All Souls and the requisite Celtic spirit

For me the connection between All Saints/All Souls and Samhain, far from being off-putting, is beautiful. As contemporary Irish theologian James P. Mackey asserts, in his one volume systematic theology, Christianity and Creation: The Essence of the Christian Faith and Its Future among Religions (a book with many deep flaws, but also containing a number of good insights- not least among which is his attempted rehabilitation of Pelagius), every authentically human culture has something like it's own Old Testament. Isn't it lovely the Church has sought to recognize this in her mission ad gentes (the times she has not done so are low ebbs in her history) and to embrace what is already good and redeem what is not?

The denial of what Mackey asserts, to pick up a discussion I was having with some friends about the defectiveness of one of Chesterton's far too smug and overly generalized denunciations of "Protestantism," is where theologians, like Karl Barth, at least to my mind, get it wrong. Is Jesus Christ the fulfillment of all human longing and seeking, or something apart from that, crashing in from nowhere, as it were? This is but one place where Barth's analogia Christi breaks down. I think, despite his best effort, Balthasar did not succeed in showing how Barth's analogia Christi is really the analogia entis.

Van Morrison and The Chieftans singing "Celtic Ray"

When the coal brick man comes 'round
On a cold November day
You'll be on the Celtic Ray
Are you ready? Are you ready?

Of what relevance is any of this? I think it has to do with the Christian stance towards culture. As Catholics, as the All Saints/All Souls/Samhain connection shows, we stand within culture and act as leaven. We don't stand apart from culture, denouncing and denigrating it. After all, only love can redeem. Of course, this does not mean accepting the world on the world's terms, but transforming the world. Look at how quickly and easily Jesus appealed to the Celtic heart and took root in it. It is easy now, in this age of forgetting, to underestimate the impact of the Celtic encounter on Christianity, which has never been the same since, but Celtic culture was even more transformed by the Gospel.

Pope John Paul II's cultural resistance to the Nazis is, for me, his most inspiring exploit, in a life full of such exploits. It strikes me as an embodiment of something like this same thing among the Slavs and the gift of the Poles to the Western Church. As my friend Artur continually demonstrates quite regularly on his blog CosmosTheInLost and elsewhere, Czesław Miłosz embodies this as well.

Where we locate ourselves with regard to the prevailing culture, as Pope Francis (and certainly Giussani did as well) grasps, is what will make all the difference for the so-called New Evangelization.

"beams of thy light and heavenly comfort"

Today is the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, or All Souls. The entire month of November we remember and pray for our beloved dead more attentively and intentionally, especially the souls in purgatory. I can think of nothing more fitting for this day than the short film The Coffinmaker, by Dan McComb. It's 3 minutes and 40 seconds long (3 minutes and 18 seconds if you don't watch the credits).

The Coffinmaker from Dan McComb on Vimeo.

"I think one of the most important aspects of the coffin is that it can be carried. I think we're meant to carry each other..."

A beautiful collect from the 1929 Scottish Book of Common Prayer:

O Eternal Lord God, who holdest all souls in life: We beseech thee to shed forth upon all the faithful departed the bright beams of thy light and heavenly comfort; and grant that they, and we with them, may at length attain to the joys of thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Is justice prevailing in the HHS mandate struggle? There's hope

Some good news today on the unjust Health and Human Services mandate front. By way of reminder, which is probably necessary given that we are being currently overwhelmed, yet again, by the overall incompetency of the current administration (ideologues gone wild) with regard to the AHA rollout/implementation, the HHS/Obamacare mandate seeks to force people and institutions, both religious and commercial, to violate their consciences by forcing them to pay for things in their health insurance plans that they find gravely immoral, arguably forcing them into material cooperation with evil.

According to The Hill, a federal appeals court today

struck down the birth control mandate in ObamaCare, concluding the requirement trammels religious freedom.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — the second most influential bench in the land behind the Supreme Court — ruled 2-1 in favor of business owners who are fighting the requirement that they provide their employees with health insurance that covers birth control.

