"Only love conquers weariness" UPDATED

Pope Francis's annual Christimas address to Roman Curia- the people he often sees as being in dire need of repentance- is always worth reading. As Gerard O'Connell, my favorite Vatican correspondent notes: the speech was "was challenging but not as hard-hitting as in previous years, except when he warned against 'the ever-present temptation to rigidity.'" Do yourself a favor and listen to O'Connell's weekly podcast, Inside the Vatican.

I must admit, to hear Sodano praised grates on me; glad the Holy Father is a gracious man. Pope Francis, in his address, looks forward to him being replaced at the end of his praise- a pretty Latin way of dealing with these things. Update: Cardinal Sodano resigned as Dean of the College of Cardinals the same day the Holy Father gave his Christmas address to Roman Curia. Sodano is one the last highly problematic figures who occupied high places during the pontificate of John Paul II.

In this year's address, Pope Francis focused on both the inevitable reality of and the need for change. Time moves on. We can either move with it or simply choose to occupy space. He succinctly points out how both Scripture and Tradition are all about change and adaptation. One take-away from this is that the Deposit of Faith does not contain as many things as some like to imagine it does, like all of the second and third order issues on which so many become too focused and grow rigid.

It is by changing and adapting that we come to an ever deeper understanding of Divine Revelation. Of course, no event in the history of the world is more revelatory than the Incarnation of the Son of God. To discuss change, Pope Francis turned to St. John Henry Newman, particularly his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, which, while dated, still transmits the dynamism that is the beating heart of Christian Tradition:

For Newman change was conversion, in other words, interior transformation. Christian life is a journey, a pilgrimage. The history of the Bible is a journey, marked by constantly new beginnings. So it was with Abraham. So it was too with those Galileans who two thousand years ago set out to follow Jesus: "When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him" (Lk 5:11). From that time forward, the history of God’s people – the history of the Church – has always been marked by new beginnings, displacements and changes. This journey, of course, is not just geographical, but above all symbolic: it is a summons to discover the movement of the heart, which, paradoxically, has to set out in order to remain, to change in order to be faithful

Pope Francis blessing members of the Roman Curia at the end of his Christmas address (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

All of this has particular importance for our time, because what we are experiencing is not simply an epoch of changes, but an epochal change. We find ourselves living at a time when change is no longer linear, but epochal. It entails decisions that rapidly transform our ways of living, of relating to one another, of communicating and thinking, of how different generations relate to one another and how we understand and experience faith and science. Often we approach change as if were a matter of simply putting on new clothes, but remaining exactly as we were before. I think of the enigmatic expression found in a famous Italian novel: "If we want everything to stay the same, then everything has to change" (The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa)

After discussing change in the context of Tradition, Pope Francis went on to discuss the primacy and priority of evangelization, noting that it is the Church's raison d'être.

Papa Bergoglio explained how his reform of the Curia, which is yet to be promulgated, gives priority to evangelization. He points out:

Christendom no longer exists! Today we are no longer the only ones who create culture, nor are we in the forefront or those most listened to. We need a change in our pastoral mindset, which does not mean moving towards a relativistic pastoral care. We are no longer living in a Christian world, because faith – especially in Europe, but also in a large part of the West – is no longer an evident presupposition of social life; indeed, faith is often rejected, derided, marginalized and ridiculed

The Holy Father returned to the theme of change toward the end of his speech, saying,

A rigidity born of the fear of change, which ends up erecting fences and obstacles on the terrain of the common good, turning it into a minefield of incomprehension and hatred. Let us always remember that behind every form of rigidity lies some kind of imbalance. Rigidity and imbalance feed one another in a vicious circle. And today this temptation to rigidity has become very real

Here, I believe, he is addressing those who oppose him, both inside and outside the Curia.

I love the fact that he quoted from the last interview given by the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who, like Francis, was a Jesuit: "The Church is two hundred years behind the times. Why is she not shaken up? Are we afraid? Fear, instead of courage? Yet faith is the Church’s foundation. Faith, confidence, courage… Only love conquers weariness."

Speaking of weariness, there is an image the Holy Father invokes in this speech, albiet quite subtly: the People of God, which is a people on pilgrimage. To refuse change, authentic reform and renewal, is nothing less than plopping down on the path and refusing to move. Such an attitude prevents one from entering into the Sabbath rest God has in store for his People.

I thank the Holy Father for his wonderful reflection. I think we need to be challenged and not merely comforted, that is, lulled into a sentimentally-induced nap at Christmastime. The Incarnation and joyfully awaited return of Christ should provoke us, spur us to action preparing the way of the Lord, making straight his path.

Dread and hope

Pre-Christmas fervor is not a malady with which I am afflicted. On the contrary, I find the month leading up to Christmas fairly difficult to endure. I'd like to say, "Well, I make the best of it," but I don't, not really. Each year I find myself resisting it more and more. To me, this pre-Christmas build-up makes it it the most wonderless time of the year. I suppose I don't like feeling manipulated. I find pre-Christmas to increasingly be a manufactured season during which I am manipulated in manifold ways, including religiously.

I try to resist by observing Advent, perhaps the most neglected liturgical season, quietly and meditatively. I try to push Christmas off until Christmas. Once Christmas begins at sundown on Christmas Eve, I try to observe this season in a quiet way too. It's funny, because with the anti-climax of Christmas Day over and everyone worn out, Christmas, at least as a season, is neglected too. However, rather being characterized by an excess of activity, it's quiet.

As of Tuesday, we're into the days of the O Antiphons. In the Church's liturgy, these antiphons are recited before and after the Magnificat, which is recited or sung each day as part of Evening Prayer. This week, the week following the Feast of Saint Lucy, is the Advent Ember Week, too. I have to admit, I like these things very much. I also like egg nog, which I only drink this time of the year. In fact, yesterday, I had egg nog for the first time since this time last year. So, I suppose it's not all bad. These things, along with the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, make it possible for me to survive.

Our Friday traditio is King's College Choir singing "The Angel Gabriel." Another thing that helps me through this season is meditating on how ordinary seeming the Lord's birth must've been. I mean, the greatest event in the history of the world happening so quietly and unobtrusively. This gives me hope, unlike this overly festive season, which has the effect of producing dread and making me fervently wish is was over already:

What do you expect to see?

Our Gospel for this Third Sunday of Advent, which is Matthew 11:2-11, can be broken into three parts.

In the first part, John the Baptist, who is languishing in prison, appears to have doubts about whether Jesus is the Messiah. Because of his doubts, he has some of his disciples approach Jesus and ask him if he is the one or should he look for another. Jesus tells them to report to John that the blind see, the deaf hear, lepers are cured, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. Of course, Jesus here is quoting a messianic prophecy from Isaiah. By citing this prophecy, his answer is a resounding- "Yes, I am the One!"

I wonder what was at the root of the Baptist's doubt. Maybe it was the fact that he found himself imprisoned by Herod and in danger of death for his prophetic activity. He was not in trouble for recognizing and proclaiming Jesus as the one who is to come. Rather, he was in trouble for publicly castigating Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias for living together in an adulterous way. Herodias left her first husband to marry Herod Antipas- this was forbidden under the Law. A husband could divorce his wife but not vice-versa. To licitly re-marry, a woman had to be widowed. It was Herod Antipas who arrested, imprisoned, and later executed the Baptist at behest of Herodias. One can forgive John the Baptist for wondering if this was the result of obeying God's will. Once you start down that road, you begin to call everything into question. But then, doubt is not the opposite of faith, certainty is. Doubt is an inherent part of faith.

Second, turning to the crowd, Jesus asks them what they expected to see when they went out to the desert to see and hear John the Baptist. "A reed swayed by the wind?;" "Someone dressed in fine clothing?"; "a prophet?" While the Baptist was certainly neither of first two, he was the third and then some: Yes, a prophet, "and more than a prophet." John the Baptist is the seal of the Old Testament prophets. Turning to Isaiah once again, Jesus makes clear that the Baptist was the one sent by God to prepare his way. So, the question is not only was the Baptist expecting that made him doubt Jesus's Messiahship but about what our expectations are in professing Jesus as Lord.

St. John the Baptist in Prison, Visited by Salomé, by Giovanni Francisco Batbieri, 1591-1666

Third, in explaining how the Baptist was not only a prophet but the greatest "among those born of women," Jesus also says that the least in the kingdom is greater than the one who is the greatest among those born of women. This ties back to Jesus announcing that the good news is proclaimed to the poor. What is the good news? The good news for the poor is not pie-in-the-sky in the bye-and-bye but the inauguration of God's kingdom. In God's kingdom, the first will be last and the last will be first. The greatest will be the least and the least the greatest. This brings us some distance to an answer about our expectations. Jesus did not come to make you prosperous, wise, good-looking, or a high-achiever. He came to inaugurate the reign of God on earth and to call others to bring about its full realization. For most of us, this call is a call to repentance, a call to change ourselves and then the world.

The kingdom of God is the world turned upside down. This why in the Letter of Saint James Christians are urged to be patient and know that the realization of God's kingdom will not only be slow but painful too.

For Advent, I am re-reading Pope Francis's Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. This document, the Holy Father has insisted several times, is the charter for his pontificate. In this charter, the Pontiff notes:

The Gospel is about the kingdom of God (cf. Lk 4:43); it is about loving God who reigns in our world. To the extent that he reigns within us, the life of society will be a setting for universal fraternity, justice, peace and dignity. Both Christian preaching and life, then, are meant to have an impact on society. We are seeking God’s kingdom: “Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33). Jesus’ mission is to inaugurate the kingdom of his Father; he commands his disciples to proclaim the good news that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 10:7)

We pray often, perhaps we pray it so often that it no longer moves us: "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Either we pray it and mean it or we pray it in a mindless, meaningless manner. How fervently we pray this is a good gauge of what we expect to see.

"Heart of my own heart"

Ah, week two of Advent is nearly in the books. What a week this was: Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Loreto, and Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is fitting that we honor the Blessed Virgin during Advent. When I consider most of those to whom Our Lady has appeared, they, too, were lowly people. I think of the children of Fatima, Saint Bernadette, and Saint Juan Diego, among others. Indeed, as Paul wrote: "God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something" (1 Cor 1:27). Of course, this reached its culmination with Jesus's birth in Bethlehem. The title of John Meier's magisterial work gets this quite right, Jesus was A Marginal Jew.

For many, myself included, the end of this year seems like the end of the world. The coup in Bolivia, the election results in the United Kingdom, the unsettling political situation here in the United States, the latest installment of which is a very troubling Executive Order concerning the nature of Judaism, something the state should never address, especially after the horror that occurred in Germany in the twentieth century.

While political engagement is not to be eschewed, it bears remembering that as Christians we should remain thankful in all circumstances, return good for evil, love and pray for those whom we perceive as our enemies. This does not for one moment mean we should give up resisting and opposing what what is clearly evil. Our resistance primarily consists of continuing to do good in the midst of evil, to appeal for justice in the face of injustice, etc. I can't help but think what powerful witnesses the Cistercian martyrs of Tibhirine, Algeria remain for us today. They demonstrate for us how to follow Christ in the midst of violent chaos; how to resist evil through non-violence. Non-violence is not passivity. Non-violence has nothing to do with fatalism. Non-violence, especially in the face of violence, is perhaps the ultimate witness to hope.

In addition to this week's heavily Marian character, today is the Feast of Saint Lucy. She is a martyr, one of the many who are mentioned in the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I). She was likely killed during the Diocletian persecution, which took place in the early fourth century (AD 302-304). In addition to it being Friday, next week, the week following Saint Lucy's feast, is traditionally an Ember Week. This means observing next Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday as days of fasting and abstinence. Heaven knows, we have plenty for which to fast and pray!

Like witness of the martyrs, Advent shows us that hope lies beyond optimism. When things look dire and it seems you've run out of options the situation is ripe for God to step in and do what only God can do: create, bring life from death, bring justice for the oppressed, sight for the blind, hearing for the deaf, liberation for captives. Again, this does not mean sit back and wait. But it does mean never forgetting that our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. This should give us the strength we need to keep striving.

This Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, is Gaudete Sunday. Advent pivots on the Third Sunday from considering Jesus's return to commemorating, celebrating, and thinking about the meaning of his birth in the most humble of circumstances. In other words, the Church pivots from the "not yet" to the "already."

It has been noted that the Incarnation of God's only begotten Son is "is so earth-shattering that it enacts something akin to the psychoanalytic concept of trauma" on the world (John Milbank, Slavoj Zizek, Creston Davis, Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press), 7). Those who refuse to be traumatized by the Incarnation are those who lack faith. It is particularly troubling and all the more difficult that so much that is contrary to the Gospel is done according to clearly misbegotten "Christian" principles. The beating that the poor and downtrodden of the world are taking right now is stunning, to say the least.

Michael Card singing the lovely Celtic hymn "Be Thou My Vision" is our traditio for this Second Friday of Advent:

Hope is not only on the way but is right here in our midst, a light in this darkness. Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Advent Penance Service

Readings: Malachi 3:1-7a; Ps 85; Matthew 3:1-12

“I am baptizing you with water, for repentance…,” these are the words of the Baptist in our Gospel reading.¹ All of us here have been baptized with water. If, like me, you were baptized after reaching the age of reason, your sins were washed away by the grace of God through the merits of Jesus Christ at baptism. If, like me, you have not remained sinless since your baptism, you need the Sacrament of Penance.

Even if you were baptized as an infant, God, in his mercy, restored you to the state of original grace, which is the state God created us in the divine image and likeness to live. If you remember, the original sin was seeking to displace God and to put ourselves in God’s place. The serpent asked Eve if she knew why God forbade them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She said apart from God telling her that if she if ate from it she would die, she did not know. The serpent told her, “You certainly will not die!”²

Rather, the serpent insisted, she would become like God and be able to determine for herself what is good and what is evil. Of course, this fruit looked tasty, indeed. So, the original sin, which is recapitulated in every sin, is a rejection of God, a rejection of your creatureliness. Of course, sin requires that you know what you are tempted to do wrong. Knowing it is wrong requires some understanding as to why it is wrong, why it is a failure to love God and/or your neighbor, even to love yourself in the right way.

From the beginning, God had a plan for our salvation: Jesus Christ. Christ is not God’s Plan B. Christ is not even God’s Plan A. Christ is God’s only plan to complete creation by reconciling all things to himself. This is why in the Exsultet, sung at the Easter Vigil, the Church acknowledges and proclaims concerning original sin: O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer! Saint Paul confirms this in his Letter to the Romans when he writes:

Osservatore Romano/APF Photo

creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God³

The Sacrament of Penance, also called “reconciliation” and “confession,” is an extension of the Sacrament of Baptism. To say God is the God second chances is to sell God, whose name is mercy, short. In his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis declared:

How good it feels to come back to [Jesus] whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love⁴

We are given this dignity in baptism. It is ineradicable, nobody or nothing can take it away from us. You do not go to confession to find out whether or not God will forgive you. You are always already forgiven in Christ. Then why go, you might ask? You go to have a real encounter, to say your sins out aloud and, in your Act of Contrition, to say you are sorry. This brings closure, confidence, and assurance.

My dear friends in Christ, confession is not where you go to admit defeat. It is where you go to claim the victory that is already yours, the victory Christ won for you by his cross and resurrection. This afternoon, as we prepare for the Lord’s coming, let us return to the Lord that he will return to us and make his dwelling in us.⁵

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1 Matthew 3:11.^↩
2 See Genesis 3:1-20.^↩
3 Romans 8:19-12.^↩
4 Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, sec. 3.^↩
5 Malachi 3:7.^↩

Year A Second Sunday of Advent

Readings: Isa 11:1-10; Ps 72:1-2; 7-8; 12-13; 17; Rom 15:4-9; Matt 3:1-2

Giles Fraser, an Anglican priest who is rather famous in England, always asks members of the clergy whom he interviews on his podcast, fittingly called Confessions with Giles Fraser, what is the main thrust of their preaching. Since I will likely never be interviewed by Giles, I posed this question to myself. My answer would have to be: “The main point of my preaching is hope lies beyond optimism.”

In our epistle reading, Saint Paul addresses this directly when he writes: “that we might have hope through endurance.”¹ Indeed, you can develop hope in no other way than through endurance. Hope is born from the labor of enduring life's ups and downs, but especially life’s downs. According to Theo-logic, crucifixion always precedes resurrection. After all, the wood of the manger becomes the wood of the cross.

When we think about this with reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary, her fiat, her yes, expressed in the words, “May it be done to me according to your word,” far from making us sentimental should help us understand the risk she took by saying “Yes” to God.² Under the law, the penalty for an unmarried woman turning up pregnant was death by stoning.

Eugene Peterson expressed the idea of hope lies beyond optimism very well: “When nothing we can do makes any difference and we are left standing around empty-handed and clueless, we are ready for God to create. When the conditions in which we live seem totally alien to life and salvation, we are reduced to waiting for God to do what only God can do, create.”³

What is the difference between hope and optimism? Optimism convinces you that you’ll figure it out and get everything under control. Hope steps in when you realize you don’t have a clue and you’ve no idea what’s going to happen. Hope is trust in God and not mere wishing. As such, hope is the flower of faith.

Our first reading from Isaiah is an expression of hope. It is likely passages like this Saint Paul had in mind when he wrote that hope not only comes from endurance but “through the scriptures’ consolations.”⁴ By prophesying that “on that day the root of Jesse… shall become a banner to the nations” and that “Nations shall seek him out and his resting place shall be glory,” the Scriptures Paul references bring hope not only to Israel but to the whole world.⁵

In his commentary on the tenth verse of the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, Robert Alter asserts that the phrase “his resting place” is typically “used for a place of settlement that is safe from enemies.”⁶ He goes on to say that its use at the end of this passage is likely “to resonate with the spirit of the LORD that ‘shall rest’ on the ideal king.”⁷ It is on the ideal king that this passage is focused. Of course, from a Christian perspective, Jesus of Nazareth is the ideal king whose Advent, or coming, Isaiah is predicting.

The Preaching of John the Baptist, by Alessandro Allori, between 1601 and 1603

Of course, it is the kingdom of which Jesus is the king, which, in the end, will be the only kingdom, that John the Baptist seeks to usher in with his words: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”⁸ The word “repent” in this passage is the Greek word metanoeite. It comes from the word metanoia and means “to have a change of heart.”⁹

As we look forward to Jesus’s return at the end of time, which is something the first two weeks of Advent, extending from the Solemnity of Christ the King, bid us do, we are called upon to have a change of heart, to conform our hearts more to Jesus’s Sacred Heart and his Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart. This is why this afternoon we’re celebrating our annual Advent penance service. This provides you with the opportunity to examine your heart, asking the Lord how you need change, and receiving the grace you need to make these changes through the Sacrament of Penance.

Beginning next Sunday, which is Gaudete Sunday, the relatively short season of Advent takes a turn. We turn our focus from the “not yet” to the “already.” Looking at it from the perspective of this Sunday, it’s important to point out that when Jesus came as a babe in Bethlehem he inaugurated the kingdom of God. “Kingdom” in Greek, the word John uses for it in today’s Gospel, is basileia. Jesus, to use a word coined by the great Church Father, Origen, is autobasileia- the kingdom-in-person.

In his work, On Prayer, Origen noted that people

who pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God pray without any doubt for the Kingdom of God that they contain in themselves, and they pray that this Kingdom might bear fruit and attain its fullness. For in every holy [person] it is God who reigns¹⁰

If you want God to reign in you and bring his kingdom to completion through you, then you must not allow sin to reign over you.¹¹ Indeed, at Baptism, you rejected “sin so as to live in the freedom of God's children.”¹²

The Sacrament of Penance is an extension of the Sacrament of Baptism. What better time to be reminded of this than on the Second Sunday of Advent when, each year, we hear the words of the Baptist, the seal of the prophets, which are as relevant now as when he first proclaimed them? Over the remainder of this Advent prepare the Lord’s way by making your heart a straight pathway. It is the Lord himself who helps you do this by the grace he wants to impart to you through confession. I hope that each of us and all of us together receive baptism “with the holy Spirit and fire.”¹³ And being so transformed, may we seek to usher in God’s kingdom.

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1 Romans 15:4 in The New Testament: A Translation, trans. David Bentley Hart, 315.^↩
2 Luke 1:38.^↩
3 Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology, 64.^↩
4 Romans 15:4 in The New Testament, 315.^↩
5 Isaiah 11:10 in The Hebrew Bible: A Translation With Commentary: The Prophets, trans. Robert Alter, 660.^↩
6 Ibid.^↩
7 Ibid.^↩
8 Matthew 3:1.^↩
9 Matthew 3:1 in The New Testament.^↩
10 Cited in Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism of John to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker, 50.^↩
11 Romans 6:12.^↩
12 Roman Missal, “The Easter Vigil,” sec. 55.^↩
13 Matthew 3:11.^↩

"They say they want the Kingdom..."

Well, the first week of Advent is practically in the bag, so to speak. As we approach the Second Sunday of Advent it's easy to see that we're not yet preparing to commemorate and celebrate Jesus's birth. We're still looking to the "not yet" of the "already." You see, Jesus has already come and, in a sense, left (he remains present by means of his Holy Father, who is the also the Spirit of the Father) and he will return. This is an article of Christian faith: "he will come to judge the living and the dead."

For those of us who strive to follow Jesus, the time between his departure and return is a time of what might be called dialectical tension.

Dialectical tension arises from living the already of God's kingdom, which was inaugurated by Jesus when he came, lived, suffered, died, rose from the dead, ascended, and sent his Holy Spirit, as we await what is not yet: the full realization of God's reign, which will be established when Jesus returns.

"Advent" means "coming" or even "arrival." Hence, we look forward to Jesus's arrival even as we celebrate and commemorate his coming as a babe in Bethlehem.

Aware of his return, the time of which is utterly unknown to anyone, we are to live in such a way that we are ready. This means not putting off making those important changes we all know we need to make. These changes consist both in ceasing doing things we know are wrong, that is, detrimental to ourselves and to others, as well as doing those things we know are right- like helping those in need, being good stewards of the earth, being kind, forgiving, worshiping and giving thanks to God in accord with the first commandment, etc. In short, we need to repent. Yes, you. Yes, me.

Let's face it, the only shot you have at changing the world is changing yourself. Even changing yourself requires God's grace, which is why the prayer that ends Morning Prayer for this First Friday of Advent implores:

Jesus, our Lord, save us from our sins. Come, protect us from all dangers and lead us to salavation

With that lengthy explanation, our Friday traditio is Johnny Cash, very much in the mode of his namesake, John the Baptist, singing "The Wanderer"-

It also occurred to me that this is the first post of the last month of 2019. It's Saint Nicholas day, to boot, or to shoe, as the case may be. Enjoy your gingerbread and gifties.