The Quiet Corner

August 28, 2003 Through January 1, 2004

THE QUIET CORNER     -     The Very Rev’d. John A. Kiley, VF       –      28 August  2003AD

         In a recent Providence Journal story, Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy took great exception to the latest statements of the Vatican on same-sex civil unions.   Calling the perennial teaching of the Church on homosexuality “bigoted” and “discriminatory,” Mr. Kennedy ranks his own private and personal opinion on a level with traditional Church teaching – perhaps even superior to Church teaching.

       The Journal read as follows:  On the issue of gay rights, Kennedy said the church has strayed from its teachings. "The church has its doctrines. I don't agree with this doctrine. I don't agree with many others," he said.  Kennedy continued a short time later: "The very foundation of the church is about love," he said. "This notion of discrimination is so far afield of what Jesus' life was all about."  Kennedy said his Catholic identity is important to him.  "The life of Jesus Christ influences my whole notion of public service," Kennedy said. "It's all about following the example of Jesus, of service, humility and love."  Kennedy continued: "I am speaking to you as someone who when I hear the Scripture, I get a very different message of what Jesus was teaching me than what the church seems to be representing."  Mr. Kennedy gets “a very different message” from his reading of the Scriptures and yet, as a Catholic, he experiences no compulsion to bring himself in line with the constant teachings of the Church. Apparently his opinion is equal to Church doctrine.  This is simply not the Catholic way. 

       Congressmen Reed and Langevin are not far behind Mr. Kennedy in their attitudes toward Church teaching and Church authority.  The same Journal article observes: As for the Vatican's edict, Reed said the Catholic Church was an important influence, but not the only influence. "In a pluralistic society, you have to listen to a range of voices," he (Reed) said. And Mr. Langevin is quoted as stating: "However, I believe in a strong separation in church and state. The greatest influence on a congressperson's decision must be the Constitution and the interests of his or her constituents. "

        If a person chooses to depart from Catholic teaching then he should have the courage to accept the consequences and deal with his decision on Judgment Day.  But nowadays some Catholics want to have their cake and eat it too.  They want to have their babies baptized, their homes blessed, their marriages celebrated, and their funerals performed in the Catholic manner. They want to be godparents at christenings, sponsors at Confirmation and witnesses at weddings.  And yet they regularly part company with the Church when it comes to weekly Mass attendance, Sabbath observance, the Real Presence, inter-Communion, Papal authority, divorce, co-habitation, second marriages, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, physician-assisted suicide, and many other life issues.  Again, their private opinion is rated equal with, and sometimes even superior to, constant Church teaching.

       Mr. Reed’s pluralism is just another label for Protestantism in which every man is his own priest.  The individual conscience, not Christian Tradition, becomes the arbiter of good and evil, truth and error.  Mr. Langevin’s respect for the interests of his constituents does not exempt him from respecting the Law of God which is often at odds with public opinion.  And Mr. Kennedy’s respect for the private interpretation of Scripture is itself “far afield” from the Catholic practice of interpreting Scripture only within the context of Apostolic Tradition.  The Journal itself added fuel to the fire by recommending in its next edition the democratic process observed by Episcopalians in their public discussions and communal appointment of bishops.  Well, Roman Catholic teachings and practices are not founded on public discussion.  Roman Catholicism is established firmly on Apostolic Tradition, entrusted by Christ to his disciples, interpreted authoritatively by our Holy Father with his fellow bishops, and received faithfully by his believing people down through the ages and throughout the world.

       As in many older parishes, people that have not lived in St. Leo parish in decades will return to their ancestral roots to be buried.  Recently a funeral was arranged for a former parishioner and, at the wake, the family offered a page full of fond reminiscences of their loved one for possible inclusion in the homily.  The memories were all the expected ones:  good wife, understanding mother, supportive friend, dutiful worker, etc.  The last recollection offered, however, was really an eye-catcher:  She loved God and was very religious even though she never went to church.

