Year B First Sunday of Advent

Readings: Isa 63:16b-17.64:2-7; Ps 80:2-3.15-6.18-19; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37

“It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.” So sang the band REM in a song from their album Document, which was released way back in 1987. With everything going on in the world from the outbreak of ebola in west Africa, to the takeover of large swaths of Syria and Iraq by radical Islamists, who gleefully kill our brothers and sisters, as well as other religious minorities who cross their path, to rioting and looting on the streets of cities in our own country, it can easily seem to us now and always that the end of the world is neigh.

There is a story told about St Francis of Assisi, likely apocryphal, in which one of the friars approached him as he toiled in the community’s vegetable garden, and asked him, “Brother Francis, what would you do if the Lord returned right now?” Francis, who was most likely a deacon, agreeing to be ordained only in order to be licensed to preach, said thoughtfully, “I’d continue working in the garden.” True wisdom is simple.

The Ecstasy of St Francis ca. 1437-1444, by Sassetta

We’re all familiar with the image of the street corner prophet standing there wearing his sandwich board that reads on the front and the back: “THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR!” Today I’d like to suggest that from the perspective of a disciple of Jesus Christ, St Francis’ approach is the correct one. It is far too easy to have a religious excuse for simply copping out, for writing everything and everyone off as hopeless, to hunker down and wait for the end to come. But this has never been the attitude of Christians, even the earliest Christians, who expected Jesus to return right away.

In his First Letter to the Thessalonians, which was likely the very first book of the New Testament to be written, St Paul wrote that community, which was experiencing a bit of a crisis because the Lord had not yet returned, saying:

When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief. For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober (1 Thess 5:3-6)

Brothers and sisters, Christ came to relieve the anxiety of those who would accept the gift of salvation that He offers everyone freely. For those who believe and have received new life, which is eternal life (eternal life is now, not life that begins after mortal death), being a Christian does not induce anxiety, but gives us hope. St Paul in our second reading wrote to encourage just this realization when he wrote, God “will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus [Christ]” (1 Cor 1:8).

As followers, as disciples, of Jesus Christ, we are called to extend His work, to sow hope, through space and time until He finally returns in glory to judge the living the dead. But what does it mean to watch, to stay sober, and to remain alert? What this means for us is simply an extension of last week’s Gospel: we are to engage in the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Rather than list them out, I’m going to give you a homework assignment. Go home and look up “Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.” I especially recommend finding a very useful a three-page document by Joe Paprocki entitled “Practical Suggestions for Practicing the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.” Use this, or something similar, during Advent to prepare yourself for Jesus’ return and/or our observance of His nativity in a little more than three weeks’ time.

In our first reading, taken from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we hear the lament: “Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” (Isa 63:16b-17). We are all familiar with the proverb: “Fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). But let’s not forget these inspired words of hope from the First Letter of John: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:18-19).

Love is what gives us hope and hope, in turn, relieves our anxiety, our existential angst, our cynicism toward others and toward the world. So, before we get all worked up about keeping Christ in Christmas, let’s endeavor to cooperate with God’s grace and observe a holy Advent. Advent is the season of waiting in hopeful anticipation for the fulfillment of our deepest longings, desires, and aspirations, which are expressed well in the hymn “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring”-

Through the way where hope is guiding,
       Hark, what peaceful music rings;
Where the flock, in Thee confiding,
      Drink of joy from deathless springs.

Theirs is beauty's fairest pleasure;
Theirs is wisdom's holiest treasure.
      Thou dost ever lead Thine own
      In the love of joys unknown

If we heed Jesus’ words- “Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming” (Mark 13:35), the end of the world should make us feel just fine. My dear friends in Christ, we should eagerly anticipate the Lord’s return, not fear His coming, His Advent. Rather, let's be engaged in the task He gives us: to prepare for His glorious return by setting the banquet table for the great wedding feast. Hence, as we begin the holy season of Advent today, let us pray with added fervor: “Marana’tha!” “O Lord, come!”

