Where Have All The Fathers Gone?

Today is the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Patron Saint of Fathers.  It seems a good time to republish one of my first blog posts, a piece on the importance of Fatherhood (originally posted January 22nd, 2014) Decline of Fatherhood It's not easy being the Dad . . . Federico Barrocci's Aeneas' Flight From Troy       One of the largest elephants in the room today (if I may further abuse an already overworked metaphor) is the decline of fatherhood.  It is just one of a number of factors in the implosion of the traditional family, but it’s a - or maybe, the - key one. If you google “the importance of the father” you’ll find 98,600,000 results. That’s 98 plus million. These are not mostly religious or conservative sources: most are related to various universities or government agencies, some are mainstream magazines not known for their cultural conservatism, such as Parenting and Psychology Today. Whatever their perspective they all have the same general message: growing up without a father is bad. Real bad.    In order to get a sense of the immensity of the problem you can to go to site of one of the organizations set up specifically to address this problem, such as The National Fatherhood Initiative at Fatherhood.org. They have lists of problem areas, including: poverty, emotional/behavioral problems, maternal & child health, crime & incarceration, sexual activity & teen pregnancy, child abuse, drug & alcohol abuse, childhood obesity, education. Not only do they cite studies and statistics, they have links to collections of studies and statistics for each category, a veritable mountain of information that is researched, published and . . . ignored. The information is there, its import is crystal clear, but it seems that nobody who is able to have an impact on public opinion is willing to say or do anything. That’s why I was so pleased to hear Maine Governor Paul Lepage address the issue (here) in such a forthright way at a public appearance a couple years ago.

Like Father, Like Son (and Daughter)

     Of course, while there are political dimensions to it, this is not primarily a political problem; its sources are social and cultural and therefore, on a deeper level, spiritual and religious. Which means we can’t expect governors, or senators or presidents, to fix it for us: the answers lie in our own attitudes, choices and behaviors.

     The Australian Catholic publication AD2000 (which I cited here also, in a recent post about church architecture) produced a fascinating article (here) a few years ago about a very important aspect of the fatherhood  crisis, especially for us as Catholics, called “Church Attendance: the family, feminism, and the declining role of fatherhood.”   The article focused on a survey done in Switzerland that examined  the relationship between the parents’church attendance and that of their children, and examined the different effects of the father’s religious practice (or lack thereof) and that of the mother. There are a variety of angles and permutations, but the big picture is this:

     .[I]f a father does not go to church, no matter how regular the mother is in her religious

     practice, only one child in 50 becomes a regular church attender. But if a father attends

     regularly then regardless of the practice of the mother at least one child in three will become a

     regular church attender.

Wow. Notice that this is for all children, by the way, not just boys. AD2000 goes on to quote an

Anglican clergyman named Robbie Low, who says:

     . . . when a child begins to move into that period of differentiation from home and

     engagement with the world 'out there', he (and she) looks increasingly to the father for

     that role model. Where the father is indifferent, inadequate or just plain absent, that task

     is much harder and the consequences more profound.

This has been shown to be true over and over again, of course, although one must have courage to

say so in "polite" company these days. Vicar Low points out an important way that the decline of

fatherhood has affected his church, one which we Catholics would be wise to consider:

     Emasculated liturgy, gender-free Bibles and a fatherless flock are increasingly on offer.

     In response to this, decline has, unsurprisingly, accelerated. To minister to a fatherless

     society the Church of England, in its unwisdom, has produced its own single-parent

     family parish model in the woman priest.

Lex Orandi, etc.

