"Take me back to the day"

Much like August, September is not looking like a prolific month here on Καθολικός διάκονος. Somehow I feel that is appropriate right now. Currently I am immersed in a lot of reading. In addition to reading Harari's Sapiens, a book I find both rewarding and infuriating, I am also making my way through Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, and an anthology of Giussani's writings, Christ: God's Companionship with Man as well as finishing LaVerdiere's Dining in the Kingdom of God. Just today I received copies of Robin Ryan's Jesus & Salvation and Gary Macy's The Hidden History of Women's Ordination.

Brutus condemning his sons to death, by Guillaume Guillon Lethiere, 1828

Agamben's book, which is subtitled "Sovereign Power and Bare Life," deals with what I can only describe as very fundamental matters and charts how the state, no matter the form it takes, which is usually nominal, tends to become more and more totalitarian, exerting greater control over life. For example, the section I just read, §4.1 of part two, entitled "Vitae Necisque Potestas" ("power of life death"), describes the power of a Roman father specifically over his son. This power of a father has been described as imperium privatum, or private imperium, or private control. He goes on to show that the origin of the term "father of the people" or "father of our country," is "sinster". Brutus put his own sons to death and "adopted the Roman people in their place," thus extending his imperium privatum over those he ruled (88).

This week I heard Everclear's "Father of Mine." It's an older song, but an appropriate traditio in light of the Agamben reference.

Homo sapiens thrive in/on communio

Reading Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is proving enlightening. I realize he is trying to cover somewhere around 70,000 years of history in a single book, which is no easy task. I am not very far into the book, having only picked it up yesterday. Two chapters in, however, I am struck by Harari's deadpan reductionism. Even so, he readily agrees with Aristotle that human beings, or, to use his preferred term, Sapiens, are social animals. He also grasps that our sociability plays a huge role in our rise above other species and our mastery of the material world.

The second chapter of Sapiens is entitled "The Tree of Knowledge." For Harari, "The Tree of Knowledge" refers to what he dubs "the Cognitive Revolution," which evolutionary biologists tell us occurred among Homo sapiens somewhere between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago. According to Harari, apparently relying on various scientific opinions, none of which he cites, the Cognitive Revolution was brought about by a mutation in the DNA of Homo sapiens. On this view, the most important result of the Cognitive Revolution was more complex, or what we might call human, language. So, it is our complex languages that set us apart from the other species. I have no qualms with what he asserts about language. It strikes me as being as close to self-evidently true as any assertion can be, especially when we consider that mathematics, music, and logic are languages that cross human cultures. He could stand reading Wittgenstein, or even Derrida, on the relationship between language and reality. Moreover, even the Jewish view of the power of the word vis-à-vis what is.

Harari entitled the second section of his second chapter "The Legend of Peugeot." After reading it I have to surmise that what he postulates in this section will be key to the rest of the book. He begins by noting that human beings employ a great deal of language in what he calls "gossip," meaning much of our speech is geared towards our building, strengthening, or sometimes seeking to weaken, our social relations. In other words, language creates and regulates human activity in every sphere. He then asserts, "Any large-scale human cooperation - whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe - is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective imagination" (27). He goes on to make an even stronger claim: these myths bear no relation and do not correspond to the material world, which he clearly sees as what is really real. This strikes me as a very problematic claim, which is a philosophical stance and not an empirical observation. Imagination is demonstrably a powerful force, which I doubt Harari would deny, but he draws conclusions that seem like attempts to thwart the power of imagination.

Harari then uses the foundation and perpetual existence of the Peugeot automobile limited liability corporation as a paradigmatic example of what he means. This leads him, in a very G.E. Moore-like manner, which Wittgenstein found infuriatingly naïve, to ask if the Peugeot automobile company really exists. The only sensible answer is, "Of course it does." Seeing Peugeot and, by extension, not only other corporations, but governments and religious institutions as fictions, that is, products of collective human imagination, he stumbles onto something quite insightful: human beings live from stories. But he seems to believe that stories, which flow from imagination, by their nature, are fictions. But is not the history he is seeking tell a story? If so, is it fictitious? All of this leads me to what I want to write about.

In "The Legend of Peugeot" section of his second chapter, Harari attempts an explanation of the mystery of the Eucharist. As one might guess, it is highly reductive. But my point is not to castigate Harari, who is Jewish, for not communicating a clear understanding of the Eucharist. Rather, his exposition of the sacrament bears a striking resemblance to how many Catholics understand it, that is, ex opere operato (see "Some hopefully ecumenical thoughts on the Eucharist"). I think showing how impoverished this view is can be done by citing how a non-Christian and perhaps even an atheist describes it:

How exactly did Armand Peugeot, the man, create Peugeot, the company? In much the same way that priests and sorcerers have created gods and demons throughout history, and in which thousands of French curés were still creating Christ's body every Sunday in the parish churches. It all revolved around telling stories, and convincing people to believe them. In the case of the French curés, the crucial story was that of Christ's life and death as told by the Catholic Church. According to this story, if a Catholic priest dressed in his sacred garments solemnly said the right words at the right moment, mundane bread and wine turned into God's flesh and blood. The priest exclaimed 'Hoc est corpus meum!' (Latin for "This is my body!") and hocus pocus [this is, indeed, the origin of the phrase "hocus pocus"]- the bread turned into Christ's flesh. Seeing that the priest had properly observed all the procedures, millions of devout French Catholics behaved as if God really existed in the consecrated bread and wine (30-31)

A few observations are in order.

First, he speaks of the celebration of Mass as something that happened in the past and has now been overcome by a more enlightened humanity. Second, it's interesting how he neglected to mention Christ's resurrection. Third, his insistence that priests create Christ from bread and wine. Finally, his understanding of the celebration of the Lord's Supper as largely a juridical affair. His description strikes me as a description of a pagan death cult. Sadly, too many devout Catholics, French, American, German, Italian, Polish, etc., view the Eucharist in these terms as well. In reality, the Eucharist doesn't happen independently of those who gather to celebrate it, only occurring when all the juridical regulations are strictly observed. Such a view smacks of belief in magic, a superstition. If the Eucharist does not flow from and nourish our humanity, our connection to one another, to those who are not us, and to the rest of creation, then it is nothing.

Isn't what Harari takes as true, namely that the only human species that survived, even if bearing some genes of otherwise extinct human species, Homo sapiens, survived and thrives only because we are social beings, worth asking a few penetrating questions? One word comes to mind in light not only of our inherently social nature, but also in light of the relationships we have with other species: Communion.

"You say let it go"

Readings: Wis 9:13-18b; Ps 90:3-6.12-17; Phmn 9-10.12-17; Luke 14:25-33

Over these weeks I find it more and more meaningful that roughly half of St. Luke's Gospel consists of the Journey Narrative, which tells of the journey of Jesus and his disciples from their native Galilee to Jerusalem. It was in the holy city where the events of his passion, death, resurrection, and the formation of the Church at Pentecost with the descent of the Holy Spirit occurred. It did not dawn on me until last week that our New Testament readings for four weeks from the Letter to the Hebrews, which describes the life of faith as a journey and the redeemed as a pilgrim people, is a near perfect complement for at least part of Luke's Journey Narrative. At least in my mind there is no doubt the Scriptures are for living life, the life, as St. Augustine wrote to the wealthy Roman widow Proba, that is truly life.

This week's readings are, once again, about discipleship, particularly the cost of discipleship. Following Jesus does not only cost you something, it may cost you everything. In today's Gospel Jesus tells his followers that because being his disciple may cost them everything, they have to be willing to let go of it all and even to endure suffering - the cross. In other words, in making the decision to follow him, you must, like the tower builder and the king, calculate the cost. Today Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be raised to the altar as a saint. Along with many other holy women and men, many of whom lived quiet lives that will never see them made saints, Mother Teresa shows us that giving up everything is the condition for receiving what is most valuable.

While praying Evening Prayer yesterday, I was struck by the closing prayer:

God our Father,
the contradiction of the cross
proclaims your infinite wisdom.
Help us to see that the glory of your Son
is revealed in the suffering he freely accepted.
Give us faith to claim as our only glory
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever

I think this prayer captures nicely the relationship between our first reading from the Book of Wisdom and our Gospel. Stated simply, God's wisdom often, perhaps usually, appears to us as foolishness. It certainly appears to those who don't believe as such.

Our New Testament reading this week is from St. Paul's Letter to Philemon. The subject of the apostle's letter is Onesimus, who is a slave owned by Philemon. Both Philemon and Onesimus are Christians. Onesimus ran off with Paul. Paul writes to Philemon that he is sending Onesimus back to him, pleading with him to treat Onesimus mercifully, to recognize him, not as a slave, but as a brother. Our reading is a beautiful passage constituting the heart of the letter. In the context of the time, Paul's letter was radical and gives us an insight into how he set about to subvert the empire.

It seems that as soon as Paul learned Onesimus was accompanying him without Philemon's consent, he sent him back. Without a doubt being sent back was a cross for Onesimus. It seems something of a cross for Paul, too. He's clearly worried about how Philemon will receive his runaway slave, which is his reason for writing the letter. I don't think it's being too insensitive to Onesimus' plight to assert that, if he heeded Paul's plea, this was a provocation for Philemon too. It was a challenge for him to truly to live what he professed to believe, to leave old categories and power relations behind and live his new life in Christ, which is given in order to change everything, to establish the reign of God, which requires nothing less than turning the world upside-down.

Paul described Onesimus as "my own heart" (Phmn 12) and expressed his desire that Onesimus, whom he loved as son, remain with him. But Paul did not want Philemon to be forced to do good involuntarily, but to do so voluntarily. presumably out of love for God and neighbor. In the end, we do not how the situation worked out. Did Onesimus, obedient to Paul, actually return to his master? If he obediently returned, did Philemon receive him as Paul urged? We don't know. Faith is risky because it means trusting God. Jesus trusted the Father and it led to him being whipped, beaten, made to carry his own cross, and then being crucified. It also led to his resurrection. But you can't have one (resurrection) without the other (passion and death). This is what I like to call the inverse property of redemption: no Easter without Good Friday and without Easter the crucifixion of Jesus merely marks another act of cruelty by the Roman imperium against a subjugated person.

What is the cost of following Jesus? For Onesimus it meant returning to a master from whose household he, a slave, escaped. For Paul it meant sending his "own heart," a beloved son, back to a master who was within his legal rights to brutally punish him. For Philemon it meant perhaps being seen as weak. It meant breaking with the unjust power relations between slaves and masters. It meant seeing a man he would've viewed as clearly his inferior, maybe as subhuman, not only as an equal, but as a beloved brother. Stated succinctly, for each of these three Christians following Christ had a high cost. It meant renunciation, what we would see as loss, in the hope that it was gain. This and not the false prosperity gospel glibly and smoothly proclaimed by false preachers, who grow rich fleecing their flock, is the glorious Christian life. Here and now it usually doesn't appear glorious at all. In explaining Onesimus' departure and return, Paul sought to draw Philemon gaze to the eternal: "Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me, but even more so to you, as a man and in the Lord" (Phmn 15-16).

Today we're urged by the Lord count the cost of following him. What is the payment being asked of you? It cannot be nothing. To hold that the Lord is calling you to give up nothing is an attempt to hold everything tightly in your own grasp and take instead of giving. It is a refusal to follow Christ.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians Paul wrote: "Were you a slave when you were called? Do not be concerned but, even if you can gain your freedom, make the most of it. For the slave called in the Lord is a freed person in the Lord, just as the free person who has been called is a slave of Christ. You have been purchased at a price. Do not become slaves to human beings" (1 Cor 7:21-23).

In their song "Let It Go," the group Tenth Avenue North sings:

You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the one to lose control
You say You will be, everything I need
You said if I lose my life it's then I'll find my soul
You say let it go, You say let it go

"Let us sit together in the dark until the moment comes"

Today I began reading Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. It's a book I've wanted to read for a few months. What prompted me to check it out from the library today was a review of sorts of Harari's latest book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by Giles Fraser in The Guardian: "If technology makes humans into gods, old questions return." I want to read the first book before the second.

The approach Harari, who is a historian, takes in Sapiens can fairly be described as naturalistic materialism. However, he is not unsympathetic to the role religion has played in shaping human culture. Reading the early pages of his book, I was struck by this passage, which perhaps the opposite of the author's intended effect on me. His intent, it seems, was to demonstrate that early humans, prior to what he terms "the Cognitive Revolution," had "no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish" (4):

On a hike in East Africa 2 million years ago, you might well have encountered a familiar cast of human characters: anxious mothers cuddling their babies and clutches of carefree children playing in the mud; temperamental youths chafing against the dictates of society and weary elders who just wanted to be left in peace; chest-thumping machos trying to impress the local beauty and wise old matriarchs who had already seen it all. These archaic humans loved, played, formed close friendships and competed for status and power (4)

He goes on to note that virtually every other animal species did and does the exact same things, which leads him to conclude, "There was nothing special about humans" (4). Here's where what he writes has the opposite of his intended effect: "Nobody, least of all humans themselves, had any inkling that their descendants would one day walk on the moon, split the atom, fathom the genetic code and write history books." There is something quite incongruent to me about the paragraph.

It also happens that today in the mail I received the most recent anthology of Luigi Giussani's writings, Christ, God's Companionship with Man, which reads like a title for one of the late Edward Schillebeeckx's books translated into English, particularly Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God.

I also learned today that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are releasing a new album on 9 September, Skeleton Tree. I am excited about this. One of the songs off their new album, "Jesus Alone," is our Friday traditio for this first Friday in September, or, if you're Catholic like me, First Friday- a day I try to make it to confession.

"You believe in God, but you get no special dispensation for this belief now."

The Church as the sacrament of the body of Christ

This summer I have been slowly reading through the late Fr. Eugene LaVerdiere's Dining in the Kingdom of God: The Origins of the Eucharist in the Gospel of Luke. I would be hard-pressed to think of a book on Luke's Gospel I would recommend over this one. It is at one and the same time scholarly and accessible. It has helped me more effectively preach from Luke over the past few months. Fr. LaVerdiere was a priest of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, founded by the Apostle of Eucharist, St. Peter Julian Eymard- members of which have been very good to me over many years.

Theologically it would be difficult to exaggerate the centrality/importance of the Eucharist, of the Lord's Supper, in/for Christian life. As I grow older I experience this at deeper levels facilitated, I believe, by grace through participation in the sacred mysteries. When I think of the Lord's Supper in light of the institution narratives found in the synoptic Gospels, I realize how important is the diversity of its celebration in both historical as well as some fairly new forms. I also think it is easy to reduce the Eucharist in a variety of ways.

I find LaVerdiere's exegesis of the Last Supper in Luke 22 very insightful. He sees the meal the Lord shares with the Twelve a consisting of two parts: Last Supper and Lord's Supper. The Last Supper portion takes place in Luke 22:15-18, while the Lord's Supper is originated in Luke 22:19-22.

Before dealing with a fundamental matter concerning the Lord's Supper there is an exegetical note I want to pass along from the book. It has to do with where Jesus and the Twelve took their shared meal together- the upper room. Luke calls the room a kataluma, which in the Gospel seems to be a room built as a second story of a house and accessed by stairs leading up, not from the inside the house, but from the courtyard. According to LaVerdiere, in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures- Old Testament- in use among Greek-speaking Jews of the diaspora in Jesus' day and beyond) the word kataluma indicated "a place of hospitality for people on a journey" (130). Of course, in Luke's Gospel the Last Supper takes place in Jerusalem after the journey of Jesus and his disciples from their native Galilee. The Church was and remains the Pilgrim People of God, a people on a journey together, companions who share bread- as our readings from Hebrews over these weeks of listening to the Journey Narrative highlight. The seventh chapter of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, is entitled "The Eschatological Nature of the Pilgrim Church and Its Union with the Church in Heaven":

DaVinci and Warhol, The Last Supper

Already the final age of the world has come upon us and the renovation of the world is irrevocably decreed and is already anticipated in some kind of a real way; for the Church already on this earth is signed with a sanctity which is real although imperfect. However, until there shall be new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church in her sacraments and institutions, which pertain to this present time, has the appearance of this world which is passing and she herself dwells among creatures who groan and travail in pain until now and await the revelation of the sons of God (par. 48)

Referring to what we commonly call the words of institution, Fr. LaVerdiere observes that our tendency is to interpret the word "this" in the phrase, "This is my body," which the priest says as he holds and slightly elevates the host, as referring to the host itself.

In Luke's context, LaVerdiere asserts, "this" "refers directly to Christ's action, to what he did, and indirectly to the whole event" (138-9). "This" is the celebration of the Eucharist whole and entire with all of it's full meaning, including the intended effect of the sacrament, which is accomplished once we are dismissed. By taking "this" in the phrase "this is my body" as referring specifically and/or exclusively to the bread is highly reductive. This is important because it often has a negative impact on our praxis, on what happens once we are sent forth. In short, such a view runs the risk of making the Eucharist, to cite Pope Francis, self-referential, turning it into an end and not a means. Because we remain a pilgrim people until God's reign is established, made Christ's Body by the Eucharist we share, the Eucharist remains the means God uses to restore the world to communion through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why, as Christians, we must live sacrificial lives. To believe or live otherwise is to let go of the tension and either mistake the already for the not yet, or to reject the not yet altogether.

On LaVerdiere's reading, "The liturgical proclamation, 'This is my body, which will be given for you,' recalls the words of Christ offering himself, and speaks the words of the church associating itself with Christ's offering and making his offering present sacramentally. The body given is that of Christ. It is also that of the Church, the sacrament of the body of Christ" (139).

At least for me, keeping these fundamental truths in mind helps me not get bogged down in the liturgy battles, which I don't mind admitting I find not only tiresome, but increasingly silly.

Humility

Reading: Sir 3:17-18.20.28-29; Ps 68:4-7.10-11; Heb 12:18-19.22-24a; Luke 14:1.7-14

Some weeks our readings from the lectionary have a distinct theme. This week is one such time. The theme, in case you've not looked at the readings, is humility.

We need to distinguish humility from self-deprecation. C.S. Lewis, as he did with so many aspects of Christian faith, stated it in a pithy manner in his book Mere Christianity: "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." In fact, Lewis' quote could easily serve as a comprehensive summary of Jesus' teaching today. But I would add, humility consists in not thinking too highly or too lowly of yourself. It's tempting to say, humility consists in seeing yourself as you truly are, but that quickly becomes very complex. Suffice it to note that only God sees you as you really are, which is as someone beloved.

When discussing humility it seems almost always necessary to point out that it comes from the Latin word humus, meaning soil. In the spiritual life, then, humility is the soil in which the virtues can be cultivated. Among the seven deadly sins pride holds pride of place. Each of the seven deadly sins has a contrary virtue. The contrary virtue of pride is humility.

Because humility consists in both putting others before yourself, as Jesus indicated in his parable in the Pharisee's house, as well as not thinking of yourself in too exalted or debased a manner, it is a virtue that requires our constant care. At this point an objection might be raised that Jesus, in today's Gospel, instructs us to think of ourselves in the lowest way, unworried about balance. While he certainly urges us not to exalt ourselves, it is with reference to other people. In other words, he is telling us to put others before ourselves, especially the blessed ones: the poor, the sick, the lame, the powerless. This is what it means to observe the second of the Lord's two Great Commandments, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are to have a just love of self.

Neither does Jesus urge us to take the lowest seat out of calculation, only in order to gain a more exalted place. It seems that, too, would be self-serving. I think it's about being a beggar who is grateful for being invited to feast at all.

The horizon of Jesus' parable is eternity. If it's not, then what he teaches is meaningless. In God's kingdom the humble will be exalted and the proud will be cast down. Casting down the humbling the exalted is an echo from our Lady's Magnificat: "he has scattered the proud in their conceit, he has cast down the mighty from their thrones." Our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews gives us the horizon. In our reading from Hebrews the inspired author discusses approaching "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," something we do when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist each Sunday. It is there that we encounter not only "countless angels in festal gathering," but "the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven," along with "the spirits of the just made perfect" (Heb 12:22-23)- by participating in Mass we participate in a very real way in the communion sanctorum. The kingdom of God will consist only of those who put others before themselves. This why St. Paul constantly encourages the early Christian communities to do this.

In one of my favorite chapters in all of Sacred Scripture, Romans 12, Paul urges - "Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor" (Rom 12:9-10).

I can do no better discussing humility than did Metropolitan Anthony Bloom in his short, powerful book Beginning to Pray:

The word "humility" comes from the Latin word "humus" which means fertile ground. To me, humility is not what we often make of it: the sheepish way of trying to imagine that we are the worst of all and trying to convince others that our artificial ways of behaving show that we are aware of that. Humility is the situation of the earth. The earth has always been there, always taken for granted, never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out all the refuse, all we don’t need. It’s there, silent and accepting everything and in a miraculous way making out of all the refuse new richness in spite corruption, transforming corruption itself into a power of life and a new possibility of creativeness… Learn to be like this before God; abandoned, surrendered, ready to receive anything from people and anything from God (35)

In his goodness, God, indeed, as our Psalm response declares, has "made a home for the poor."

"Inject your soul with liberty"

At least for Roman Catholics Fridays are days of penance. Today I read an article on confession by Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble in which she asks ten priests about how to go to confession. No doubt the priests were trying to make going to confession seem welcoming and not daunting. But with all due respect, what about people, like Sr. Threresa, who go to confession and leave wondering if they've made what is still called "a good confession"?

As a penitent and not a priest, I offer some advice to people who go to confession:

Examine your conscience using a good examination of conscience and then confess your sins in kind and number. Say what you've done, how many times you've done it, sincerely tell the Lord you're sorry and promise with his help to go and sin no more. Then do your penance expeditiously.

One of my confessors, knowing how many things I have going at once used to give me my penance and stipulate I do it in the church right now before hitting the street.

Go regularly enough that every confession is not like your first confession.

If you need spiritual counseling, make an appointment. Confession is not usually the place for that, but a spiritual counseling session may include confession.

I am grateful for the late Fr Piacetelli, CM for teaching me how to make a good confession and teaching me to keep short accounts and to trust Christ's mercy and in his grace.

Last, but not least, something along the lines of what is offered in Sr. Theresa's piece: We don't go to confession to admit defeat, but to claim our victory in Christ by the power of the Spirit.

It's Friday and so our traditio is The Cranberries' "Salvation"