Pentecost

"'Oh, could I tell, ye surely would believe it!
Oh, could I only say what I have seen!

"How should I tell or how can ye receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?

"Therefore, Lord, I will not fail nor falter,
Nay, but I ask it, nay, but I desire,
Lay on my lips Thine embers of the altar,
Seal with the sting and furnish with the fire;

"Give me a voice, a cry and a complaining,
Oh, let my sound be stormy in their ears!

"Throat that would shout, but cannot stay for
straining,
Eyes that would weep, but cannot weep for tears.

"Quick in a moment, infinite for ever,
Send an arousal better than I pray.
Give me a grace upon the faint endeavor,
Souls for my hire and Pentecost to-day!"

Dr. Frederick Myers

Ascension

It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven" (Acts 1:7-11)

Ascension, by American artist John Singleton Copley, 1775

It is easy to overlook the words of the angels to Christ's disciples, but following Christ does not mean standing there looking up into heaven. I like to say that the angels level the gaze of Jesus' companions. Just why this is so is not revealed to them until Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they begin to bear witness to the One whose kingdom they set about to proclaim and, at least to an extent, to establish.

St. Philip, deacon and evangelist

Reading: Acts 8:5-17 (not chopping up the section as the lectionary does)

Thus Philip went down to (the) city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing. For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice, came out of many possessed people, and many paralyzed and crippled people were cured. There was great joy in that city. A man named Simon used to practice magic 4 in the city and astounded the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great. All of them, from the least to the greatest, paid attention to him, saying, "This man is the 'Power of God' that is called 'Great.'" They paid attention to him because he had astounded them by his magic for a long time, but once they began to believe Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, men and women alike were baptized. Even Simon himself believed and, after being baptized, became devoted to Philip; and when he saw the signs and mighty deeds that were occurring, he was astounded. Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the holy Spirit.

Another Sunday and another reading from the Acts of the Apostles about those whom we revere as the first deacons. Today we read about Philip, the deacon who went to Samaria and preached the Gospel. Of the seven men who on whose heads the apostles laid hands, setting them apart for service, that is, diakonia, in the sixth chapter of Acts, (i.e., Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolaus), we only ever hear again about Stephen and Philip. It is interesting that Philip, who's ministry, like Stephen's, was not limited to serving at table, but seems to have revolved around him being something of a charismatic evangelist. He healed the sick, cast out demons, and apparently baptized, but he needed to go to Jerusalem and retrieve Peter and John to come and perform an ordinance that can only be likened to the sacrament of confirmation.

Philip is an interesting figure precisely because he was an evangelist. Fleeing the persecution of the nascent Christian Church unleashed in Jerusalem with the martyrdom of Stephen, Philip, along with his four daughters, relocated to Samaria. His four daughters are referenced in Acts 21. As he began to preach the Gospel, to heal the lame, and to cast out demons, he became the rival of a local miracle-worker, Simon. In his First Apology (chaps 26 and 56), St. Justin Martyr calls Simon "a magician," which for a Christian is a pejorative appellation, and notes that he was later revered in Rome as a god.

I like very much what commentator Loveday Alexander, writing The Oxford Bible Commentary says about Philip's challenge to Simon Magus:

the magician's powers may be real, but they fade into insignificance beside the powers of the gospel. The preaching of the word brings about not just a nine days' wonder, but belief and baptism, i.e., intellectual conviction and entry into a new community. The fact that the magician himself is impressed by Philip (v. 13) simply serves to highlight the gospel's power... (pg. 1038)

St. Philip, holy deacon and evangelist, pray for us

Jesus, the Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd, Catacombs of Rome, 3rd cent.

On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, known as Good Shepherd Sunday, let's turn to the twenty-third Psalm, but use the poetic version of the King James Bible, the 400th anniversary of which we celebrate this year:


The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Holy Saturday- The Triduum Continues

"Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

"He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: 'My Lord be with you all.' Christ answered him: 'And with your spirit.' He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: 'Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.'" (from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday- 2nd reading for Office of Reading for Holy Saturday)

The Word of Salvation:St. Dismas and us

Reading: Luke 23:35-43

The second of Jesus’ Seven Last Words is called, for reasons that are easy to discern, The Word of Salvation. Tradition hands on to us that the name of the repentant thief whom Jesus forgives and promises entry into paradise is Dismas. Hence, St. Dismas is the patron saint of prisoners, especially those who, like Dismas, who are imprisoned justly, that is, for crimes they committed. In the first word, Jesus addressed our need to forgive those who act in egregiously unjust ways towards us, even those who seek to take our very lives. In the Word of Salvation, he is confronted by a guilty man, a man condemned justly according to the law, the kind of person that it is very hard to forgive. The beauty of St. Dismas is that he recognizes in Jesus, the man who has done nothing wrong and who is condemned to death unjustly, as his Savior.