       If there is a crisis of faith in the United States today, and I believe there is, the crisis does not center on belief in God.  Surveys continually reflect that seventy or eighty percent of Americans believe in God.  And most of them probably believe in the Judaeo-Christian God, YHWH, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Although many Americans might not have a lively faith, they do have a deeply rooted belief in a Supreme Being.  So the crises of faith in the twenty-first century is not so much a loss of belief in the Deity.  Rather the crisis of post-modern faith reflects, especially among Catholics, a severe loss of faith in the Church as God’s instrument of salvation among men.

       American Protestants never were keen on viewing the organized Church as God’s vehicle of salvation.  For Protestants it has been mostly the individual conscience and the family Bible that has been the foundation of their faith.  And since the United States has been traditionally and popularly a Protestant nation, much of this exaltation of conscience and the Bible has worn off onto the Catholic community.  “Let your conscience be your guide” and “Show me were it says that in the Bible” are phrases found just as much on Catholic lips as in Protestant mouths.  Catholics themselves often make a distinction between God’s Law and Church law as if the latter were totally without authority.  So the organized Church has never held pride of place in popular American culture.

       Scandal in high places was a great catalyst for the first Protestant reformation in the sixteenth century.  Wayward churchmen offered a good excuse for diminishing the role of the Church in everyday life.  Lack of spiritual leadership was a great catalyst for the second Protestant reformation that took place in the English-speaking world in the eighteenth century.  The Anglican clergy had grown very complacent in their country manors and university study halls.  The Wesley brothers filled the resulting spiritual vacuum with a very private, interior religion that saw the established Church simply as a backdrop to one’s personal quest for salvation.  Undeniably the contemporary Catholic Church in the United States needs a reformation or at least a renovation.  The scandal within the priesthood and a perceived lack of leadership within the hierarchy, carefully noted by the media, are bound to affect Catholic belief in the Divine institution of the Church.

       But abuse should not take away use.  For all the dissenting theology and humbling accusations that have been leveled since the Middles Ages, the Church is still the ordinary means of salvation.  Granted, the Church is not very ordinary to the five billion people who inhabit the non-Christian world.  But ordinary does not always mean commonplace.  Ordinary here means ordained.  The Church is ordained, structured, instituted by God as His special means of salvation.  Faith in the Church, therefore, is normal, meaning normative.  It’s the rule.  True, there are exceptions to the rule.  God desires that “all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.”   But the ordinary means of salvation remains the Holy Roman Catholic Church – a truth denied only at one’s peril.

       Sadly American society has come to see active Church life, the sacramental life, the life of organized religion, as just one spiritual option among many.  The Church, some profess, is just one of the many paths that lead to the fullness of life.  Rather, this side of heaven, the Church is the fullness of life.  For the true believer, there is no going around the Church.  There is just deeper and deeper involvement in her salvific life.

       During the mid-century’s Cold War, when the Communist Soviet Union and the capitalist United States stared menacingly toward one another across the planet, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen observed that the beleaguered citizens of the Soviet Union’s totalitarian bloc had “the Cross without Christianity” while the affluent citizens of the Western nations had “Christianity without the Cross.”  Perhaps the revered Archbishop looking at the United States today would observe that many Americans have neither the Cross nor Christianity.  Let’s face it -- Americans continue to live in moderately good times.  Our national crosses are light when compared to the rest of the world.  And Christianity itself, as practiced today in the USA, is certainly no burden.  It is hardly even a responsibility.  Religion has become more and more privatized, more and more a matter of personal choice, private convenience and interior attitude.   The Cross has been vanquished from American life.

       The Cross, the perennial public emblem of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christianity, has been has been increasingly eliminated from Christian observance and Christian practice.   The proliferation of Risen Christs in our Catholic sanctuaries – recently counteracted by Rome – is a subtle statement that suffering has no place in the modern Christian life.  The modern Christian should be surrounded by glory, achievement, success and fulfillment.  The man of sorrows that graced the altars of our youth has been banished to sacristy storerooms or church cellars.  The naïve optimism that characterized the years after the Second Vatican Council failed to take sin, suffering, and the Cross into account.

