Dante's birthday

Dante Alighieri's birthday is reckoned to be 29 May 1265. Making tomorrow the 750th anniversary of the great poet's birth. My becoming aware of this event, along with the publication of Rod Dreher's book, How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem, prompted me recently to re-read the Divine Comedy.

Last Thursday, Great Britain's Independent newspaper published on article on the Divine Comedy by Ian Thomson. In his piece, Thomson provides a compelling and comprehensive overview of the deep influence this epic has had on Western culture, at least up until about 45-50 years ago.

Dante's deathmask- how very Beckett-like

In my very first post on Dante (May has been very Dante-intensive, due to my reading), I mentioned how deeply Bl Pope Paul VI was influenced by the Divine Comedy (see "Dante Alighieri and 'esperienza'"). In his article, Thomson mentioned Dante's influence on Samuel Beckett, Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, T.S. Eliot (whose work, like Dante's, I did not engage until I was in my 40s), Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Primo Levi, among others.

Yes, Pope Francis, in his message to the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Ravasi, which was read to Italian Senate, quoting from Bl Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Letter on Dante, Altissimi cantus, which he promulgated at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, wrote- "Dante is ours! Ours, meaning of the Catholic faith." Thomson's article, in my view, helps us to see what we must always mean when we invoke the term "Catholic," which, despite the fervent efforts of many, can never be authentically understood in a narrow, sectarian way. It should be clear that to employ it narrowly is a contradiction, like "squared circle."

Given my deep engagement with and affinity for the work of Samuel Beckett, I can't help but note that, in his Introduction to the Divine Comedy, Robin Kirkpatrick noted that "Beckett died with a copy of the Commedia at his bedside. Throughout his writing career he had taken, as his own alter ego, the character of the indolent Belacqua who appears in Purgatorio [Canto] 4’ [lines 88-139]. Above all, Beckett’s concern with ‘waiting’ as a condition of human existence exactly mirrors a dominant theme of the early Purgatorio. Resisting the dualistic claims of Cartesian thought, Beckett looks, as Dante always does, at the incalculable shifts of word and physical movement that, in the experience of waiting, so vividly animate even the most indolent mind. Here, like Dante, he reclaims the body as a comic determinant of human identity."

Belacqua Shuah, of course, is the central figure in Beckett's More Pricks Than Kicks, his first published work of fiction. More Pricks Than Kicks consists of 10 linked stories. Just last year an eleventh story, originally rejected by the publisher for inclusion in the collection, "Echo's Bones," was published by Grove Press. This story should not be confused with either Beckett's poem or his collection of poetry also entitled "Echo's Bones." According to the publisher's webpage, while Beckett tried to have the story included, it "was politely rejected by his editor and excluded from the collection, as it was considered too imaginatively playful, too allusive, and too undisciplined; qualities that are now recognized as quintessentially Beckett." Earlier in the book, Belacqua dies and is brought back to life by the author for this story.

Belacqua

I said: ‘O my sweet sire, set your eyes on that one, who appears lazier than if Sloth were his sister.’ Then he turned to us, and listened, only lifting his face above his thigh, and said: ‘Now go on up, you who are so steadfast.’ Then I knew who he was, and that effort, which still constrained my breath a little, did not prevent me going up to him, and, when I had reached him, he hardly lifted his head, to say: ‘Have you truly understood why the sun drives his chariot to the left?’ His indolent actions and the brief words, moved me to smile a little: then I began: ‘Belacqua, I do not grieve for you now: but tell me why you are sitting here? Are you waiting for a guide, or have you merely resumed your former habit?’

And he: ‘Brother, what use is it to climb? God’s winged Angel, who sits at the gate, will not let me pass through to the torments. First the sky must revolve, round me, outside, for as long a time as it did in my life: because I delayed my sighs of healing repentance to the end: unless, before then, some prayer aids me, that might rise from a heart that lives in grace: what is the rest worth, that is not heard in Heaven?’ (Purgatorio, Canto IV, lines 109-135)

Indeed, the Divine Comedy says something to me about my life. I believe it has a lot to say to a lot of us, especially now, when the transcendent dimension of our humanity (i.e., what constitutes us as being human) is under such violent assault. As Thomson noted, "If Dante speaks to our present condition, it is because he wrote the epic of Everyman in search of salvation."