I don’t think there can be any doubt that Dismas’ conversion, which brings to the fore the dire straits he is in, took place as he heard the Lord utter the challenging words on which we just reflected: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34) It is easy to imagine Dismas thinking, if Christ willing forgives the ignorant and unrepentant, how much more will he look with mercy on the knowingly guilty and repentant, the one who expresses his sorrow and who recognizes salvation when he sees it? It is only for this that we revere Dismas, a guilty and convicted criminal, likely a seditionist, as a saint.

Christ and the robber, by Ge

Dismas knows he is going to die and is resigned to this. The other thief is not. He, too, wants a Savior. What else can he mean when he says, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us”? (Luke 23:39) This is the kind of Savior we not only very often want, but, like the unrepentant thief, the kind of Savior we very often demand!

My friends, on this Good Friday let’s recognize that we are in the same position as St. Dismas, condemned to death justly because of our sins. We acknowledge this each time we receive Christ in communion by saying the words spoken by the Roman centurion to Jesus, which accurately express Dismas’ desire: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” (Luke 7:6-10; Missale Romanum) Implied in this, our confession, is Dismas’ plea, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42)

He was crucified under Pontius Pilate

Good Friday- The Triduum Continues

"When in Matthew's account the 'whole people' say: 'His blood be on us and on our children' (27:25), the Christian will remember that Jesus' blood speaks a different language from the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:24): it does not cry out for vengeance and punishment; it brings reconcilation. It is not poured out against anyone; it brings reconciliation. It is poured out for many, for all. 'All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...God put [Jesus] forward as an expiation by his blood'" (Rom 3:23, 25). (Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, pg 187- brackets in original)

He was crucified under Pontius Pilate

Holy Thursday- The Triduum Begins

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Master, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later."

Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well." Jesus said to him, "Whoever has bathed 6 has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all." For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, "Not all of you are clean."

So when he had washed their feet (and) put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, "Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. (John 13:1-15)

Sometimes it is said and written that, unlike the synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, Luke), John's Gospel has no institution narrative. Of course, John's Gospel has no account of Jesus taking bread, blessing it, and saying "Do this in memory of me," and then taking the cup and saying it is His blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, etc. On the contrary, the first fifteen verses of the thirteenth chapter of this Gospel constitute the Johannine institution narrative. This is but one of many reasons we need four Gospels. This also shows us that Mass is not an end itself.

Typically, at the end of the Mass we are dismissed- The Mass is ended go in peace! Hence, we are sent forth to give witness to the One who dwells in us, to make Him present everywhere we go. At the end of the Mass of the Lord's Supper, however, we are not dismissed. In fact, we are not dismissed again until the end of the Great Vigil late Saturday night, or even early Sunday morning. This is not merely an invitation to prayer, but a summons to enter more deeply into the Paschal Mystery, the great mystery of our redemption, wrought by Jesus Christ, our Passover and our Peace, to reflect deeply on what implications this has for our lives, which, as with John's institution narratives, calls us to a life of self-emptying service to others in imitation of the One whose disciples we are.

Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me

Holy Week continues

On Passion Sunday we celebrated and commemorated Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Of course, as he rode into the city through the gate called Beautiful, He was hailed as Israel's long-awaited Messiah. This made many of the Jewish leaders nervous and even scared. Matthew's Gospel tells us, "And when he entered Jerusalem the whole city was shaken and asked, 'Who is this?' And the crowds replied, 'This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.'" (21:10-11) It is easy to lose the thread of the narrative, however. From that day until His betrayal, arrest, trial, scourging, and crucifixion, He taught in the Temple daily.

His first act, of course, was to cleanse to the Temple, which, at least in Matthew's account, occurs upon His entering the holy city. His week in Jerusalem continues with a whole series of very challenging teachings that challenge the religious authorities, who repeatedly test Him in an effort to trip Him up. Given the overheated political moment we are experiencing here in the U.S. let's look at one such instance that is very relevant:

Then the Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap him in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion, for you do not regard a person's status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?"