"Then again the same old story"

At least for me the end of November is a deeply reflective time of year. In terms of blogging (something I've been at far longer than is probably good either for me or both of my readers) it makes selecting the Friday traditio very easy. This week's traditio is Joy Division's "Ceremony," which I posted a few years ago shortly after Bastille Day to note what a truly sickening event the French Revolution was.

In any case, Ian Curtis' gravity is still felt more than 30 years after his death. It's strange the appeal Joy Division's music holds for many of us who are a certain age. When we first heard it we were kids who didn't know jack about anything, really. Nonetheless, we felt drawn and expressed. It's difficult to describe the effect.

Life's too short, varied, and full of surprises to stand on ceremony...

This is why events unnerve me,
They find it all, a different story,
Notice whom for wheels are turning,
Turn again and turn towards this time

Thanksgiving, the common good, and freedom

Each year I post something on Thanksgiving Day. Typically someone will take exception to the fact that, as a nation, the United States sets aside a day each year, not just to give thanks, but specifically to give thanks to God. Of course, nobody is forced to be thankful or to give thanks, either to God or or their fellow man. As for me, I believe at the deepest level of my being that "It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, creator of the world and source of all life."

Thanksgiving was formally instituted as a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln on 3 October 1863, during the Civil War. In his proclamation, Lincoln called upon citizens to do penance. For those of us in the United States, Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on politics writ large, not just focus on specific political issues, like what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri (prayer strikes me as the best response for most of us to the troubles there).

I disagree with any and all who assert that people are not interested enough in politics. In my view, we have become far too dependent on politics in a most unhealthy manner. We look to resolve any and all matters by political means, bringing the tremendous coercive force of an inflated and ever-expanding state to bear even on questions that are not, at root, properly political matters.

This is why I am grateful that a friend posted this by Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman today:

The greatest privilege of a Christian is to have nothing to do with worldly politics,—to be governed and to submit obediently; and though here again selfishness may creep in, and lead a man to neglect public concerns in which he is called to take his share, yet, after all, such participation must be regarded as a duty, scarcely as a privilege, as the fulfilment of trusts committed to him for the good of others, not as the enjoyment of rights (as men talk in these days of delusion), not as if political power were in itself a good

Thanksgiving Day seems a fitting day for citizens of the United States to spend at least a little time reflecting on the whats, whys, and wherefores of political power. To wit: when understood properly, political power is a means to an end, not an end itself.

For St Thomas Aquinas political power, when understood and exercised properly, is a means of serving and helping us to realize the common good. It is important not to reduce the common good to utilitarianism, which is a leading cause of an overly centralized state that is not really interested in fostering authentic human community. Since we live at a time when everyone seems to be, even if only in a latent way, an economic determinist, the risk of utilitarianism runs high. Perhaps the most important contribution that engaging in politics for the purpose of fostering the common good is factoring in the transcendent orientation of the human person.

For Aquinas, relying on Aristotle, "The good is what all things desire." When it comes to human beings, this is true whether we're conscious of it or not. Philosopher John Goyette defined the common good, which is the end that political power is but a means: "insofar as many individuals work together for the sake of a common goal they can be said to form a community and to act in common. To sum up: The common good is a good that is one in number and is able to be shared by many without being diminished." The common good, in turn, if it is truly good, serves the ultimate good, which is the fulfillment of the end for which we exist in the first place. Any politics that does not recognize this is bound, sooner or later, to go awry. Freedom, too, is a means to an end, not end in itself. As the late Avery Cardinal Dulles observed in an article on freedom according to Pope St John Paul II- "freedom is meaningless and self-destructive if it is not used in the service of what is truly good."

For this we need look no further afield than sacred Scripture: "For you were called for freedom, brothers. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love" (Gal 5:13).

"Be free, yet without using freedom as a pretext for evil, but as slaves of God" (1 Pet 2:16).

