Doubting Divine Mercy

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Ps 118:2-4.13-15.22-14; John 20:19-31

As a Catholic Christian and clerical blogger, April (sometimes March) leaves me feeling a bit spent blogging-wise because, well, the Triduum and Easter. I can certainly say that on this Second Sunday of Easter, which we Roman Catholics observe as Divine Mercy Sunday, I am not at my most imaginative or creative. I remember years ago in a homily for Divine Mercy Sunday hearing that the Sacrament of Penance is the first gift given by the resurrected Jesus to his nascent Church. If one takes today's Gospel reading as St. John's account of the institution of this sacrament, then that seems to be the case.

I think it is important when considering the Johannine account of Jesus's resurrected appearances to his disciples (there no "apostles" in the Gospel of John) not to view Thomas's doubt as sinful in the least. Up to the point of his own encounter with the risen Lord, Thomas had only heard his companions telling him the story of their experience of seeing the Crucified alive. How would you respond to such reports, even if those telling you seemed sincere? Do the dead really come back to life?

It is important, I think, to point out that Thomas did not divorce himself from the community of disciples even though he clearly did not believe what they told him. Was he not with them the very next week, on what we call Sunday? It is important to point this out because it is not only okay but important to bring your doubts to Mass. After all, where else might you touch and taste the wounded and risen Jesus?

We experience doubt whenever we wonder whether God will forgive us again. As Pope Francis noted during the Jubilee of Mercy several years ago: you will grow weary of asking God for mercy well before God tires of being merciful toward you. His mercy endures forever. Divine Mercy has the peculiar attribute of seeming too good to be true.

As to the matter of apostles, in today's Gospel Jesus sends his closest disciples just as the Father sent him. An apostle is one who is sent forth. At the end of each Mass you are sent forth. Hence, if you limit the Church's apostolicity merely to apostolic succession, you have a very truncated view of what it means to profess the Church as apostolic. More than that, if that is your view, you let yourself off the hook far too easily. If your understanding of what it means to say the Church is apostolic is limited to apostolic succession, then in what sense can you consider yourself a disciple of the Risen One?

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, which occurs post-Pentecost, Peter's healing shadow is the shadow of the crucified and risen Christ, who brings healing in his wake. Forgiveness of your sins is the healing that brings the wholeness for which you so desperately long. Like Peter, as Christ's disciple, your shadow should be the shadow of the Risen One. Stated in a more concrete way, worship that does not result in service is not Christian worship. Again, this is why our worship concludes with being sent to make Jesus Christ present wherever you go. This is what it means to cast the shadow of him who died, rose again, and now lives forever. Christ's Easter victory is your Easter victory. Healed and given new life impels the one who receives these great gifts to share them with others.

Notice that the resurrected Jesus asks Thomas if he believes only because he has seen and touched him. It's an unanswered question. Or is it? I think Thomas's profession "My Lord and my God" is one that can only be sincerely made by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). As Jesus tells Peter in St. Matthew's Gospel after Peter has confessed Jesus as Christ and Lord, "flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father" (Matthew 16:17). In my view, a very good case can be made that Thomas's implied answer amounts to - "No, Lord, I do not believe only because I have seen, touched, and felt your resurrected body."

It is the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus that enables those who have faith to believe. This brings us quickly to a paraphrased version of an observation made by Dostoevsky: a person does not come to believe because she experiences a miracle; a person experiences a miracle because she believes. Or, as St. Anselm of Canterbury put it: "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand." In short, knowing the what of something does not satisfactorily answer that most human all questions - Why?

In his wonderfully eccentric autobiography, Ecce Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche refers to "Christians and other nihilists." There is a sense in which one can believe Christ rose from the dead and utterly fail to grasp what this means for his own life. "Christ is risen. So what?" There is a way of considering one's self a Christian in which one merely takes, as opposed to gratefully receiving, what God has given us in Christ. Because it amounts to taking, such a belief does not rise to the level of faith and so has no effect on how such a person endeavors to live.

"For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world."

"Love is a rebellious bird"

Holy Week and especially the sacred Triduum are intense times. As a result, Καθολικός διάκονος has lain fallow since Easter Sunday. In an ideal scenario, Easter week is a time to relax and bask in the glow of our glorious celebration of Christ's resurrection. At least for me, after Easter Sunday, life continues apace. This is alright, despite my interior protest.