Knowing their malice, Jesus said, "Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax." Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?" They replied, "Caesar's." At that he said to them, "Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." When they heard this they were amazed, and leaving him they went away. (Matt. 22:15-22)

St. Justin Martyr, the great second century philosopher and Christian apologist wrote, concerning this very passage:

And everywhere we, more readily than all men, endeavour to pay to those appointed by you the taxes both ordinary and extraordinary, as we have been taught by Him; for at that time some came to Him and asked Him, if one ought to pay tribute to Cæsar; and He answered, "Tell Me, whose image does the coin bear?" And they said, "Cæsar's." And again He answered them, "Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." Whence to God alone we render worship, but in other things we gladly serve you, acknowledging you as kings and rulers of men, and praying that with your kingly power you be found to possess also sound judgment. But if you pay no regard to our prayers and frank explanations, we shall suffer no loss, since we believe (or rather, indeed, are persuaded) that every man will suffer punishment in eternal fire according to the merit of his deed, and will render account according to the power he has received from God, as Christ intimated when He said, "To whom God has given more, of him shall more be required." Luke 12:48 (First Apology, chapter 17)

Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Prepare ye the way for the kingdom

Passion Sunday

Prepare ye the way for the Lord. Prepare ye the way for the kingdom!

Experience is to moralism what spirit is to letter

This week I offer something of an old-fashioned exposition on our Sunday Gospel. Hopefully this gives both my readers a solid basis to think about and explore what relevance this has to our individual lives, our family lives, and our life together as God's family, the ekklesia, or Church, which, consisting as it does of all the baptized, is not merely co-extensive with the Catholic Church. Perhaps sometime I'll take up this very complex passage from Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (a.k.a. Lumen Gentium):

This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. (par. 8- underlining emphasis mine)

Reading: John chapter 9

The innocence and simplicity of the blind man Jesus healed, who we read about today from John's Gospel, is very moving. When he was asked by those who recognized him as the formerly blind beggar, "How were your eyes opened?" he told of his experience with no embellishment: "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went there and washed and was able to see." Upon hearing this they took him to what appear to be the leaders of the local synagogue, to which his parents belonged, to discuss his healing and to deal with the fact that Jesus did it on the Sabbath.

When asked by the "Pharisees" to tell them what happened, the man simply said, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see". This caused a division among the Pharisees with some saying that Jesus could not possibly be someone sent by God "because he does not keep the sabbath", whereas others wondered, "How can a sinful man do such signs?" So, they asked the formerly blind beggar what he had to say about Jesus. Like the Samaritan woman at the well in last week's Gospel, his initial response was that Jesus, "is a prophet". Despite all of this we are told that "the Jews did not believe" that the man had truly been blind and regained his sight.

Their disbelief caused them to summon the formerly blind man's parents to testify that he had been blind from birth and now could see. They testified that he was born blind and could now see, but that they did not know how or by whom he gained his sight. This at least brought these men to acknowledge what had occurred. There is an indication here that the man's parents knew that their son claimed to have been healed by Jesus, but were afraid to say so because anyone who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah would be thrown out of the synagogue. So, in today's terms, they threw their son under the bus, saying, "Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself" and, a short time later, "He is of age; question him".

So, the Pharisees, having overcome their division and having been forced to acknowledge the miracle, tell the man, "Give God the praise. We know this man is a sinner". "This man," of course, is Jesus. The beauty of the simplicity of the former blind beggar is once again shown when he responds, "If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see". The Pharisees ask him to again relate what happened to him. One can only surmise, but one reason they would ask him to tell what happened again was to see if they could discredit the event, his encounter. His reply, while still innocent and without guile, is bolder: "I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?" At this suggestion they begin to ridicule him: "You are that man’s disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from."

Gaining in boldness, the formerly blind beggar retorts, "This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything". This aroused their indignation, which they thought was righteous. So, referring to his being born blind, which they attributed to sin, they responded, "You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?" We know from Jesus' answer to the question by his disciples at the beginning of the chapter about whether the man was blind because of his own sins or those of his parents that "Neither he nor his parents sinned". He was blind, according to Jesus, "so that the works of God might be made visible through him" (showing us explicitly that God uses everything that happens to us to draw us closer to Himself, thus allowing us- not forcing us- to give witness to "the light of the world"). "Then," the Gospel tells us, "they threw him out."

