Holy Thursday Dessert

Those who know me well, and sadly, there are precious few who do, know that I take the liturgy very seriously. It makes present to us the reality of heaven and opens channels of grace. Our daily life and the liturgy of the Church form an organic feedback loop in which we are continually preparing to celebrate the liturgy and the liturgy enables us to live a Christian life.

It is with great expectations that I approach the high holy days of the Easter Triduum. The season of Lent builds toward the celebration of the Triduum. The technical term is the Principle of Progressive Solemnity. Every Sunday is an Easter celebration, but not every Sunday is equal in solemnity. Some are more solemn than others, and the most solemn of all is the celebration of the Easter Vigil. The three service of the Triduum, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, the Good Friday Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, and the Easter Vigil Mass combine to form a continuous liturgical celebration that spans three days.

Every year I enter the Triduum with great expectations, but I am a realist, and I have to steel myself for the almost inevitable disappointment that comes when the actual celebration of the liturgy is not everything that it could be. A very high standard was set by the parish to which we belonged when I was a naval officer stationed in Northern Virginia. The pastor of that parish has since moved on to another assignment, and I suspect that the liturgical excellence that we enjoyed during those years has moved on with him.

The Holy Thursday celebration, at least as I would like to see it celebrated, ends with the procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the church and to the altar of repose, typically in the sacristy. During the procession, the full Pange Lingua is sung, and the mass ends in silence, with the procession leaving the body of the church and the tabernacle standing empty. The altar of repose should remain available for several hours after mass for those who wish to pray before the sacramental presence of Our Lord. The symbolism is profound. After celebrating the Last Supper, Christ and his disciples have departed for the Garden of Gethsemane, where they will spend the night in prayer. We pick up the drama on Good Friday, when we commemorate the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Christ. Liturgically, Good Friday begins with the end of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday.

Being liturgically sensitive as I am, I find that celebrating fellowship with a dessert buffet following mass on Holy Thursday strikes a discordant note. As you might guess, I tend to avoid significant liturgical celebrations at my own parish.

I try to guard myself against being too puritanical, but I don’t want to lose or compromise my sense that the liturgy opens up spiritual realities. Whether the liturgy is well done or not, the reality remains. When well done, however, the liturgy teaches. When poorly done, the wrong lessons are learned.

I remain open to the argument that some form of fellowship celebration following the Holy Thursday mass is appropriate. Like most people, I am influenced by those that I respect, and so my eyebrows were raised when I read this from the funeral homily for Fr. Richard John Neuhaus:

The great Christian convivium on earth is the Last Supper. I remember being here at this parish for Holy Thursday in 1997, in my first year as a seminarian. Fr. Neuhaus celebrated the Mass together with his brother priests and then we all repaired to the rectory for a festive meal to celebrate the institution of the holy priesthood. It was only a few months after the celebrated FIRST THINGS symposium on the judicial usurpation of politics, and the priests were eager to ask the editor in chief all about it. Over drinks and then dinner, Richard put on a remarkable performance. Those who only heard him in the pulpit or read him in print missed perhaps his most gifted forum: the dinner table. He was a world-class convivialist.

After several hours, the dinner was sinding down and Richard had been the center of the entire evening. Nobody resented that, but Richard evidently thought that a Holy Thursday celebration of the priesthood should not be all about him. So he shifted to homiletic mode, and spoke of the wonder and awe in which he held the holy priesthood. More than ten years later I vividly remember his words as he recalled the Eucharistic procession to the altar of repose: "How utterly promiscuous is the love of God!" he began, using idiosyncratically another of his favorite words. Then he preached to us at the dinner table, using those cadences he long ago perfect at "St. John the Mundane" in inner-city Brooklyn: "The Son of the Eternal Father commends himself to our hands; the Word made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary commends himself to our hands, . . . the innocent Lamb who died for the redemption of the world, the Risen One who restores us all to life, . . . this same Jesus, my brothers, allowed me to carry him in my hands. How utterly promiscuous is the love of God!"

I imagine, however, that even a celebratory dinner with Fr. Neuhaus would have maintained a degree of solemnity that would have made it somewhat more appropriate to the occasion than a dessert buffet at which I would have no expectation of a homiletic expression of appreciation for the promiscuity of God's love.

Let Us Make Three Booths

In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI discusses two ways of looking at the Transfiguration of Christ on Mt. Tabor. The first, and the one that he clearly favors, is that the event occurs within the context of the calendar of Jewish festival. One suggestion is that Peter’s confession occurs on Yom Kippur, the feast of atonement, and that the Transfiguration occurs during Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, which follows five days later. Another suggestion is that the both events occur within the Feast of Tabernacles, which lasted an entire week. The Transfiguration would then occur on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, “which was both its high point and the synthesis of its inner meaning.”

Both interpretations have in common the idea that Jesus’ Transfiguration is linked with the Feast of Tabernacles. We will see that this connection actually comes to light in the text itself and that it makes possible a deeper understanding of the whole event. In addition to the specific elements of these accounts, we may observe here a fundamental trait of Jesus’ life, which receives particularly thorough treatment in John’s Gospel. As we saw in chapter 8, the great events of Jesus’ life are inwardly connected with the Jewish festival calendar. They are, as it were, liturgical events in which the liturgy, with its remembrance and expectation, becomes reality—becomes life. This life then leads back to the liturgy and from the liturgy seeks to become life again.

The Jewish liturgy saw its fulfillment in Christ. Our liturgy, makes present to us the actions of Christ. Liturgy is not just a memorial; it brings about a spiritual reality. The sacraments are not just symbols, they are efficacious signs.

To understand what happened at the Transfiguration, we need to understand the context of the events, which the Pope suggests is the Feast of Tabernacles. From Companion to the Calendar, A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar, on Sukkot, The Festival of Booths:

At Sukkot, people obey the biblical command to live for seven days in huts. Each family or congregation constructs a shelter, usually with wooden slats and boughs from trees. (In Hebrew, this is called a sukkah. The plural of sukkah is sukkot.) As they build and decorate these beautiful booths, the people recall the 40 years when the Jews, wandering in the desert, put together sukkot each evening. . . .

Jewish mystics taught that the ancestors, beginning with Sarah and Abraham, come to visit the sukkah each evening. According to tradition, the Messiah will come at Sukkot and welcome all creation into God’s sukkah.

So according to some Jewish mystics, the feast of booths would have a Messianic fulfillment. That gives some explanation to the seventh chapter of John’s Gospel, where Jesus is reluctant to attend the feast in Jerusalem because his time has not yet come. Being an observant Jew, however, he does go later, not publicly but in private. The events of John 7 probably take place a year or more before the Transfiguration. With the Transfiguration coming six days after Peter’s confession, his suggestion to build booths for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah makes some sense.

What is most interesting to me, however, is Benedict's assertion that the Jewish calendar and liturgy were pivotal in the events of the New Testament. Jesus completed his mission in a liturgical context. It is not unreasonable to assume that our mission as Christians also occurs within a liturgical context. The liturgy is not secondary; it is central. The liturgy is life!

Mortification at the Gym

Have you noticed a theme to the last few posts? Of course, if you don’t visit daily, then this would probably be the first of the series that you read. Whether you believe it or not, it wasn’t planned that way. It just kinda happened.

After professing my distaste for the self-flagellating kind of voluntary mortification, I have to admit that there is one form of it in which I engage. It’s something I call . . . running.

For some unknown reason, I have misleading memories about my running past. I seem to remember hitting the pavement as being liberating. There are times when I’ll be walking down an alley or a trail, and I’ll get the urge to run, as if I can bound through endless miles with long strides. When I try to do it, however, I’m quickly brought back to reality. Usually before I’ve even covered half a mile, I’m offering my self-induced suffering up to God on behalf of my children or the students in my confirmation class.

I don’t run because I want to suffer. I run for other reasons. The suffering is a side-effect that I try to put to good spiritual use.

There are other things, besides the suffering that accompanies the cardio portion of my workout that I find I can offer up this Lent. There are the annoyances in the weight room from other people who don’t return their weights to the rack. When a bar is loaded with weights, I typically have to assume the bar is in use by somebody super-setting the exercise with another exercise, unless I’m the only one in the weight room. I could just get really annoyed, but in the spirit of the season, I patiently made do with what was available and returned my weights to the rack when I was finished. Another practice that I suspect that I’m the only one engaging in is the praying of an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be between each set.

So maybe I am stretching the definition of mortification just a bit, but if I can’t exercise while I pray, at least I can pray while I exercise.

The Spirit of Mortification

Today’s selected passage from Divine Intimacy comes pretty close to my own thoughts about mortification and penitential suffering, but says it so much better than I can.

The true spirit of mortification embraces, in the first place, all the occasions for physical or moral suffering permitted by divine Providence. The sufferings attendant on illness or fatigue; the efforts required by the performance of our duties or by a life of intense labor; the privation imposed by the state of poverty—all are excellent physical penances. If we sincerely desire to be guided by divine Providence in everything, we will not try to avoid them, or even to lighten them, but will accept wholeheartedly whatever God offers us. It would be absurd to refuse a single on of those providential opportunities for suffering and to look for voluntary mortifications or our own choice. Likewise, it would be foolish for those in religious life to omit the least exercise imposed by the Rule in order to do a penance of their own choosing.

I might quibble with the part about not avoiding or lightening the opportunities for suffering that God sends our way. If there is an easier way to do a job, it seems a little silly not to seek the most efficient way, all other things being equal. Likewise, if I’m hiking on a path, and I come to a spot where the path is deep mud all the way across, but I can easily circumvent the mud, it seems foolish to go through the mud.

Mortification

I’ve revised my daily spiritual diet now that we’re in Lent. I’m trying to incorporate a daily meditation from Divine Intimacy. The book is a collection of daily meditations based on the old Church year, so I get to have some fun trying to line up the old calendar with the new (current) calendar. It will get really fun in the middle of summer when I have to convert the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time into the 8th Sunday after Pentecost. Some of the meditations make reference to the mass readings for the day, but the Lectionary was revised with the calendar.

The meditations are distinctly Carmelite in flavor. I used to think that I could be a Carmelite, but now I’m not so sure. My understanding is that Carmelites are big on mortification. I can embrace the redemptive value of suffering, but I balk at the idea of voluntary, unnecessary suffering. I like to think that if I ever end up in a hospital with a serious injury, that I will forego the morphine drip and embrace the pain, but I have a sneaky suspicion that if the time ever comes, I’ll end up embracing the drip instead of the suffering. The engineer in me imagines my self as an excited atom, shedding gamma rays of lost grace as my spiritual electrons seek their lowest energy state. At this point, my wife is surely rolling her eyes.

It is not that I don’t see the value of mortification, just that I don’t seem to be able to do it. From today’s meditation:

After the Incarnation, the Cross of Jesus is the greatest proof of His love for man. Similarly, mortification, which is suffering eagerly accepted for the love of God, is one of the greatest proofs of love that we can give Him. It means freely giving up a satisfaction or a pleasure in order to impose on ourselves, for love of God, something which is contrary to our own natural inclination; we thus prove that we prefer to satisfy God rather than ourselves. Every act of voluntary mortification, whether physical or moral, says to God, “Lord, I love You more than myself!” And since a soul in love has an ardent desire to give proof of its love, it is very vigilant not to miss a single opportunity for renunciation.

As always, love is the key that unlocks all of the spiritual treasures. Today’s mass reading from Isaiah reminds us that fasting and penance, in and of themselves, merit nothing if our hearts remain hardened. It is not magical. If we fast because we think that God will reward us, we do it for the wrong reason. What God desires from us is love. It doesn’t matter what pious deeds we perform, if we don’t love our neighbors. Pious devotions and practices (and yes, fasting) help us to empty ourselves and place the focus of our attention on God.

Grrr. I started out by writing about how mortification and fasting aren’t my cup of tea, and then I end up praising the practice. It’s almost as if I’m trying to argue myself into a deeper commitment. . . .

Why I Joined

The news came out last week that the founder of the Legionaries of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement was not as saintly as the members of the order and the movement had been led to believe. There were some who wondered, in the wake of the discovery, what led people to join the Regnum Christi movement. I incorporated into the movement in 2001. I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but I’d like to share my reasons for joining.

The short answer to the question “Why did you join Regnum Christi?” is that it was the best of the alternatives available. There are three points that were important in my decision to join. First, there is a universal call to holiness. Holiness is not just for priests, nuns, and saints; every follower of Christ is called to strive for holiness. Second, doctrine and dogma are not incidental, but form the backbone of faith. There are a variety of competing doctrines within Christianity. Only the Catholic Church can claim the authority to distinguish the truth between competing doctrines. Third, all followers of Christ are called to the apostolate. Christ himself commissioned his followers to make disciples of all nations. Thus, we are called to share our faith with others.

When considering how to pursue holiness, I knew that the saints would provide good examples, and I found that the daily and weekly commitments for members of the Regnum Christi movement were tested and proven methods to achieve spiritual growth: Eucharistic adoration, Marian devotions such as the Rosary and the Angelus, frequent sacramental confession, weekday mass attendance, meditation on the scriptures, etc. I recognized, from the reading that I had done, that what the movement expected of its members was good and that it would draw a soul closer to Christ, as long as they were viewed not as burdensome duties but as acts of love.

The members of Regnum Christi are thoroughly Catholic. They love the Church and the Pope as the Vicar of Christ. When attending a mass celebrated by a Legionary priest, the reverence for the Blessed Sacrament and the care to perform the rite with fidelity is evident.

Finally, Regnum Christi members are typically very active Catholics. The RC members that I knew were active in the parish. In addition, they were involved in other programs that reached out to Catholics with the teachings of the Church, helping them to apply those teachings in their daily life.

There was no other group doing these things. There were no parish groups promoting a universal call to holiness. Individual Catholics were on their own to come up with their own plan for spiritual development, and there was no real encouragement to accept the challenge. There were some other groups, mostly farther away, that emphasized different aspects of spirituality, but many of them seemed passive or contemplative (almost feminine), rather than the active model presented by RC.

There were aspects of Regnum Christi that didn’t fit perfectly with my spiritual goals and needs, but the overlap was significant enough that I could overlook the rest. As I stated earlier, I became a member of Regnum Christi in 2001, and I have benefited from that decision. There have been and are aspects of the movement that I have not fully embraced, and given the new revelations about the life of the founder, I don’t know that I ever will. My goal continues to be to grow in holiness with fidelity to the Church, and I continue to discern whether the Movement to which I belong is the best way to achieve that goal.

Then They Will Fast

In today’s gospel, Jesus drops the four-letter F-bomb. At least that’s how it’s always been to me. As long as I can remember, I’ve approached fasting with fear and trembling. When I was just a little younger, I would get physically sick, with severe headaches and nausea (try that on an empty stomach). I did not look forward to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, even though the fast required by the Church (only one meal and up to two snacks) is extremely lenient. I don’t know whether my reaction was real or psychological, but it bothered me, because I suspected that it was a symptom of my refusal to enter more deeply into the spiritual life.

For the last eight years, I’ve carried a notecard in my Bible with passages that reference fasting. Every time that I’ve seen that notecard, a voice in my mind has whispered to me that I couldn’t do it. I’d get sick. My metabolism would slow down, and I’d gain weight. For at least eight years, I’ve been making excuses.

If we look to Jesus himself as an example, we see that after his baptism by John, he was driven by the Spirit into the desert, where he fasted for 40 days (Matthew 4:1-2). The question of the Pharisees and the disciples of John in Mark 2:18-20 seem to indicate that Jesus and his followers do not fast, but the answer that Jesus gives implies that his followers do not fast now, but will later. The acceptance of fasting by Jesus of fasting is reinforced in Mark 9:27-29 (see the footnote) when Jesus tells his followers that some demons can only be driven out by prayer and fasting and in Matthew 6:16-18, when Jesus gives direction on how to fast. Note that he does not say “if you fast” but “when you fast.”

There is, of course, also precedent for fasting in the Old Testament. The repentance of Ninevah in Jonah 3:6-9 included a fast. Elijah fasted for forty days before encountering the Lord in 1 Kings 19:8. And there is the passage from Isaiah 58:3-14, where God says that the fast that he really desires is a fast of mercy and charity.

I know that fasting doesn’t have to be from food, although that certainly appears to be the norm. I also know that fasting can come in degrees, falling anywhere from changing the mid-morning snack to something a little less desirable to consuming only liquids for forty days (I’ve been on a liquid diet following my jaw surgery; it is not fun). There are a number of spiritual reasons that asceticism is beneficial, among them the idea that one is disciplining the will. A comment of Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has always stuck with me: “Unless you can say no, you can’t truly say yes.” He was speaking in the context of sexual urges, but it’s equally true with respect to any appetite. Unless a person can say no to the natural desires of the will, he cannot exercise true freedom, and in the absence of true freedom, he cannot give his full consent to Christ.

What prompted all of this eight years ago was a passage from a sermon by St. Peter Chrysologus, featured in the Office of Readings for Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent: Prayer Knocks, Fasting Obtains, Mercy Receives.

Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to other you open God's ear to yourself.

Does that mean that I’ve been withholding something of myself for the last eight years? I hope not! But, at the same time, I suspect so.

In Need of Grace

My daily routine lately has consisted of saying Morning Prayer (Lauds) immediately on rising from bed. After that, I'll prepare my breakfast and slide over to the computer for my morning meditation. I get the meditations e-mailed to me, but they're also available online.

Each meditation includes a reading of the day's gospel, an introductory prayer and pledge, and then two or three points for meditation. The meditation concludes with a prayer of conversation with Christ and a resolution for the day.

I admit that I haven't been very good at keeping the resolutions -- just one of the many things that I have to work on. Today's resolution was "I will make a sacrifice today for the person most in need of God’s grace." When I read that, my mind started leaping to people that I thought needed God's grace, mainly because they didn't see things the way that I see them.

It didn't take me long to correct myself. Who is most in need of God's grace? That'd be me.

Praying for the President

Part of ritual of night prayers with the kids involves a litany of people for whom we ask God's blessing. We pray for our pastor, and our neighbor with cancer, and our President. I've thought a bit about whether we should ask for God to bless President Obama, given his apparent commitment to extending an unlimited "right" to abortion. I've concluded that we will continue to pray for our President after January 20.

I think that Russell Shaw put it pretty well in a recent column, which he begins by likening to the just completed season of the Washington Redskins football team:

Like Obama, moral conservatives also need to learn a lesson from football: Don't let your guard down on abortion with this administration or they'll probably go for the bomb. Hope and pray President Obama succeeds on many things. Hope and pray he fails on this. Work hard to bring that about.

Let us all pray that God's hand will guide the actions of our incoming President.

St. Paul, pray for us.

Direct Dial, Part II

My wife, like most wives, I suspect, has a way of correcting me when I take things to excess. The other day we were talking, and she noted that I've been a little critical in some of my recent blog posts. She's right, of course. I jumped into the blogosphere about two months ago, and found an echo chamber for some of my opinions regarding the liturgy and traditional Catholic pieties. I can be as pharisaical as anybody, and I find that I have to guard against such tendencies. Sometimes I slip.

So, I'd like to back up and revisit my post on "direct dialing" and the honor that we give to Mary and the saints.

We can, of course, misplace our devotion to Mary. Our Blessed Mother should always lead us to her Son, as at Cana where she said, "Do whatever he tells you (John 2:5)." Mary is not an end, in and of herself; she is a path to Jesus. I recall growing uncomfortable in a Rosary cenacle where the prescribed prayer was one in which we prayed to Jesus to make us worthy of His Mother. It seemed to be placing the cart ahead of the horse.

Then there is Luke 11:27-28.

As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!" But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

The Church doesn't see any contradiction here between reverence for Mary and obedience to Christ, for Mary heard the word of God and kept it better than anyone. We should honor Mary for her spiritual gifts, rather than for her merely physical role. So, I admit being a little confused when the Antiphon for the Canticle of Mary for Evening Prayer II (from the Liturgy of the Hours) on January 1 reads:

Blessed is the womb which bore you, O Christ, and the breast that nursed you, Lord and Savior of the world, alleluia.

Or the hymn selection of Virigin-Born, We Bow Before You, with these lyrics:

Virgin-born, we bow before you;
Blessed was the womb that bore you:

Although confusing, the source is authoritative, "approved for use by the Dioceses of the United States of Americvan by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and Confirmed by the Apostolic See."

As for direct prayer to God, it's simply not accurate to think that those with a devotion to Mary or the saints do not also pray directly to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's one of those cases where there is no dichotomy; it's a both/and rather than an either/or. We could, I think, turn the question around to those who profess that they have no need for the intercession of the saints because they dial direct. Do they pray directly to God present in the Eucharist? Do they take time to fall on their knees in adoration before the tabernacle or the exposed Sacrament?

I fear that I'm starting to get a little judgmental again. Yes, there are some cautions that accompany devotion to Mary and the saints, and they deserve to be recognized. And praying directly to God is a good and necessary thing. Marian devotion does not exclude this. If anything, true devotion to Mary facilitates it. To those who pride themselves on being direct dialers, I would extend an invitation to let Mary be your guide, for she always points the way toward her Son.

The Weakness of Christ

My wife and I took our family to mass on Christmas morning, and the opening prayer (the same as for Evening Prayer II on Christmas Day) made me think.

Lord God,
we praise you for creating man,
and still more for restoring him in Christ.
Your Son shared our weakness:
may we share his glory,
for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

That phrase "your Son shared our weakness" struck something within me. I know that Jesus was fully human, like us in all things but sin. But when I think of our greatest weakness, it is a result of original sin. We struggle with concupiscence, the disordered appetites that produce in us an inclination to sin. Surely, I thought, Christ didn't have any disordered appetites. I've wondered before about whether Mary, immaculately conceived, was born with concupiscence. Baptism obviously does not remove the effects of original sin, but the sinlessness of Jesus and Mary were, it seems, quite different from baptism. Mary was, for instance, able to remain a virgin even in giving birth to Jesus.

In thinking about this over the last week, I've concluded that, in order to undo the sin of Adam and redeem mankind, he would have to assume our fallen nature. That means that his human nature would have had all of the effects of Adam's original sin. Christ however, was able to align his fallen human nature and his human will with his divine will. And that gives some hope to the rest of us that, with God's grace, we too can overcome our weakness, and share in His glory.

The Babe in Bethlehem

I have a sister in the Dayton area who, for the last several years, around Thanksgiving, has given me a copy of At Home with the Word for the coming year. It's nice to have all of the readings for Sundays and holy days collected in one place, and occasionally I'll read something in the commentary that sparks a thought. And so it was today, on the Feast of the Holy Family, that I read this:

Imagine yourself holding Mary's infant. Look at his tiny hands, his mouth, his sleeping face.

For some reason, when I usually imagine the scene at Bethlehem, the baby Jesus is not a newborn, but a child of several months. Perhaps it's the effect of all those nativity scenes where the statue of the infant is holding out his arms and smiling.

Newborns don't do that. Newborns are tiny and helpless, totally dependent upon others to care for them. It staggers the mind to think that God the Son, in becoming incarnate, made himself totally helpless and dependent upon Mary and Joseph. Perhaps that is why he was born in such humble and inconspicuous circumstances, with the glorious news announced not to the learned or to the masses, but to the shepherds in the fields with their flocks.

Of course, Mary and Joseph did care for the child. Joseph might have needed a little prompting from the angels to take Mary as his wife and to lead the Holy Family into exile in Egypt. But upon receiving the messages from the angels, he promptly acted in faith upon what had been revealed to him.

On this Feast of the Holy Family, let us all emulate Mary and Joseph in responding to God's revelation. Mary and Joseph, pray for us. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

No Room in the Inn

From Fulton J. Sheen:

Mary is now with child, awaiting birth, and Joseph is full of expectancy as he enters the city of his own family. He searched for a place for the birth of him to whom heaven and earth belonged. Could it be that the Creator would not find room in his own creation?

Certainly, thought Joseph, there would be room in the village inn. There was room for the rich; there was room for those who were clothed in soft garments. . . . But when finally the scrolls of history are completed down to the last word of time, the saddest lines of all will be: There was no room in the inn.” No room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. The inn was the gathering place of public opinion, the focal point of the world’s moods, the rendezvous of the worldly, the rallying place of the popular and the successful. But there’s no room in the place where the world gathers. The stable is a place for outcasts, the ignored and the forgotten. The world might have expected the Son of God to be born in an inn; a stable would certainly be the last place in the world where one would look for him. The lesson is: divinity is always where you least expect to find it. So the Son of God-Made-Man is invited to enter into his own world through a back door.

New Year's Day, 1998

On the evening of New Year’s Day, 1998, I was driving my family to our new home from my in-laws house. We had just moved back to the area from Virginia, and we had to drive about 20 miles to get home.

As I drove west along the state route, we hit a patch of ice. Maybe a gust of wind caught the van, but for whatever reason, the front of our Aerostar van pulled left and would not respond to steering. I remember thinking, as we slid down the road sideways, that if we were to suddenly hit dry pavement, we would probably flip and roll.

We continued to spin and ended up in a field. The van was still upright, and everyone was OK. The road was empty when we spun across the eastbound lane and off the south side of the road. We were able to drive out of the field, back onto the road, and continue on to our home. There was no apparent damage, other than to our nerves.

The next day, we drove back along the same state route, trying to identify where we had gone off the road. We couldn’t tell, and for much of that stretch of road there was either a ditch or a fence along the south side. We could say that we dodged a bullet, or we could say that our guardian angels were working overtime that night. Or we could say that God was trying to send us a wake-up call.

We cannot know in this life why some are spared and some are not. All that we can do is accept the situation for what it is and try to learn from it. I believe that God communicates with us through the events of our lives. If we can recognize the moments of actual grace for what they are, then we can learn something about where God is leading us, and what his plan for us might be. Our faith helps us to contextualize the mysteries of life.

God allows bad things to happen so that a greater good can come from it. We have to trust him, even when we do not and cannot understand his reasons.

Every Death Is A Learning Experience

Sometimes two or more separate events come together to shed a ray of insight into an existence that is otherwise like looking through a clouded window.

Item 1: In Battlestar Galactica, when a Cylon dies, they are reborn on a resurrection ship, if one is within range. In an episode (I forget which one) a couple of years ago, one of the Cylons stated that every death is a learning experience.

Item 2: An accident on Tuesday claims the lives of three coworkers.

Item 3: At a Christmas party on Saturday, I was talking with one of my nephews about things that his dad would get really upset about if he ever caught him doing. One of my wife’s uncles commented that it meant his dad had probably done those things and learned his lessons from them, to which I commented that it is always better to learn from the mistakes of others than to make those same mistakes yourself.

Suddenly, a silver thread ties the three together. Every death is a learning experience, but it isn’t our death from which we learn. Every person we know that dies leaves something behind. There is always a lesson to be learned, either in how that person lived his life and affected those around him, or in how I interacted with that person. Every death can tell me something about how I should live, and I’m much better off if I learn those lessons from others before I have to face it personally.

Be Watchful! Be Alert!

Earlier this week, I arrived at work to learn that three of my coworkers had died in an automobile accident, and two others were in the hospital. The van they were traveling in left the road in icy conditions, turned on its side, slid across the median, and was hit by a semi trailer traveling in the opposite direction. Along with everyone else in the office, I was filled with shock.

We are told throughout Advent that the coming or our Lord is immanent. In the first week of Advent, we were told by Christ himself, “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come. . . What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’ (Mark 13:33-37)” The message seems obvious; we must always be ready to face our judgment.

The three men who died illustrated that point perfectly. One was a 61 year old grandfather nearing the end of his career and looking forward to retirement. One was a 45 year old man in the middle of his career. The third was a young man of 23 years, just out of college and beginning his career. None of the three expected their life to end on Tuesday. I can only pray that when death came, they were ready.

And, I can only pray that I will be ready, should my death come unannounced. I know that there are things I can do to prepare myself. In modern parlance, I must keep my fundamental option properly directed toward God. Love is central to that – love of God and love of neighbor.

Confession - the Video

I saw this over at Catholic Exchange. Narrated by Dr. Ray Guarendi, it goes well with two earlier posts from this week. There's still one more parish reconciliation service this week in our area - tonight at St. Michael.

The Confession Line

Amy and I decided to go to confession before mass at Maria Stein Center on Saturday. Mass is at 11:30, and the celebrating priest normally starts hearing confessions at 11:00. The last time we went, there were only two people in line at 11:00, so we figured that if we got there by 10:55, we should be fine.

When we arrived, we found the line for confessions was pouring out of the waiting room and into the hallway. Amy asked me if I wanted to get in line, and I said no, there are too many penitents to get through before mass. So we took are seat and joined in saying the rosary before mass. At about 11:15, Amy looked back and said to me, "The line's about half down, do you want to go get in line?" I glanced back and saw that the line now ended at the doorway to the waiting room. I shook my head no; there were still too many to get through before mass.

Now that I think about, she seemed awfully anxious to get me into that confessional line. I wonder why?

About 11:25, a bunch of people started taking seats in the chapel. "Must be all the people who didn't get through line," I thought to myself. Mass started, as normal, at 11:30. After mass, the celebrant said that, since he was retired and didn't have anywhere that he needed to be, he would hear the confessions of those who didn't get to go before mass. "I think there were five," he added.

By the time Amy and I got in line, there were at least 15 of us. I know that sin doesn't just happen before or during Advent and Lent, but I am grateful that at least people become more aware of their need to reconcile with God during these seasons of preparation.

Ten Reasons for Confession

With all the parish penance services going on this week, I thought it would be a good time to list my ten reasons to go to confession.

1. It's God's plan. Christ explicitly gave his apostles authority not only to forgive sins, but to retain them. "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained (John 20:23)." So if this is the way that God set it up, who are we to try something different?
2. Tradition! We've been doing it this way for how many hundreds of years? Are we really so arrogant as to think that we've got a better way?
3. Assurance. When you go to confession, you hear the words "I absolve you" coming from the priest, acting in the person of Christ. I know that my sins are forgiven (as long as I haven't intentionally withheld anything).
4. The New Shoes Effect. Do you remember when you were a kid, and you got a new pair of shoes? Not only did it seem like I could run faster and jump higher, I also wanted to keep those shoes scuff-free for as long as I could. While I wouldn't have thought twice about walking through mud with my old shoes, I wanted to keep the new shoes clean. If you don't like the shoes analogy, you can substitute carpet. After you get the carpet cleaned, you don't let the kids eat or drink in the family room, at least for a while.
5. It's not too easy. If forgiveness comes too easily, there's no incentive to change the behavior. Confession takes a little effort (but not too much).
6. It's an antidote for pride. Going to confession takes humility. You usually stand in line to accuse yourself before God. And for those of us who seem to confess the same sins, it takes extra humility to admit that we keep falling into the same traps.
7. It's an opportunity for Spiritual Direction. You confess your sins and the circumstances and, if the priest isn't in too much of a hurry, he'll take some time to counsel you on how you might avoid those sins in the future.
8. Penance. As strange as it may sound, being required to do something in atonement for your transgressions makes the whole experience more meaningful. Most penances are really quite minor (e.g., three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys), but sometimes the penance is custom fit to the sins committed.
9. Sacramental Grace. Confession is a sacrament. A sacrament is a sign instituted by Christ to confer grace. Every sacrament gives us grace, a share in the divine life. Therefore, confession draws us into a closer relationship with God.
10. Requires an Examination of Conscience. Every time we go to confession, we examine our conscience. We look back at how we've lived our life since our last confession, and we pick out the ways in which we've failed to live according to our calling as followers of Christ. Only by examining how and why we are falling short of the ideal can we hope to get any closer to the ideal.

The Population of Hell

I learned on Friday that Avery Cardinal Dulles had died. I knew that his health was failing, but I was still a little surprised by the news. The Catholic Church in America has lost an exemplary theologian. Dulles was named a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II. I am not aware of any other current cardinal who was not a bishop.

I had been thinking of Dulles lately because of an article, The Population of Hell, that he wrote for the May 2003 issue of First Things. At our Saturday morning discussion a few weeks ago, we were discussing the parable of the sheep and the goats. One man among us confessed that he had a hard time believing that a merciful god would condemn any soul to an eternity of torment in hell. The only souls in hell would be those who choose to go to there. The obvious question would be how that choice is made: is it made during one’s lifetime in whether or not to love one’s neighbors, or is it an explicit choice made at the moment of, or even after the moment of, death? I happen to believe that you get to make the choice before death, and once you die, the choice has already been made.

In his essay, Dulles noted that there are two ultimate possibilities after death: everlasting happiness with God or everlasting torment without God. He then lays out the biblical evidence, noting the Gospel passages where Christ refers to hell, even suggesting that Judas is in hell, and the passages from St. Paul that indicate a division between those who are saved and those who are perishing. He notes that God’s desire is clearly for universal salvation, but that He will not override man’s free will.

Dulles then recounts how the continuous teaching of the Catholic Church supports the division of humanity into the saved and the damned. The Church continues to teach that everyone who dies in a state of mortal sin goes to hell. Relative numbers between the saved and the damned, however, are not treated in any Church documents. Many saints and doctors of the Church were convinced that most of the human race is lost.

There is a break with tradition in the middle of the twentieth century. Jacques Maritain, in a conjectural essay published after his death, contemplated that possibility that the damned escape the punishments of hell through the prayers of the saints and spend eternity not in hell or heaven, but in limbo. Karl Rahner argued that universal salvation was possible, if the Gospel passages in which Jesus refers to hell are read as admonitory (what could happen) rather than predictive (what will happen). Hans Urs von Balthazar argued that Christians have the right and the duty to hope for the salvation of all.

The traditional interpretation by the Church has been that explicit faith, reception of the sacraments (especially baptism), and obedience to the Church are the ordinary means through which men are saved. Vatican II softened the stance by noting that even those who are ignorant of Christ are given sufficient grace to make salvation possible, while still asserting that any who reject the Church, knowing that it is the ordinary means of salvation, cannot be saved. Dulles notes, “If we accept these teachings, we will find it unlikely that everyone fulfills the conditions for salvation.”

Dulles summarizes:

Today a kind of thoughtless optimism is the more prevalent error. Quite apart from what theologians teach, popular piety has become saccharine. Unable to grasp the rationale for eternal punishment, many Christians take it almost for granted that everyone, or practically everyone, must be saved. . . The search for numbers in the demography of hell is futile. God in His wisdom has seen fit not to disclose any statistics. . . .

All told, it is good that God has left us without exact information. If we knew that virtually everybody would be damned, we would be tempted to despair. If we knew that all, or nearly all, are saved, we might become presumptuous. If we knew that some fixed percent, say fifty, would be saved, we would be caught in an unholy rivalry. We would rejoice in every sign that others were among the lost, since our own chances of election would thereby be increased. Such a competitive spirit would hardly be compatible with the gospel. . . .

His conclusion seems to be that it's acceptably orthodox to hope for the salvation of all. This is after all, the will of God. However, it is also clear that we cannot accept universal salvation as a revealed doctrine. To the contrary, the evidence appears to support the contrary argument. We can hope that hell is empty, but it most likely is well populated.