This week I finished reading Sue Prideaux's I Am Dynamite: A Life of Nietzsche. Alongside this latest Nietzsche biography (in years past I have read Leslie Chamberlain's Nietzsche in Turin and Rüdiger Safranski's Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography), I re-read what amounts to Nietzsche's own idiosyncratic autobiography, Ecce Homo. It is his utter originality that makes Nietzsche so captivating.

Friedrich Nietzsche, by Edvard Munch, 1906

Don't worry. I am not going to go off on a philosophical digression- though one would be fitting today because is the birthday of my dear Ludwig Wittgenstein. I will note that Nietzsche's philosophical project was at the service Amor fati, that is, loving one's fate. In other words, life's agon, struggle, or battle consists not only of accepting your life as it is but of loving it to the point of not desiring it to be otherwise. If you are familiar in the least with Nietzsche's life, he set himself no small task by placing amor fati at the center of his enterprise.

Msgr Luigi Giussani talked about loving your destiny. Now, fate and destiny can be seen as two different things or one can attempt to harmonize the two. In essence, they are the same thing because they refer to where you've been, where you are now, and where are going. Past, present, and future are inextricably linked. Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence, which is the only part of his philosophy that came to him in a revelation-like manner, sought to unravel this intertwining. On first consideration, the difference between fate and destiny is that fate is blind and destiny is guided. Regardless as to whether it is chance or the result of providence, anyone who pays attention to her own life understands that the continuum of past, present, and future consists in far more than mechanistic cause and effect. In other words, even for those of us who adhere to destiny, there is a heavy dose of what we might call chance/luck/fortune that comes into play. Despite what the peddlers of success through time management say, life does not work in the manner of "Do x and y will inevitably follow." Such a view amounts to deception about reality.

Nietzsche found in Bizet's opera Carmen something of an affirmation of all this. In his book The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche sees Carmen as expressing healthy exuberance expressed through the “Mediterraneanization of music.” For him, Carmen represented a “return to nature, health, cheerfulness, youth, virtue!” (The Case of Wagner, sec. 3). Bizet's music “liberates the spirit” and “gives wings to thought” (The Case of Wagner, sec. 2). I don't usually recommend reading the comments for anything on-line, but I loved reading the comments for the Royal Opera production of Carmen from which the aria that is today's traditio is taken. Many of them capture the exuberance that Nietzsche found so appealing. My favorite is- "personally, I wouldn't mind being that guy whose butt she slaps at the end..."

So, on this Friday in the Octave of Easter, love your destiny, which is eternal. Only something or someone infinite can satisfy your infinite longing, a longing that persists and, indeed, grows stronger, rather than being satisfied, when a dream or an aspiration is realized. Sunday afternoon, after the last Mass, I tried to relax but could not. I went to back to the church, entered, then walked around and prayed. I felt restless, but my restlessness seemed confirmed, natural, whole. How can resurrection leave you in anything but an unsettled state?

As indicated, our Friday traditio, which, given the Octave, is really a Sunday traditio, is the aria popularly known as "Habanera." "Habanera" refers to the music or dance of Havana. The actual name of the aria is "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle." In English: "Love is a rebellious bird." Our rebellion against love often consists of hating our fate. Maybe a way of harmonizing fate and destiny is to say that fate is your path to destiny. Where Giussani and Nietzsche converge is Giussani's insistence that you must learn to consciously "use" your fate, your present circumstances, to realize your destiny.

"Hear the bells ringing"

It is not Easter for me until I listen to Keith Green's "Easter Song." I am not really certain where I'd be, who I'd be if I had not encountered the risen Jesus. During the early Mass this morning, my eyes filled with tears during the sprinkling rite. My tears were tears of joy. As I prayed the Universal Prayer, however, my tears turned to those sadness as we prayed for our sisters and brothers in Sri Lanka, who were killed or injured in Easter bombings.

Resurrection of Christ, Hendrick de Clerck, ca 1575

I was buoyed up by Pope Francis's plea for peace in his Urbi et Orbi message. The world needs resurrection! As Pope Benedict said in his first Easter Urbi et Orbi message: Christus resurrexit, quia Deus caritas est! Christ is risen because God is love.

Happy Easter to both of my readers!

Urbi et Orbi- Easter 2019

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
FRANCIS

Easter 2019

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Happy Easter!