Therefore, our slightly day-early Friday traditio is Robin Kirkpatrick briefly reading and discussing the Divine Comedy:

As Pope Francis noted in the final paragraph his letter,

Dante is therefore a prophet of hope, a herald of humanity’s possible redemption and liberation, of profound change in every man and woman, of all of humanity. He invites us to regain the lost and obscured meaning of our human journey and to hope to see again the bright horizon which shines in the full dignity of the human person

Memorial Day: a somber reflection

In the United States we have three days during which we focus on our military: Memorial Day, the day we remember those who died fighting on behalf and at the behest of the United States; Armed Forces Day, the day we thank those who are currently serving; and Veteran's Day, the day we thank those who have served. It seems that we often garble the meaning of these days, that is, we mix them up and they congeal into a big celebration sponsored by potato chip and beer companies.

For Christians in the West, "memorial day," if you will, the day we remember all of our beloved dead, falls on 2 November- the Feast of All Souls, which comes at the tail end of the three day festival that begins on All Hallows Eve, and also includes All Hallows (i.e., All Saints).

It seems to me that Memorial Day should be a very sober and solemn observance. It ought to cause us to reflect deeply on the terrible cost of war in human terms, not only on our nation, but other nations as well. Yes, I just used both "should" and "ought," which many stylists hold should practically never be used. Without in any way exaggerating my exploits, I am a veteran and a combat veteran.

Today, as we contemplate the terrible wreckage that extends from the Maghreb, across the Levant, to Mesopotamia, let's not wax rhapsodic about combat. It is horrible. As Pope St John Paul II, speaking specifically to the drum beat leading up to the 2003 Iraqi War, said, "War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity." Indeed, the first precept of Just War theory holds that going to war is only justified after all peaceful options are considered and exhausted. In other words, war is to be a last resort and not just over any old squabble between parties.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not a pacifist. I believe there are just for which it is morally acceptable to fight (i.e., kill and die for). However, I have a deep respect for others who do not share my view on principle. Just war criteria not only helps us to determine when war-making is justified, but gives us moral guidance on how military force is to be used. Here is an overview, a primer, of Just-War Theory.

Today, I pray that the souls of all those who died in combat fighting on behalf the United States rest in peace.

Year B Pentecost

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Ps 104:1.24.29-31.34; 1 Cor 12:3b-7.12-13; John 20:19-23

Very often when we think about the major observances of the liturgical year we recognize Easter and Christmas as very important. Beyond that many of us might be a little puzzled about how other solemnities and feasts rank in order of importance. This is why I think it is necessary to point out that there is no more important Christian observance than Easter, which means there is no more important liturgy than the Easter Vigil, which marks the conclusion of the three-day long liturgy that is the Triduum.

While you can’t have one without the other, Easter trumps Christmas, but so do Ascension and Pentecost. The first Christian Pentecost marked the beginning of the Church, the age of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit came upon the Blessed Virgin Mary and the apostles in the upper room, appearing to them as tongues of fire, and filling them to overflowing, they responded by preaching the Gospel, what we call the kerygma, which is a Greek word for the original proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we read Acts 2 further than the ending of our first reading, we learn from Peter’s proclamation the original kerygma, which remains the fundamental message of the Church: “God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the holy Spirit from the Father and poured it forth, as you (both) see and hear” (Acts 2:32-33).

It is correct to speak of “the first Christian Pentecost” because Pentecost was originally a Jewish feast, which is why there were Jews from all over the known world in Jerusalem, who became hearers of Peter’s Spirit-filled preaching. “Pentecost” is the Greek name for the Jewish feast of Shavu'ot, also known as the Festival of Weeks. What Jews commemorate during the Festival of Weeks is God giving the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai (Ex 31:18).

Properly speaking, as Christians, we are not a “People of the Book.” Rather, we are the people of the resurrected and risen Lord, empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who makes us what St Augustine insisted we are - an Easter people, the people of “Alleluia!” As the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, set forth: “God gathered together as one all those who in faith look upon Jesus as the author of salvation and the source of unity and peace, and established them as the Church that for each and all it may be the visible sacrament of this saving unity” (par 9). In other words, Jesus did not write a book. He established the Church, which is to be a Spirit-filled community that persists in time and space until He returns. In other words, we were not given a written law, but hearts filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the personification of the love between the Father and the Son, with whom He is “adored and glorified.”

In his Second Letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor 3:7-8), St Paul asked, “Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so glorious that the Israelites could not look intently at the face of Moses because of its glory that was going to fade, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be glorious?”

Grasping the identity, the “personhood,” of the Holy Spirit is very difficult. Therefore, it is helpful to keep in mind, “The Holy Spirit is the mode of Jesus’ resurrection presence” in us and among us (Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus 15). In other words the Holy Spirit is the way Jesus remains present in the world between His Ascension and His glorious return. It is the Holy Spirit who makes the sacraments, the Church Herself being a sacrament.

There is a part of the Eucharistic Prayer we call the epiclesis. The word epiclesis is a Greek word meaning “to call down.” The epiclesis sounds something like this: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

More than words, the world needs witnesses of the new life that only Christ can give, the life we have received in Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, the life that is restored, resurrected, in the Sacrament of Penance. This life is communicated to us by the Holy Spirit through the mediation of the sacraments. We are not given the Holy Spirit simply for ourselves, to keep and bury like the chastised recipient of the single talent. We are given the Holy Spirit to empower us to communicate Jesus to others, by loving them selflessly. Archbishop Wester came last Sunday, which was Ascension Sunday, and administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to 17 members of our Eucharistic community. We should see this as our participation in and extension of the first Christian Pentecost.

Being sent is what makes the Church, makes us, apostolic. As recipients of the same Spirit that came down upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Peter, and the other disciples, we are sent to proclaim the same message, the same Paschal mystery, which is the mystery of faith – “Save us, Saviour of the world; for by your Cross and Resurrection, you have set us free.”

If the Holy Spirit is the mode, or the way, Jesus remains present in the world, then, in a similar way, we are the mode, or the way of the Holy Spirit. It’s important to point out that we don’t only, or even most convincingly, bear witness to Christ by our strengths, by our trying to highlight how good, obedient, or righteous we are. This method of communicating the Gospel, in addition to being joyless, often leads to a lot pretense, a lot of genuine hypocrisy.

We must be honest and realize that it is almost always more effective to bear witness that there is Someone who is greater than sin and death by our weakness rather than by our strength. As Msgr Luigi Giussani noted, “God was moved by our betrayal, by our crude, forgetful, and treacherous poverty, by our pettiness.” Giussani went on to insist that it is precisely this that “the Church brings to the world, and certainly not because of its members’ merit, goodness, or even less because of their coherence: God’s compassion for our pettiness [is infinitely] greater than our limitations.” “If we don’t start from here,” he warned, “we cannot understand at all; everything goes mad, literally.” Let’s be mindful of the Lord’s words to St Paul, which were spoken in response to the apostle’s plea to remove some unspecified weakness or defect, which he called “a thorn in the flesh” - “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

My sisters and brothers, every Sunday is Easter, every Sunday is Ascension, and every Sunday is Pentecost- this is the mysterium fidei in which we participate. Hence, every Sunday, even Sundays during Lent, we gather together and say, “Lord, send out your Spirit, and, through us, renew the face of the earth.”

"You bring healing to my soul"

Last night a post by Joanne McPortland on her delightfully named blog, Egregious Twaddle, caught my attention. The title of her post is "Depressed and Catholic: Learning It's Okay to Live." In this piece Joanne summed up well the plight of many:

The pull of self-erasure can be particularly awful for people of faith, who feel the shame of not measuring up, not trusting in God enough, not being grateful enough, not being good enough. We’re likely to be more terrified when the abyss looks back if we feel the loss of God’s presence and consolation. Depressed Catholics don’t need to be reminded to beat our breasts in the Confiteor—it is always, for us, through our most grievous fault that we dare to exist

This was timely for me because earlier in the day, while mowing the north side yard of my house, upon turning the corner into our backyard I saw the statue of St Thérèse that belonged to my friend Casey, who took his own life last summer. I received the statue from Casey's Mom a few days after his memorial service last July, but waited until St Thérèse's feast to place it in the garden, after I prayed her novena (see "Keeping a promise on the Memorial St Thérèse").

St Thérèse of Lisieux in our backyard

Upon spying the statue, which I put in our garden on I began pleading with our Blessed Mother and the Little Flower for him, that, despite his manner of death, he might find the health and wholeness he so desperately wanted and just could not find. He tried.

For anyone who suffers in this way, I can't recommend highly enough Catholic Guide to Depression.

I am grateful that I have learned that whenever I turn in on myself, by grace and cooperating with God's grace, usually with the help of friends, I am able to turn to Jesus. He reassures me that He loves me regardless of anything I have done or failed to do. Time and again His love slays my inner Pharisee, silences the sometimes non-stop voice of my accuser. One of the meanings of the Hebrew word "satan" is "accuser." Jesus acquits me, wraps me in the cloak of His love and mercy, which makes the Eucharist indispensable for me. Because I know several amazing priests, I also find the Sacrament of Penance to often be a significant source of strength and reassurance.

All of this is why Kari Jobe's "I Am Not Alone" is our Friday traditio:

Balthasar & Dante: compassion and a sacrament sans grace

Yesterday evening I finished reading the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy. After completing the Inferno, I read Hans Urs Balthsar's theological commentary on it in the third volume of Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. As one might expect, both Dante's poem and Balthasar's theological reflection were magnificent. By "magnificent" I mean both "excellent" and "impressively beautiful, elaborate, or extravagant; striking."

Referring to a work by German literary scholar Hugo Friedrich, in English entitled The Metaphysics of Law in the Divine Comedy, which seems to supply the basis for his look at the Inferno, Balthasar, after noting that Friedrich sought to demonstrate that Dante is dependent upon the same cosmology ("of order and law") as Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas, observed: "Guilt or sin is contrary to right, and because it is the disruption of that ordered right or right order (rectitudo) implanted by the Creator in the nature of things, it contains its own punishment" (83). Hence, "the sinner himself presses toward the place of his punishment and eagerly embraces its particular form" (86). To support this, Balthasar cited Canto III, lines 124-126. I think it makes sense to back up to line 121:

"My son," the gentle master [the Roman poet Virgil, his guide through hell] said to me,
"all those who perish in the wrath of God
assemble here from all parts of the earth;

they want to cross the river [presumably Styx], they are eager;
it is Divine justice that spurs them on,
turning the fear they have into desire"
(all translations of the Inferno by Mark Musa from The Portable Dante)

"This," Balthasar insisted, "is why there is a confessional at the entrance of Hell [Canto V, lines 4-9]: "for the acknowledgement of one's own guilt... before the judge of Hell, Minos, and the apportioning of suitable punishment [instead of penance]; confession in the full sense, but without any love or absolution, a sacrament without grace" (86).

La Porte de l'Enfer (i.e., Gates of Hell), by Auguste Rodin (uncompleted)-
began in 1885 and worked on until the sculptor's death in 1917

Because it is the subject of much imaginative distortion, perhaps even including Dante's, Hell is difficult to contemplate."For Dante," Balthasar went on, "progress through Hell would... mean initiation into pure objectivity and his weaning away from an excessively human [as opposed to Divine, not Vulcan] compassion not yet in conformity with the supreme order of of the world" (87). Pointing once more to Friedrich, who, Balthasar observed, showed that compassion, which, for Augustine, is "subordinated" to "and rigorously brought into line by reason" (87), he insisted that, for Dante, compassion is only truly compassion "when the movements of the passions correspond to law and justice" (87). On this view, as a feeling, or emotion, "compassion in itself is neither good nor evil" (87). To be true, or truly good, compassion "must first allow itself to be guided by the cor rectum ["right heart"] to the rectitudo [literally "rightness," but better "right order"] of divine order."

As Balthasar went on to highlight, Virgil upbraided Dante for feeling pity for the damned in Canto XX, lines 25-30:

Indeed I did weep, as I leaned my body
against a jut of rugged rock. My guide:
"So you are still like all the other fools?

In this place piety lives when pity is dead,
for who could be more wicked than that man
who tries to bend divine will to his own

"The standard by which all these emotions are measured," Balthasar explained, "remains the will of God ruling over the damned. It is into the mystery of that [divine] will that the poet is initiated, and it is there that every human emotion finds its measure and limit. This is apatheia, which surpasses the apatheia of the Buddhist, for whom compassion is the supreme norm of morality..." (89).

It's interesting that yesterday I also came across this insight written by theologian Paul Evdokimov in his book Orthodoxy on Fr Kimel's blog, Eclectic Orthodoxy, in a post entitled "Apocatastasis: The Heresy that Never Was"- "The question remains open, the answer depending perhaps on human charity. St Anthony’s explanation is one of the most profound: apocatastasis, the salvation of all, is not a doctrine, but a prayer for the salvation of all except me, for whom alone hell exists." Of course this echoes Balthasar's own view set forth in Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?, which, at least in my view, has rightly been described as "one of the most misunderstood works of Catholic theology of our time."