       This pre-mature anticipation of the Resurrection to the exclusion of the Crucifixion not only affected Church design, it has greatly influenced Catholic daily life.   Like the Jews and Greeks of the first century, post-modern Catholics are frankly scandalized by suffering.  Nowhere is this more evident than in family life.  The discipline needed for young, unmarried Catholics to maintain a chaste relationship before marriage is apparently too much of a Cross to bear.  Living together is just as much a problem for the churched as for the unchurched.  The suffering implied by just saying “No” is unthinkable for many nowadays.  Hence, the inevitable challenges of married life have become unexpected burdens for many individuals who look to divorce as a remedy.   Abortion is always a sad option but it is made even sadder when the motivation behind most abortions is not a crisis issue but a convenience issue.  And – let’s be blunt – the homosexual marriage issue rests on the refusal to accept that God has allowed a burdensome Cross to enter into some peoples’ lives.  And on a more universal level, the casual attitude toward Sunday Mass and Sabbath observance is a clear indication that the Cross -- even when it means not suffering but simply duty – is pushed farther and farther from the center of Catholic life.

       Christians in earlier centuries endured unavoidable sufferings that modern Western mankind has almost forgotten.  For all the criticism that might be leveled towards today’s American society there is still much for which all should be grateful.  It is rare to meet a person who cannot read or write.  Infant mortality and maternal deaths are minimal.  Social security gives some hope to elderly.  Famines and plagues (save AIDS) are virtually unknown in America.  Wars for the most part have been on other shores.  Life has not been the “vale of tears” that it was for most of our religious forebears.  Some crosses have been mercifully eliminated or held at bay.   Clearly previous Christian centuries endured sufferings that are unimaginable nowadays.  Certainly a theology of the Cross was a great asset in making sense of a life that was primitive, brutal and short.  Our more comfortable society has been released from many of life’s crosses and, hence, postmodern man feels released from the Cross itself.  Suffering is a scandal to be avoided rather than a Cross to be understood and even embraced.  If the Cross were not intended to be essential to the Christian life than God would never have chosen it as the central instrument of our redemption.            COMPLETE

       Sexuality is “irrelevant,” the Reverend Lauren Stanley announced decisively in a recently published column in the local press.  The Reverend Stanley, affectionately called “Mother Stanley” on a Virginia congregation’s website, is an Episcopalian minister, a bi-weekly columnist and a former Roman Catholic.  Even with credentials like these, this clergyperson sadly ignores the Sacred Scriptures and Christian tradition.  The Reverend Stanley underlines her rash instruction by insisting, “Nowhere in our catechism, nowhere in our creeds, nowhere in our doctrines can you find one word about sexuality.  Jesus didn’t talk about it, didn’t preach it, didn’t condone it and didn’t condemn it.”   Let’s examine the evidence.

       The overwhelming testimony of both the New and the Old Testaments is that God is a Father.  And there are few words in the English language more charged with authentic sexuality than the word father.  In revealing God as a father, the Judaeo-Christian tradition evokes all that is noble about male sexuality.  Like a sincere earthly father, God the Father is the source and sustainer of life.  The Father provides and protects and teaches and challenges his children.  Without an awareness of the true nature of male sexuality, the significance of God’s revealed Fatherhood is lost.   Similarly, the arrival of the man Jesus Christ in our midst as the Son of the eternal Father is hardly irrelevant.   Jesus is called Son because he is the image of his Father, the visible reflection of his Father.  All that men find noble and decent in earthly sonship – chiefly obedience, respect, cooperation – are found immeasurably in the Son of God.  Jesus’ male sexuality is the primary instrument through which he expresses his Sonship.   Certainly the name of the Holy Spirit is rich in sexual connotations as well.  The Latin word spiritus originally meant a lover’s sigh.  Spiritus was the sigh of satisfaction that occurred when spouses celebrated their complementarity in an embrace of love.  A man is fully and pre-eminently a man when giving of himself to his wife.  A woman is fully and pre-eminently a woman when accepting the husband’s gift of himself.  When man and woman thus achieve the fullness of their sexuality, they are overwhelmed with satisfaction – hence that sigh, that spiritus.  What more appropriate word could the Latin Church choose to depict the union of Father and Son than this evocative word spiritus?

