over these presents to the king of Assyria with the following words: “I am your servant and son. Save me from the hands of the kings of Syria and Israel who have gone to war against me.”

Tiglath-Pileser was only too glad to take this opportunity to subdue these two states and gain an outlet to the sea. He marched on Damascus and thus forced Rezin of Syria to abandon the siege of Jerusalem. Rezin himself was captured and killed by the Assyrians. At that time Syria was incorporated into the Assyrian empire and at the same time Tiglath-Pileser also annexed part of the land of Israel…

Delivered from his enemies, Ahaz traveled to Damascus to thank his liberator and patron, the victorious Tiglath-Pileser. He was accorded the usual courtesy, but he was made aware of his status of dependence. In Damascus Ahaz saw a famous heathen altar which he admired so much that he had it copied and sent to Jerusalem to the High Priest Uriah, with the command to put it up in the Holy Temple. After his return from Damascus, he himself sacrificed on this altar, and forced the priests to offer the daily sacrifices on it.

KIng Ahaz Jewish history

Although a weak and idolatrous king, Ahaz is beloved by the Lord, just like each of us.

He speaks through Isaiah, encouraging Ahaz and the people not to fear Rezin and Pekah.

“I will not ask!”

“I will not tempt the Lord!”

Is it pride?

Or ignorance?

Or merely sheer willfulness?

Now we understand.

Isaiah’s words are the Lord’s:

Listen, O house of David! 
Is it not enough for you to weary men,
    must you also weary my God? 
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
    the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and shall name him Emmanuel.

Each one of the 7 and a half billion souls on the planet knows the many times we have wearied men and also our God. No amount of justification or pretense can eradicate the reality of our refusal to love, forgive and repent as we know we must. We too have refused His mercy, ignored His pleas to look up, ask Him for help.

I’ve written before about the astounding relevance of the Old Testament.

At times, the ancient stories function as spotlights not just for our lives but the immensity, the boundlessness of God’s love and mercy for each human soul. Learning the backstory about King Ahaz has done exactly that for me.

Despite the years of wanton rebellion, flaunting of the Law and blasphemous conduct, God still works to save Ahaz from himself!

Wowza!

Thus, is there any sin of yours and mine- or of anyone else- that this majestic, mysterious and merciful God will not forgive?

All we need to do is bend our necks and knees and ask, maybe beg– for ourselves- and for all the King Ahaz’s in our world.

Each one of these Christmases we experience in our lives as believers is miraculous. This decision of the Lord of the Universe to empty Himself and condescend to incarnate as a human baby so that our view of Him will not be one of fear of His judgement but of love.

But this one, this year of 2021, is best described by words written eighty years ago, in 1940, in Eleanor Roosevelt’s preface to Christmas, A Story. “The times are so serious that even children should be made to understand that there are vital differences in people’s beliefs which lead to differences in behavior.” In celebrating His birth as the divine infant, let us learn to love our littleness and no longer fear our inadequacies and imperfections.

We’re now given another precious chance at the manger.

This year let’s reflect more deeply about the familiar creche, Mary and Joseph and the ninety-mile journey to Bethlehem and cast off all of the superficial explanations of the Incanation. Perhaps considering these questions:

Is it likely or even possible that the Lord of the Universe left the details, the manner, people and place of His birth up to chance?That Emperor Augustus just happened to declare the need for a census requiring Joseph and Mary to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem?Or that the too small inn was happenstance?And, my favorite of them all, could St. Joseph have genuinely believed that Mary had lain with another man?

Brad Pitre explains, “The hidden king: St. Joseph.”

The twofold generation of Christ is admirable; the first, His birth of a Father without a mother, is eternal; the second, His birth of a Mother without a father, happened in time. Eternal Himself, He was born of His eternal Father.

Why do you wonder? He is God. Consider His divinity, and all cause for wonder will cease. Let amazement pass away; let praise ascend; let faith be present; believe what has happened.

Has not God humiliated Himself enough for you? He who was God became Man. The inn was too small; wrapped in swaddling clothes, He was placed in a manger. Who does not marvel? He who fills the world found no room in an inn. Placed in a manger, He became our food. 

St Augustine Sermon 189

Pope Benedict explains further.

“Augustine drew out the meaning of the manger using an idea that at first seems almost shocking, but on closer examination contains a profound truth. The manger is the place where animals find their food. But now, lying in the manger, is he who called himself the true bread come down from heaven, the true nourishment that we need in order to be fully ourselves. This is the food that gives us true life, eternal life. Thus the manger becomes a reference to the table of God, to which we are invited so as to receive the bread of God. From the poverty of Jesus’ birth emerges the miracle in which man’s redemption is mysteriously accomplished.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, p. 68

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What Should We Do?

What Should We Do? St John the Baptist Chapel“What should we do?”

At last Sunday’s mass, we heard the cries of the people inflamed by the words of the Baptizer. On fire with the truth he had incited in their hearts, they cried, “What should we do?”

John the Baptist said to them in reply,
“Whoever has two cloaks
should share with the person who has none.
And whoever has food should do likewise….

Now the people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming…”

Discriminating among all the conflicting voices clamoring in our ears and competing for our attention is almost impossible. Politicians, pundits and newscasters claim unique access to the truth while expressing their opinions with grave certainty.

In this endless frenzy of words, the shouts of corruption and deceit of the enemy “other side” has become background noise, overshadowed by looming fear of disaster.

Unless we stay awake, alert and watch, we, too, speak words which are disconnected from their meaning.

And- if we listen, we can hear the plea, “What should we do?” underlying each of the distracted voices. We hear it in the conversations about the state of our country, politicians, schools, churches, our priests and young people.