Guido Reni's St. Joseph With The Infant Jesus

Guido Reni's St. Joseph With The Infant Jesus 

     It's a startling thought, but it rings true;  and while we won’t be seeing women priests in the Catholic Church (see John Paul the Great’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis [here], and the CDF document [here] affirming that the teaching on an the all-male priesthood is infallible), we are already seeing the emasculation of the liturgy in many other ways.  At all but one of the Masses in my parish the majority of lectors and extraordinary ministers are women, in some cases all of them; in all but one Mass, most or all of the altar servers are girls (and if three of my sons didn’t serve, it might be all the Masses). Among the various other things that a priest does, he is an iconic representation of the fatherhood of God. When he is surrounded by women in the sanctuary, that image is diluted. As a more practical matter, the more something is dominated by girls, the less attractive it is to boys. That may be a regrettable reality, but a reality it remains. Over the last dozen years we have seen the male/female ratio among altar servers tip ever further in the female direction. Altar serving has historically been a first step for many men in discerning a vocation to the priesthood, so as fewer boys become servers we can expect fewer “father figures” to preside at Mass and consecrate the body and blood of Christ; also, more generally, the more the Mass is seen as a “girl thing”, the more religious belief and practice themselves will seem to be “unmanly” (lex orandi, lex credendi – “the law of praying is the law of believing”), and the fewer men will bother to show up at all.

     I’m not trying to pick a fight with those whose daughters are altar servers, or who serve as lectors at Mass.  I think that it’s a good thing that we’re trying to do more than pay lip service to the truth that women enjoy a dignity equal to that of men. I also appreciate the huge number of single mothers who are struggling, sometimes heroically, to do the best they can for their children.  I’m only asking that you please look at the resources I have linked above and consider that, in a society that is destroying itself because it refuses to acknowledge the difference between women and men, we as Catholics can be a prophetic voice proclaiming and celebrating the separate but complementary roles proper to each sex.  

     On April 4th, the Feast of the Annunciation, we will (quite rightly) celebrate the Blessed Mother and her "yes" to God's plan that she be the Mother of the Savior (Luke 1:38).  Today is a reminder that Joseph also gives his assent, in his case to give up his own plans in order to be the Messiah's Father here on Earth (Matthew 1:18-25).  God saw to it that the Word Become Flesh would have both a mother and father in this world, each playing a specific role.  Wouldn't we be wise to follow his lead?

Grant,

we pray, Almighty God,

that by Saint Joseph's intercession

your Church may watch over

the unfolding of the mysteries of human salvation,

whose beginnings you entrusted to his watchful care.

Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

(See also "Fatherhood and the Litany of St. Joseph" on Nisi Dominus)

Epiphany (on the 10th Day of Christmas)

Merry Christmas!

     Yes, it is still Christmas: today is the 10^th of the 12 Days of Christmas (which are, themselves, not the entire Christmas season: see HERE).  It is also, in much of the world, the day of the liturgical celebration of the great Feast of Epiphany, the traditional date of which is January 6^th.  In the Western Church today this feast commemorates the visit of the Magi, whom scripture neither crowns nor numbers, but describes simply as “wise men from the East”. The word Epiphany means “a manifestation” or “a revealing”, in this context the name of the Feast refers to the fact the gifts and adoration of the Magi make manifest that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God.  This ancient feast (older than Christmas) has at times also been connected  to the Nativity, the Baptism of Jesus and other manifestations of his Divinity.

     It is interesting how many epiphanies of “God With Us” that we are given : the examples above barely scratch the surface. And still it’s so hard for us to see (a theme of my post for the 10^th day as well).  Even Mary and Joseph, after visits from Angels and what they knew full well was a Virgin Birth, “marveled at what was said about him (Luke 2:33)”  when they hear the old man Simeon prophesy over Jesus when he is presented in the Temple. A full dozen years later, they still seem to have a hard time taking it all in:

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously." And he said to them, "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them.  (Luke 2:46-50)

It’s just so hard for us to see beyond our narrow horizons, even the human parents of The Lord – and who could hope to have faith equal to theirs?  But here, as always, the Blessed Mother is the model disciple: “his mother”, the Evangelist tells us, “kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51).  She doesn’t let her initial human reactions have the last word, and one might even say that she demonstrates the classic definition of theology: faith seeking understanding.


