Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Today we bring an end to the holy season of Christmas, at least here in the United States, with our celebration of the Feast of the Lord's Baptism. As several Church Fathers insisted, at His baptism by John in the River Jordan, Jesus sanctified the waters of the world, making them fit for the conferral of the life of grace.

Immediately upon His coming out of the water, Jesus was confirmed when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove and the Father's voice was heard saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote: "...in the name of Christ is understood he who anoints, he who has been anointed, and the anointing itself by which he has been anointed: He who anoints is the Father, he who has been anointed is the Son, and he has been anointed in the Spirit, who is the anointing" (Adv. Haer, III,18,3). What is confirmed in this Trinitarian theophany is Jesus' identity as the Only Begotten Son of the Father.

Our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles is a key passage for understanding the universality of the salvation Jesus Christ, still now, seeks to give. Of course, both our Gospel passage and reading from Acts can be seen as the fulfillment (Matthew's account of the Lord's baptism) and realization (Peter baptizing the household of the Roman Cornelius) of what Isaiah prophesied.

Baptism of Christ, by Francesco Albani, 17th century, via Wikipedia commons

In an effort to demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between Advent and Christmas (always summarized well for me in the words of my favorite Christmas carol, "Oh Holy Night"- "Long lay the world in sin and error pining/Till he appear'd and the soul felt its worth/A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices/For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!"), the realization of the fulfillment of God's plan in, through, and by Jesus Christ will continue until the Lord's glorious return.

It bears noting once again that Baptism is the fundamental sacrament of the Christian life, not the conferral of the sacrament of orders, as many seem these days to suppose. The Sacraments of Initiation remain Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist (in that order, I might add, getting them out of order has caused a lot of confusion). Hence, the Sacrament of Orders does not complete Christian initiation, receiving Holy Communion does.

So, we live our Baptism, thus seeking make our very lives sacraments, that is, visible and tangible signs of Christ's presence in and for the world.

Springs of water were made holy as Christ revealed his glory to the world. Draw water from the fountain of the Savior, for Christ our God has hallowed all creation (Antiphon 2 for Morning Prayer for today's Feast)

"If I could buy my reasoning, I'd pay to lose"

I am posting this week's Friday traditio a bit early. It is Talk Talk's "It's My Life."

"Happiness in reality consists only in rest, and not in being stirred up. This instinct conflicts with the drive to diversion, and we develop the confused idea that leads people to aim at rest through excitement" Dallas Willard

Funny how I blind myself, I never knew
If I was sometimes played upon, afraid to lose

Sanity and social responsibility prevail

When I first wrote about Judge Richard Shelby's ruling that Amendment 3 to the Utah State Constitution violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, among other things, I called his ruling culturally obtuse and socially irresponsible (see "Year-end socio-political commentary"). I stand by those observations. The social irresponsibility was made explicitly known when Shelby insisted his striking down of the state constitutional amendment go into effect immediately and was compounded even further when he refused to grant an injunction requested by the State of Utah so that the status quo ante would prevail until the state could appeal his ruling to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. In my view, there is Shelby's ruling in-and-of-itself and then there is the manner in which he more-or-less insisted be put into effect right away.

His insistence and subsequent refusal resulted in the immediate issuance of marriage licenses to many same-sex couples, which continued until today, when the Supreme Court unanimously issued an injunction, clearing the way for the case to be taken up by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The State of Utah's request went to Justice Sotomayor, who, wisely, I believe, did not grant the injunction all by herself, which she could have done, but sought the input of the other Supreme Court Justices. The stay was issued with none of the 9 justices dissenting. It reads as follows:

(ORDER LIST: 571 U.S.)

MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 2014

ORDER IN PENDING CASE

13A687 HERBERT, GOV. OF UT, ET AL. V. KITCHEN, DEREK, ET AL.