Upon learning that he had been expelled from the synagogue, Jesus went to him and, finding him, asked the man, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" Understanding that Jesus was referring to the Messiah, again, like the woman at the well last week, the man, showing that he had not yet fully gained his sight, with great simplicity, asks Jesus, "Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" One can almost hear the tenderness when Jesus says to him, "You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he." The man responds, saying, "I do believe, Lord," and then proceeds to worship Jesus. After this, Jesus says, "I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind."

Hearing this the Pharisees ask Jesus, in a very self-serving manner, "Surely we are not also blind, are we?" Meaning, "You are not really saying here in front of everyone that we, the leaders of the synagogue, are blind in the way you just described?" Jesus, catching their drift and engaging in a little rhetorical equivocation, tells them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains." In other words, Jesus is telling them, "You are in an even worse state than those who see and become blind because you see and refuse to acknowledge what unfolds before your very eyes."

Let those who have eyes see; let those who have ears hear.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Why Lent Must Rise Again

This article on Lent by United Church of Christ minister and journalist G. Jeffery MacDonald appeared in the Boston Globe 11 March 2011. I found it on an Orthodox blog. Yes, that darn Sanidopoulos again.
___________________________________________________________________

This past Wednesday marked the start of Lent, the 40-day Christian season of fasting and sacrifice in preparation for Easter. Lent resembles the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, though with one big difference: Muslims actually take Ramadan seriously. American Christians talk about fasting and deprivation, but most practice nothing of the sort. For Christians in this country, self-denial makes life less pleasurable. So why do it?

The question goes to the heart of what’s happening to Christianity in America. Practitioners are purging the tradition of its sacrificial dimensions. We’re remaking it as a type of spiritual self-help whose effectiveness is measured by how well it entertains us and affirms what we already believe. Since Americans love parties and hate to do without, Christianity is evolving to deliver. The diminution of Lenten practices illustrates the trend and highlights what’s lost when religion becomes a consumer commodity.

To see how far we’ve come, let’s recall our roots. Jesus, Moses, Elijah, and other biblical figures used 40-day periods of self-denial to cultivate humility as they prepared to face major challenges. Lent itself began in the early fourth century during a time when Christians were being fiercely persecuted. Seeking divine strength in discipline, some ancient communities would fast during daylight hours for weeks. Others would eat a minimal diet – no meat, no dairy, scant oils – as the Orthodox still do today. Repentant prayer and alms giving became other hallmarks of a serious season for pondering and practicing the costs of discipleship.

Today Lent is widely ignored in Christian America. Seasonal sacrifices, if observed at all, tend to be token. For Catholics, “abstaining” can now consist of sumptuous fish dinners on Fridays; even a Good Friday “fast” can include two small meals. Some Protestants conveniently eschew sacrifice altogether – if no one can earn divine favor, why bother? Still others bring a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, marked by promises to exercise daily or do without sweets for a few weeks. True deprivation is rare. As a pastor I know once told me, giving up something for Lent “is kind of a big joke.”

How did Christianity’s most serious season become a joke in this supposedly religious country? We let desire become our master, and desire has no use for sacrifice. For centuries, Christianity sought to temper primitive desire for addictive pleasures, dominance of neighbors, hoarding of resources, and other idols that ruin lives. But the broader culture has persuaded us to cut loose, to obey our lowest passions, lest they fester into perpetual frustration.

Now religion is desire’s handmaiden. Americans routinely quit churches that fail to please them. And churches, anxious to survive, vie to offer what congregations want: happy, clappy celebrations; entertaining multimedia shows; supportive gatherings of like-minded people. Meanwhile, they jettison the harder and more edifying parts of Christianity, such as practicing repentance, sharing in others’ sufferings, and observing Lent.

In purging self-denial from the tradition, American Christians play into the hands of corporate merchandisers, who hope we’ll spend more and more year-round to quench unquenchable desires. Yet the highest price we pay is spiritual. Self-denial for a season fosters humility. It blunts the insidious delusion of entitlement. It shapes compassion for the poor and hungry by raising at least a measure of awareness of their circumstances. It breeds courage as we tell our lowest desires: No, you are not my master. I answer to a higher authority. With God’s help, it opens a way for higher desires to take root – for the creation of a new heart, in biblical parlance. To trade the inherited wisdom of this way for the cheap platitudes of self-help therapy is costly indeed.

Strangely, Americans recognize the value of sacrifice in pursuing material goals, such as prosperity via education. Yet we tell ourselves that spiritual growth can be cost-free.

