Cardinal George & Christian Hope

    Cardinal Francis George, one of the outstanding American churchmen of recent years, passed away last week.  Many commentaries I have seen in the Catholic press and blogosphere have, understandably, highlighted the following quote:

I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.  His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.

Cardinal Francis George

     The first part of the quote has generated the most attention.  Some people have dismissed it as overblown or sensationalistic, but I’m not so sure.  George Washington and John Adams warned that a people not grounded in the practice of religion and morality would be unable to maintain a republic as free citizens; our current age seems determined to put that assertion to the test and, quite frankly, the preliminary results are not promising.  And while we here in the U.S. are not facing the sort of violent persecution that our Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world must endure, things have nonetheless reached a point that would have seemed unthinkable just a couple of decades ago, when anyone who suggested that American Christians might be forced to lose their jobs and businesses simply for living according to their faith would have been dismissed as a hopeless crank.

     The second part, about a successor who will “pick up the shards” and “help rebuild civilization”, has received a lot less attention, but is, I think, the more important part, the point of the quote.  After all, it is always difficult to be a committed and consistent Christian, even in an age when “everyone else” supposedly is a believer as well.  There is no shortage of saints who gave their lives because their insistence on taking the faith seriously led to conflict with their Christian monarchs (think of Thomas Becket and Thomas More), or even Christian neighbors.  One doesn’t need the gift of prophecy to see our society becoming increasingly hostile, nor is there any reason to believe that the trend is changing in the near future.  It seems to me that Cardinal George is pointing beyond our current troubles, or even worse ones that may come, to Christ’s promise that the Gates of Death will not prevail against his Church (Matthew 16:18), just as she survived the fall of Rome in the first millennium and and the heavy boot of communism in the second, in each case preserving essential elements of the society that existed before the cataclysm.  And of course the assured survival of his Church in this world is itself a sign pointing to the greatest victory of all, Christ coming again in glory at the end of time.  The assurance of that Triumph is the ground of our Hope as Christians.
      By placing today's sufferings in the context of our final destination, Cardinal George calls to mind what St. Peter said to the first generation of Christians:

Be sober, be watchful.  Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of you brotherhood throughout the world.  And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. (1 Peter 5:8-11)

     I have seen a few people proposing Cardinal George as an intercessor for persecuted Christians, and (not that I'm proposing his immediate canonization) we all could use such an intercessor, both for those of us in the West suffering what is now a fairly mild but still real threat of persecution, and those believers in other parts of the world suffering a persecution as brutal and diabolical as any unleashed on the Church since the time of Christ.  I would add something else: since in the quote above and other statements (see here, for instance, from Elizabeth Scalia’s blog, comparing the successors of the Caesars to the successors of St. Peter), Cardinal George made a point of situating persecution in the context of the ultimate victory of Christ, perhaps,  we should also see him as a Patron of Christian Hope.

This Week’s Links

I’ve grown accustomed to posting a weekly digest of posts every Sunday, but I’m having a hard time coming up with a clever, snappy name for it.  Well, no matter, here’s what I posted over the past week (with a couple of bonus days):

“Morality and Poverty” There once was a left-wing rabble-rousing magazine that published an article detailing how immoral and irresponsible behavior exacerbated the problems of the poor, and how government programs incentivized said behavior . . . neither of which follows the part line.   

“Is The Church A Political Animal?” There’s politics, and then there’s  Politics.  If you think the Church is just another political party, you need to check in with Prof. Ratzinger. 

“Eucharistic Adoration: sitting at the Feet of the Lord”  A quick meditation on why Adoration is good for us and our Church. 

“Mozart, Herbert, John The Baptist, and Why We Can’t BeAngels” An eighteenth century composer, a seventeenth century poet, and a first century prophet walk into a bar . . . o.k., not really, but they do join me in a discussion of why what (if anything) angels wear doesn’t matter, but it does for us humans 

“Abortion Myth #10” Believe it or not, so-called “counselors” at abortion clinics still tell desperate pregnant women that the child growing inside them is no more than a “clump of cells”, to be disposed of at will. Here’s a quick run-down of some counter-arguments  

“Our Eternal Destiny: Armed Robbery, or a Warm Place By The Fire?” According to some atheists, our view of salvation makes God look like an armed robber   

Finally, a couple of beautiful, joful music clips for the Easter Season: “J.S. Bach – Sinfonia, Oratorio” & “King’s College Choir –Thine Be The Glory (Haendel)” 

J.S. Bach - Sinfonia, Oratorio

Here's some joyful music for the Easter Season, the Sinfonia from J.S. Bach's Easter Oratorio.
The Lord is Risen, alleluia, alleluia!

Mozart, Herbert, John the Baptist, and Why We Can't Be Angels

All in the Head

     The great composer W.A. Mozart (who, I must admit, has made more than one appearance on this blog) is reported to have said that “Protestantism was all in the head”, and that “Protestants did not know the meaning of the Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi [Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world]”.  I would not put it so harshly, but with all due respect to my friends among the separated brethren, there is at least an element of truth to this observation.   Protestantism on the whole is very uncomfortable with the corporeality of more traditional expressions of Christianity, starting with the Protestant rejection of the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the efficacy of sacraments in general, and carrying that same mind-set through to a suspicion of any physical expression of faith apart from the Scriptures themselves (and, in some congregations, speaking in tongues).  As a consequence, the Sign of the Cross, genuflection, rosaries, icons and statues all seem foreign to them. It almost appears that many of our Protestant friends, relying on Sola Scriptura and focusing on just The Word, are trying to uncarnate (so to speak) the Word made Flesh.

Sure, they may not look naked . . . 

     Many of them, but by no means all: there have always been some members of the reformation churches who understand and embrace the sacramental outlook that has been preserved in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.  One such is the 17^th century English religious poet George Herbert.  Herbert was an Anglican cleric in addition to being a poet, and so he devoted a portion of his poetry to defending his church.  Being an Anglican, he directed some of his fire at the Catholic Church, as one would expect, mostly criticism of the papacy and what he considered a certain superficiality (needless to say, I don’t concur in these objections).  He reserves his harshest and most substantive criticism, however, for the protestant Puritans, whom he accuses in his poem “The British Church” of being “undrest”.  

Naked Puritans?

     Nakedness is not something most of us associate with Puritanism; what is Herbert getting at? One needs to look at his Latin poetry (which is, unfortunately, rarely read today) to get the full context for this criticism.  The Puritans, according to Herbert, miss the importance and implications of the Incarnation.  In his poem “In Angelos” (“On the Angels”) he says:

The perfected mind of Angels is not like ours at all,

            Which must by nature look to our senses

            For concrete images . . .

If it weren’t for concrete things,

we ourselves could not by thinking find

            what we are in ourselves.

            Intellectus adultus Angelorum

            Haud nostro similis, cui necesse,

            Ut dentur species, rogare sensum . . .

            Si non per species, nequimus ipsi,

            Quid ipsi sumus, assequi putando.

While Angels are pure intellect, we mortals must rely on sense experiences to attain knowledge.  That, it follows, is one reason at least why God became Man, and why he continues to speak to us through Sacraments, sacramentals, liturgies, devotions, etc.  The Puritans, however, have lost this vital understanding.  In “De Rituum Usu” (“On the Use of Rites”) Herbert says:

            And so the Puritans, while they are covetous of a

            Lord’s bride bare of sacred rites, and while they wish

            All things regressed to their fathers’ barbaric state,

            Lay her, entirely ignorant of clothing, bare to conquest

            By Satan and her enemies.

            Non alio Cathari modo

            Dom sponsam Domini piis

            Orbam ritibus expetunt,

            Atque ad barbariem partum

            Vellent Omnia regredi,

            Illam tegminis insciam

            Prorsus Daemoni et hostibus

            Exponunt superabilem.

Herbert uses clothing to represent liturgical rites, which are the concrete channels of God’s grace.  By doing away with such outward signs, the Puritans are aspiring to an Angelic state of understanding and failing to take into account our human limitations.  In denying our physicality, the Puritans have actually eliminated the means of achieving spiritual understanding.

The clothes don’t make the man, but . . .

John the Baptist, dressed for Prophecy

     I don’t believe that Herbert’s choice of symbol was lightly made.  He was fully committed to a very catholic version of Anglicanism. The fact is that clothing has important, often unconscious, symbolic meanings for people in every time and place (consider all the various uniforms, traditional attires, kinds of ritual or formal wear, etc. throughout the world), but especially for Catholic Christians because of our sacramental view of the universe.  Think back also through scripture to how often clothing is mentioned prominently: not just those first primitive garments worn by Adam and Eve that were the outward sign of their fall from grace, but Joseph’s coat that became a focus of his brothers’ jealousy, the special garments God commands the Aaronic priests to wear (which King David puts on to dance in front of the Arc of the Covenant), Jesus’ seamless garment for which his executioners cast dice, John the Baptist’s clothing of camel’s hair and skins.

     Speaking of John the Baptist, he is an interesting case. One reader of my recent post on Mass attire [here] asserted that God must not care how we dress, citing John the Baptist’s less-than-formal clothing in the desert as proof. It may not seem so at first glance, but John the Baptist is in fact not a refutation, but a very good illustration of the deep significance of dress. He was very aware of his appearance.  Like the Old Testament prophets, he carefully chose his dress and actions in order to represent spiritual truths in the physical realm (this is also at least part of the reason for the habits worn by religious orders, which another commenter mentioned).  By dressing like the Prophet Elijah (see 2 Kings 1:8) John asserts his prophetic authority, and the austerity of his apparel is a rebuke to the extravagance of the Temple priests and the legalism of the Pharisees.  If only we were all as conscious of our dress as John the Baptist was of his!

You mean it’s not all about what I want?

     For me, that earlier discussion of how we dress for Mass should be situated in the larger context of the sacramental view of the universe.  Catholics and Orthodox Christians are particularly aware of the deeper meaning of clothing, even when we resist it. Our tradition helps us to understand that how we dress for Mass is not important for its own sake (except, as I point out in the original post, in cases such as when one person’s provocative dress, for instance, is a temptation to others to violate the sixth commandment in their hearts) so much as for what it says about the importance we place on the Sacrament, and an expression of our love for Jesus Christ.  We used to know a family in which the father drove a delivery truck for a living; he was required to wear a company uniform on the job, and his work schedule was such that he could not attend Mass with his family unless he came straight from the job without changing, so he attended Sunday Mass in his worn blue coveralls.  I am sure that very few of us would find fault with his attire; in fact, we would see his determination to be present as the spiritual head of his family as an exemplary thing.  It’s a very different matter when we show up for Mass dressed for a barbeque or the beach simply because we didn’t bother to put on something more formal (and perhaps a little less comfortable), which sends the message that attending Mass is nothing special.

     How does all of this fit together?  I think we all have a tendency to get stuck in our own heads, as Mozart accuses the Protestants of doing, and Herbert likewise accuses the Puritans.  We don’t open ourselves up to God’s Grace as he wants to confer it, but try to put everything in neat categories of our own devising.  One purpose of many spiritual disciplines, including fasting and other mortifications, and of liturgical prayer such as the Liturgy of the Hours, has been to take our focus off our own will and desires, and instead orient ourselves to God’s will (see Romans 12:2).  If we find ourselves saying “God will understand  . . . “, well, of course, God understands everything.  The question is what, and how, do we understand?

(An earlier version of this post was published on June 16th, 2014)

     

Is The Church a Political Animal? (from Nisi Dominus)

   You’re going to find politics wherever people gather, or so someone once told me when I had objected to using the secular political terms “liberal” and “conservative” to describe different factions within the Church.  And he was right, if by “politics” we mean the small-p wrangling that unavoidably accompanies any human enterprise requiring two or more people.  But that is a very different thing from Politics, of the partisan variety.  The Church is not a political party, and does not work like a political party.

The Synod on the Family, 2014

     That may seem an obvious point to you, but it’s not at all obvious to very many people.  It’s a distinction lost on most people outside of the Church for instance, for many of whom politics has taken the place of religion, and so has become the lens through which they interpret everything. Many such people have come to dominate the secular media in the developed world, with the result that the mass media projects the secular political model onto the Church, with “bad guys” called conservatives working to thwart the “good guys”, the liberals (sometimes referred to as progressives), who are fighting to bring about a kinder, better future.  This is the only image of the inner-workings of the Church most people see, including most ordinary Catholics . . .

(Please read the entire post HERE at Nisi Dominus)

Morality and Poverty (from Nisi Dominus)

Some political commentators like to draw a distinction between between "economic issues", among which are political approaches to poverty, and what they call "social issues", including things like marriage, family, abortion, sexual morality, etc.  In the Catholic view, it is clear that all of these issues are connected; for secularists, whether coming from the right or the left, it is not so clear although, occasionally, one of them stumbles upon it. This piece is about one such discovery. An earlier version of it first appeared last April under the title "In Mother Jones, of All Places" on my blog Principium et Finis.

The Left-Wing Rag

Radical activist, the original Mother Jones

     Back in my secular, radical college days I used to enjoy a leftish publication called Mother Jones, your proverbial Left-Wing Rag.  I had not so much as gazed upon said publication since somewhere around the transition between President Reagan’s first and second terms, when the other day  I happened across a recent copy, and decided to look inside, for old times’ sake.  There among the expected articles about the balefulness of the sinister plastic companies, and a hit job aiming to show that Louisiana’s Republication Governor Bobby Jindal is a wacko because he’s a believing Catholic, and so on, I found a most unexpected piece called “What If Everything You Knew About Poverty Was Wrong? [link]”  I say unexpected not because everything I know about poverty is wrong (necessarily), but because the factual content of the article actually validates much of what is being said about poverty by people on what its author, and the magazine, would consider “the right”.  I take this as a hopeful sign that maybe, maybe, we can start having a conversation about poverty that rises above the usual political divisions.

You Never Know What You Might Find . . . 

     The article, written by Stephanie Mencimer, is a profile of poverty researcher Kathryn Edin, a Johns-Hopkins University sociologist who decided she could better understand the poor if she moved into the most poverty-blasted area of East Camden, New Jersey (although herself a Methodist, one of Edin’s long-time heroes is St. Francis of Assisi).  The article would have us believe that in doing so Edin discovered things previously unknown . . . 

(Read the entire piece HERE at Nisi Dominus)

The Catholic Teaching on Marriage is Rooted in Love

    Katherine Jean Lopez has a good piece in National Review Online (read article here) about the March for Marriage in Washington, D.C., with a focus on San Francisco Archbishop Cordileone.  The good Archbishop was scolded by various left-leaning types, including “Catholic” politician Nancy Pelosi, for encouraging “hate” by attending the pro-traditional marriage event.  Lopez quotes extensively from Cordileone’s speech at the March to show that the Church is motivated not by hate but by love when it upholds traditional marriage.

     The false charge that any opposition to the deconstruction of the institution of marriage is motivated solely by hatred has been repeated so often by those on the left that not only have they convinced themselves, they have persuaded half the country as well.  Even Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy could find no reason other than “animus” against homosexuals to oppose the imposition of gay marriage.  Archbishop Cordileone knows better; after recounting various problems (economy, immigration, schools) he says:

But none of these solutions will have a lasting effect if we do not rebuild a marriage culture, a culture which recognizes and supports the good of intact families, built on the marriage between a man and a woman committed to loving faithfulness to each other and to their children . . . No justice, no peace, no end to poverty, without a strong culture of marriage and the family.

It’s amazing how hard it is for many people to understand this seemingly obvious truth: there’s no social problem that isn’t made worse by the dissolution of traditional families, and none that wouldn’t be significantly alleviated by more intact families.  It’s an argument I’ve made numerous times (here, here, and here, among others).  The problem is that we’ve convinced ourselves that we can live our lives with self-satisfaction our highest goal, which includes, thanks to contraception, enjoying the pleasures of marital intimacy without the responsibility of children.              

     It’s not as simple as it seems, of course, so while a declining birthrate means that there are fewer and fewer children to support us in our dotage, there are still very many born to parents who aren’t committed enough to each other to stay married or, increasingly, even to get married in the first place.  The result is bad for everyone: a growing number of men who are essentially irrelevant to the families they have fathered, denied the full experience of the paternal role that is their calling; women who are crushed under the burden of being both mother and father, in a culture that is increasingly indifferent to or even disdainful of motherhood; children who grow up without the attention of two full-time parents, and without models of self-sacrificing complementary love – which is not to say they don’t see self-sacrificing love, often heroic self-sacrifice, on the part of the single parent (usually the mother) who is raising them, but the dynamic between parent and dependent child is very different than that between husband and wife. Children don’t learn how to be successful husbands and wives, and increasingly don’t see a lasting marriage as a real possibility.

     Notice that none of the above has anything to do with homosexuality.  Gay activists are quite correct when they point out that heterosexuals had already made a thorough mess of the institution of marriage before "gay marriage" came on the scene.  The question is, do we complete the demolition of the one natural institution most essential to human flourishing and a stable society, or do we work to protect and, ultimately, to restore it? Which, really, is the loving thing?

Related link: I just read about this on Fr. Z's blog: Children's Divorce Stories (here), hosted by Jennifer Roeback Morse at the Ruth Institute; there's some sobering reading here

(Throwback from June 2014)

Abortion Myth # 5

MYTH: “Most abortions are wrong, but they should be allowed in cases of abnormal fetus.”

TRUTH:

-         People with disabilities are human beings, enjoying full human dignity and the same right to exist as the rest of us.

-        

  -Families who are expecting a handicapped child need support, not an abortion!  Studies indicate that women who abort for genetic reasons have a high incidence of suffering grief, guilt, shame, and depression.  The actual incidence of of depression following “selective abortion” for genetic reasons may be as high as 92 percent for mothers and 82 percent for fathers among those studied.  (The Post-Abortion Review, July-Sept. 2003, Elliot Institute, link)

-          -There are lists of families willing to adopt babies with any serious medical condition including spina bifida and down syndrome.

-          -The belief that society is better off without the “genetically inferior” was the credo of  Nazi Germany, where thousands of people were exterminated solely because they had disabilities.

-          -There are numerous support groups for families with special needs children, among them CHASK (Christian Homes and Special Kids) and NATHHAN (National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network); NATHHAN also provides a list of further resources (link)

DON’T BUY THE LIE!

Essential Pro-Life Resources:

Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (link)  

The Elliot Institute (link)  

National Right To Life Committee (link)  

Care-Net (link)

The Nurturing Network (link)

To See The Entire Abortion Myths Series Click HERE 

Mozart: Alleluja (Julia Lezhneva, Helsinki Baroque Orchestra)

The Lord is truly Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!

We avoided the joyful cry of "alleluia" throughout the Season of Lent, but now Christ is Risen!  This Alleluia, from Mozart's motet "Exultate, Jubilate", is an especially beautiful expression of the wonder of the Resurrection.

Jesus Christ is risen today (Easter Hymn)

Jesus Christ is Risen Today! Alleluia, alleluia!

Asleep in the Garden

This is my Holy Thursday post from last year (I hesitate to use the term "throwback" on this particular Thursday).  While I seem to be suffering from a similar state of wearyness, I nevertheless managed to come up with a new post for the Triduum ( on Nisi Dominus: "Christ Came to Serve"). With that out of the way, now it's time to step back a little and let the Lord take charge . . . 

Asleep in the Garden

And they went to a place which was called Gethsem'ane; and he said to his disciples, "Sit here, while I pray." And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled.  And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch." And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.  And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt." And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."  And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.  And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time, and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come; the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a  crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.      (Mark 14:32-43)

     It’s been a tough week.  Like Martha, I’ve been worried about many things (Luke 10:41), and find myself physically and mentally exhausted (one result of which is that I have posted very little on this blog this week). I had wanted to post something for the upcoming Triduum . . .but . . . nothing.  Nothing insightful, interesting, or even clever came to mind.  As I fruitlessly racked my brain (now there’s an interesting image!) up came an image of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, in agony (according to Steve Ray, to whom I was listening on my car radio on the way in to work,  many scholars believe that Christ’s greatest suffering was in the garden, where he felt the full weight of humanity’s sins).  Peter, John, and James doze off (three times!), too wrapped up in themselves to attend to the Master who has asked for their support in his time of supreme trial.  That’s me, I realized: at the holiest time of the year, as I should be focusing on The Lord suffering for my sins, all I can think of is myself.  It’s sort of sad, isn’t it? 

     That being the case, I’ve resolved to turn my focus to Jesus Christ as I take part in the observance of the Easter Triduum.  I’ll set aside my concerns and worries (please, Lord, give me the Grace!); if the Holy Spirit gives me something worthwhile to say I’ll say it, if not I’ll content myself to keep My Lord company from the Cenacle to Calvary, and wait in Joyful Hope for his return on Easter Sunday.