A note on executive orders and the imperial presidency

Thinking about President Obama's executive order on immigration, issued yesterday, 21 November 2014, it seems to me there are two distinct issues in play: what was done and how it was done; the end and the means to that end. Responsible citizenship requires us to consider both.

For those of us who live in the U.S. we must acknowledge that the imperial presidency has been a long time in the making. Abraham Lincoln, it seems, can be viewed as the president who inaugurated it. This is brilliantly set forth in Spielberg's spell-binding movie Lincoln. While chattel slavery is a without a doubt a deplorable evil, one our country needed to be rid of, it obscures the whole issue of states rights. Hence, it bears noting that in exchange for recognition as a sovereign nation by Great Britain and France, the Confederate cabinet agreed to abolish slavery within five years after end of the Civil War. The forceful tendencies of an imperial presidency, coupled with claims of U.S. exceptionalism, has also had a tremendous impact on our foreign policy, especially since the end of the Second World War, making it rather violent and increasingly bellicose.

Considering what is set forth in the scene from Lincoln below, the question arises, Is the only thing that matters the here and now? This is the existential question we face when it comes to ordering our lives together has to do precisely with a certain transcendence. Are we truly satisfied with, "I am the President of the United States, clothed with immense power"?

It seems to me that in order to regain the balance of power the U.S. constitution seeks to achieve, Congress needs to start asserting itself across-the-board. Members of both houses of Congress belonging to both parties must start being as concerned, or perhaps more concerned, about how things are done as they are about what is done. Congress needs to be assertive both towards the Executive and Judicial branches, both of which, in my view, have become far too powerful. Bracket for a moment the immediate cause and consider the revolutionary nature of federal judges striking down duly enacted amendments to state constitutions. Even in polity, do ends always justify means? In a democratic republic, does process matter, or are all matters decided in the most oligarchic manner imaginable?

The sad reality is that Republicans denounce President Obama's Executive Order on immigration, not because they are opposed to an imperial (in Obama's case imperious) presidency (they would applaud executive overreach when done on a matter of which they are in favor- the Dems do the same thing), but simply because they oppose what the order mandates. This strikes me as adolescent politics. To highlight this I will, again, point to the part of Spielberg's film that shows how Lincoln's agents went about obtaining the necessary votes and abstentions, which is all artistic license as far as I know, is done in a humorous vein.

Are all saved regardless?: Thoughts on universalism

Once in awhile I am tremendously provoked by my experience of reality. Questions of meaning have been part of my consciousness for as long as I can remember. I am not unique in this regard, questions of meaning are not only part and parcel of being human, these questions, in a very real sense, constitute our humanity. These questions begin with the word "Why."

I remember in the wake of the Haitian earthquake several years ago Msgr Lorenzo Albacete, insisting that our Christian faith does not and, moreover, should not give us easy answers to reality's vicissitudes, saying something to the effect, "Asking 'Why?' in the face of a devastating natural disaster is the most human response imaginable." It is just as human to ask "Why?" when we are confronted with the evil committed by human beings. The result of my provocation yesterday was posting this on Facebook: "If we're universalists, then screw it, I'll do whatever I want and conform my life accordingly. Take your theology with you when you leave lest I beat you with it." Ham-fisted? Certainly. Provocative? I hope so, but probably not.

One question in which I am interested is, Does universalism amount to consequence-free living, at least in the ultimate sense? In other words, do I only have to endure the natural and temporal consequences of my bad choices without fear of an eternal consequence? If so, why should I keep going to confession, one of the key features of which is to take away the eternal punishment due to me as the just response to my sins. More to the point, What about the effects my sinful behaviors have on others? How is justice achieved for them? At least as it concerns me, as a Christian, I relinquish my just claim against others, which is what it means to truly forgive, but what about those who do not relinquish their just claim? Yes, they will be liable to those who, in turn, have a just claim against them, but even so... is such a refusal to relinquish just claims itself a damnable offense?

This reflection strikes me as a very good one as we approach tomorrow's Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, which is all about the end of time and the Lord's return in glory to judge the living (i.e., "the quick"- better to be quick than dead) and the dead.

As a Catholic I believe in what the Church calls "mortal sin." According to the Church's teaching eternal punishment is due these sins, namely hell. If my understanding is correct, if I recognize the evil I have done, realizing I have been the cause of evil effects that I can never correct, and refuse to repent of it, I stand in danger of damnation, which is eternal, not merely temporary.

One friend very usefully asked me to list the names of people I hope are not saved. It was a brilliant provocation. I suppose the most honest answer would be, Anyone and everyone who has ever done me wrong, treated me poorly, slandered me, unjustly impugned me, etc. But such an answer points right back at me and puts me on the list of anyone and everyone I have ever wronged. Jesus came to put an end to the infinite regress of retribution in a fallen world. So, I answered, "Me, after that I am at a loss." Truth be told, like St Paul, I desperately want to be saved, not just as a function of wanting the best for myself, but a deep desire to experience that for which I was made and redeemed.

Last Judgment, by Stefan Lochner, ca 1435

Another thoughtful response asked the question, "is our reason for following Jesus Christ and his Church our love for him, or is it utilitarian: a quid pro quo? I'll be nice if you give me eternal life. And if I'm not, you'll kick my ass. Eternally." These questions are posed rhetorically to demonstrate a point I find frustrating because I find it so difficult to truly love. In terms of the practice of our faith, it's that way with everything- Do I attend Mass because I am obligated or because I love God and want to do what I am made and redeemed to do, namely worship Him, which is my sanctification?

I think it's important not to short-circuit my own concern, reduce it to a cliché and say, "See, problem solved!" I truly believe that there are questions of meaning and significance that do not arise from an utilitarian calculus, even while accounting for the fact that nobody will be saved because s/he deserves it, least of all me. Even now, as defective as I am in love of God and neighbor, I want what God wants- that everyone be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). Did I not want this I would be wholly unsuited for ministry. Even so, in this regard the question remains- Do I or do I not have reason for concern in this regard, for myself or anyone else? In other words, does my ministry serve God's purpose over and above any palliative and temporal effects my service might have on those I serve.

Earlier this week I was browsing through a pamphlet of prayers published and distributed by the now defunct magazine 30 Days In the Church and in the World. The English title of the booklet is "Who Prays Is Saved" (you can view it here). It features an introduction by then-Cardinal Ratzinger. It's basically a little Basic Book of Catholic Prayers.

"Who Prays Is Saved" also contains some catechetical material. Listed number one under the "Six Sins Against the Holy Spirit" is "Presumption of God's mercy." I suppose the relevant issue, stated with considerably more care than my initial provocation, is, What is the source of the tension between the two poles of trying to save one's self by being "good" (Having been raised in a religion that taught not only the possibility, but the necessity, of self-perfection, I have enough experience of this to know that, at least for me, this is not possible) and being presumptive of God's mercy, which seems, at least at first glance, to remove a great deal of significance and meaning from human existence?

In his encyclical letter Spe salvi, on the theological virtue of hope, Pope Benedict XVI addressed some of this in a most useful way:

To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love [here he cited Tractatus super Psalmos, Ps 127, 1-3]. God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened

Fred, who is perhaps my best friend that I have yet to meet in person, in a comment noted something I found very useful and provocative: "Universalism is an abstract solution to an existential problem, but this problem has itself been castrated, rendered abstract, by having been removed from the present to the afterlife. What can save me, who can save me, is the question of daily life. Tax collectors and prostitutes know this, and this is why they enter heaven ahead of the Pharisees, who smug in their daily life, feel a kind of anxiety as to whether the ultimate bookkeeper will approve of their accounting."

My critical response to this would be that the existential is the beginning of my question. The question I pose here is not, "Is it possible to live this way," but, "Is it desirable to live this way?" If it is, how so? These concerns do not seem to me abstract, but rather concrete. Again, speaking only for myself, there is way for me to live that comes quite easily, too easily.