It’s time for American Christians to reclaim the power of their tradition. Lent is the right time to start. The season beckons Christians to grow in character and compassion by walking in their ancestors’ footprints. Sure, we have no desire to fast, pray, or give alms this month. But that’s exactly why we should.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald is a minister and the author of Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

Sunset begins our observance of the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, which, as I mentioned last Saturday, falls nine months prior to our observance of the Nativity of the Lord. Because the Annunciation is a solemnity, though not a holy day of obligation, we are not required to abstain from meat on this particular Friday of Lent because we observe solemnities as we do Sundays. In the Latin Church Sundays are always feast days, not fast days.

"Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt for our sinful state, a nature that is incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in another...

"He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, the Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So, he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant man himself." (Pope St. Leo the Great)

The Annunciation, by John William Waterhouse, 1914

Of course, this occurred in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

From the Christian East Hieromonk Athanasios the Iviritan, speaking to a Lutheran minister from Norway, said, "We worship God, we honor the saints, and we venerate the only Mother of God with pure filial emotions, for she is our sweetest Mother by grace. Oh, how you are deprived... because you do not venerate her who is the second after God to administer His gifts to all mankind."

East meets West when Athanasios notes that it was none other than St. Augustine who said, "three things could not have been more perfectly created by our omnipotent God than these: the Incarnation, the Virgin, and the blessed life of the just in the life to come."

A deep diaconal bow to John Sanidopoulos, who blogs at Mystagogy for the part by Athanasios. The excerpt from St. Leo's sermon comes from the Office of Readings for the Solemnity of the Annunciation.

Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam

"He saved us and called us to a holy life"

"And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. (Matt. 17:2)

"He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began, but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." (2 Tim.1:9-10)

On this Second Sunday of Lent we are called to further open ourselves, allowing God's grace to build on our nature, to be transfigured, moving from image to likeness. After all, my dear friends, this is what Lent is about!

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Vigin Mary

St. Joseph holding the Christ child

Roman Catholics throughout much of the world observe today as a holy day of obligation. While the Solemnity of St. Joseph is not a holy day here in the U.S., it is an important day, as is our solemnity next Friday, the Annunciation of the Lord. For those who perpetually confuse Mary's Immaculate Conception with Christ's conception, the Annunciation falls nine months before our observance of the Nativity. In any case, the saints are indispensable and have been since the beginning of the church.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom wrote that "unless we are aware that we are outside the kingdom of God, that we need to knock at a door to be allowed in, we may spend a great deal of our lives in imagining that we are inside, behaving as though we were and never reaching that depth where the kingdom unfolds itself in all its beauty, its truth and its glory." Without trying to be too cute, we know people who are inside, as it were. These people we call saints. We ask them to intercede for us from the inside.

All fathers and husbands should have some kind of a devotion to St. Joseph, who, along with his spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a most efficacious intercessor on our behalf. I want to wish my pastor, Msgr. Mayo and our Vicar General, who is also our Vicar for Clergy, Msgr. Fitzgerald, a happy saint day today!

St. Joseph's day is huge in Italy and in many Italian-American communities here in the U.S. So, my Italian friends, enjoy this break from our Lenten austerity!

Father,
you entrusted our Savior to the care of Saint Joseph.
By the help of his prayers may your Church continue
to serve its Lord, Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Joseph, pray for us

St. Padric, Dewi Sant and a few Lenten notes

Today is the liturgical memorial of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. For Roman Catholics in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day is a solemnity and a holy day of obligation. Next to St. Francis of Assisi, probably no saint is better known in the West. Patrick, however, was not Irish by birth. He first went to the Emerald Isle at age 16 after being taken captive in his native England. He was then sold as a slave. He was probably a native Welsh-speaker. He remained in Ireland six years before escaping and returning home. After being formed in monasteries at Tours and Lérins, he was ordained a priest and then a bishop before returning to Ireland as a missionary. As I mention each 17 March, Patrick is something of a pan-Celtic figure. Each entity of Great Britain has its own patron saint: St. David for Wales, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. George for England.

Incidentally, 1 March is traditionally the memorial of St. David. His memorial remains on the Anglican calendar. I assume that with the institution of the Anglican Ordinariate, St. David’s memorial will resume, in some places, being observed by Catholics, but his feast is not on the Roman calendar, nor on the universal Orthodox calendar.