“John made it clear that it wasn’t enough for the crowds simply to listen to and believe in his preaching; he expected them to change their behavior, if necessary, and to prepare a place for the Messiah in their hearts. In this way the Lord would be able to rejoice over His people, fulfilling the words of the prophet Zephaniah (3:14-18); in this way God’s people would themselves be able to rejoice, as St. Paul describes in his Letter to the Philippians (4:4-7). Christian joy is based not on some vague idea of eventual happiness, but on an active and personal relationship with Jesus Christ—a relationship whose effects are meant to be very visible in our own lives.”

Listening and Believing

Today, on this fourth Sunday in Advent,

we might ask the same of ourselves.

Have these holy days of Advent affected our behaviors?

Have we repented, that is, rethought our habits?

Of thinking?

Of acting?

Of speaking?

John’s replies were specific to each person:

Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him,
“Teacher, what should we do?”
He answered them, 
“Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.”
Soldiers also asked him,
“And what is it that we should do?”
He told them,
“Do not practice extortion, 
do not falsely accuse anyone, 
and be satisfied with your wages.”

Exploding into human history in a particular place at a specific time,

John knew that his was the voice preparing for the Word. Prepared before birth to hear, recognize and proclaim he whose “strap I am not fit to untie,” John was not just a prophet. He was to “go before the Lord to prepare his way- to give his people knowledge of salvation.

St. Augustine explains:

“John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word  who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives forever.  Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart…Because it is hard to distinguish word from voice, even John himself was thought to be the Christ. The voice was thought to be the word.

But the voice acknowledged what it was, anxious not to give offence to the word. I am not the Christ,  he said, nor Elijah, nor the prophet. And the question came: Who are you, then?  He replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord. The voice of one crying in the wilderness is the voice of one breaking the silence. Prepare the way for the Lord, he says, as though he were saying: “I speak out in order to lead him into your hearts, but he does not choose to come where I lead him unless you prepare the way for him.”

The voice is John, the Word is Christ

And yet, just how do we do this…prepare the way?

John’s was the kind of calling that terrified me as a new Christian; a fear that kept me from inviting Jesus completely into my heart and soul.

“What if I am asked to give up everything?”“Or He wants me to live out my life alone?” “Is it even possible to live in His Will?

The way we see the man, John the Baptist makes us draw back. John is alone, eating locusts and honey, a man seemingly so consumed by his mission that he is aware of nothing else. A person with the courage to declare unlawful the marriage of the most powerful man in the land.

And to do it publicly.

Donatello’s sculpture, pictured above, presents John the Baptist, as tortured and ravaged- haunted. His is a fitting image for one who feasts on locusts and honey. And it works on us all to make us recoil from him and all those super-human saints. Unless we ponder the Gospel reading for this day. If we allow the words seep into our hearts, our very cells, then we may see a wholly different man.

One so filled with the holy spirit while still an unborn babe that he jumped with the joy of infused grace at the approach of Jesus in the womb of Mary, has access to wisdom that we do not.

The infant in my womb leaped for joy.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb, 
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, 
cried out in a loud voice and said, 
“Blessed are you among women, 
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, 
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, 
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”

Suffused with wisdom, isn’t it possible that his face and being were filled with the splendor and glory of Christ?

Peaceful, even beatific?

Certain of his destination?

Wouldn’t that be the primary reason that so many were drawn to him?

What should we do?

Indeed.

“No doubt the Son of God in his omnipotence could have taught and sanctified men by appearing to them in a semblance of human form as he did to the patriarchs and prophets, when for instance he engaged in a wrestling contest or entered into conversation with them, or when he accepted their hospitality and even ate the food they set before him. But these appearances were only types…

For unless the new man, by being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, had taken on himself the nature of our first parents, unless he had stooped to be one in substance with his mother while sharing the Father’s substance and, being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still be held captive under the dominion of Satan. The Conqueror’s victory would have profited us nothing if the battle had been fought outside our human condition. But through this wonderful blending the mystery of new birth shone upon us, so that through the same Spirit by whom Christ was conceived and brought forth we too might be born again in a spiritual birth; and in consequence the evangelist declares the faithful to have been born not of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

St. Leo the Great

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Reflections on George Bailey and It’s A Wonderful Life

Once again: Reflections on George Bailey and it’s a wonderful lifeOnce Again: Reflections On George Bailey and It’s A Wonderful Life.

This past Wednesday evening, John and I tuned into It’s A Wonderful Life . Although I wrote a piece on this film back in August, seeing it again impels another. Most of the film is composed of Clarence, George Bailey’s guardian angel, being schooled in George’s life.

The film opens with a heavenly conversation among angels deliberatng about who shall be chosen to go to earth to save George Bailey:

: [voice-over] Hello Joseph, trouble?

: [voice-over] Looks like we’ll have to send someone down. There are a lot of people asking for help for a man named George Bailey.

: [voice-over] George Bailey? Yes! Tonight’s his crucial night. You’re right. We’ll have to send someone down immediately. Whose turn is it?

: [voice-over] That’s why I came to see you, sir. It’s that clock maker’s turn again.

: [chuckles]

[voice-over]

: Oh, Clarence. Hasn’t gotten his wings yet, has he?

: [voice-over] We passed him up right along. Because, you know sir, he’s got the IQ of a rabbit.

: [voice-over] Yes, but he’s got the faith of a child. Simple. Joseph, send for Clarence.

: [voice-over] You sent for me, sir?

: [voice-over] Yes, Clarence. A man down on earth needs our help.

: [voice-over] Splendid. Is he sick?

: [voice-over] No, worse. He’s discouraged. At exactly 10:45 pm Earth time, that man will be thinking seriously about throwing away God’s greatest gift.

: [voice-over] Oh, dear, dear. His life. Then I’ve only got one hour to dress. What are they wearing now?

John turned to me then and asked, “Why don’t we tire of this movie?”

Why indeed?

Until I met my husband, I had neither heard of nor watched Frank Capra’s classic film, It’s A Wonderful Life. From the very first moments of the movie, I was hooked. In fact, each Christmas season, we watch it at least once, sometimes twice, despite being able to practically recite the dialogue along with Jimmy Stewart, Henry Travers (Clarence) and Donna Reed. One would think that after seeing a movie over twenty-five times, it would lose its effect. But it never does.

Why?

From the first scene. we enter a world of clarity. The black and white of the filming operates metaphorically: the decisions of ordinary people in an “average” American town for good or evil profoundly affect everyone- even the entire world. Despite its total absence of overt religiousity, It’s A Wonderful Life portrays the consequences of virtue and vice, pride and humility…of good and evil. Sometimes subtly, and occasionally, dramatically. Always, my heart swells with the messages offered by this beautifully written and acted film.

From Clarence’s heavenly tutorial, we see that young George Bailey is wildly ambitious. His goals are crystal clear and remain consistently so throughout his childhood and early adult life. George plans to:

Shake the dust of Bedford Falls, Somewhere, USA toExplore the vast exotic places in the worldGet to college to study architectureBuild beautiful bridges and buildings“Amount to something great rather than wasting his life in a crummy Savings and Loan Business”George does none of these things.

Instead, he ends up “wasting his life” working his father’s crummy Savings and Loan business in Bedford Falls. In fact, George’s last conversation with his father contains that exact hurtful phrase about not wanting to waste his life in a dingy crummy savings and loan office.

It’s funny, because as I write this accurate but skeletal outline of the story’s primary plot, it sounds dark and depressing. Because like so much in life, when we reduce anything to soundbytes, its substance-essence- is lost. Frank Capra directed and partially wrote the screenplay. It’s A Wonderful Life was the famed director’s favorite. Capra explains that in 1946, he simply could not bear making a war movie.

As a Major in the Army, Capra had been tasked with producing movies about why we had to fight. Sick to death of war, Capra came across a short story called The Greatest Gift. This tale of a man contemplating suicide because of the meaningless of the life he had lived touched the film director deeply.

He wanted to do a movie about goodness…even in the 40’s, Capra reminisced decades later, Hollywood films sbout goodness were rare.

The screenwriters adapted the story but Capra knew the screenplay needed an antagonist: a movie about Goodness requires its opposite. He and the other American soldiers returning home knew evil, they had met it in the battlefields. And so the brilliance of Mr. Potter emerged from Capra’s pen.

How does an obscure movie made in 1946 become one of America’s most treasured films?

There are so many reasons!

But primarily, it’s these:

George is an ordinary American man. Those of us born in small towns in rural America can readily understand the need to get out. Experience and taste the vastly different cultures and peoples on this earth.

But when young George Bailey is faced with a life-threatening crisis or a moral dilemma, he follows his conscience. And acts heroically. We see young George dive into the ice to save his little brother. Then observe the distraught pharmacist he works for and George’s costly decision not to deliver the prescription he knows is poison. We see him stepping back time and again from his dreams of college. Finally, we watch him take the blame for Uncle Billy’s carelessness as he is reduced to begging from Potter.

And yet, George is no saint. “I’m shakin’ the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then, I’m comin’ back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I’m gonna build things. I’m gonna build airfields, I’m gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I’m gonna build bridges a mile long…”

He complains. “You call this a happy family? Why do we have to have all these kids?”

Even threatens: “Where’s that money, you silly stupid old fool? Where’s that money? Do you realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison! That’s what it means! One of us is going to jail; well, it’s not gonna be me!”

He loses control and rages against Mary, his kids and finally despairs, gives into fear, sure that the plaintive prayer uttered from lips that rarely prayed, went unheard.

The dialogue has some great satire, like one of my favorites here between Clarence and George:

George:
Well, you look about the kind of angel I’d get. Sort of a fallen angel, aren’t you? What happened to your wings?

Clarence:
I haven’t won my wings, yet. That’s why I’m called an Angel Second Class. I have to earn them. And you’ll help me will you?

George:
Sure, sure. How?

Clarence:
By letting me help you.

George:
I know one way you can help me. You don’t happen to have 8,000 bucks on you?

Clarence:
No, we don’t use money in Heaven.

George:
Well, it comes in real handy down here, bud!

This movie is not “religious” and yet, it’s a testament to love.

Capra and Jimmy Stewart challenge each of us with their conception and portrayal of George Bailey. The many deaths to himself required by George are subtle and are underplayed in dialogue and Stewart’s acting.

Often we see only an expression. Like the one on George’s face when he sees that little brother Harry has not only married but has a job with enormous potential. Meaning that his dreams of college must die.

Similarly, Geroge’s sincere expression when Potter asks, “You?!” Knowing full well that it was Uncle Billy who placed the cash in the folded newspaper and walked away from it.

Potter asks again. “You are the one who misplaced the money?”

“Yes,” George replies.

We can see no sense of sacrifice on George’s expression-no subtle “Well, you know how addleheaded Uncle Billy is.”

He has acquired the habit of acting virtuously, it has become second nature.

Reflections on George Bailey make me think of theologian Karl Rahner’s idea of the “anonymous Christian.”

Is it a coincidence that the catalyst to Uncle Billy’s forgetfulness is his goad to Potter? The pride at his nephew Harry’s heroism rubbed in Potter’s face?

Capra’s film reveals them all: Pride, greed, imprudence, intemperence, despair, faithlessnness, ingratitude and injustice.

These are flawed people and yet the citizens of George’s Bedford Falls are mostly people of good will. Clarence’s wonderful gift to George is an exqusititely painful descent into the depravity of “Potterstown.” Bedford Falls would never have existed had George not been born.

And yet, there is one character who seems to personify virtue: Mary. Young Mary has a single focus: To marry George Bailey. She radiates chastity, modesty, patience, humility, wholesomeness…and love. We see a helpmate in her, a woman dedicated to her husband and children. We watch as she transforms a broken down shell of rotting boards and planks into a vibrant light-filled home. Mary’s reply to Tommy asking if Daddy is in trouble?

“Yes, Daddy is in a great deal of trouble. Pray very hard for him, children.”

The storm of prayers rise up:

: [voice-over] I owe everything to George Bailey. Help him, dear Father.

: [voice-over] Joseph, Jesus and Mary. Help my friend, Mr. Bailey.

: [voice-over] Help my son, George, tonight.

: [voice-over] He never thinks about himself, God, that’s why he’s in trouble.

: [voice-over] George is a good guy. Give him a break, God.

: [voice-over] I love him, dear Lord. Watch over him tonight.

: [voice-over] Please, God, something’s the matter with Daddy.

: [voice-over] Please bring Daddy back.

And Mary gets to work.

Is it just coincidence that her name is Mary?

And is it my imagination that Donna Reed’s face always seems suffused with light?

St.Thomas Aquinas wrote that divine love is the standard for all human actions. Divine love is, of course, far different from the casual use of love in everyday language. Divine love seeks the good of the other for the others’ sake.

 It’s A Wonderful Life reveals one recipe of precisely how to achieve it.

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Advent: Make It About The Third Coming

Courtesy of Fr. Boniface HicksAdvent: Make It About The third coming.

Advent, the season which begins each Sunday following the Feast of Christ, King of the Universe and the shortest of our liturgical seasons, is jam-packed with opportunites. Specifically a coming of the Lord not talked about. One that is personal and must be sought.

Although I’ve read St. Bernard’s sermon countless times in the Divine Liturgy, until now, his words did not penetrate. But this week, this excerpt from one of the saint’s sermons called The Word of the Lord will come to us, phrases like “middle coming in spirit,” the “hidden coming” and ” literally sang in my heart.

Perhaps because of the emphasis on eschatology or the impending end times by so many Catholic and Christian bloggers, these several-century-old words of wisdom from St. Bernard feel critically necessary.

We know that the coming of the Lord is threefold: the third coming is between the other two and it is not visible in the way they are. At his first coming the Lord was seen on earth and lived among men, who saw him and hated him. At his last coming All flesh shall see the salvation of our God, and They shall look on him whom they have pierced. In the middle, the hidden coming, only the chosen see him, and they see him within themselves; and so their souls are saved. The first coming was in flesh and weakness, the middle coming is in spirit and power, and the final coming will be in glory and majesty.

This middle coming is like a road that leads from the first coming to the last. At the first, Christ was our redemption; at the last, he will become manifest as our life; but in this middle way he is our rest and our consolation.  If you think that I am inventing what I am saying about the middle coming, listen to the Lord himself: If anyone loves me, he will keep my words, and the Father will love him, and we shall come to him.…

St. Bernard of Clavaux

Quietly competing with the banal and boring commercialism of Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays extended sales is another invitation.

But it cannot be heard outside in the streets or while listening to CNN. Instead we must silent all the shouts of the marketplace to listen to another voice…more like a whisper.

This is a different kind of celebration –quieter, more intimate…a refuge. Lighting our Advent candles in hope, not naive optimism but the Hope that derives from faith. Only hope permits our escaping the ‘four walls and prison windows of gray days’. Instead, the shaking reality of advent inspires fear and trembling-even awe- if we but pause, close our eyes and let the Truth pierce through the myriad distractions, lies and evil which surround us. These words aren’t mine, but Fr. Alfred Delp’s writing from Tegel prison during WWll:

Oh, if people know nothing about the message and the promises anymore, if they only experience the four walls and the prison windows of their gray days, and no longer perceive the quiet footsteps of the announcing angels, if the angels’ murmured word does not simultaneously shake us to the depths and lift up our souls—then it is over for us

Advent of the Heart Alfred Delp

Hearing the ‘angels’ murmured word’ takes work- and maybe sacrifice.

Not the busy, busy cycle of activity so characteristic of this season but the silent, still kind of work. The stillness and silence are vital to ripping away our defenses and revealing dangerous habits that keep us anxious. Or that fill our overactive imaginations with material which leads us far away from Peace. Finally recognizing the habits we need us to change, perhaps drop altogether.

Now.

Like our cultural addictions to news, gossip, food, alcohol, the thoughtless and blasphemous use of His name in conversation or acronym, and the rest of that very long list we all know well. Perhaps knowing them so well that they’ve become treasured friends.

In my case, it’s been an addiction to thriller televsion shows, movies, and novels. The stories that take my imagination to exciting, adventuous but dark places along with the protagonists, and then delighting in the deaths of the “evil” enemies.

What’s strange is that ever since I read about St Ignatius’ conversion-he was another lover of thrillers-, I’ve known that I need to stop. Unlike him, I kept ignoring what I knew. Astounding how long I continued reading and watching that which incited nightmares, knowledge of horrific cruelties but to me, exciting, tales.

Until a week or so ago, when the “nudge” I’d been receiving strengthened. And transformed to an audible, “You need to stop this.” It was a voice I credit to one of my friends, St. Teresa of Avila.

I put aside a novel I’d just started to read, written by a very good writer knowing that I would no longer read his, or other books like his.

Making the sacrifice of (gasp!) I’ll never know how it ends!

Here is the rest of St. Bernard’s sermon:

Elsewhere I have read: Whoever fears the Lord does good things – but I think that what was said about whoever loves him was more important: that whoever loves him will keep his words. Where are these words to be kept? In the heart certainly, as the Prophet says I have hidden your sayings in my heart so that I do not sin against you. Keep the word of God in that way: Blessed are those who keep it. Let it penetrate deep into the core of your soul and then flow out again in your feelings and the way you behave; because if you feed your soul well it will grow and rejoice. Do not forget to eat your bread, or your heart will dry up. Remember, and your soul will grow fat and sleek. 

 If you keep God’s word like this, there is no doubt that it will keep you, for the Son will come to you with the Father: the great Prophet will come, who will renew Jerusalem, and he is the one who makes all things new. For this is what this coming will do: just as we have been shaped in the earthly image, so will we be shaped in the heavenly image. Just as the old Adam was poured into the whole man and took possession of him, so in turn will our whole humanity be taken over by Christ, who created all things, has redeemed all things, and will glorify all things.

St Bernard of Clavaux

These Advent days before the birth of Christ are, of course, counter-cultural. Our altars are stripped of flowers and the colors a penitential Lenten purple. On November 15, our Byzantine brothers and sisters began their Monday, Wednesday and Friday, forty-day Phillips fast to augment the sacrificial nature of these days. And are encouraged to increase our spiritual and corporal acts of mercy toward our neighbors. All this to immerse our will, intellect and memory so that we can perceive the “angels’ murmured word… simultaneously shake us to the depths and lift up our souls.”

You and I are given the model- in fact, the archetype of purity, chastity and silence.

Theotokos, the mother of God speaks just 172 words in the entire New Testament. They appear only in the Gospels of Luke and John. We can write billions of words about this woman without coming close. Perhaps this poem I wrote shortly after my conversion may provide a glimpse.

Hope Holders
Do you wonder why these beliefs have taken root in your
Soul?
Roots which deepen, burrow into the secret places of mind and
Heart?
Year after year, prayer by prayer, tear by tear, doubt by doubt until
Fixed?
Do you wonder why you believe the impossible-god as infant born of a
Virgin?
Do you wonder at this girl child, at her trust in the incomprehensible
Answer
How can this be, she asked, how can this be, we ask? Why such
Love
For faded facsimiles of divinity, stumbling blindly toward light and
Truth?
The Holy Spirit will overshadow you, Gabriel answered… is that an
Answer?

Enveloped by wisdom, she carried eternity in her womb,
A child emptied of ego, of self, of sin, full, instead, of grace.
She who was filled with the hope of Adam, she who came
To dry the tears of Eve through her incomparable sorrows.

Do you wonder if there is a price for these gifts we have been freely
Given?
Must we not somehow offer back to Him some tiny
Crumb?
Struggle and sacrifice, penance and passion, some small
Sharing?
Finally we hear, we see and understand from her silence, her
Knowledge
Too immense for words, cannot be contained by the sea or the
Sky
We are to proclaim, to put in our hands and our hearts, to be
Hope holders.

A Search for the Sacred

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Happy Thanksgiving: A Republic If You Can Keep It.

A picture of Abraham Lincoln standing outside at GettysburgHappy Thanksgiving: A Republic if you can keep it.

It was exactly 400 years ago, in November of 1621, that something happened-some type of meal took place- between the English settlers and the Massasoit and others of the Wampanoag settlement of native Americans. The details of that shared meal in what would become Plymouth Massachusetts are fodder for contention and a variety of opinion. That fact has done little to unravel this uniquely American idea of annually giving thanks to our sovereign God-one that has persisted for four centuries.

The pivotol role of the Indian Squanto or Tisquantum, in the survival of the Englishmen that first year is well-known. But the tale of his kidnapping as a boy in 1608 by English traders and subsequent return years later on another English ship can only be thought of as miraculous.

“One day in the spring of 1621 a local native walked out of the woods to greet them. Somehow he actually spoke perfect English; and as it happened, he had grown up on the very land where they had settled. Because of this, he knew everything there was to know about how to survive there. He knew and showed them the best way to plant corn and squash so that they would thrive in that environment. He knew and showed them how to find fish and lobsters and eels there. He knew and showed them much that they couldn’t have known themselves. And because his tribe had perished, he had little better to do than help these suffering strangers. So the Pilgrims adopted him. And Squanto helped them immeasurably, likely saving their lives and almost certainly making it possible for them to continue there on this foreign soil. Could this all have been happenstance?“

For all the reasons dividing this country 400 years later, in November of 2021, whether because of the color of our skin, type of religion or lack of it, differing opinions among us believers, or our politics, President Abraham Lincoln’s decision to proclaim the last Thursday of November as a national day of thankfulness in October of 1863 compels us to stop.

In our tracks.

And slowly, carefully ponder the man’s words, written amidst incalculable, incomprehensible suffering of the man-this American President, and his American citizenry, battling for the soul of the nation. In the midst of all the horror, President Lincoln chooses to institutionalize this American tradition of giving thanks for all things.

Lincoln’s Proclamation is copied and pasted at the end of this piece

but first we must consider that intriguing phrase, “A republic if you can keep it.”

If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you might recall that I’m a fan of Eric Metaxas, author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Spy, Prophet.

That phrase, “a republic if you can keep it,” derives from an alleged conversation between Benjamin Franklin and a woman passing by as Franklin left the building housing the Constitutional Convention.

In his book of the same name, Metaxes writes,

In the summer of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention when a Philadelphia matron named Mrs. Powell asked him a question. “What have you given us, Dr. Franklin,” she asked. “A monarchy or a republic?”

Did she really think a monarchy was still possible?

From where we sit today, it’s easy to dismiss the question as silly. After all, who can imagine a monarchy in America? But we have to remember that in 1787 no nation had ever managed — or dared — to attempt genuine self-government. It was a rather wild experiment, and it hadn’t been going so well, which is why the Founders had to gather again at Independence Hall eleven years after declaring independence. So the question was a real one. What had the Founders discovered in trying to come up with a new Constitution? Was a genuine republic simply not possible?

Franklin’s response to Mrs. Powell’s question has become famous. “A republic, Madam,” he said. “If you can keep it.”

234 years later, we must wonder if, indeed, we can keep it.

Metaxes, like the former Secretary of State, Anthony Barr, believes we can keep our republic only if we retain our grip on religious freedom as axiomatic to America. Metaxes’ book, If You Can Keep It, reviews the ingredients which went into this untried experiment unseen in human history: a people being given the right to govern themselves.

Metaxes is a gifted writer. Hence, he knows that understanding is impossible without context and therefore reviews briefly the history of nations before the “American experiment.” Emphasizing how stunningly implausible was the American notion of self-governance in the mid-eighthteenth century because to us it’s become common place. It is so very useful to consider the facts of a thing, draw back so that we can see more clearly. Metaxes helps us do this.

Many claim that our nation has never been so divided.

That the chasms beween different groups of Americans are historically vast.

And yet, a mere glance at our 234 year history reveals that the divisions among and between Americans are rarely absent. And are frequently so wide as to be on the brink of war. The new nation nearly dissolved eleven years after it was formed. The attacks by 400 desperate Massachusetts farmers on courthouses and federal property known as Shays Rebellion required federal milita to end it. The rebellion demonstarted the need for a government that was stronger than the 1776 Articles of Confederation.

But not too strong.

Metaxes writes of these founders. Adams, Jefferson, and Bejjamin Franklin, a man known for his lack of interest in religious orthodoxy, stated publically the essential ingredient of a self-governing people: religion.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.

Benjamin Franklin

What do we mean by freedom of religion?

By faith?

By virtue?

By freedom itself?

Quoting his friend Os Guiness, Metaxes writes that

“….when reduced to its most basic form, that freedom requires virtue; virtue requires faith; and faith requires freedom. The three go round and round, supporting one another ad infinitum. If any one of the three legs of the triangle is removed, the whole structure ceases to exist.”

The book is filled with interesting, even surprising facts. But the section on George Whitefield, the “spiritual father of the United States” and subsequent catalyst for the “The Great Awakening” is especially fascinating.

“The most august dukes and earls were sinners who could be saved only by grace, the very same grace that saved the commonest commoner. The Gospel of Christ was the most powerful sociological leveler in history, and although the message had existed for seventeen centuries, it would burst into full bloom only now—at this crucial point in history—under the watering can of Whitefield’s preaching. And over the decades this changed the colonies and created an American people. The egalitarian strains of the Gospel extended to women and blacks as well. Many female preachers were spawned by the revival of the Great Awakening and many African American preachers too. Unlike most of the mainline ministers of his day, Whitefield often spoke to “Negroes” and once remarked that he was especially touched when one of them came to faith. One of them even asked Whitefield, “Have I a soul?” That Whitefield believed he did meant that the Negro was in this most important respect perfectly equal to whites. Whitefield’s preaching was a great social leveler throughout the colonies. But it was a great uniter of the people in the colonies too. By the time Whitefield died in 1770, an inconceivable 80 percent of the population of the American colonies had heard him preach at least once. By traveling as he did, he accomplished what no one else had ever done. He became known to all in the colonies equally. He was the first American celebrity, but he was much more than a mere celebrity.

If You Can Keep It

Ths is a book filled with tales of American heroes and

unabashed in the critcal need to find and celebrate honor, goodness, self-denial: the real American dream of sacrifice and nobility. For a freedom so precious, so all-consuming that we’ll give Him our lives. His writing is replete with the founders knowledge that we are but men.

Metaxes’ writing of another “miracle,” the Constitution is riveting:

“But toward the end of the convention, after endless battles and little progress, things looked hopeless. The disagreements and arguments had mounted to an impossible height, so the eldest delegate, Benjamin Franklin, gave a speech to the assembly, imploring them to turn to God to break the impasse. Franklin and Jefferson were the least overtly religious of the founders, so the idea that Franklin should be the one to beseech the assembly to turn to God in prayer for an answer to their problems is evidence of their desperation, and it is startling…

As we know, in the end all impasses were broken, compromises on all issues struck, and solutions found. There was what all felt to be a truly remarkable—almost odd—willingness for each side to set aside its concerns for the good of the whole. The spirit of selflessness and compromise that came over this body of opinionated, brilliant, and principled men was in the end sufficient for them to ratify the great document called the Constitution.”

If You Can Keep It

Near the end of his book, Metaxes asks how Americans could have gone from admiration and reverence for our hard-fought traditions and ideals to ….this – in just a few decades. Suggesting the answer, the author reveals that eerie prescience which would characterize Abraham Lincoln’s ( “the greatest president’s”) presidency.

When just twenty-eight years old, Lincoln addresses the Springfield Young Men’s Lyceum. In speaking about the “salubrious” situation with which Americans find themselves in 1837 he asks rhetorically what could be the source of the undoing of this great country?

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.

Here is the text of Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of the last Thursday of each November a national day of thanksgiving.

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and
healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the
source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature
that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the
ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to
foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations,
order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed
everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly
contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national
defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our
settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even
more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste
that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the
consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with
large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They
are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins,
hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully
acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore,
invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and
those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of
November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in
the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him
for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national
perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows,
orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the
nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full
enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated
States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Happy Thanksgiving!

“The great writer G. K. Chesterton once said that “America is the only nation that is founded on a creed.” We have touched upon this in a previous chapter, but it is worth underscoring. How can it be that with roughly two hundred countries in the world today, America is still the only one that can be described that way? And yet it is. And the creed upon which it is founded is not a parochial creed but a universal one, declaring that all men are created equal and that government exists only by the consent of the governed. As President Truman put it, “Being an American is more than a matter of where you or your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal.”

Metaxas, Eric. If You Can Keep It (p. 184). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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Christ King of the Universe is The Apocalypse

Feast of Christ the King of the Universe is the Apocalypse

Yes, you’ve read the words correctly.

For sure if you’d said this to me before I began researching and writing this piece about the humungous “AHA!” given to me by Bishop Robert Barron this past week, I’d have replied with something highly reasoned like, “Huh?”

Or, “Come again?”

Hint: we’ve got the apocalypse all wrong.

Last Sunday’s Gospel portends today’s Feast of Christ, the King of the Universe. However, we need some help to methodically unpack Jesus’s words to his disciples:

“In those days after that tribulation
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from the sky,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

“And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’
with great power and glory,
and then he will send out the angels
and gather his elect from the four winds,
from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

“Learn a lesson from the fig tree.
When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves,
you know that summer is near.
In the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that he is near, at the gates. 
Amen, I say to you,
this generation will not pass away
until all these things have taken place. 
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.

“But of that day or hour, no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Mk 13:24-32

First a review of why our liturgical year ends with

the Feast of Christ the King. Almost 100 years ago, in 1925, Pope Pius XI wrote Quas Pimas (In the First.) Concerned about the growing domination of communism and its axiomatic atheism, the Pope introduced his 1925 encyclical by recalling the theme of his papacy written three years earlier: “…manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ…”

As always, the work of researching and writing articles like this one brings me more than a little consolation and infusion of Hope.

Just a few moments of reflection about the world state of the world in 1925 compels us to stop. And think hard about the inspiration which led the Pope to proclaim this last Sunday in the Christian liturgy as Christ the King of the Universe,

On the heels of four years of the war to end all wars,” and the deaths world-wide of 16 million people,And then a global plague of epic proportion, infecting one out of every three people and killing at least 50 million people.Followed by a deflationary global depression, which would lead to an even more terrible economic crisis in a few short years.

In his timeless encyclical, Pope Pius Xl exhorts us: “…if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.”

And now to that hint, “We’ve got the Apocalypse all wrong?

Bishop Barron’s What is the Apocalypse provides the help we need which to unpack Jesus’s strange words

in last Sunday’s Gospel passage. Helping us to place ourselves there, with them, Bishop Barron explains that Jesus and the disciples are standing at the entrance of the Temple. They have just completed the ascent into Jerusalem from the Jericho gates and are gazing at the magnificent edifice which symbolized the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We moderns lack words to describe the meaning of the Jerusalem Temple to the first-century-Jew. It represented their national and religious identity, their purpose.

Useful too is reading the passages in the Gospel of Mark that precede this one: “As he was making his way out of the temple area one of his disciples said to him, “Look, teacher, what stones and what buildings!” Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be one stone left upon another that will not be thrown down…”

Bishop Barron suggests we imagine how the twelve must they have felt when Jesus declares that He is about to blow the Temple and the entire world into smithereens. Because, Barron explains, that is precisely what He is saying- if we take His words literally.

“Either Jesus is obviously wrong or is a very bad prophet” because the world did not cease to exist in the first century.

We “are compelled,” Bishop Barron insists, to look at this reading differently.

Because, it has a specific relevance to Jesus’s time… and to ours.

Apocylypse does not  mean the end.

We must consider the “genre” of these readings.. thereby looking at these readings with “new eyes.” Simply and lucidly he puts it together for us. The first reading in Daniel, along with Jesus’s words are obviously apocalyptic, as in the Book of Revelation.

But then, Bishop Barron’s [for me] astounding punchline: “Our English word, ‘apocalypse’ is from ‘apokalypsis’ in Greek which doesn’t mean, the end. It means ‘taking away the veil.’ When transalated into Latin, apokalypsis became revelatio: the pulling back of the veil.

Indeed the incipient Passion of Christ will unveil what has been hidden from Moses, Issac, Jacob and all the previous prophets. This Jesus is the Messiah, the feast of Christ the King is the Apocalypse.

We’ve read and heard it from St. Paul countless times:

….we act very boldly and not like Moses,* who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites could not look intently at the cessation of what was fading. Rather, their thoughts were rendered dull, for to this present day* the same veil remains unlifted when they read the old covenant, because through Christ it is taken away. To this day, in fact, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts,f but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit,* and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Yes, Christ King of the Universe Is The Apocalypse.

Can we ever plumb past even the surface of the mercy and mysteries of God?

….Longinus shifted from one foot to the other, coughed… cleared his throat, coughed again. “Sir…we saw a blinding light and then…” He paused, looking wholly miserable at the thought of telling a tale no one in his right mind would believe.

All I could think was, I will destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again. “Proceed, Longinus—what happened at that cave?”

“There were…the only way I can think to describe them is…‘light-filled beings,’ sir. They were at least twelve, maybe fifteen feet tall. Together, they lifted something that looked like a sword….” He paused and glanced down at his own sword hanging from his waist. “They aimed it at us and we fell unconscious. Or…at least that is the last thing I remember.” He glanced back at his associates and they nodded. He then began speaking more quickly, as if he wanted to get the whole story out before he lost his nerve. “When we woke up, the boulder had been rolled away and the tomb was empty! We examined it thoroughly, but all it contained was the tunic that Jesus had worn when on the cross. Nothing more. No sign of the body, sir.”

Wilder, Lin. I, Claudia (p. 249). Writer. Kindle Edition.

Chist is King of the Universe and of me: my body, mind, heart and soul.

…St. Michael the Archangel, Conqueror of Lucifer, Guide of souls to the Judgment Seat of God,
Teach us to fight through humility; to conquer through obedience and silence; and to love and be faithful.

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Holiness Can’t Be Taught

Holiness must be caughtHoliness can’t be taught

At a daily mass a few weeks ago, the celebrant spoke about a sentinal conversation while in the seminary. Fr. David recalled a conversation with a friend and seminarian who was two years ahead of him. The upperclassman had just returned from several months of pastoral formation with a pastor at a local church.

“How was it?” Fr. David Allen asked his friend.

“Interesting, I enjoyed it.”

“Did anything happen that surprised you?”

“Yes, the parishioners at the church kept asking me how I’d gotten to be so holy, so content with silence.

“What did I do?

“How did I pray?

“What prayers did I say?

“And there wasn’t anything I could say that I did.

“In fact, I do nothing! Nothing at all…

“I just love Jesus…the more I love Him the more I want to love Him- it’s like an addictiion!”
Fr. David looked at us and said, “Holiness can’t be taught, it must be caught.

“We all know about addicts, right? ‘I need a fix! Now. It’s all about the drug. How about our drug being Jesus?

How about us getting addicted to Christ?”

It must be caught.

During the last several weeks, my thoughts have returned to Fr. David’s comments, frequently enough to decide to write this article. The phrase, “holiness can’t be taught, it must be caught” was apparently coined by one of the saints or a desert father or mother. Fr. David could not recall who it was and in cursory online search I can’t find it either.

And yet this maxim fits anything and everything: Whether we are talking about faith, or learning to cook, or almost anything worth doing, we can learn only the fundamentals from the teacher. The truth of the thing must bubble up from within.

And if it is, in fact, Truth, can be found in just one Person.

I spent a sizable percentage of my life in a variety of schools and several different degree programs. Among all those teachers-maybe hundreds-five stand out: one from high school, two undergrad and one from my doctoral program. What these four men and one woman shared was a love of learning- a veritable passion for it.

And I caught it: the love and search for knowledge, ultimately wisdom. Or, perhaps we’re all imbued with the love of Truth. With the indellible baptismal mark on our souls with the priest’s exhortation, “I claim you for Christ,” the yearning begins.

Although it’s been decades, I can easily recall wandering into a presentation at the AAMC-American Association of Medical Colleges- on the effects of learning on the brain. While waiting for my time slot to present my paper, I heard researchers demonstrate unequivocally that learning results in the development of new neural pathways.

Yes!

But, of course, we must accept the reciprocal nature of learning. Sitting in a class listening to someone opine is entirely passive. Very different from being in a classroom where the teacher shares his or her love of Shakepeare or moral philosophy. Sprinkling each of their classes with all kinds of fascinating and relevant anecdotes that leaves us thirsting for more.

Reflecting on my experience, no, the privilege, of studying under them, I realize what gifts I’d received and of the dangers implicit in gifts.

Gift: so wickedly easy to be oblivious to.

Until the gift is gone: whether an essential, like air or water, or a beloved, like a spouse or pet, we take so much for granted. Assume we’ll always have them. Or…the ability to go to church.

Until we no longer have them or cannot go.

So I decided to check the meaning of gift. Webster defines it as “something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned.”

The words in that last phrase of the definition , “without effort…or its being earned” seem to shout, don’t they?

All of which brings me back to Jesus, this God-man, Creator of the universe, the earth, of all things and the wholly astounding, irrational and impossible methods with which He works with His creation and His creatures: You and I are given the power to deny Him…to credit all of His creation to some kind of autoevolutionary process.

Because of our “advanced” knowledge, we consider ourselves masters of our lives and our fates. And decide we know better, we can perfect humanity.

The most powerful force in the world is no earthquake or hurricane but the human will.

The frequent question we all ask, even if we don’t believe,

was answered by one of the hundreds of sobering, provocative and mind-blowing vignettes in Cardinal Robert Sarah’s splendid book, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise.

Our frequent question is, of course, “How can God permit this?”

The Cardinal writes about the increasing dominance of atheism: “I am convinced that the problem of contemporary atheism lies first of all in a wrong interpretation of God’s silence about catastrophes and human sufferings. If man sees in the divine silence only a form of God’s abandonment, indifference, or powerlessness, it will be difficult to enter into his ineffable and inaccessible mystery. The more man rejects the silence of God, the more he will rebel against him.”

And then Sarah elaborates on this theme by referencing a book called The Concept of God After Auschwitz.

“What did Auschwitz add to that which one could always have known about the extent of the terrible and horrendous things that humans can do to humans and from times immemorial have done?” Hans Jonas naturally calls God into question: “God let it happen. What God could let it happen?”

The Almighty God did not intervene to prevent the barbaric massacre of his people.

And why did he allow it? Hans Jonas responds: “In order that the world might be, and be for itself, God renounced His being.” What does that mean?

“To make room for the world, the En-Sof (Infinite; literally, No-End) of the beginning had to contract Himself so that, vacated by Him, empty space could expand outside of Him: the ‘Nothing’ in which and from which God could then create the world. Without this retreat into Himself, there could be no ‘other’ outside God.”

We can guess his conclusion: In deciding on this withdrawal into himself so that man can exist, God becomes by that very fact a suffering God, because he will have to suffer because of man and be disappointed in him. God will also be a concerned God, because he will entrust the world to agents other than himself, to free agents.

In short, this is a God at risk, a God who incurs a proper risk. But then, that God is not an almighty God. In order for the goodness of God to be compatible with the existence of evil, he must not be almighty. More exactly, it is necessary for this God to have renounced power. In the simple fact of allowing human freedom lies a renunciation of power.”

The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise

Could there be a greater risk, renunciation of power than for the Creator of the Universe to hide Himself in a white wafer?

Permit Himself to be wholly dependent on the worthiness of His priests to consecrate and the faithful to consume Him?

He who made us becoming real food and real drink.

Such thoughts feel strange, do they not?

And yet, when we ponder the ending of the prayer that Jesus taught…”thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we must wonder at them. Perhaps forever wonder.

Recently a friend asked aboout the timing of completing my doctorate and conversion to Cathoicism. He had been commenting on the feat of achieving it while working full-time.

While explaining the utter loss and emptiness following all those years of study, not a shred of the wisdom or relief that I’d expected, I said, “But that’s when God works best in us. When we know we are nothing.”

Holiness can’t be taught- but before it’s caught, we must empty ourselves of ourselves.

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