Requiring companies to cover their employees’ contraception, the court ruled, is unduly burdensome for business owners who oppose birth control on religious grounds, even if they are not purchasing the contraception directly

I think it's important to, once again, make the necessary distinction between "birth control," which is an end, and "contraception," which is a means to obtain that end. Contraception is, according to the clear-cut teaching of the Catholic Church, an objectively immoral means of obtaining that end. There are moral means, namely the various methods of Natural Family Planning.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals

Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who authored the majority opinion, one rendered in the suit brought by Francis and Philip Gilardi, Catholic business-owners, whose company, Freshway Foods, is located in Ohio. Under the mandate, the Gilardi's would either need to violate their consciences or pay a $14 million fine. In her opinion, Judge Rogers Brown laid out the unconscionable dilemma the federal government placed these citizens in: "They can either abide by the sacred tenets of their faith, pay a penalty of over $14 million, and cripple the companies they have spent a lifetime building, or they become complicit in a grave moral wrong."

Judge Rogers Brown, addressing the Obama Administration's contention that access to contraceptives, including abortifacients, is a woman's right, pointed out that "it is clear the government has failed to demonstrate how such a right — whether described as noninterference, privacy, or autonomy — can extend to the compelled subsidization of a woman’s procreative practices."

Before proponents of this horrendously unjust governmental mandate, which, in addition to violating divine law, eviscerates a fundamental constitutional precept, get all up in arms, I am not imposing my views on anyone. I am merely resisting having someone else's views imposed on me by the coercive force of civil law. By asking to be exempted from this mandate, the Catholic Church is not seeking to "outlaw" contraceptives, despite holding the use of them to be gravely immoral, an aspect of this about which, in my view, the hierarchy continues to be far too reticent to teach forthrightly. My position, stated plainly, is, "If you want 'em, you buy 'em, just don't seek to coerce me into being in any way complicit in your choice."

Frank Weathers, who blogs at Why I am Catholic, has been following all of these developments quite closely for a long time, has more details: "Chalk Up A Victory Against The HHS Mandate."

"Problems all left alone," or Homily # 2 for All Saints

Since I posted my homily for All Saints last night, having preached at the vigil Mass, I'm putting up a Friday traditio featuring Lou Reed.

I imagine that most of my readers know that Reed died this past Sunday at age 71. So, Reed's lovely song "Perfect Day," some lyrics from which were tweeted in tribute by no less than Cardinal Ravasi, who serves as the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture (unsurprisingly to the chagrin of some), is our Friday tradio.

The Velvet Underground

In an interview with Harry Siegel, Reed's bandmate from the Velvet Underground, Moe Tucker, who played drums, remembered Lou. What I was most struck by in her remembrance was this- "Lou and I had a special friendship. I loved him very much. He was always encouraging and helpful to me and a good friend." Being a good friend is underrated. It's a pretty rare thing, at least in my experience.

Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good

As a result of these reflections, I composed a second homily for The Solemnity of All Saints, which I will preach this evening, in lieu of the one I preached last night:

Solemnity of All Saints- homily #2

Readings: Rev 7:2-4.9-14; Ps 24:1-6; 1 John 3:1-3; Matt 5:1-12a

Before beginning my homily in earnest, I want to note that the Beatitudes we've heard constitute the core of Christian discipleship, that is, they set forth the manner in which anyone who claims to be Jesus' follower seeks to live. In them our Lord sets forth the attributes of sanctity, of holiness.

I want to begin my meditation this evening by citing most of our second reading for this glorious Solemnity of All Saints:

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2-3)

I really believe that the saints are the ones who show us who God created and redeemed us to be. They are the ones who fully grasped, through their trials and tribulations, as well as through their failures, what Christian singer/songwriter Ricardo Sanchez stated so succinctly, "The devil knows your name but calls you by your sin. God knows your sin but calls you by your name."

Because the Church, as our first reading from Revelation this evening shows, is not only the new, but the eternal Israel, God's chosen people, what God tells Israel through the prophet Isaiah can be applied to the Church, that is, to us: "But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, Jacob, and formed you, Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine" (Isa 43:1).

Because we're not saints, the saints are not always who we want them to be. Most often we want to reduce them, which we do, as Dorothy Day observed, only to dismiss them, to attenuate their very challenging and provocative witness. We need not get too uptight about this and start judging ourselves by way comparing ourselves to them. The process of sanctification, of becoming holy, of becoming a saint, is nothing other than becoming who you truly are through living your circumstances day-by-day, but doing so sub specie aeternitatis, under the aspect of eternity, which simply means with the hope, in the expectation, that, in heaven, every day is a perfect day.