"Oh, Say What Is Truth?"- Joseph Smith, Jr and polygamy

Stated rather crudely, people of strong religious faith have at least two very general characteristics in common. First, we tend to believe that truth is objective. Second, we tend to believe that we have apprehended, even if only partially, the truth. While I believe faith and reason working together is the only way to humanly comprehend truth, there is still an element of risk in believing in someone or something. Such belief presents an issue of trust. Awareness of this risk often makes the religious believer slow to accept anything that calls his belief into question.

For about 160 years the LDS church vehemently denied that Joseph Smith, Jr, despite his claim of having received a revelation authorizing its practice, engaged in the practice of plural marriage, commonly called "polygamy". However, a recent essay that appeared on the official LDS church website, "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo," retracted this denial by freely admitting, "The first plural marriage in Nauvoo took place when Louisa Beaman and Joseph Smith were sealed in April 1841. Joseph married many additional wives and authorized other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage." Records indicate that Smith "married" two others before "marrying" Louisa: Fanny Alger and Lucinda Morgan Harris in 1833 and 1838 respectively.

In addition to marrying Emma Hale, his first and lawful wife, it seems that Joseph Smith, Jr "married" 33 other women (for a list and brief biographies of each see The Wives of Joseph Smith). As previously noted, the first of these "marriages" occurred in 1833 when Smith, then in his late 20s, "married" the 16 year-old Fanny Alger. Looking more closely at these 33 women it is interesting to note that 11, or fully one-third of them, were already married to and living with their husbands at the time of their "marriage" to the self-proclaimed prophet. Nearly another third (10) were in their teens, ranging in age from 19 to 14. In addition to the 16 year-old Miss Alger, while in his late 30s, Smith married another 16 year-old, Flora Ann Woodworth, as well as two fourteen year-old girls: Helen Mar Kimball and Nancy Winchester. He "married" these two teens while in his late 30s.

To complicate matters even further, Smith's first wife, Emma, while being interviewed by her own children later in life, years after Smith's death in Carthage jail, adamantly denied that Joseph practiced plural marriage or even approved of it:

There was no revelation on either polygamy or spiritual wives. There were some rumors of something of the sort which I asked my husband. He assured me that all there was of it was, that, in a chat about plural wives, he had said, 'Well such a system might possibly be, if everybody was agreed to it, and would behave as they should; but they would not; and besides, it was contrary to the will of heaven. No such thing as polygamy, or spiritual wifery, was taught, publicly or privately, before my husband's death, that I have now, or ever had any knowledge of." Question: "Did he not have other wives than yourself?" Answer: "He had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have" (Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith 301- see "Did Emma Smith approve of polygamy?")

In short, it seems that she was partially self-deceived about this and partially duped by her husband.

from Images of the Restoration

I recently came across another interesting piece of well-documented research concerning Joseph Smith, Jr's behavior towards women in a post on the Mormon Research Ministry's Mormon Coffee blog - "A Mormon 'Detective Story.'" Apart from stating that it contains unchallenged testimony in a church proceeding involving a LDS church member, Joseph Ellis Johnson, stating he personally witnessed Smith having sexual relations with his mother-in-law, Mary Heron Snider, who, it seems, Smith did not even bother to "spiritually marry," I will simply direct readers to the post.

There is an interesting note concerning one of Smith's "spiritual wives," Lucinda Morgan Harris, who was one of the women who "married" Smith already having a husband (known as polyandry). According to Todd Compton, in his book In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, sometime after Smith's death Lucinda divorced her husband George and "afterward joined the (Catholic) Sisters of Charity, and at the breaking out of the civil war, was acting in that capacity in the hospitals at Memphis Tennessee..." (see "Lucinda Morgan Harris").

Now, consider all of this from the perspective of Christian marriage. If the marriage between a Christian man and a woman is to be a sacramental sign, that is, a visible and tangible representation, of the relationship between Jesus Christ and His one and only Bride, the Church (Eph 5:31-32), then how can polygamy even be a possibility, let alone the divine order of things? But keep in mind that it has also been taught by LDS apostles (Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, and Jedediah Grant, to name three), all of whom are held by Mormons to be "prophets, seers, and revelators," that Jesus was not only married, but had plural wives (see "LDS Church on the Marriage(s) of Jesus"). Moreover, when one considers the teaching of our Lord Himself on marriage, by which He raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament (see Matthew 19:1-9 and Mark 10:1-12), along with His teaching on adultery (see Matthew 5:27-30), these truths about the life and teaching of Joseph Smith, Jr can be put into perspective and be seen as in no way compatible with a Christian understanding of either marriage or chastity.