Today the Church renews the proclamation made by the first disciples: “Jesus is risen!” And from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, there resounds a call to praise: “Alleluia, Alleluia!” On this morning of Easter, the perennial youth of the Church and of humanity as a whole, I would like to address each of you in the opening words of my recent Apostolic Exhortation devoted especially to young people:

“Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way he brings youth to our world. Everything he touches becomes young, new, full of life. The very first words, then, that I would like to say to every young Christian are these: Christ is alive and he wants you to be alive! He is in you, he is with you and he never abandons you. However far you may wander, he is always there, the Risen One. He calls you and he waits for you to return to him and start over again. When you feel you are growing old out of sorrow, resentment or fear, doubt or failure, he will always be there to restore your strength and your hope” (Christus Vivit, sec. 1-2)

Dear brothers and sisters, this message is also addressed to every person in the world. The resurrection of Christ is the principle of new life for every man and every woman, for true renewal always begins from the heart, from the conscience. Yet Easter is also the beginning of the new world, set free from the slavery of sin and death: the world open at last to the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of love, peace and fraternity.

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Easter Vigil

Readings: Gen 1:1-2:2; Gen 22:1-18; Ex 14:15-15:1; Rom 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12

The liturgy we are now celebrating is the mother of all liturgies. The Easter Vigil is the most important celebration of the entire liturgical year. Tonight our Christian high holy days reach their zenith. Tonight, sisters and brothers, we celebrate the true Passover: Jesus Christ.

Jesus alone, the only begotten Son of God in the flesh, was able to pass over from death to life everlasting. The opening words of Pope John Paul II’s first encyclical letter, Redemptor Hominis, sum this up well: “The Redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history.”¹

Christ’s resurrection from the dead marks the final stage of God's plan of creation. God did not create in vain. By virtue of our common Baptism, God invites us to be his co-creators in bringing creation to full realization.

The Easter Vigil is not a commemoration of something that happened nearly 2,000 years ago. The question we ask this holy night is - Where is the risen Jesus now – for us?² Rather than questioning Christ’s resurrection, we need to let his resurrection interrogate us. In a few minutes, you will have the opportunity to let yourself be interrogated by Christ's resurrection.

The interrogation in which you are invited to engage takes the form of renewing the promises you made at Baptism. The main purpose of Lent, after all, is to prepare for renewing your baptismal promises at Easter. When answering these questions, it is important not to engage in empty ritualism, simply going through the motions, as it were. You need to listen to each question, examine your conscience, and answer or choose not to answer, from your heart. Interrogating yourself using these ultimate questions demands nothing less of you.

Resurrection is something you can see and experience. In a few moments, you will witness Katie’s paschal death, burial, and rising to new life with Christ through the waters of Baptism. I am not being overly dramatic in stating it in that way. In our epistle reading, we heard the words with which St. Paul interrogated the Christians of ancient Rome: “Are you unaware,” he asked them, “that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”³ Answering his own query, the apostle continued: “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death.”⁴ Because we died and were buried with Christ in Baptism, Paul concludes: “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”⁵

St Paul’s point is that eternal life does not start after mortal death. For those of us who are baptized, eternal life is now! Living your new life in Christ requires you to constantly be open, allowing yourself to be interrogated by the Holy Spirit.

When they went to the tomb in which Jesus had been laid in order to dress his dead body according to Jewish burial custom, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James found the tomb empty, they were interrogated by the two angels, who asked them- “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?”⁶ The same question posed to the women by the angels might well be asked of us and often.

“To be a Christian,” Luke Timothy Johnson insists, “means to assert that Jesus is alive...”⁷ “To consider Jesus simply as a figure of the past,” he continues, “means to consider Jesus not from the perspective of a Christian but from that of one who stands outside of Christian conviction.”⁸ “If Jesus is dead,” Johnson points out, “then his story is completed. If he is alive, then his story continues.”⁹

Jesus’s story continues through the Church, which is his very Body. Jesus’s story is truly the never-ending story. By our Baptism, Confirmation, and on-going participation in the sacramental life of the Church, particularly the Eucharist, Jesus’s story becomes our story. Stated a bit more poetically, Jesus writes us into his story. One scriptural phrase that captures Jesus writing us into his story is “those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”¹⁰

Katie, at the beginning of Lent your name was written in the Book of the Elect. Tonight your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. You and Piper being fully incorporated into Christ’s Body mark the beginning of new chapters in Jesus’s story.