(Click HERE to see today's post at Nisi Dominus, "10th Day of Christmas: A God Of Surprises")

Rejoice! Gaudete Sunday: 3rd Sunday of Advent 2015

Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, 
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, 
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philipians 4:4-7)





Happy Gaudete Sunday!  Speaking of which, the gentlemen below do a wonderful version of the ancient hymn "Gaudete, Christus est Natus".  The visual is a little fuzzy (and, truth be told, more formal attire would be nice), but their rendition is absolutely beautiful.

Deus homo factus est
Natura Mirante,
Mundus renovatus est
A Christo regnante!

Gaudete, gaudete!  Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!

The Presentation, Atheism, And The Problem Of Suffering

(This Thursday Throwback was first published on The Feast of the Presentation, February 2nd, 2015)


And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:33-35)

Girolamo Romanino: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

     The Presentation of the Lord presents us with a paradox, or maybe a series of paradoxes, which can lead us deeper into the mystery of Christ.  On the one hand, it is our last fleeting look back at the recently concluded Christmas Season, and we experience some of the joy and wonder of that season, particularly in the prophetic utterances of Simeon. Simeon proclaims the infant Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). His final words, however, foretelling that Christ will be “a sign that is spoken against” and warning the Blessed Mother that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” redirect us toward the quickly approaching Season of Lent and beyond to the sorrow and suffering of the Triduum.  The last thing we see in Luke’s account of the Presentation is the prophetess Anna, who pulls together the apparent contraries in Simeon’s prophecy: she “spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).  In the end, the glory of Christmas and the sword of Good Friday come together on Easter Sunday: Redemption comes only from the light shining through the darkness of suffering, and we catch a glimpse of the entire story in the Feast of Presentation.

     Given the above, I found it interesting that this story [here] appeared just this morning: Englishman Stephen Fry, an “outspoken atheist”, was asked what he would say if he found himself, contrary to his expectation, face to face with his Creator in the afterlife:

 “I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.

“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault,” Fry continued. “It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’ That’s what I would say.”

"Outspoken Atheist" Stephen Fry

In other words, the old Problem of Suffering (which I spend a lot of time discussing with my adolescent religion students).  For us Christians this problem is resolved in the Mystery of the Cross, as we saw above: it’s a paradox that leads us to a higher understanding, and a greater experience.  For the unbeliever, however, it is a contradiction which, if followed to its logical conclusion, leads to annihilation.  Most atheists believe that all reality is reducible to matter, and that this present world is all there is.  Suffering, therefore, is the worst thing that can possibly happen; hence the righteous indignation of the Steven Frys of the world:

Fry went on to question why the God of the universe would allow pain and suffering and argued that doing away with belief in God makes life “simpler, purer, cleaner, more wroth [sic] living, in my opinion.”

Doing away with belief in God, however, really only makes Fry’s problem worse: instead of leading to redemption, suffering is now simply random and pointless pain.  Not only that, but it is something we all must experience, it’s inescapable.  The only way to eliminate suffering for a Steven Fry is to eliminate not God, but humanity.  Fry’s fellow atheist, the philosopher David Benatar [here] proposes just this solution is his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. 

    Small wonder that The Presentation is included in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, despite Simeon’s ominous (and alarming, no doubt, to Mary and Joseph) utterance.  We are reminded that, through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, Christ has sanctified suffering, that it is no longer a random, meaningless evil, but a path to Heaven.  That is, indeed, Good News.

    

Our Lady Of Sorrows & The Mystery Of Suffering

     Today, September 15th, is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.  How fitting that today some of my students want to talk about suffering, as in “If God is good, why does he allow suffering?”

     This is a tough question, but not because it is intellectually difficult.  It is easy to demonstrate that suffering often leads to a greater good: why else would so many people willingly undergo, for instance, the sometimes severe discomfort of chemotherapy in order to treat their cancer, or even risk their own lives for others, as soldiers have done for millennia?  It is also pretty clear that we may not know the good that comes of it, such as a small child who doesn’t understand why he’s being punished for running out into the road, or a sick pet that couldn’t possibly comprehend why she’s being stuck with a hypodermic needle.   It’s simply hard to accept, emotionally, that a loving God would allow such horrific suffering as some people experience, particularly suffering at the hands of evil and sadistic fellow men (I suspect that some of my students have been disturbed by events in the news lately).