St. David of Wales

We learn in one of Patrick’s two extant letters that his mother, Conchessa, was a near relative of St. Martin of Tours. It was around AD 433 that Patrick began his mission among the Irish. The date of his death is held to be 17 March 493.

St. Patrick, along with Sts. David and George, is also venerated by Orthodox Christians, given that his life and holiness spread throughout the universal church prior to the Great Schism of AD 1054. Of course, his veneration by our Eastern sisters and brothers is most prominent among the English-speaking Orthodox, who are growing in number, many of whom convert from various Christian traditions, mostly Protestant and, at least in the U.S., many Evangelicals, and even some from Catholicism.

St. Padric of Ireland

While I’m putting up a post, I will take the chance to mention that Tuesday morning I was looking at Arthur Jones’ new Marian blog over on NCR. Given my Lent-long review of my own on-line activities, I take that I went to this webpage as providential. He expresses what I think is a healthy wariness of internet activity (i.e., Facebook, e-mail, Tweeting, etc.), namely ”that we’re all in danger of information overload”, which goes hand-in-hand with the chronic vice of our culture in this age; busyness for busyness’ sake. I say that his wariness is healthy because it doesn’t go to the extreme of dismissing such activity as wholly pointless, or even unnecessary (he starting a blog, after all); on-line activity has its place. My particular challenge is finding and focusing on what is useful for my readers. I am interested to see what fruit this insight bears over these next days and weeks.

I implore, Sts. Patrick and David pray for us. I also invoke the intercession of St. Joseph, whose feast, which is a solemnity and, in most places, but not in the United States, a holy day of obligation, we look forward to this Saturday. Last year, falling as it did on a Friday, we were able to fore go Lenten abstinence. This year, due to the vigil falling on Friday, we will be able to end it a bit early, at sunset.

I also look forward to a solemnity next Friday, 25 March, when I will commemorate and celebrate the Annunciation by having chicken for lunch and eggs for breakfast.

As you walk your Lenten path, Go n-eírí an bother leat (i.e., may road rise up to meet you).

I will end with the beginning stanzas from the Lorca of St. Patrick:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through the belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

So, here's a Welshman, Sir Tom Jones, singing a Gospel tune, a little something about another 40 days and 40 nights in the Bible- Didn't It Rain? There's a bit about cat cruelty thrown in for good measure.

Friends don't let friends drink green beer. If you're going to imbibe this evening, enjoy a nice Guinness or a Harp, or, better yet, have a glass of Irish whiskey.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

The where and how of conversion

This morning finds us one day short of the First Sunday of Lent, which will begin this holy season in earnest. Last night I read a post over on Cahiers Péguy by my friend Sharon that struck me as being what Lent is all about. Lent is not about doing things we don't do the rest of the year, including not eating meat on Fridays and, ideally, even fasting. On my view, it is about doing these things more intensively and conscientiously, which means striving to live more in the awareness of destiny. This brings up, yet again, the reality that the disciplines we intensify during this holy season are means to an end, namely starting from image and moving to likeness, a movement only made possible in Christ, with Christ, and through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sharon's post, A vocation to the real, takes this up in a very concrete way. She points out that the where and the how of Christ at work seeking to make you over into His likeness is staring you in the face at every moment.

On this interstitial Saturday in Lent I want to turn back to my fellow deacon, the Syriac, St. Ephrem, who brings up the need we have to die to ourselves, giving it the gravity it deserves by putting it in the context of destiny:

"On that dreadful and amazing day, You shall say to us sinners, O Lord: ‘You men know well what I have undergone for you; what have you suffered for Me?’…The martyrs will point to their wounds, their sufferings, the severed parts of their bodies… The ascetics will point to their asceticism, to their long fasts and vigils, to their liberality…But I, idle, sinful, transgressing as I am, what shall I be able to point to? Spare me, O merciful One! Spare me, O Thou Lover of mankind!"

I am always dismayed at the amount of what I can only call silliness that spills forth on and around Ash Wednesday concerning Lent, thus trivializing what is a solemn and holy season. As one who sees the benefit and even the need to be interconnected, I suppose much of this has its place, given the tremendous pastoral need. So, I can deal with those efforts that don't consciously strive to be merely entertaining. Efforts aimed at entertaining, as well-intentioned as they may be, only serve to add more clutter to a culture increasingly made up of distractions.

Starting this Monday I will be posting less, at least over the remainder of Lent. I will definitely continue our Friday traditio and I will put something up on the Sunday readings. I take a kind of odd pride in posting something everyday. So, I will be working on that over Lent. One feature that I am discontinuing altogether is the U.S. hierarchy updates. The best resource for keeping up on these events is the Catholic-Hierarchy News blog, which I feature in my blogfeed over on the right.

I have never judged the success of this endeavor by any quantitative method. Suffice it to say, I do not see myself as an entertainer, but as a deacon who hopes he is providing a service. One service I hope I provide is a blog that has some continuity and coherence from post-to-post, day-to-day, week-to-week, etc., even if I run the risk of being a little repetitive. After all, continuity requires overlap. It also bears mentioning that being serious does not mean being either joyless or humorless.

One cannot post during these days without continuing to ask for prayers for the people of Japan. This morning an explosion was reported at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant that was damaged by the 8.9 earthquake. The explosion raises the concern that one of plant's reactors has started to meltdown. Lord, hear our prayer.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

"O God, cleanse me a sinner"

-Lenten Prayer, by St. Ephrem the Syrian:

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk+

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant+

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen+

+= prostration for first recitation

St. Ephrem the Syrian, deacon

Monday through Friday during Lent this prayer is read two times at the end of each service in Orthodox and many Eastern Catholic churches. When recited the first time a prostration comes after each petition. Between the first and second recitation everyone bows twelve times while saying, "O God, cleanse me a sinner." After this, the prayer is said again followed by a final prostration.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

What is penance and why do it?

After the big production that is Ash Wednesday, believe it or not, Lent continues today. Each year I am aware of the incongruency between reading the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, in which Jesus teaches us not to pray, fast, or give alms in manner that can be seen, and then coming forward and having a big, black cross, or, like Deacon Greg, a smudge, smeared across my forehead. As you awoke up this morning, slightly hungrier than usual from your fasting, and looked at the faded ashes on your forehead, how did Lent look to you? I hope the prospect of seeking to draw closer to Christ over these weeks still looks attractive. I think it is necessary to point out that Lent is very straightforwardly a penitential season. Having been corrupted not only by Philosophy, but by what is often termed linguistic philosophy, and more specifically by Wittgenstein, I always find it useful to define terms. One of the reasons I find the writings of both Don Giussani and the Holy Father, both as pope and prior to stepping into the shoes of the fisherman, is that both go to great pains to define terms.

A good example of this is that just before Lent I re-posted something I originally put up on my parish’s RCIA blog, There really is something about Mary. My post sparked a comment about seeing the Blessed Mother as an archetype. I responded by saying that to see Mary as an archetype is to reduce her. The subsequent discussion highlighted the fact that both Hans Urs Von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger refer to Our Lady as an archetype, or at least employ the term archetype, in their writings. Hence, I was forced to clarify by pointing out that the word archetype has two distinct meanings, one that I would say simply refers to the term in its original, or received, sense and another that indicates a reference to a specific aspect of the psycho-philosophy of Jung. In short, I accept the latter and reject the former because to see Mary as a Jungian archetype, in my opinion, reduces her because it de-historicizes her.

With that background I want to look at what the word penance means in the ordinary sense, that is, how does the dictionary define it? According to Merriam-Webster, penance is "an act of self-abasement, mortification, or devotion performed to show sorrow or repentance for sin." While this definition helps narrow down what we mean by "penance," it doesn’t define the term clearly. On a Christian view, we can certainly eliminate self-abasement from our definition of penance. This leaves us with penance as acts of mortification and devotion. I believe that here we are on quite solid ground.

To mortify simply means to kill. Through mortification we seek, with God’s help, to die to ourselves, to put all our selfish, death-dealing, tendencies to death. It cannot be pointed out too often that the paradox of dying to self in order truly live constitutes the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. The purpose of Lent is to bring us face-to-face both with this reality in general and, more particularly, with what needs to die in you so that you can live.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in answer to the question what is the sacrament by which we are reconciled to God and the church called, we are told that it is called both the sacrament of conversion and penance (par. 1423). It is called "the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion": "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand…" (CCC par. 1423; Matt. 3:2). The Catechism goes on to say we also refer to it as "the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner's personal and ecclesial steps" towards being converted, that is, changed (ibid). These changes make us more like Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). I would only note that the word Christian implies sinner, albeit a redeemed one in the process of being sanctified!