On this holy night, it is important to be reminded that “Easter is not something we remember.” Rather, as Christians, Easter “is something that we live and breathe.”¹¹

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1 John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, sec. 1.^↩
2 Jim Friedrich, "Preaching on Easter Sunday isn't about convincing people," The Christian Century.^↩
3 Romans 6:3.^↩
4 Romans 6:4.^↩
5 Romans 6:4.^↩
6 Luke 24:5.^↩
7 Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel, 5.^↩
8 Ibid.^↩
9 Ibid.^↩
10 Revelation 21:27..^↩
11 “Preaching on Easter Sunday isn’t about convincing people.”.^↩

Triduum: Holy Saturday

Without a doubt, Holy Saturday is the weirdest day of the entire church year. It is the day we observe Christ laying dead in the tomb. An ancient Christian homily, which is the second reading for the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday, imagines what Jesus's was doing on this day between his death and his resurrection. Cutting to the chase, the preacher of this homily imagines Christ entering the shadow world, something akin to what the Greeks called "Hades." Christ's purpose for going there is to liberate those who have died from this shadow life.

In his journey to the underworld, Christ carries his cross, which the preacher identifies as the weapon with which he won his victory over death. He enters the shadowlands, the dark valley of death, to convey his victory to the souls of the just, who cannot reach their destination without crossing the bridge from the abyss to their eternal rest. At least on my telling (there is no mention of a bridge in the homily) the bridge over which they cross is Christ's cross.

Today the tabernacles in all churches are empty with their doors open to show that they are empty. The Blessed Sacrament is in the chapel or on the altar of repose, which serves as Christ's liturgical tomb. In fact, the church itself, sans the Blessed Sacrament, sits in tomb-like emptiness, dark and quiet. No masses, no weddings, no baptisms or confirmations (except perhaps for those who are in danger of death- these do not happen in the church) are celebrated today.

Usually confessions are heard on Holy Saturday. Penitents come into the dark, quiet, empty church to confess the many ways they deal in death. This death-dealing has a shorter name: sin. Going to confession on Holy Saturday, penitents speak their sins in the emptiness of the tomb. So, when they depart, having been absolved and (presumably) having made satisfaction, they do so with the assurance that their sins are dead and buried. By grace, they pray that these death-dealing words, thoughts, and actions will never again come to life in them.

The effect of sin is make you a spiritual zombie. Sin is never resurrected life. Sin is always a parasite on life. Honest penitents know themselves well enough not to be overly confident about succeeding because their strategies have largely to do with self-help methods. While such methods may help one cope, they cannot impart life eternal. Instead, the true penitent places her hope in the Lord, who is kind and merciful

A snippet from my unfocused paper on Samuel Beckett from last year seems fitting for Holy Saturday:

Heidegger once noted "absence is not nothing."¹ It has been pointed out that Beckett’s works stand as "a testimony" to the truth of Heidegger’s assertion.² The presence of God’s absence, which is most explicit in Waiting for Godot, turns into "an experience of transcendence."³ Referring to his own work, Beckett wrote: "I feel the only line is to refuse to be involved in exegesis of any kind… We have no elucidations to offer of mysteries that are all of their own making."⁴

Circling back to the Office of Readings for today, the first reading, which always comes from the Scriptures, is from the fourth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews (vv. 1-13). Many exegetes hold that, like the ancient sermon for Holy Saturday, this book of the New Testament was originally a sermon.

Referencing Psalm 95, which I prayed as the first Psalm for the Office of Readings because I have been using Psalm 24 as the invitatory Psalm during Lent and now in the Triduum, noting how the generation that God liberated from Egyptian servitude was not permitted to enter the Promise Land because of their disobedience, the inspired author of Hebrews discusses entering into the Sabbath rest. This is the very same rest to which Christ invites our first parents in the ancient sermon. Again, citing Psalm 95, the author of Hebrews urges these ancient Jewish Christians, many of whom were tempted to renounce their faith in Christ Jesus, not to harden their hearts with regard to what they've heard God speak in and through Christ.

In another wholly unplanned occurrence this morning, similar to unexpectedly praying Psalm 95, I read the final chapter of the Rule of St. Benedict. Upon completing my reading of the Rule, I read Esther de Waal's commentary on that chapter. It was de Waal's commentary that struck the harmonizing chord with the Office of Readings. Noting that in the final chapter of his Rule Benedict asks his reader - "Are you hastening toward your heavenly home?," de Waal makes the connection with the passage from Hebrews 4: "The fullness of that question comes when I read these words in the context of those poetic images from Hebrews (4:11; 11:14-15)."⁵ These poetic images, she notes, are "of seeking a country, and of that city that God has prepared for us."⁶ Both the image of the country in Hebrews 4 and of the city in Hebrews 11 are "images of home that capture the imagination."⁷

De Waal captures beautifully how I am thinking and feeling on this Holy Saturday morning: "The need to come home, the desire to be where I belong, is something that touches one of the deepest chords in all human experience."⁸

I think it is very important not to be too quick to leap over Good Friday and Holy Saturday in a mad rush to celebrate the resurrection. Making our way prayerfully through the first two-thirds of the sacred Triduum makes the Easter Vigil all the more glorious.

