Death is struck, and nature quaking, to its Judge an answer making

Building on my previous post, our traditio for today is the Dies Irae (i.e., Day of Wrath) from Mozart's great Requiem. I could not locate a similar recording of Benjamin Britten's, which I also love and which I have heard live with The Cathedral of the Madeleine Choir and the Utah Symphony.

Hope in justice, in meaning and truth from:

Psalm 51 (stanzas 5-8)

Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,
that the bones you have crushed may revive.
From my sins turn away your face
and blot out all my guilt.

A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.

Give me the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervor sustain me,
that I may teach transgressors your ways
and sinners may return to you.

O rescue me, God, my helper,
and my tongue shall ring out your goodness.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise.

Of course, the Church begins each and everyday with the words:
Lord, open my lips
-And my mouth shall declare your praise

In this we acknowledge that even our ability to declare God's praise is a grace.

An addendum to our traditio is this (thanks Alex and Fred!) on Don Gius. With an eye toward indulging The Ironic Catholic's pentecostal proclivities, Brother Lyle has a few things to add re: Judgment Day, hope and Eucharist- Dining in the Kingdom of God. While I am making feeble attempts at alliteration, Bp. Wester lamented last Sunday at the 6:00 PM Mass that I did not give the pitch for our Diocesan Development Drive, thus depriving him of the opportunity to thank "Deacon Dodge for his delighful discourse on the Diocesan Development Drive". Sorry bishop, maybe next year. Just keep in mind, when thinking about having me do it, that it is preferable and pleasing for people to actually pledge!

Finally, risking becoming the interminable blogger, I want draw attention to a post by Zadok the Roman, entitled Theodore of Mopsuestia (4th Century) on the Duties of Deacons. It is funny that he posted this on the day after I read this same passage in Barnett's English language magnus opus on the diaconate. I remember a particular fly from last summer that, over the course of several Sundays, I had to keep shooing away from the wine on the altar. Where's my fan?

The Last Judgment- the decisive image of hope, not terror

It really has taken months for me to come to an appreciation of Spe Salvi. I am indebted to our School of Community for helping me, in our reading of it and discussing it light of our lives, of our experience, for showing me what a treasure this letter is. So, here are bits of the encyclical, numbers 42-43 completely and the opening part of number 44. I suppose Fridays, with the penitential aspect, especially Fridays in Lent, have an eschatological twinge.

"42. In the modern era, the idea of the Last Judgement [sic] has faded into the background: Christian faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the salvation of the believer's own soul, while reflection on world history is largely dominated by the idea of progress. The fundamental content of awaiting a final Judgement [sic], however, has not disappeared: it has simply taken on a totally different form. The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested. Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world. This is why the great thinkers of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, were equally critical of atheism and theism. Horkheimer radically excluded the possibility of ever finding a this-worldly substitute for God, while at the same time he rejected the image of a good and just God. In an extreme radicalization of the Old Testament prohibition of images, he speaks of a 'longing for the totally Other' that remains inaccessible—a cry of yearning directed at world history. Adorno also firmly upheld this total rejection of images, which naturally meant the exclusion of any 'image' of a loving God. On the other hand, he also constantly emphasized this 'negative' dialectic and asserted that justice —true justice—would require a world 'where not only present suffering would be wiped out, but also that which is irrevocably past would be undone'. This, would mean, however—to express it with positive and hence, for him, inadequate symbols—that there can be no justice without a resurrection of the dead. Yet this would have to involve 'the resurrection of the flesh, something that is totally foreign to idealism and the realm of Absolute spirit'."

I like what the Holy Father does here with what is known in contemporary Philosophy as the inconsistent triad, which is at the heart of the question of evil, known more technically as theodicy. The inconsistent triad (of propositions) goes as follows:

God is all good
God is all powerful, yet
There is still evil in the world

Hence, one of four possibilities follow:

God is not all good
God is not all powerful
God neither all good nor all powerful
God does not exist

The take away here is that regardless of which of the four conclusions one chooses to employ, in the words of Pope Benedict, "there is no God to create justice". Is it not odd that oppressed people understand this, but easy-living folks do not? So, bracketing the fourth conclusion, we feel that for the sake of morality "this God has to be contested". In light of this we human beings must "establish justice". I would add to Adorno and Horkheimer a third thinker, whose ideas are more widespread: Albert Camus, especially in his novel The Plague and his essay The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. What is so fundamental that it is often overlooked in this calculation is the felt need, intrinsic to humanity, although challenged by some, like Nietzsche, to establish justice.

The Center of triptych, by Hans Memling 1467-71

This human need, this deep desire, for justice, a just world, which Christians recognize as nothing less than the Kingdom of God, gives rise to a contradiction: the recognized need to establish justice on the one hand and, on the other, doing so si Deus non daretur, as if God did not exist. Here is where we come face-to-face the disastrous idea of freedom as an end in itself, having no relationship whatsoever to truth, not truth as a series of propositions, but the very truth of our being. Therefore, something that Pope Benedict was going to say at La Sapienza University, building on a major theme of his thought over the years, is relevant here: "The danger facing the Western world ... is that man today, precisely because of the immensity of his knowledge and power, surrenders before the question of truth."

In an address given to catechists during the Jubilee Year in 2000 while still Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, commenting on a conclusion arrived at by theologian Johannes Baptist Metz, said: "The true problem of our times [according to Metz] is the 'Crisis of God,' the absence of God, disguised by an empty religiosity. Theology must go back to being truly theo-logy, speaking about and with God. Metz is right: the unum necessarium to man is God. Everything changes, whether God exists or not"

"43. Christians likewise can and must constantly learn from the strict rejection of images that is contained in God's first commandment (cf. Ex 20:4). The truth of negative theology was highlighted by the Fourth Lateran Council, which explicitly stated that however great the similarity that may be established between Creator and creature, the dissimilarity between them is always greater ["between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude"-Lateran Council IV: DS 806]. In any case, for the believer the rejection of images cannot be carried so far that one ends up, as Horkheimer and Adorno would like, by saying 'no' to both theses—theism and atheism. God has given himself an 'image': in Christ who was made man. In him who was crucified, the denial of false images of God is taken to an extreme. God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh. There is justice. There is an 'undoing' of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright. For this reason, faith in the Last Judgement [sic] is first and foremost hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life. The purely individual need for a fulfilment that is denied to us in this life, for an everlasting love that we await, is certainly an important motive for believing that man was made for eternity; but only in connection with the impossibility that the injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity for Christ's return and for new life become fully convincing."

This, again, is so fundamental that we might miss it. God does not answer our cry for justice with a brilliant argument, but by becoming human for us and revealing "his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself". Jesus Christ, in his passion, death, resurrection, and return in glory, is the answer to our cry for justice. Nonetheless, at the same time, as the Holy Father notes, our Lord meets Horkheimer's criteria.

"44. To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement [sic] is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope."

So, perhaps the reason that Gaudium et Spes was not used as a point of reference for this letter (I am speculating- probably wildly) is that, without becoming a prophet of doom, the Holy Father found it too optimistic. After all, to be hopeful, as Spe Salvi shows, is not the same as being optimistic. On a tagental note for a Friday post, sometimes admitting failure is the first step to succeeding.

The Solemnity of the (Re) Dedication of The Cathedral of the Madeleine

Today at The Cathedral of the Madeleine, the parish I am privileged to serve as a deacon, is a Solemnity because it was on this day back in 1993 that the Cathedral was rededicated after two years of renovation. Over on our parish blog, Gregory Glenn, our Director of Liturgy and Music, who was instrumental in the renovation and who planned the re-dedication liturgy, as well as founding, along with Msgr. M. Francis Mannion, then the rector, our Madeleine Choir School, has been documenting this week's build up to today's noon Mass.

Next year we will mark the centennial of our lovely lady. Mr. Glenn posted a picture yesterday of the Cathedral as it was nearing completion in 1908, taken one hundred years ago yesterday. I am excited to see the contents of the time capsule, which we put on display. I have to admit being a little nervous this morning due to the 6.0 Richter scale earthquake just west of us this morning in Nevada, which was centered 11 miles southeast of Wells near the Nevada-Utah line, according to the Associated Press. For those of us who are life-long residents of the Intermountain West, we know that earthquakes release pressure off of fault lines, which is a good thing. Better slight shifts than sudden, massive ones.

Bishop Lawrence Scanlan
Please keep us, the people of St. Mary Magdalene, in your prayers today. If you feel so inclined, in addition to asking for your prayers, we can also assist you in making good on pledges of Lenten almsgiving by making a secure electronic donation to the Cathedral. I assure you that none of it goes to the Deacon Retirement Fund and it is, of course, tax deductible.

It always bears mentioning that our lovely Cathedral is largely the result of the efforts and dedication of one man, Bishop Lawrence Scanlan, our founding bishop. Bishop Scanlan, as per his wishes, is entombed beneath the old main altar of the Cathedral. I am always reminded of Bishop Scanlan's dedication, love, and determination by our Vicar General, a native Utahn and, like our pioneer bishop, also an Irishman, Msgr. Fitzgerald. Bishop Joseph S. Glass, CM, who succeeded Bishop Scanlan, is the man responsible for the interior grandeur of the Madeleine and for re-naming it the Cathedral the Madeleine, which is simply French for the original name, The Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene.

I also want to post the link to the entire article Ron Yengitch (sic): Why We Defend the Guilty, by Barbara Stinson Lee. I have also made the update to my original post, Making justice our aim.

St. Mary Magdalene- pray for us.

An Easter encyclical?

Hopefully this time it is true. Last August when it became known that the Holy Father was working on and very close to promulgating another encyclical, it was initially believed in some quarters that the encylical would be on the Church's social teaching, with a special reference to Pope Paul VI's underappreciated and largely unappropriated encyclical Populorum Progressio, the fortieth anniversary of which we marked last year. Of course, what we received from Pope Benedict as an Advent gift was Spe Salvi, a much needed letter on hope, which it took time for me to fully appreciate.
An encyclical on the Church's social teaching, taking the Second Vatican Council and the papal magisterium of Papa Montini as its starting point, is much needed. However, I must admit a certain amount of trepediation given the tenor and tone of some of what we have received so far, particularly in part two Deus Caritas Est, which was critiqued in certain quarters for moving in a different direction than the two previous popes, Papa Luciani, whose papacy was lasted only thirty-three days, not included. This same concern also arises in light of the second encyclical on hope, in which no reference was made to that remarkable pastoral constitution of Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, of which Pope John Paul II, then still Bishop Karol Wojtyla, was a major architect. Like the papal magisterium of Montini, this constitution is quite prophetic and speaks volumes to our present situation, both by way of criticism and giving hope.

According to my good friend Rocco, the intrepid author of Whispers, "The 1968 (sic) letter on globalization and the development of peoples marks its milestone on 26 March, this year's Easter Wednesday. Listed among the new document's [i.e., Pope Benedict's anticipated encyclical] 'consistent themes': '"poverty, globalization, peace, disarmament, war between the rich and the poor, nuclear war and the environment.'"

Digging in the archives from both Καθολικός διάκονος and The People of St. Mary Magdalene, I offer two posts, first from Καθολικός διάκονος, entitled "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties" Gaudium et Spes 1, then from The People of St. Mary Magdalene, Populorum Progressio turns 40. Finally, a homily for Year C, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, from last year.

More to follow in coming days on these issues, given that I am reading a brilliant analysis of these matters.

President's Day presidential IAT

Okay, you might feel like you have a good hack on who you support for president this year. It is time to engage your brain. So, I give the link to Harvard University's Implicit Association Test. The IAT is designed to show you your unconscious political biases. In the test you are asked to asscociate pictures with words, both positive words such as Friend and Love, as well as negative words, like Enemy and Hate. The basic theory is that the faster you associate the candidate with the positive word, the more strongly you feel about the candidate and vice-versa. The IAT does not pretend to tell you for whom to vote, but it gives a ranked ordering as to which candidate you feel best about and the candidate about whom you feel the most negative.

It is reminiscent of My Personal DNA.

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news"

This morning, while doing my morning blog-check, which is kind of like calling friends, I learned from my friend Rocco, over on Whispers, that a man who taught me a lot about preaching, though I never met him, Fr. Walter Burghardt, SJ, died yesterday at age 95.

I am re-posting something from Whispers, written by Fr. Burghardt himself:

"Love God above all else. Love every human being -- friend or enemy -- like another self as a child of God, especially those who are on the lower edge of society. Touch the earth, God's material creation -- nuclear energy or a blade of grass -- with respect. With reverence as a gift of God."

I remember just prior to ordination we were asked what we wanted our preaching to communicate and, under the influence of Burghardt and others, I wrote "The passionate love of God for each one of us." I do not know how well I succeed, but I know, at least for me, Fr. Burghardt's homilies, which I have only ever read, succeeded. May he be gathered into that love which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that love he dedicated his life not only to telling people about, but teaching others to communicate effectively.

The life and ministry of Fr. Burghardt are summed up well by St. Paul:

"For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring (the) good news!'" (Rom. 10,13-15). Walter Burghardt's feet must have been gorgeous!

Again, with due acknowledgement to Rocco, here is a tribute to Fr. Burghardt by someone who knew him. It is a post entitled Eternal Light Be His, Lord.

The importance of speaking the language of hope

It is important to note that my reflection yesterday on the attractiveness of speaking the language of hope, was sparked by political ugliness here in Utah, which seems almost always to occur whenever our Legislature is in session. This year's ugliness has taken the form of a horribly racist allusion made by Sen. Chris Buttars, a poster boy for how not to speak truth from a position of power for many years. This particular outrage occurred when Buttars rose in the Senate to oppose an education bill, of which he said, building on an ugly baby metaphor made by another senator: "This baby is black, I'll tell you. This is a dark and ugly thing". Lest anyone think this just a one-time incident, it is worth noting that Chris Buttars has publicly denounced the Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. the Board on the radio without apologizing. Of course, in the wake of his most recent rant, he issued the non-apology apology- If anyone was offended by the comments I made . . ..

Buttars' public homophobia and hate-filled speaking has painted all of us in the state who defend the institution of marriage with the same brush. In fact, referring back to The San Francisco Solution, Buttars engaging in the politics of fear, in the words of veteran Utah political commentator, Paul Rolly, "is sponsoring or pushing legislation or amendments in this legislative session that could potentially force people out of their homes while trying to pay for expensive medication for their elderly and infirm parents . . .

"All in the name of decency."

"Buttars, R-West Jordan, fashioned Senate Bill 267 to invalidate any domestic partnership ordinance passed by a city. It was filed in response to Salt Lake City's new ordinance creating a volunteer registry for unmarried couples who could then have a chance to gain health-care coverage and other benefits from businesses for their loved ones.

"Buttars has said he fears a 'homosexual agenda' and will stamp out any effort that he believes would be a step toward equal rights for that class of people.

"Never mind that an estimated 78 percent of those who would benefit from the registry are in heterosexual relationships. Buttars' bill could also affect Salt Lake City's adult-designee ordinance, which allows people to designate housemates other than a husband or wife for health benefits. That includes people who are caring for infirm parents whose medical and pharmaceutical costs would otherwise devastate the family income."

Last time I checked the only qualification for human right, like access to necessary healthcare, is being human.

In addition to Buttars' obvious and deplorable speech and behavior, Rolly's comments also show how such fear-driven politics leads people away from truth and causes people to get on-board with anything that politicians, like Buttars, oppose, using the understandable logic, If he opposes it, it has to be okay. To paraphrase something Andy Rooney said about abortion a long time ago- I oppose abortion, but I like people who are for abortion better than most people who oppose it.

This point is made even more starkly in another editorial, this one by Barb Guy, Picture told the ugly story of Utah's cultural divide better than words. In this editorial, Guy emotionally castigates Buttars for seeking, among other things, "to define the parameters of marriage for people other than himself". How dare he! This shows that we do truth no favor, or justice, in taking such a misguided approach.

As Christians how we advocate or dissent is every bit, if not more important, than that for which we advocate or from which we dissent. A good example of this is Cardinal Sean's response to the Supreme Court ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court making same-sex marriage legal. How can we not speak the language of hope and think we are being true our experience of the Lord? More importantly, how can we experience the Lord and not speak the language of hope?