     Herein lies the Mystery of Suffering: even when it makes sense, it feels so wrong. The key lies in that word “mystery”, from the Greek μυστήριον, which is not something unknowable, but rather something known only through experience. So it is with suffering: it makes sense when we experience it, and experience it in the light of faith.  As it happens, I heard Gary Zimak talking about this same topic on the radio this morning, and picked up this great quote: “God doesn’t give us the Grace to handle imaginary problems.” He does offer us the Grace to handle problems we are actually experiencing, as St. Paul tells us (1 Corinthian 10:13), as long as we turn to him in faith.  

     The Christian answer, then, is that God is not indifferent to suffering, but his concern is not expressed by giving us a world without suffering, which could well be a world without the possibility of real love, but by suffering with us. That’s why our preeminent image is Christ on the Cross.  And not only does he suffer for and with us, but we can join our suffering to his: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, on behalf of his body, which is the Church” (Colossians 1:24). By joining Christ in his suffering, we share in his redemptive mission. So, not only does Christ console us in our suffering, but we can use our own suffering to help others.

     Which brings us to Our Lady of Sorrows.  It struck me just today how some of the joyful mysteries of the Rosary are tied in to Mary’s Seven Sorrows: the Presentation, the Fourth Joyful Mystery, is also the occasion of the First of Mary’s Seven Sorrows, when Simeon prophecies that a sword shall pierce Mary’s heart; the Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple (the Third Sorrow) leads to the Finding of Jesus (the Fifth Joyful Mystery).  How interesting that we have devotions centered on the suffering of the Woman whom all generations will call Blessed.  Clearly, blessedness does not mean freedom from pain and sorrow,  And yet she is the First Disciple and our Model in the Faith.  If her sorrows and suffering can help bring about the eternal Joy of the Resurrection, ours will not be in vain.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary

1.      The Prophecy of Simeon

2.      The Flight into Egypt

3.      The loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple

4.      Mary meets Jesus on the way to Calvary

5.      Jesus dies on the Cross

6.      Mary receives the Body of Jesus

7.      The burial of Jesus

"Regina Coeli Laetare", from Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana

     This lovely piece of music is a little like the Treasure Hidden in a Field (see Matthew 13:44).  Pietro Mascagni's  Cavalleria Rusticana is a secular opera, and a turgid account of betrayal, jealousy, and murder.  At one point in the drama, however, the inhabitants of the little Sicilian village where these unsavory events unfold sing this beautiful version of the traditional Catholic prayer, Regina Coeli, Laetare ("Queen of Heaven, Rejoice").

    The prayer itself is of ancient origin.  Our oldest record of it comes from the twelfth century, but the website ourcatholicprayers.com tells us:

According to The Golden Legend, a famous 13th century work about the saints, Pope St. Gregory the Great heard angels singing the first three verses from the Regina Coeli during a procession in the 6th century and was inspired to add the fourth line “Ora pro nobis deum” (“pray for to us to God” in Latin). Although this story is itself considered to be a legend, it is, as Father Herbert Thurston once put it in his book Familiar Prayers, “inseparably associated with the Regina Coeli.”

We pray it in place of the Angelus during the season of Easter, at which time it also serves as the the Marian Antiphon at the end of Compline (Night Prayer). I have posted the prayer itself, in both English and Latin, below the clip.

Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.

The Son whom you merited to bear, alleluia.

Has risen, as He said, alleluia.

Pray for us to God, alleluia.

V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.

R. For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Let us pray.

O God, who through the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ gave rejoicing to the world, grant, we pray, that through his Mother, the Virgin Mary, we may obtain the joy of everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluia:

R. Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia,

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia,

R. Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

Gaude et lætare, Virgo Maria, alleluia.

R. Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.

Oremus.

     Deus, qui per resurrectionem Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi,
     mundum lætificare dignatus es:
     præsta, quæsumus, ut per eius Genitricem Virginem Mariam,
     perpetuæ capiamus gaudia vitæ.
     Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. R. Amen.