Contrition differs from and comes prior to penance. To be contrite is to be sorry. To be sorry means to recognize the wrong I have done, to see the harm it causes me as well as others, and to see the damage my sin inflicts on the church's communion. Being contrite about something I have said, done, or failed to do entails a commitment on my part to do everything in my power to avoid doing it again, which is not enough. To be penitent means being willing to make those changes in my life that will enable me, with God’s help, as the Act of Contrition indicates, to overcome whatever sinful tendencies I discover in myself by examining my conscience.

I want to double-back and focus on the phrase, "with God’s help." We need God’s help in order to realize our potential, for image to become likeness. Our likeness to God is forfeited through sin, whereas the imago dei, the divine image we bear in the very core our being, is ineradicable and is what makes conversion always and everywhere a possibility. In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster notes that St. Paul uses the word "righteousness" in his Letter to the Romans thirty-five times. In every instance, Foster goes on to point out, the apostle is emphatic that righteousness "is unattained and unattainable through human effort."

If we do not become righteous through our own efforts, then why bother with these disciplines at all? In the same vein as Kushiner’s succinct summary of why we practice the spiritual disciplines (i.e., as ways to overcome our ego, thus opening us up to God’s grace), Foster insists "God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace." Being wary of analogies, I nonetheless suggest that a good way to think about our practice of the spiritual disciplines is tuning into God’s frequency. Foster, dealing with the matter more directly, writes, "The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us."

As we begin our Lenten journey, let’s not lose sight of our goal and remember that penance leads to conversion, conversion leads to gratitude, and gratitude leads to joy. It is never too early in Lent to note that we celebrate our joy in all its fullness at Easter.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Image and likeness, what Ash Wednesday is all about

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.‘ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26-27- ESV).

In his book, The Orthodox Way , Bishop Kallistos Ware, wonders about what Scripture clearly teaches regarding human beings created in God’s image and likeness. This brings up an interesting question, in the above verse from Genesis, do image and likeness represent a repetition employed to highlight our deep, abiding and ineradicable relationship to God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or is there a distinction to be made between image and likeness? In keeping with what has been handed on by tradition, Ware holds that there is an important distinction to be made. However, this distinction only serves to highlight our relationship to God in the very depths of our being.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, like St. Ignatius of Antioch, was a disciple of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, who, in turn, tradition indicates, was a disciple of the Apostle John, wrote in his seminal work, Against the Heresies, that "The glory of God is a human being fully alive." As Bishop Kallistos notes, the Talmud also teaches that "The glory of God is man." As to being created in God’s image, as noted on Monday, human beings are a tri-unity of body, soul, and spirit. Or, on another view, with reference only to our spiritual soul, we are memory, will, and intellect. In either instance, or in both instances, human beings are an ikon of the Triune God, that is, each bears in her/his own person the divine image, the imago dei, which is ineradicable. Nonetheless, being a bearer of the divine image indicates not merely human potential, but the potential to be what God created, redeemed you, and is now sanctifying you to be, namely like God, who is love, that is, agapé (1 Jn. 4:8.16- ESV). More contemporarily, this is often called "becoming who you already are."

So, if image is potential, likeness is the realization of your potential. In short, likeness is destiny. Bishop Kallistos points us to Origen, who discerned, "Man received the honor of the image at his first creation, but the full perfection of God’s likeness," what is called theosis, or divinization, "will only be conferred upon him at the final consummation of all things."

Pater Tom, who immersed himself in the study of the Desert Fathers, and whose own view of the human person remained very rooted in their take, writes about this reality in his characteristically deep, but accessible way:

"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak his name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely" from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

You must verify what Pater Tom writes through your own experience, or it only remains a sentimental thought, a kind of daydream. Verification is no easy task, but it is not an academic exercise; it is purely existential. For example, I think George Carlin verified at least part of this- the part about there being "a point of pure truth" at the center of our being- when he famously averred, "Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist." In other words, we have an inherent sense of how things are supposed to be. The part about being cynical, I believe, verifies what Pater Tom wrote about our center being impervious to illusion.

All of your Lenten disciplines are merely means that serve the very end for which you were made. This is why we begin Lent with a communal memento mori. Or, as James Kushiner, himself an Orthodox Christian, succinctly put it: “What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace.” Practicing the disciplines taught us by the Lord and verified through the experience of men and women over two millennia serve no other purpose than teaching us to live in the awareness of our destiny. Ash Wednesday puts us face-to-face with the inescapable paradox that in order to truly live, you must die to yourself.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis