Saturday, November 11, 2023

Repenting, changing, believing

Readings: Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63:2-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-23

From some reports I read, an interesting discussion took place at the recently concluded Synod and synodality, at least in some English-speaking and Spanish-speaking groups. What was this discussion about? It was about Christ's call and how any genuine response to his call is an acknowledgment of one's need to repent. It should go without saying that Christ calls everyone and accepts everyone who responds to his call. We must not forget that a significant part of responding to Christ's call is the desire and determination to repent.

No doubt this discussion arose in the context of other discussions about the Church being for everyone. Again, Christ calls everyone, bar none. But, as the Lord himself expressed, not everyone responds to the call and even some who say "Lord, Lord" are not committed to repenting. And so, from the beginning, the Church has had hypocrites. Even hypocrites can and do repent.

To repent is to change, to be converted, to commit yourself to being more and more transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This is nothing less than committing to dying in the hope of being reborn.

Contrition, being sorry for one's sins, is necessary but insufficient for repentance. To repent is to change. The fruit of the third Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary is Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom, which occurs after his 40 days in the desert fasting, praying, and being tempted by the devil. If we translate Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom literally, at least according to the Gospel of Mark, his message is in the continuous tense: "be repenting and be believing" (see Mark 1:15). I don't believe it is mere happenstance that repenting comes before believing. On this view, seeing isn't believing, doing is.

Life ends with death and not necessarily with Christ's return. This is what Saint Paul reminds the Christians of ancient Thessaloniki in our New Testament reading. They are dismayed because believers are dying and Jesus has not yet returned. He reminds them that while life ends with death, death ends with resurrection. In the meantime, this requires us to wait in joyful hope. What interests the Apostle ought to interest us. He is not interested in "the last day," in the end of time. Rather, he is interested in the time of the end. What's the difference?

In his short booklet The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI and the End of Days, philosopher Giorgio Agamben, referring to the above difference, writes what interests Paul is "the internal transformation of time that the messianic event [Christ's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension- the Paschal mystery] has produced once and for all, and the consequent transformation of the life of the faithful" (pg 14).

The Fourth Wise Virgin, from the series The Wise and Foolish Virgins, by Martin Schongauer, 1470-1491


Whether we're talking about the mystery of iniquity or the Paschal mystery, which are inextricably related and together comprise one mystery, in Greek a mysterion is a dramatic action, not something unknown and unknowable. This why the Greek word for sacrament is mystery. The liturgy is certainly dramatic action. The dramatic action of the mysterion is an apocalypse, an unveiling, a revelation that unfolds mystagogically we might say. It is a cosmic unfolding on an existential scale.

Today's readings are all about the transformation of our lives resulting from "the messianic event." According to the parable, as believers, we are all virgins waiting for the Bridegroom, who is Christ. Therefore, the question becomes whether you are a wise one or a foolish one. As regards the oil, I think perhaps this is an opportunity to consider grace.

Grace isn't magic. Even practicing the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving does not magically make you holy or even necessarily holier, at least not in some idealistic or hagiographic way. But even when your practice serves the end to which these disciplines are the means, it isn't usually noticeable to you.

For most people what happens when you fast is that you get hungry. The question is what are you really hungry for? Perhaps more to this point is what happens when you abstain: you want that from which you are abstaining. I remember a number of years ago, two friends of mine who live near New York City met up to walk in the huge Way of the Cross that transits the Brooklyn Bridge each Good Friday. Good Friday, of course, is a day of fasting and abstinence. As they were making their way across the bridge, one friend said to the other, "I've never wanted a hamburger worse than I do right now."

Grace requires cooperation, consistent, persistent cooperation. This cooperation is an act of hope, hope that what I am doing or not doing is good and will bear fruit for the Kingdom. No matter how you want to parse it, faith without works is dead. Remember repenting before believing? Remember Jesus from last week's Gospel, do what they say and not what they do because they don't do what they say?

One way to view the virgins is that the foolish ones operate on the presumption of God's grace, which presumption bids them do nothing, whereas the wise virgins do not wait in that way.

As we near the end of one liturgical year and look forward to a new year of grace, it's important for each of us individually and for us as a Christian community to examine our consciences and our lives and recommit ourselves to following Christ, to letting the Holy Spirit transfigure us (the fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary is Jesus' Transfiguration and the fruit of that mystery is to desire holiness), recreating us evermore into the image of Christ, our Lord, whose Kingship we acknowledge.

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