Compline: For Tonight and Forever (LOH 8)

(This is the eigth installment of a series of posts on the Liturgy of the Hours for lay people)

      In today's discussion of the Liturgy of the Hours I'll focus on Night Prayer, or Compline.  This office  plays a special role in the overall plan of the Liturgy of the Hours.  It complements the Invitatory Psalm with which we start the daily liturgy (see here). While the Invitatory orients us to God from the first moments of the day, reminding us of his Lordship and the challenges we are likely to face if  we fail to rely on Him, Compline draws our daily activities to a conclusion, and puts us in a proper frame of mind to surrender ourselves to the Lord’s care in sleep.  At the same time as it prepares us for our nightly sleep, however, Night Prayer also prepares us for our eternal rest in the life to come.

Nunc Dimittis: Simeon sees the infant Jesus in the Temple

    Night Prayer is structured much like a shorter version of Lauds or Vespers: there is a Psalmody, a brief scripture reading followed by a responsory, a Gospel Canticle and closing prayer.  But there are also significant differences.  After the usual opening (“Lord, come to my assistance . . .”) we conduct an examination of conscience, followed by the Confiteor, the Kyrie or some other appropriate penitential prayer.  There is only one psalm, or two very short ones, no intercessions, and the closing prayer is followed by a Marian antiphon.  Also, in addition to being shorter, there is much less variety in Night Prayer.  Aside from minor variations for particularly important solemnities and "alleiuas" during the Easter season, the prayers all follow the same cycle every week (as opposed to a four week cycle, and much greater variation for liturgical seasons, in the other hours). 

     Compline is a wonderfully effective transitional prayer.  At the beginning we tie up any loose ends from the day in the examination of conscience and put them behind us in the penitential prayer.  If there is a hymn, it isn’t sung until after those things are done; only then are we ready to entrust ourselves to the mercy of God.  That reliance on God’s Grace is a major element in the Psalmody for Night Prayer. Sunday’s psalm, for instance (Psalm 91) begins:

            He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

            And abides in the shade of the Almighty –

            Says to the Lord: “My refuge,

            My Stronghold, my God in whom I trust!”

           

The themes of night (“Lift your hands to the holy place/and bless the Lord through the night”, Psalm 134, Saturday) and sleep (“I will lie down in peace and sleep comes at once”, Psalm 4, Friday) also play a large role – as does the theme of death (“Will you work your wonders for the dead/Will the shades stand and praise you?”, Psalm 88, Thursday).

     The theme of preparing ourselves for eternal rest becomes even more explicit in the responsory that follows the short scripture verse:

            Into your hands lord, I commend my spirit.

                        - Into your hands lord, I commend my spirit.

            You have redeemed us, Lord God of Truth

                        -I commend my spirit.

            Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

                        - Into your hands lord, I commend my spirit.

This verse is based on Psalm 31, but is perhaps more familiar to us from Luke 23:46, when Jesus recites the first line as he is dying on the cross.  Because of its close association with the crucifixion it is replaced during the Octave of Easter with “This is the day the Lord has made/Let us rejoice and be glad”; other than that, we say this same responsory every night of the year, albeit with “alleluia, alleluia” included during the Easter season outside the Octave.

     After the responsory we find the Gospel Canticle, the Canticle of Simeon (also known as the Nunc Dimittis, from Luke 2:29-32) which begins “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace . . .”   This is the prayer of thanksgiving sung by the old prophet Simeon, to whom it had been revealed “by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26).  This prayer forms a sort of triptych with the Canticles from Lauds and Vespers: in the morning, with the Benedictus, the focus is on John the Baptist, the Forerunner of the Messiah; at Evening Prayer in the Magnificat we see the first meeting (in utero!) of the Forerunner and the Messiah himself; at Compline the Messiah makes his first appearance in the Temple to claim his birthright, and Simeon, the aged representative of the Old Covenant, declares himself satisfied, praises God, and retires to his final repose.

     The closing prayer is appropriate to the hour; Thursday’s office,  for instance, closes with:

            Lord God,

            Send peaceful sleep

            To refresh our tired bodies.

            May your help always renew us

And keep us strong in your service.

The conclusion that follows makes explicit reference to the connection between our nightly rest and the more permanent repose to come:

            May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.

     We close Night Prayer with an antiphon addressed to the Blessed Mother.
     Compline, or Night Prayer, is like the other offices, but also has a special part to play in the daily Office. Even if we are lay people praying the Liturgy of the Hours as a private devotion, it is still a liturgical, which is to say a public, prayer and by its very nature it draws us out of ourselves to unite us with Christ and his Mystical Body, the Church.  Night Prayer does that and more: as we go through the office we put our affairs in order, as it were, in the penitential rite at the beginning; after that in the prayers that follow we turn our attention from the concerns of the day to the preparation of our souls for the night to come; we entrust ourselves to the Lord's Mercy ("Into you hands I commend my spirit") and then, through the words of Simeon and the concluding verse, reach beyond our rest in this world and ask for God's Grace in the world to come.  Our final prayer is to ask for the intercession of the First Disciple, who, we know, is already enjoying the Lord's peace in Heaven, and whom we hope to join there beyond the final setting of the sun on this world.
 
To read the whole series go here.

Veni, Creator Spiritus & Weekly Round-Up for Pentecost Sunday 2015

Juan Batista Maino, Pentecostes

     Today is Pentecost Sunday, on which we commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Disciples in the Upper Room in Jerusalem; we also take this as a special opportunity to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in our own lives, often by praying or singing the ancient hymn "Veni, Creator Spiritus" ("Come, Creator Spirit").  In the moving clip below we see the College of Cardinals calling upon the Holy Spirit in this way, not at Pentecost but at another time when the aid of the Third Person of the Trinity was required: the last Papal election.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.

Weekly Round-Up, Pentecost Sunday 2015

The academic year is drawing to a close, and bloggery needs to take a back seat to more immediate responsibilities.  Nonetheless, I did manage to post a thing or two:

Wednesday - “FeedYour Mind And Soul: The Office of Readings (LOH 5)”  How you can enrich your prayer life and also expand your Biblical literacy through the Office of Readings (the fifth installment of my series on the Liturgy of the Hours for lay men and women). 

and “Hidden Law,Society, and Catholic Teaching”  The informal “laws” created by family, relationships, and religion often govern our lives much more effectively than laws imposed by the state. 

Thursday - “Quick!What’s The Summit And Source of the Christian Life?” We lose more than we might realize when we lose reverence for the Eucharist 

Friday - “AbortionMyth # 14” If ‘a woman and her doctor’ told you to jump off the roof, would you do it? 

"Let It Be Done To Me According To Thy Word"

      

     I’ve often admired the stained glass window depicting the Annunciation that looks down on the sanctuary in my local cathedral.  We see the young woman Mary, kneeling on the floor and surrounded by angels, while God the father looks down on her from above, sending forth a beam on which rests the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove.  God the Son is there, too, although we don’t see him, a human embryo in Mary’s womb, the Omnipotent Divine wrapped in mortal human flesh.  That’s how we encounter Jesus in the Gospels: the Eternal Word in human disguise; that’s how we receive him in the Holy Eucharist: the Second Person of the Trinity in the form of simple bread.  It’s a marvelous image to contemplate as we approach the Altar of the Lord to receive Holy Communion.

       Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrated nine months before the Nativity of The Lord at Christmas.  I’ve often thought that, the current vogue for atheists and atheism notwithstanding, it’s not really that hard to believe in God.  What is difficult, very difficult in fact, is to believe that the Uncreated Creator of all Time and Space is the least bit interested in beings as small, short-lived, and insignificant as we appear to be in the vast sweep of the Universe.  That he should become a little human baby just so that he could suffer with us and die for us, well, this saying is hard; who could accept it (see John 6:60)?  And that’s not all: the Omnipotent God sought the consent of one little maiden in a small town in an insignificant corner of the world in order to do it.  Not the least of the reasons why we honor Mary is her willingness to put her very self in God’s hands: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

     Mary’s willingness to give up herself to be a part, perhaps the greatest (solely) human actor in God’s Great Drama of Salvation is the big picture; as is often the way, there’s a little picture, too, a way in which the Annunciation is reflected in our own lives.  God has a plan for all of us.  He imposes nothing, to paraphrase John Paul the Great, but always proposes (Redemptoris Missio).  He is constantly asking us to allow him in, to consent to serve him in ways big and small.  “Today if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts” is one of the Lent antiphons in the Liturgy of the Hours.  We all hear the voice of the Lord at some point, if we’re listening; let us all not harden our hearts, but rather let it be done to us according to his word.

The Presentation of Our Lord, Atheism, and The Problem of Suffering

 And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:33-35)

Girolamo Romanino: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

     The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord presents us with a paradox, or maybe a series of paradoxes, which can lead us deeper into the mystery of Christ.  On the one hand, it is our last look back at the recently concluded Christmas Season, and we experience some of the joy and wonder of that season, particularly in the prophetic utterances of Simeon. Simeon proclaims him “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). His final words, however, foretelling that Christ will be “a sign that is spoken against” and warning the Blessed Mother that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” redirect us toward the quickly approaching Season of Lent and beyond to the sorrow and suffering of the Triduum.  The last thing we see in Luke’s account of the Presentation is the prophetess Anna, who pulls together the apparent contraries in Simeon’s prophecy: she “spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).  In the end, the glory of Christmas and the sword of Good Friday come together on Easter Sunday: redemption only comes from the light shining through the darkness of suffering, and we catch a glimpse of the entire story in the Feast of Presentation.

     Given the above, I found it interesting that this story [here] appeared just this morning: Englishman Stephen Fry, an “outspoken atheist”, was asked what he would say if he found himself, contrary to his expectation, face to face with his Creator in the afterlife:

 “I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.

“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault,” Fry continued. “It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’ That’s what I would say.”

"Outspoken Atheist" Stephen Fry

In other words, the old Problem of Suffering, which I spend a lot of time discussing with my adolescent religion students.  For us Christians this problem is resolved in the Mystery of the Cross, as we saw above: it’s a paradox that leads us to a higher understanding.  For the unbeliever, however, it is a contradiction which, if followed to its logical conclusion, leads to annihilation.  The atheist believes that all reality is reducible to matter, and that this present world is all there is.  Suffering, therefore, is the worst thing that can possibly happen:

Fry went on to question why the God of the universe would allow pain and suffering and argued that doing away with belief in God makes life “simpler, purer, cleaner, more wroth [sic] living, in my opinion.”

Doing away with belief in God, however, really only makes Fry’s problem worse: instead of leading to redemption, suffering is now random and pointless.  Not only that, but it is something that everyone experiences, it’s inescapable.  The only way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate not God, but humanity.  Fry’s fellow atheist, the philosopher David Benatar [here] proposes just this solution is his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. 

    Small wonder that The Presentation is included in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, despite Simeon’s ominous (and alarming, no doubt, to Mary and Joseph) utterance.  We are reminded that, through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, Christ has sanctified suffering, that it is no longer a random, meaningless evil, but a path to Heaven.  That is, indeed, Good News.

    

Schola Regina Pacis - Stabat Mater (J. Rheinberger)

I had never heard of of the composer Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901) unlike very recently.  Even though he is not known to most of us, to those more knowledgeable than me he is well-known and highly-regarded as both a composer and an organist (see biography here).  In his time he composed twelve Masses, and also this lovely setting for the Stabat Mater:

The 8th Day of Christmas - The Solemnity Of Mary, Mother Of God

Madonna With Child by Bellini Jacopo

   Today, the Eighth Day of Christmas, is known out in The World as New Year’s Day; in the Church it is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, the final day in the Octave of Christmas.  The secular observance celebrates no more than another turning of a calendar page, but in the Church we look at time with an eye on eternity: the Nativity of Christ turns around all of human history (which is why we eventually adopted the BC/AD arrangement with its mirror-image numbering of years, placing the Nativity at the center of time).  Jesus’s mother, Mary, plays an essential part in that unique and astonishing event.