As much as anything, All Saints is about our heavenly calling, our destiny, fulfilling the end for which each one of us was made in the first place, which is to be loved and, in turn, to love. All Saints, especially coupled with tomorrow’s Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, or, All Souls, is also a reminder that we do not walk the path to destiny alone, but together. After all, you will not inhabit heaven all by yourself, but in communion with others in the communio sanctorum.

Solemnity of All Saints- homily

Readings: Rev 7:2-4.9-14; Ps 24:1-6; 1 John 3:1-3; Matt 5:1-12a

What is "the seal" to be placed "on the foreheads of the servants of our God" (Rev 7:3)? It would seem that "the seal" put on our foreheads is the oil of sacred chrism, with which we are anointed when we are confirmed. What did your confirmation confirm? Or, stated another way, Who are you?

What was confirmed when you were anointed was nothing other than the identity given you at baptism; your identity as a child of the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ identity as the only begotten Son of the Father was confirmed by the descent of Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and, at the same time, by the voice of the Father, who said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matt 3:17), as He emerged from the Jordan River after being baptized by John.

My brothers and sisters, on this glorious day let us not fail to "See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God" (1 John 3:1).

Now that you are perhaps a bit clearer as to who you are, you may well ask, "Who are the 144,000 we heard about in our first reading?" Let’s start by noting that one hundred forty-four thousand is 12,000 x 12. Of what symbolic significance is the number 12 in Sacred Scripture? Twelve were the tribes of Israel and twelve was the number of apostles called by Jesus. It was the apostles, the ones sent (apostle means one who is sent) by Christ to "make disciples of all nations," to baptize "them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19), who around whom formed the Church, the new and true Israel.

Hence, one hundred forty-four thousand, the square of twelve multiplied by a thousand, is indicative of the new Israel. It is not, as some suppose, a literal number, but a symbolic number, indicative of the "great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue," who "stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands" (Rev 7:9). Their white robes and palm branches are symbols of joy and victory.

Our reading from Revelation, also called The Apocalypse, both of which mean to unveil, to show what was hidden, is fitting as we gather this evening to celebrate the joyful solemnity of All Saints, or in older English, All Hallows. So we are gathered to rejoice in our participation in the communio sanctorum (the communion of holy people and things).

I cannot help but note that it was on the Solemnity of All Saints, 1 November 1946, that a young Karol Wojtyla, who will be raised to the altar as a saint next April under the name Pope John Paul II, was ordained to the priesthood, in which ordination he received, as do all priests at their ordination, another anointing with sacred chrism, but this time on their hands, which are used to carry out their priestly ministry.

Most of all, the solemnity of All Saints exists to remind each of us of our vocation, our divine call, to holiness, which call we received in Baptism and had strengthened in Confirmation, is renewed in the Sacrament of Penance, and for which we are strengthened and fortified by our reception Christ in the Eucharist. It was Pope John Paul II who taught us that holiness, Christ-likeness, arising from our Christian initiation, is our primary vocation, and that the means to this end are our state of life, whether lay or ordained, married or single, along with the work we engage in daily.

In our Gospel this evening, taken from our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount and familiar to us all as "the Beatitudes," which constitute the core of Christian discipleship, we are taught in detail how we are to live our vocation, which is not an easy row to hoe.

I realize that this can easily come across as very anodyne, very easy, very coherent. But let’s be honest, the Beatitudes, at least for most of us, are a huge provocation, one that often throws life into chaos because how Christ calls us to live is so much at odds with how we are inclined to live, with how we are conditioned to live, very often with how we want to live. To be provoked is to be called out, to be challenged to live our calling, which is to holiness, to Christ-likeness. To cite only one example of many that could be cited, how many times, when you find it difficult to live your vocation in the world because it puts you at odds with others, instead of being angry, combative, argumentative, do you say, "Thank you, Lord Jesus."? Living in this way is evangelism!

As Léon Bloy observed in his novel The Woman Who Was Poor, "There is only one sadness, and that is not to be saints."

My dear friends because of the Father’s great love for us, "we are [His] children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed" (1 John 3:2). It is the saints who not only show us who we are to become, but they show us how we are to become who God intended us to be. So, on this glorious feast of hope, as we celebrate this Eucharist, with the psalmist let us say, "Lord WE are the people who long to see your face," or, in the words of the still-popular song, played and sung so enthusiastically by the great Louis Armstrong, which undoubtedly refers to the “great multitude” from Revelation, "O Lord, I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in."