I suppose the existential answer would go something like, "Don't go back to Rockville and waste another year."

"Going where nobody says hello"

It's been awhile, far too long, really, since we've had a REM song for our Friday traditio. I was put in mind of REM (one of my all-time favorite bands) by a dear friend who went on a REM jag on Facebook this week. The particular song for us (i.e., myself and both of my readers) is "Don't Go Back To Rockville," a song that resonates with me from experience, a song that, when I was younger and the album new described a particular set of experiences.

Waiting for the bus, by Allan Rostron

Live performances are always preferable to studio recordings. Mike Mills, the band's bassist, takes over lead vocals on this version. Nonetheless, here's a link to the recorded version from the album "Reckoning."

It's not as though I really need you
If you were here I'd only bleed you
But everybody else in town only wants
To bring you down and that's not how it ought to be
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You'll be coming back before too long

Cardinal O'Malley on ordination

There seems to be a lot of uproar this morning about something Cardinal Seán O'Malley said last night in his lengthy 60 Minutes interview with Nora O'Donnell in his response to her question about why the Church does not and cannot ordain women. Given the cultural climate in which we live, it is an inevitable question for any prelate during such a high-profile interview.

Cardinal O'Malley with Nora O'Donnell

O'Donnell posed her question in a provocative manner, asking, if it wasn't immoral to exclude women from the Church's hierarchy. Cardinal Seán, as he likes to be called, replied simply: "Christ would never ask us to do something immoral. It’s a matter of vocation and what God has given to us." He went on to say something far more important: "Not everyone needs to be ordained to have an important role in the life of the Church." This is not only true, but very important, even vital for the Church.  Cardinal Seán's answer hints at something many of us have sought to point out over and over: the fundamental sacrament of the Christian life, the sacrament by which we are infused with divine life, born again as sons and daughters of God, is baptism, not orders. One of the greatest points of emphasis for the Second Vatican Council was the importance of Baptism, the retrieval of what it means to be baptized.

There should be no consternation over something else Cardinal O'Malley said: "If I were founding a church, I’d love to have women priests. But Christ founded it, and what he has given us is something different." If this is not your answer and you would not ordain women, if you were founding a church, then fine, you have an honest disagreement with Cardinal O'Malley about a matter that for us, as Catholics, is purely hypothetical in the most abstract sense.

I do not agree that His Eminence's answer was imprudent. On the contrary, I think it was highly prudent. His response shows two things. First, that it is not rank sexism and a commitment to inequality that keeps the Church from ordaining women. Second, it demonstrates, yet again, something the late Carlo Cardinal Martini wrote in response to the question "Why not women priests?", posed to him in his book-length dialogue with Umberto Eco, published in English under the title Belief or Non-Belief: A Confrontation- "The Church does not fulfill expectations, it celebrates mysteries."

In my view, the trouble with too many people is that they see what God has actually done in history as the only possibility and so attempt to confer on all of God's actions a kind of necessity God never intended them to have. Take the old question, Was it necessary for God to save us by means of Jesus' passion and death? Another question, Why is it necessary to go to confession? Is God not able to normatively pardon us and freshly infuse us with sanctifying grace in some other way? More fundamentally, the question I have pondered in my previous two posts- Does being a Christian give us an answer concerning creation that eliminates its mystery? By saying God does not do everything out of any necessity I only mean God could have done things differently, but, in His providence, He did not. What God has chosen to do remains definitive and binding. In other words, as Cardinal O'Malley intimated, we can't simply choose to do things differently simply because there are different ways of doing them, even some ways that have an attractive rationale.

The question, "Why does the Church not ordain women?", goes to the great mystery of God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the only begotten Son of the Father, becoming a human being as a male. There is a deep logic, but it's what we might call a theo-logic (along with an aesthetic and drama), to the divine plan of redemption.

Adoration of the Children, 1620, byGerard (Gerrit) van Honthorst)

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" (Gal 4:4-6)

Let's not get bogged down in ideology. His Eminence's statement was not an ideological one.