     We must start with the fact that Mary was fully human; as Charles Dickens says in the opening lines of A Christmas Carol, “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”  Just as Marley’s death is an essential element in Dickens’ tale, the Incarnation’s meaning for mankind is directly connected to the Blessed Mother’s humanity, because if Christ isn’t born of a human woman, He’s not fully human himself, in which case how can He die and redeem humankind? Mary is the guarantor that Jesus, while He truly is God, is truly one of us.

     Both truly God, and truly one of us . . . it’s hard for us to reconcile both of those things in our finite minds, but both must be true if Christianity is true.  At the same time, the title “Mother of God” is alarming: some people claim that it seems to say that a mortal woman has brought God into existence, but we don’t really think that even about ordinary mothers and their ordinary human babies.  Mothers and Fathers are agents in a larger process, and the soul, of course, comes from God.  The original Greek term Theotokos, literally “God-bearer”, while a little less difficult, still challenges us. It tells us that, just as the original Arc of the Covenant carried Manna from Heaven, along with Tablets of the Decalogue and Aaron’s staff, Mary carried the Second Person of the Trinity in her womb, and so she is called the Arc of the New Covenant (see Revelation 11:19-12:1). 

     But the first Arc was merely a container, it contributed nothing to its contents; even before anyone knew anything of genetics, however, it would have been obvious that, in some way, Jesus’s fleshly body owed something, at least, to his mother.  In his face, the color of his eyes, the shape of his nose, or some other physical feature, the familial relationship would be manifest. Through the Motherhood of Mary Jesus, that is to say God, takes on our humanity in an utterly tangible, direct and personal way.

     The Motherhood of Mary, like the Incarnation itself, is a mystery.  It is something that we can really understand (although never fully understand) through experience.  As the last day in the Octave of Christmas, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God it invites us to start looking not only at the Child lying in the manger, but to start looking further at what that Child means for us as men and women.

            O God,

            Who through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary

            Bestowed on the Human race the grace of eternal salvation,

            Grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her,

            Through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life,

            Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.

            Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the HolySpirit,

            One God, for ever and ever.

                        -Amen

The 3rd Day of Christmas & St. John the Evangelist: The Disciple Jesus Loved

So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25-27)

Pieta between St. John and Mary Magdalene (Pietro Perugino)

     Merry 3^rd Day of Christmas!  Today is also the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, author not only of one of the Gospels, but also three New Testament letters and the Book of Revelation. St. John has traditionally been represented by an eagle because he “soars” to greater heights, theologically speaking, than the other Evangelists.  He is also known as “The Beloved Disciple” because in his Gospel he often refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.   

     Many people have wondered over the centuries why John makes such a point of depicting himself as The Beloved Disciple.  On one level, of course, it must reflect his actual experience.  He mentions it frequently and pointedly enough, however, that it seems that there must be more to it.  And so there is: as Edward Sri explains [full article here]:

He represents the ideal disciple.  The beloved disciple is the one who is close to Jesus, leaning on his master’s breast at the last supper (John 13:25).  He is the one Apostle who remains with Jesus even in the face of Christ’s suffering and persecution – while the other Apostles fled, only the beloved disciple followed Jesus all the way to the cross (John 19:26).

     I want to focus on this last point, because so many people are suffering in various ways - in my home right now we are praying for a number of families who are experiencing illness, employment problems, divorce, and other hardships. Modern mental health professionals confirm the words that Charles Dickens put in the mouth of one of his characters in A Christmas Carol more than a century and a half ago: “it is at Christmastime that want is most keenly felt”.  This is a very hard time of year for our brothers and sisters who are in distress. I think the passage from John’s Gospel at the top of this post has a special import for those who find themselves standing at the Foot of The Cross in the midst of this festive season: all who join their suffering to His are his Beloved Disciples; the Mother of Jesus is your mother, and Christ your Brother suffers with you.  

May God's blessing be on you all this Christmas!