Do you want to go home justified? Listen to Jesus

As I mentioned last week, which marked the Sunday in Year C that we began reading Luke 18, verses 9-43 of this chapter serve as vignettes that seek to teach the kind of faith (in Greek pistis) the Lord wants to find on earth when he returns.

Jesus does this in this week's Gospel reading by telling the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, which is a parable about a person who is seen by himself and others as a religiously upstanding person, someone who is "tight" with God, and a person who is a manifest public sinner, someone alienated from God.

Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, "O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income." But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, "O God, be merciful to me a sinner." I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:10-14)

This is one of those passages that we need to handle with care lest we dilute Jesus' message, which is crystal clear as long as one understands the contrast between the Pharisee, a serious Jew concerned about exact observance of the 613 mitzvot that entail keeping the law, and the tax collector, who, if Jewish, was seen as one who was in collaboration with the occupying power, a cheat, someone not concerned with keeping the law.

So, in an effort to keep my reflection this week short and to the point I will note four things. Two from the other readings, one from a different source, and a final thought:

"The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal; Nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly and affirms the right" (Sir 35:21-22a).

"The Lord hears the cry of the poor" (Psalm response).

"Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen" (the ending of the Prayer of St. Efrem the Syrian, my brother deacon, who lived long ago).

Finally, when reading Luke's Gospel we need almost always look for the connection to the Eucharist. The connection today seems very clear and bends us back towards Jesus' parable. It has to do with our inward disposition towards those sitting around us. How's your heart disposed towards your brothers and sisters with whom you are gathered around the table of the Lord?

Oh yea, it's Priesthood Sunday, an event that really doesn't arise directly from our readings. So I guess priests shouldn't act like the Pharisee either and should teach like Jesus, not being afraid to challenge themselves and the people they serve, and set the example in leading sacrificial lives (if it were "Deacon Sunday" I'd write the same about us).

"I am ignorant, but I read books"

Reading a rather lovely article written by my dear friend Sharon for Il Sussidiario: "La Strada/The Fellini film which is a favorite of Pope Francis," brought up a few memories last night.

I first saw this movie in a film class as a freshman in college. It is a movie that I watch and re-watch. Fellini was an amazing artist.

I was a fairly new Catholic when Fellini died in 1993. Shortly after his death, in memoriam, I watched his last film Intervista (a movie only a true Fellini fan can love). I recall that, as a new convert, I was a little off-put (despite admiring his films greatly) by his relationship to the Church, having been brought up in an environment in which taking such a stance pretty much ruled out being a believer, let alone a practitioner of any kind. In other words, I did not really know what "being Catholic" meant. While I grasp this better now, I am still very much an apprentice. Nonetheless, being put off turned out to be a meaningful experience for me.

It turns out that Fellini, while at odds with the Church's hierarchy for what he saw as their self-indulgence, was devoted to Our Lady and viewed the Church as a loving, even indulgent mother. It was later, watching his movie Amarcord, that I was able to grasp where he came from a bit better. In a recent article, "Why Fellini's films speak to the pope," Annette Insdorf, observed, "Fellini was more concerned with the individual than with politics. As he once said, 'our trouble, as modern human beings, is loneliness … No public celebration or political symphony can hope to be rid of it.'" I watched a movie just last night, Safety Not Guaranteed, that was about our longing not be lonely, but instead to be loved and accepted, or, to use John O'Donohue's preferred term, to belong.

Fellini had a Catholic funeral, which was celebrated by no less than Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, who at the time served as Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches and who was a family friend (these seeming contradictions- his distaste for the "self-indulgent" hierarchy and having hierarchical friends [think of his film Roma]- would've seemed very natural to Fellini).

At Fellini's funeral, Cardinal Silvestrini told the congregation that Fellini's work was "poetry" that enters people's hearts and that "We should put our questions to the poets, listen to them for the knowledge they have of the suffering world." He acknowledged that Fellini had denounced the Church, but "with irony and love." As a solo trumpet played Gelsomina's song from La Strada, His Eminence came down off the chancel and kissed Giulietta Masina's hand (Giulietta played Gelsomina in La Strada and was Fellini's wife).