The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is granted. The permanent injunction issued by the United States District Court for the District of Utah, case No. 2:13-cv-217, on December 20, 2013, is stayed pending final disposition of the appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Amendment 3 to the Utah State Constitution added Article 1 to Section 29 and states:

1. Marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman.

2. No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect

The amendment was approved by essentially two-thirds (65.86%) of voters in the November 2004 general election.

Whichever way the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals rules, the decision will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. It will then remain to be seen whether the Supreme Court will take up the case, or allow the lower court ruling to stand. It is difficult for me to imagine that a case with such huge constitutional implications will not be ruled on by the Supreme Court, but who knows? The nation's highest court has shown a great of reticence in taking up this incendiary issue, which has far-reaching implications for the state-of-the-union. Their ruling in United States vs. Windsor (see "Marriage in the U.S.: an opportunity for witness") was quite cautious.

Epiphany: Jesus Christ fully reveals us to ourselves

"Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear" (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, par. 22).

One can use the alternative prayer, or collect, set forth in the Liturgy of the Hours for the Solemnity of the Epiphany, which we observe today here in the United States. This collect sets forth and, I dare say, pushes forward, as it were, the statement above, so loved by Bl. Pope John Paul II (who was likely its author, engaged as he was in the composition of Gaudium et spes):

Father of light, unchanging God
today you reveal to men of faith
the resplendent fact of the Word made flesh.
Your light is strong,
your love is near;
draw us beyond the limits which this world imposes,
to the life where your Spirit makes all life complete.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Mindful of the words spoken by His Eminence, Achille Cardinal Silvestrini at Federico Fellini's funeral,"We should put our questions to the poets, listen to them for the knowledge they have of the suffering world," and to really "flesh" out this Epiphany of God made man for us, let's turn to the priest-poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, specifically to his poem about our longing for what Epiphany so strikingly shows us: "The Caged Skylark":

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,
    Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —
   That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.
Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage
   Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
   Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —
Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,
   But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,
But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed
   For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

"If music be the food of love then laughter is its queen"

For our first Friday traditio of 2014 I was in the mood for something a bit off-beat. So, Annie Lennox singing the Procol Harum song "A Whiter Shade of Pale."

Maybe I chose this song, released in 1967, because it's winter, snow on the ground, but it's been there awhile and so looks a bit used, like it could use a fresh whiter shade of pale. But I think it is because the song is wonderful and Annie Lennox is fascinating.

It seems strange to me that in the minds of many (not me, I was 2 at the time) the song is associated with the "Summer of Love." But it is good enough to overcome all of that. As Patrick Coffin noted in his wonderful book, Sex au Nautrel: What It Is and Why It's Good For Your Marriage, the next year, 1968, would see both Woodstock and the promulgation of Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae. A year that historian Paul Johnson wrote was the occasion of "America's suicide attempt" (diaconal bow to Coffin for that too). Sadly, it wasn't our last attempt, not by a long shot.

At the 1977 Brit Awards, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" tied with "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen for "Best British Pop Single 1952–1977." But I digress:

She said, 'I'm home on shore leave,'
though in truth we were at sea
so I took her by the looking glass
and forced her to agree
saying, 'You must be the mermaid
who took Neptune for a ride.'
But she smiled at me so sadly
that my anger straightway died

Religious Freedom, an on-going concern

Prior to entering the New Year, like many people, I reflected back on the past year. I don't mind writing that I am still recovering from the shock of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. In addition to the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God and the last day of the Octave of Christmas, as I mentioned in my previous post, today the Church also observes the World Day of Peace. It is customary for the Pope to issue a message for this observance. The message is usually released in advance of the day, as was Pope Francis' first Message for the World Day of Peace, entitled Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace.

Since Pope Francis has captured the world's attention in a singular way this year, when the message was publicly released, it garnered more buzz than these papal messages have for quite sometime. It is my personal hope that as people read, think about, discuss, and generally let themselves be provoked by what the current Pontiff writes and promulgates, that it will cause at least some people to go back and ponder papal messages of previous popes, especially those of Pope Benedict XVI, many of which are simply magnificent.