Here's the second verse of the Mormon hymn, "Oh Say, What Is Truth?"- "Yes, say, what is truth? 'Tis the brightest prize/To which mortals or Gods can aspire./Go search in the depths where it glittering lies,/Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies:/'Tis an aim for the noblest desire." Our noble desires often take the form of less noble desires. This precisely where reason comes into play.

For a Mormon is there any way around this? I can see only one, but it's a way that was rejected early on by the Mormon leadership. This rejection is well-documented in the first volume of D. Michael Quinn's The Mormon Hierarchy. The best expositor of this way is Harold Bloom, the self-described Jewish gnostic literary scholar. He does this in his books The American Religion: The Emergence of a Post-Christian Nation (I heard Bloom lecture on Joseph Smith at the University of Utah prior to the book's publication) and Omens of the Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection. This way consists of conceiving of Mormonism as gnostic and, therefore largely a-historical (how does one seriously defend the Book of Mormon as an actual history of the Americas from 600 BC to 400 AD?). By doing this one simply removes Mormonism's achilles heel (i.e., its historical claims). Clearly, as conceived by Smith's own practice of spiritual wivery, this gnosticism is of the Valentianian variety, but with a Lucretian twist.

Nowhere, apart from here, did I attempt to spell p-i-n-e tree.

We're not called to stand gazing heavenward

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Ps 47:2-3.6-9; Eph 4:1-13; Mark 16:15-20

Without any grousing or griping (my view on this is "on-the-record") this Sunday in our diocese, along with several other dioceses around the country, we're celebrating Jesus' Glorious Ascension into Heaven.

Whenever I read Luke's account of the Ascension, which is our first reading for this solemnity, I am always struck by the fact that, even as they walk with Him to the Mount of Transfiguration, the apostles, despite having experienced His earthly ministry, His passion, death, and resurrection, and even after receiving what Jesus taught them during the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension, they still don't get it. They ask Him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus, even before the angel levels their gaze as they stare at Jesus ascending, replies- "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:7).

What strikes me about this is not, "How could His closest disciples be so stupid?" I am struck because in them I see myself. Jesus gives me the same patient answer He gave them. After all, in Confirmation, I received the very same Spirit- the Holy Spirit who is the personification of the love between the Father and the Son- that the Blessed Virgin and the apostles received at the first Christian Pentecost. Hence, I am called be His witness. Bearing witness by how live, by what we do and say, selflessly serving others for Christ's sake, this is what it means for the Church to apostolic. Just as the disciples could not rely on Jesus to re-establish the earthly kingdom of King David, I cannot expect to Christ to reign by means of worldly political power. These powers do not save, but they can surely damn.

Ascension, by Francisco Camilo, 1651

The Church, the assembly of those chosen and sent by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit, is either apostolic or it is not the Church. This is what we're told in our second reading when we read that some are given a ministry in the Church, a ministry to the assembly of those chosen, "to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry" (Eph 4:12). The Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, outlines well "the work of ministry" for which "the holy ones" are equipped"

the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity (par 31)

As Pope Francis said, "It is better to have a Church that is wounded but out in the streets than a Church that is sick because it is closed in on itself." A sick Church closed in on itself is badly in need of a fresh infusion of the Holy Spirit.

As we celebrate this glorious event, which is part of the great Paschal Mystery, let's hear and heed Christ's call anew. What is His call? "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:15-16). In light of this one might well ask, how much more will those who believe and have been baptized, but who do not proclaim the Gospel, be held to account? As St Paul wrote in his magisterial Letter to the Romans: "For the scripture says, 'No one who believes in him will be put to shame'... '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?" (Rom 10:11-14).

We're not called to stand "looking at the sky" (Acts 1:11). Rather, we're called and empowered to usher in the reign of God as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Don't dismiss Jesus' promise that signs will accompany those who believe and heed His call. In our Gospel today, we hear Mark's more detailed and specific way of expressing what Matthew, in his account of the Lord's ascension, says more concisely: "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). Stated succinctly, we heed His call and Christ, by power of the Holy Spirit, equips us with what we need to carry it out.