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1 Martin Heidegger, “The Thing: Epilogue,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. by Alfred Hofstadter. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1971, 184.^↩
2 Sandra Wynands, Iconic Spaces: The Dark Theology of Samuel Beckett’s Drama. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007, 6.^↩
3 Ibid.^↩
4 Maggie Johnson, "Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: A Study Guide." Scribd Website, accessed January 26, 2018, https://www.scribd.com/doc/137704505/Waiting-for-Godot-Study-Guide.^↩
5 Esther de Waal. A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1995,189.^↩
6 Ibid.^↩
7 Ibid., 189-190.^↩
8 Ibid., 190.^↩

Triduum: Good Friday

Reading: Luke 23:46

For our Good Friday traditio, I am sharing the homilette I delivered in 2007 for the seventh of Jesus's Seven Last Words. 2007 marked the first year I preached the Seven Last Words. Sadly, even at the Cathedral where I formerly served, they no longer reflect on the Lord's words from the Cross as part of Good Friday worship. Formerly, we reflected on the Seven Last Words immediately following the Good Friday service and just prior to the choir singing the Stabat Mater. In my view, when prepared for diligently, reflecting on Christ's words from the Cross as likely re-imagined and handed on by the four evangelists, are deep reflections on Christian discipleship. Anyway, for about seven years, I preached on some or all of the Lord's words from the Cross each Good Friday. Preparing my reflections comprised a health part of my Lenten spiritual practice.

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"Commendation" is what we do at the graveside when we commend our sister or brother, not to the earth, but to God. Just as “Do this in memory of me” means ever so much more than a remembering- it is a calling-to-mind in order to make present- to commend means more than to merely hand-over, or leave. In baptism, we commended ourselves to God by dying and rising in Christ to new life.

"Commendation" means to present or mention as worthy of confidence, notice, or kindness. Further, it means to entrust, to deliver with confidence, to give charge to the one who is worthy of confidence and trust. So, when our Lord commends his spirit over to the Father, he gives himself over to the One who is trustworthy, the One in whom he can place his trust and his entire being.

The life of the disciple of Christ, who is not greater than the Master, is not merely a Via Delarosa, it is a death, even a crucifixion, a kenotic emptying-out of oneself for others. When will we learn that happiness and fulfillment does not come from pursuing one’s own agenda, but seeking the good of the other? Who is this mysterious other? The other is certainly the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, the addicted, and certainly those who have died. Further, the other is the sinner, the ignorant, the doubtful, the sorrowful, the injured, the unjustly accused and condemned. The other is also one’s spouse, children, parents, siblings, friends, and fellow parishioners. The Christian term for this other is neighbor. It is by redefining who our neighbor is that reveals the revolutionary nature of our Lord’s teachings as given in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Crucifixion, by Graham Sutherland, 1946

Writing about the Song of Songs, that great allegory of God’s love for his People, Pope Benedict wrote:

In this context it is highly instructive to note that in the course of the book two different Hebrew words are used to indicate ‘love’. First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the similar-sounding agape, which, as we have seen, becomes the typical expression for the biblical notion of love. By contrast with an indeterminate, ‘searching’ love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice (Deus Caritas Est, sec. 6)

God’s love is brilliantly revealed in Christ hanging on the cross. This love, this caritas, is a perfect unity of eros and agape. Rather than a divine discourse transmitted through a human messenger and written down, God gives us his Christ- his Son hanging alone on a cross. Furthermore, Jesus calls us to imitate him by taking up our cross and dying with him. But we do so in the confidence that as we die, like our Lord, we commend ourselves, again, as we did at our baptism, to the Father with trust and confidence that, in and through Christ, new life will come from our dying, a life without end.

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This Good Friday, I am particularly struck by the thought that a Christianity that is historically and philosophically unassailable is no Christianity at all.

Our traditio is Dan Schutte's lovely hymn "Behold the Wood of the Cross" in a very simple arrangement: