How do I respond to grace? Not gracefully

Okay, I am just going to admit this: When it comes to Christmas, I am a heel. The only presents I personally purchase are for my wife and children, meaning I buy them each one thing. My lovely wife does all the rest of it. I feel the need to admit this because every year I receive so many wonderful gifts from both expected and unexpected people. It's funny, I love Christmas, but given what's involved in gift exchange (i.e., having to go shopping), I just don't do it. It's funny, I would actually be alright with getting nothing for Christmas, with the exception of a beautiful Mass and a lovely breakfast, with mimosas, of course.

Nativity, by William Congdon

It's a ham-fisted and sentimental connection, I know, but my wholly inadequate and often awkward response to receiving gifts seems a pretty realistic response to the Mystery we acknowledge.

Václav Havel: Champion of being human

I have been too overwhelmed by many things to post a fitting tribute to Václav Havel. Learning of his death Sunday morning I posted my reaction on Facebook: "I awoke this morning to learn of yet another tremendous loss. What is it these days? I'm sure it's a function of my own growing older that causes me to wonder if we will have people like Havel in the future. I certainly hope we do. A world that grows less humane by the moment needs men and women who champion humanity over and against all the de-humanizing forces we face. Havel was one of the greatest champions of being human, having experienced Communism first-hand."

Since Havel was first and foremost an artist, a playwright and poet, but also a brilliant essayist, there is nothing I can write to do him justice. So, I am putting up a long extract from "Politics and Conscience," which he originally composed as a speech to deliver at the University of Toulouse on the occasion of being awarded an honorary doctorate in 1984. Of course, he was unable to attend the ceremony. Playwright Tom Stoppard represented him. The first English translation, done by Erazim Kohák and Roger Scruton, of this work was published in the January 1985 edition of the Salisbury Review.

I am convinced that what is called "dissent" in the Soviet bloc is a specific modern experience, the experience of life at the very ramparts of dehumanized power. As such, that "dissent" has the opportunity and even the duty to reflect on this experience, to testify to it and to pass it on to those fortunate enough not to have to undergo it. Thus we too have a certain opportunity to help in some ways those who help us, to help them in our deeply shared interest, in the interest of mankind.

One such fundamental experience, that which I called "anti-political politics", is possible and can be effective, even though by its very nature it cannot calculate its effect beforehand. That effect, to be sure, is of a wholly different nature from what the West considers political success. It is hidden, indirect, long term and hard to measure; often it exists only in the invisible realm of social consciousness, conscience and subconsciousness and it can be almost impossible to determine what value it assumed therein and to what extent, if any, it contributes to shaping social development. It is, however, becoming evident—and I think that is an experience of an essential and universal importance—that a single, seemingly powerless person who dares to cry out the word of truth and to stand behind it with all his person and all his life, ready to pay a high price, has, surprisingly, greater power, though formally disfranchised, than do thousands of anonymous voters. It is becoming evident that even in today's world, and especially on this exposed rampart where the wind blows most sharply, it is possible to oppose personal experience and the natural world to the "innocent" power and to unmask its guilt, as the author of The Gulag Archipelago has done. It is becoming evident that truth and morality can provide a new starting point for politics and can, even today, have an undeniable political power. The warning voice of a single brave scientist, besieged somewhere in the provinces and terrorized by a goaded community, can be heard over continents and addresses the conscience of the mighty of this world more clearly than entire brigades of hired propagandists can, though speaking to themselves. It is becoming evident that wholly personal categories like good and evil still have their unambiguous content and, under certain circumstances, are capable of shaking the seemingly unshakeable power with all its army of soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats. It is becoming evident that politics by no means need remain the affair of professionals and that one simple electrician with his heart in the right place, honouring something that transcends him and free of fear, can influence the history of his nation.

Yes, "anti-political politics" is possible. Politics 'from below'. Politics of man, not of the apparatus. Politics growing from the heart, not from a thesis. It is not an accident that this hopeful experience has to be lived just here, on this grim battlement. Under the "rule of everydayness" we have to descend to the very bottom of a well before we can see the stars.

When Jan Patocka wrote about Charter 77, he used the term "solidarity of the shaken". He was thinking of those who dared resist impersonal power and to confront it with the only thing at their disposal, their own humanity. Does not the perspective of a better future depend on something like an international community of the shaken which, ignoring state boundaries, political systems, and power blocs, standing outside the high game of traditional politics, aspiring to no titles and appointments, will seek to make a real political force out of a phenomenon so ridiculed by the technicians of power—the phenomenon of human conscience?

Year B Fourth Sunday of Advent

Readings: 2 Sam. 7:1-5.8b-12.14a.16; Ps. 89:2—5.27.29; Rom. 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

Our readings for today cascade downward in a very useful sequence. Hence, I think we are best-served by simply looking at the Scriptures, seeing how they fit together in order to discern what God is saying to us as we enter the final week of Advent. In our first reading, taken from Second Samuel, we hear about King David, who, after vanquishing Israel’s foes and firmly establishing a united kingdom consisting of all the tribes of Israel, with their capital in Jerusalem, worries out loud that while he, the king of God’s people, dwells in a palace, the Ark of the Covenant, which was God’s presence among the chosen people, continued to be housed in a tent. The “tent” to which David refers was a portable tabernacle like the one built during Israel’s exodus from Egypt and carried around with them during their forty year sojourn to the promised land, which they now largely possessed and inhabited. This prompts David to tell Nathan, at least to hint to the prophet, that he would like to build a magnificent palace in which to place the Ark. In other words, he speaks of a plan to build a temple.

Nathan, who as we know from the Bathsheba incident, was no mere yes man, initially thinks the king’s idea is a good one and says to David, “Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the LORD is with you” (2 Sam. 7:3). But then Nathan has a dream with a message from God for King David. God asks David through Nathan, “Should you build me a house to dwell in?” (2 Sam 7:5) The LORD then recounts to Nathan, so that the prophet can remind David, of all that God has done for David from the time he was a humble shepherd called by God to lead Israel by the prophet Samuel, to where David is now (2 Sam. 7:8-11). David is also reminded that God has never asked Israel to build Him a permanent dwelling, “a house of cedar” (2 Sam. 7:7). The point of the dream is that God does not want David to build a temple. Rather, God will make of David a house, that is, a kingdom, which will last forever. God relays to David through Nathan that after David’s death, God

will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever (2 Sam. 7:12.14a.16)

This is followed in the lectionary by our Psalm, in which God is praised for His goodness and fidelity to His promises, like the promise made to David in our first reading: “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant: Forever will I confirm your posterity and establish your throne for all generations” (Ps. 89:4-5).

We now move briefly to our New Testament reading, taken from the very end of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, in which passage the apostle identifies Jesus Christ as “the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages,” who is now “made known to all nations” in order “to bring about the obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:25-26).

Ark of the Covenant Monstrance at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, Chicago

Before looking more closely at our Gospel reading for today, it is important to note that Tradition hands on to us that the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we revere in an especially enthusiastic way during the Advent season, is the new Ark of the Covenant. The original Ark, the one that David wanted to build a temple for, the one for which Indiana Jones searched, held three items: the stone tablets on which the 10 Commandments were written, some manna God provided to feed the Israelites during their forty years in the desert, and Aaron’s rod, the one that, though detached from the plant and its root system, re-sprouted, thus becoming a self-sufficient source of life. The womb of Mary, whom we revere as Theotokos- God-bearer, or, more commonly, as the Mother of God, held Jesus Christ, the Word-made-flesh (John 1:14), the Bread of Life (John 6:35), and the True Vine whose branches we are (John 15:5), the very One whom St. John tells us “pitched his tent among us” (John 1:14).

There are many parallels between the Annunciation as conveyed to us in our Gospel today and the Ark of the Covenant, beginning with Gabriel’s use of the word “overshadow” in reference to Mary conceiving God’s Son (Luke 1:35). This word is significant because it is used in reference to the cherubim “overshadowing” the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was made with pure gold (Exodus 4ff), but Mary, whose Immaculate Conception we affirmed and celebrated a little more than a week ago, was even purer and more beautiful. There are many more typological parallels that have been identified regarding the Blessed Virgin as the new Ark of the Covenant.

So if Jesus is “The Word Made Flesh,” then Mary is “The Ark Made Flesh,” the house God promised David He would establish forever. Yes, Jesus is present here in the tabernacle, but as a result of this Eucharist, He is just as present in you and me. This is the great scandal of the Incarnation: that Christ, the everlasting God, is conceived in the womb of a humble virgin, a marginal person who belonged, at least in terms of the ancient Roman Empire, to a marginal, if trouble-making, people. During our profession of the Creed, just before we say the words, “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man,” we bow in awe. The scandal doesn’t stop there. While Jesus is present here in the tabernacle, but as a result of this Eucharist, He is just as present in you and me. Like Mary, we are to be temples of God’s presence in and for the world. The Son of God, in this very Eucharist, makes Himself present in us by the power of the Holy Spirit! When we say "Amen" to the words "the body of Christ" and "the blood of Christ," like the Blessed Virgin, who is our model of faith, we say "Yes" to God, to serving Him, to cooperating in bringing about His kingdom.

In his homily for Midnight Mass in 2006, Pope Benedict reminded us that “God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us.” "God," the Holy Father continued, “does not come with power and outward splendor. He comes as a baby – defenseless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness." In the womb of the Virgin of Nazareth and in this Eucharist God becomes small so that we are able to grasp him, to welcome him, and to love him. As we enter into this last week of Advent, let us contemplate this great mystery. One of the best ways of doing this is by praying and meditating upon the seven “O Antiphons,” the first of which made its annual appearance in Evening Prayer last night: “O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.”

"Forsake not the works of thine own hands"

I am very disheartened, even dispirited, that I am starting to see snide, chiding, and sarcastic pieces written by Christians on the passing of Christopher Hitchens. I guess being provoked both by reality and by those who themselves are so provoked, especially those who arrive at very different conclusions, has no place in the lives of some Christians. In his book The Religious Sense, Msgr. Giussani discusses at length the "big" questions, the existential questions, that arise for all simply by being human, by being self-conscious. Humanity for Giussani being "that level of nature wherein nature becomes aware of itself and of its own purposes." These are the questions that initiate our search for meaning, which is our search for happiness, for complete fulfillment, those that constitute us as human beings. Giusanni also details the many ways, some of them quite ingenious to the point of being convincing, in which some have sought to banish these questions, or at least to attenuate them.

UPDATE: Msgr. Albacete reflects on his encounter with Christopher in New York in 2008 Hitchens/A man with a wounded heart in Il Sussidiario.

One of the great things about Hitch, as he was popularly known, is that he neither avoided these questions nor sought to attenuate them. He did go to lengths to criticize and even make fun of those who, at least in his view, did not do justice to the questions, short-circuiting them by taking a leap of faith.

Remembering his brother on his passing, Peter Hitchens wrote: "The one word that comes to mind when I think of my brother is ‘courage’. By this I don’t mean the lack of fear which some people have, which enables them to do very dangerous or frightening things because they have no idea what it is to be afraid. I mean a courage which overcomes real fear, while actually experiencing it." Christopher Hitchens faced the big question squarely and never more so than after being diagnosed with the cancer that ultimately killed him. In a piece that appeared in Vanity Fair- "Topic of Cancer"- he described his response to his diagnoses:

The notorious stage theory of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whereby one progresses from denial to rage through bargaining to depression and the eventual bliss of “acceptance,” hasn’t so far had much application in my case. In one way, I suppose, I have been “in denial” for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can’t see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it’s all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me. Rage would be beside the point for the same reason. Instead, I am badly oppressed by a gnawing sense of waste. I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read—if not indeed write—the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger? But I understand this sort of non-thinking for what it is: sentimentality and self-pity

Provocative, no?

His friend, the writer Ian McEwan, who is also an atheist, wrote in Friday's New York Times about his final visit with Hitch. McEwan revealed that at the time of his passing, Hitchens was working on a long piece critical of G.K. Chesterton. I for one would love to read it because, unlike his contemporary and friend, Hilare Belloc, with whose name he was linked as Chesterbelloc, about whom even Catholics ask, Is Belloc best forgotten?, it seems to me that Chesterton has never really been subjected to much intelligent scrutiny.

Bl. John Henry Newman had an unbelieving older brother, Charles Robert Newman, who lived a very dissolute life, often only being able to eat and keep a roof over his head with the financial help of John. Nonetheless, Charles was very ungrateful and often went out of his way to demonstrate his ingratitude. He died unrepentant and unreconciled. Of course, it was left to John to see to and pay for his brother's burial. John had this epitaph carved on the headstone of Charles: "Forsake not the works of thine own hands" (Ps. 138:8- KJV).

In my view, the biggest failure we can have as Christians is to fail to see both ourselves and others the way Christ sees us, to look on others, including those whose views diverge from ours and who might despise our beliefs, with a loving gaze.

I feel that I must post the first video clip of a dialogue that took place between Hitch and Msgr. Albacete back in September 2008 because it gives me hope, unlike some of what I read today, which made me realize all over again that some of Hitch's withering criticism of religion and those who are religious were more accurate than many would care to acknowledge:

Papist musing about marital relations

On 3 January 2012 the book Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together co-authored by Pastor Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace, will be released. For those unfamiliar with Pastor Mark, he is the senior pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He is also a leader in the Acts 29 Network. Without a doubt Mark Driscoll is one of the most influential Evangelical leaders in the United States. To understate his approach to ministry, he is very provocative. It seems that he remains provocative in his about-to-be published book, at least according to Tim Challies, who offered a preview of it in a Christian Post article last Thursday. Writing in response to the about-to-be-released book, an advanced copy of which he apparently read, Challies takes issue with what the Driscolls see as their necessarily forthright approach to questions about sex in marriage. I have addressed some of Pastor Mark's ideas on this subject before: "...we must refuse to speak in sanitized clinical euphemisms" (WARNING: It contains frank language about sex). I think how we discuss sex depends on who we are talking to, what our relationship with them is, and the context. With reference to what I wrote in my earlier post about appreciating the frankness with which Pastor Mark dealt with the topic of pornography, I still think there is a place for Christian men to speak frankly to other Christian men about sex, mostly about how we get it wrong and what we need to overcome our brokenness.

In this preview of what he says will be a comprehensive review of Real Marriage, Challies takes up chapter ten of the Driscolls' book. This chapter is called " "Can We________?" and deals with matters the authors insist are questions about sex that people are too embarrassed to ask their pastors. According Challies, the questions the Driscolls answer range from "self-stimulation to the use of sex toys and forms of cybersex. The most provocative of all involves sodomy within marriage." The real issue is whether the Driscolls, in light of the very frank and direct questions people have about sex, which curiosity arises from our current socio-sexual climate, are correct to insist, as Challies puts it, that "[i]t falls to us, as Christians, to be ready with answers." The authors of the book think that we have to be ready and willing to frankly answer these blunt questions because if we don't "people will find worse answers elsewhere." The Driscolls base all of this on the  assumption that people, though mostly young men, are familiar with these things by viewing pornography.

The Driscolls' assumption about pornography, while sadly true and part of the pastoral landscape these days, really boils down to, as Challies observes, "Is it okay for me to act out porn on my wife?" I think we have to be careful about making what young people (young men in particular) see done in pornography the model for sexual relations in marriage. It's funny that in a publication warning men about the dangers of pornography on The Resurgence website, an outreach of Pastor Mark's ministry, entitled "Fornicating on the Battlefield," men are urged to imagine being engaged in spiritual warfare of the kind depicted in Revelation: "Just imagine for a moment that this is reality: You’re on a battlefield. It’s dark. Chaotic. Cold wind is whipping your face. The stench of death fills the air. Corpses of demons lie all around you and the field is soaked in blood. You can hear the sounds of armor and weapons colliding while sparks are flying... You’ve got your pants down around your ankles. You’re roaming in circles looking for the seductress that’s calling you by name. You can’t wait to fornicate on the battlefield." While I think that depicting the sheer ridiculousness of giving in to lust looked at under the aspect of eternity can be and often is useful when men speak to men, I can't help but notice the mixed and confusing message that is sent when this is juxtaposed with the marital advice on offer in Real Marriage.

Challies writes that he is not convinced that answering these questions the way Driscolls answer them in Real Marriage is wise. He thinks "there is a much better way" and so do I. He goes on to propose that if we agree that this a discussion we must have (he casts some wise doubt on the necessity of having such frank discussions), then we should seek to elevate it. "Even in an extremely sexualized culture in which most men are learning about sex primarily through pornography," Challies goes on to ask, "can we provide real, helpful, biblical answers without being as frank as what Real Marriage offers?" We most certainly can!

Blessed John Paul II, who, based on his personalist philosophy, had a very positive view and progressive view of marital sexuality, created a great stir when he suggested that lust within marriage exists and remains sinful. Though I have referred to this chapter in several posts recently, I feel compelled to return to Fr. Radcliffe's take on lust, which he set forth in the fifth chapter of his book What Is the Point of Being a Christian?, in which he writes wonderfully well on the virtue of chastity:

Lust may look as if it is sexual passion gone wild, but St. Augustine, who understood sex well, believed that lust was more about the desire to dominate other people than for sexual pleasure. Lust is part of the libido dominandi, the impulse to control and make ourselves God. Sebastian Moore, OSB wrote that 'lust, then, is not sexual passion out of control of the will, but sexual passion as a cover story for the will to be God' (pg 102)

One aspect that is necessary in keeping our wits about us when it comes to sex is not severing the connection between sexual intercourse and procreation. In the section of his prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae in which he warned about the effects of the widespread use of contraceptives on the well-being of women, Pope Paul wrote: "Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection" (par. 17).

"Doot Doot Doot..."

Freur's Doot Doot, released in 1983, is our Friday traditio for this Third Friday in Advent.


Christopher Hitchens, "Hitch," passed away today. While I disagreed with him on the most fundamental matters, I appreciated his humanism, which is something he had in common with his brother Peter, with whom I agree on most important matters. Hitch's book Why Orwell Matters is without a doubt the best book on Orwell I have read. It is a monument to Hitch's care for the human. It seems, as his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything attests, that his biggest problem with religion is the inhumanity that religious institutions and religious people often exhibit. One doesn't have to be an atheist or even irreligious to grasp this sad truth. I believe an admission along these lines is what endeared Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete to him during a public discussion they had on religion a few years back in New York City. Suffice it say that news of Hitch's passing this morning makes me sad.

What's in a name?/Face on a stage/Where are you now?/Memory fades, you take a bow

"The Awe Factor of God"

I hope to never lose my sense of awe, my sense of wonder.

In Proverbs we read, "Fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (1:7). Then, in both Proverbs and the Psalms we learn, "The beginning of wisdom is fear of the LORD (Proverbs 9:10; Ps. 111:10). "Fear" in these verses, I think, can be taken as "awe" and in both senses of the word. To me, the two senses of "awe" are "awful" and "awesome," which are negative and positive respectively. I think we are meant, at least initially, to take it in both ways.

Writing about Lars Von Trier's most recent film Melancholia for Relevant magazine, Brian McCracken juxtaposes this somewhat pessimistic, if not nihilistic, apocalyptic treatment with Terrance Malick's Tree of Life, which is certainly a more hopeful film. By hopeful I don't mean sentimental, or, how we use "hopeful" most of the time, as a synonym for "wishful," but realistic, and engagement with reality.

Succinctly comparing and contrasting the two films, McCracken writes that "Melancholia, like Tree of Life, vividly depicts man’s flawed, sinful nature and his temporal smallness in the grand scheme of things. But whereas Life offers a hopeful portrait of human potential for redemption and hints at the existence of a meaningful, grace-filled telos in the world, Melancholia offers a bleak, bereft-of-hope portrait of humanity as irredeemably self-destructive and helpless, at best deluded by idealized notions of love and purpose." McCracken also notes that the resonance of the films by Malick and Von Trier merely tap into our innate grasp of the temporary nature of things, at least things as they now are: "There's a sense in which every human instinctively knows the Earth will not last forever and that fiery destruction is in some way deserved."

Chan, in the second chapter of his book Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, entitled "You Might Not Finish This Chapter," urges his reader to imagine human existence on the earth from start-to-finish as a movie. The first thing he notes is that the movie is not centered on you, or me, or any of us. God is the main character. Our role lasts for about two-fifths of a second and features maybe a sideways shot of the back of your head. I find in Chan's explication of reality a more popular film version of themes dealt with by the auteur Hans Urs Von Balthasar in his five volume Theo-drama, about which Balthasar writes:

By and large the actor’s nature and person do not coincide with the role he has to play, and this is true not only of the stage play…but also of the theatrum mundi itself. In the play that takes place on the world stage, the author, director, and producer is—in an absolute sense—God himself. True, he allows [human] freedom to act in its own part according to its nature—and this is the greatest mystery of creation and of God’s direct creative power—yet ultimately the play [God] plays is his own. In this play there can be and tragic or comic dichotomy between the actor and the role; and this produces the comedies and tragedies of world history…Only in the drama of the God-Man do we find identity between the sublime actor and the role he has to play.

What, or better yet, Who resolves "awful" into "awesome"? Jesus Christ: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love" (1 John 4:18). Yes, the crazy love of a relentless God!