One such magnificent message, issued on 1 January 2011, after the conclusion of the Synod of Bishops, convened by the then-Holy Father, to consider the plight of the Church in throughout the Middle East, was Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace. This particular message stands as an insightful elaboration as well as a vindication of sorts of the one of the most controverted documents promulgated by the Second Vatican Council, of which Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, was a major contributor, especially in the document's later phases, giving it more of a philosophical and theological gravitas, the Declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae.

In his remarkable piece, which has as much bearing on the whole uproar concerning marriage as it does on the subject that prompted it, namely the HHS mandate, "The Repressive Logic of Liberal Rights: Religious Freedom, Contraceptives, and the 'Phony' Argument of the New York Times", David L. Schindler draws on Pope Benedict's 2011 message:

[Human] nature appears as openness to the Mystery, a capacity to ask deep questions about ourselves and the origin of the universe, and a profound echo of the supreme Love of God, the beginning and end of all things, of every person and people. The transcendent dignity of the person is an essential value of Judeo-Christian wisdom, yet thanks to the use of reason, it can be recognized by all. This dignity, understood as a capacity to transcend one’s own materiality and to seek truth, must be acknowledged as a universal good, indispensable for the building of a society directed to human fulfillment. Respect for essential elements of human dignity, such as the right to life and the right to religious freedom, is a condition for the moral legitimacy of every social and legal norm (par. 2)

Most importantly, going directly to the roots of the empty and indifferent liberal conception of rights, Benedict XVI noted "Openness to truth and perfect goodness, openness to God, is rooted in human nature; it confers full dignity on each individual and is the guarantee of full mutual respect between persons. Religious freedom should be understood, then, not merely as immunity from coercion, but even more fundamentally as an ability to order one’s own choices in accordance with truth" (par. 3).

While perfectly consistent with and even explicitly set forth in Schindler's piece, this passage from Pope Benedict's 2011 Message for the World Day of Peace does not appear, but summarizes it all quite well, in a masterfully succinct manner: "A freedom which is hostile or indifferent to God becomes self-negating and does not guarantee full respect for others" (par. 3).

Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

On the first day of the New Year, which is also the Eighth Day of Christmas, the day we bring the Octave of Christmas to a close, the Church celebrates the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God. What a fitting way to start the year! It is also the day on which the Church observes the World Day of Peace. After all, the Blessed Virgin is Mother of the Prince of Peace.

A good resolution is to pray the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary more frequently in 2014. I urge both of my readers to pray 5 decades, one complete set of mysteries, each and every day, beginning today with the Joyful Mysteries.

A few days ago, as I was prayerfully reflecting on what resolves I needed to make for this New Year, I came across this insight by Jon Bloom: "Resolves are intentions with strategies attached to them. You don’t just hope something is going to happen; you are planning to make it happen. To be resolved is to be determined."

It's easy to overwhelm ourselves with trying to make every change under the sun, which is a recipe for setting yourself up for failure, meaning that by being too serious you are not being serious enough. Praying the rosary each day is a simple enough resolution. Just do it. If you miss a day, pray the next day. See what a difference praying the Rosary makes in your life.

The late English Domnican, Fr. Vincent McNabb, a friend, spiritual director to, and chaplain of sorts to Hilare Belloc's household, said in a homily for "Rosary Sunday" back in 1936: “The Incarnation is the centre of all our spiritual life.. One of the means by which it is made so is the Holy Rosary. There is hardly any way of arriving at some realisation of this great mystery equal to that of saying the Rosary. Nothing will impress it so much on your mind as going apart to dwell in thought, a little space each day, in Bethlehem, on Golgotha, on the Mount of the Ascension.”

To everyone near and far, I pray that this New Year of 2014 is happy, healthy and, indeed, blessed. Nothing profound or terribly insightful today. It will be exciting, at least for me, to see what unfolds during 2014 here at Καθολικός διάκονος.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now (at the beginning of this New Year), and at the hour of our death.