       God choose words richly connotative of sexuality to reveal himself to mankind and he also choose episodes rich in sexuality to reveal man to himself.  The twin creation accounts in Genesis are replete with spousal imagery that emphasizes the creative and mutual aspects of male and female sexuality.  Mankind is most Godlike when engaged in intimate male/female interaction.  “Let us make man in our image and likeness…Male and female he created them.”   The life-giving and mutually-supportive aspects of the spousal relationship illustrate mankind at his best, at his most Divine moment, so to speak.  This effective giving and receiving between spouses is impossible apart from an alert appreciation of one’s own human sexuality.  Otherwise dominance and submission substitute for an authentic spousal relationship.

       What applies to the Holy Trinity and to human nature applies also to the relationship of Jesus Christ with his Church.   John the Baptist and Jesus Christ and St. Paul and the Book of Revelation frequently employ the image of Christ as the bridegroom and the Church as the Bride of Christ.  Heaven is often viewed as a nuptial banquet.  Again the sacred authors of Scripture knew that the bonds inherent in authentic human sexuality were a most valuable tool in revealing the bond between Christ and his Church.  Like any worthy bridegroom, Christ laid down his life for the Church and thus gave life to the Church, his own life.  Like a bridegroom, Christ continues to nurture, sustain and protect his Church.  The Church, accordingly, receives her life entirely from Christ.  She has eyes for no other admirer.  Christ tenderly gives; the Church warmly receives.  (The priestly implications of this imagery should not be overlooked.)   Far from being irrelevant, sexuality is at the heart of revelation and at the core of the Christian life.                                                              COMPLETE!

       A year ago a Catholic school in this state invited Senator Lincoln Chaffee to address its student body.  The topic was not especially controversial – the Senator’s recent visit to a foreign country.  Mr. Chaffee, like his father before him, is well known in the Catholic community to be no friend to unborn life.  His voting record is unbrokenly and unashamedly anti-life-in-the-womb.     Yet a Catholic school brushed aside his perennial pro-abortion stance in order to treat its students to a morning’s civics lesson.  At the time, I felt much displeasure at this affront to the Church’s constant teaching on the sanctity of life, and I hoped that, in lieu of common sense, pastors and principals would soon have a policy to follow regarding the introduction of pro-choice politicians into classroom and parish affairs. 

       Imagine my chagrin, in fact, imagine my consternation, when I attended a recent Catholic function where the guest celebrity was none other than Congressman Patrick Kennedy.         Introduced by a litany of the grants and funds that he had secured for his Congressional district, Mr. Kennedy then praised the assembled faithful for their community spirit and parish loyalty.  He then, campaign-like, made the rounds of the tables-of-eight shaking hands and posing for pictures.  Remember now that this was the same Mr. Kennedy who two weeks before had called the Vatican’s teaching on the nature and sanctity of marriage “discriminatory” and “bigoted.”  Recall also that two days previously Mr. Kennedy, along with Rhode Island’s other three members of Congress, declined to support a proposed constitutional amendment on the nature of marriage heartily endorsed by our nation’s Roman Catholic bishops.  The hypocrisy, the opportunism, the pretense of Mr. Kennedy’s participation in an otherwise fine Catholic event was, frankly, appalling.  I would have been offended had I been, say, a Republican.  As a Roman Catholic I was outraged. 

       Our church is not without controversy and its teachings are not beyond discussion.  No less an ultramontanist than George Weigel recently took issue with the Vatican’s pronouncements on the Iraq war.  Conservative Bill Buckley took great exception to Pope John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra a generation ago.  And frankly, I myself am not too keen on the seeing the Vatican go soft on the Tridentine Mass.  While Catholics might argue over war and capitalism and rubrics, the teachings of the church on other issues have been so emphatic, so enduring, so rooted in the natural law (as well as revelation) that they preclude dissent.

       Certainly abortion is one of these issues.  Certainly the nature and sanctity of marriage is another.  Certainly the exploitation of women, children, workers and immigrants is not a matter for debate.  Certainly suicide and euthanasia do not need to be re-investigated.  These are not primarily church issues.  They are clearly human issues.  And the weight of human tradition should be brought to bear on them.  Sadly, the media, the entertainment industry, and special interest groups determine acceptable morality nowadays much more than the natural law and the common good do.  The common sense of our ancestors has been replaced by the fancies of the individual, the mood of the moment.  “Who are we to judge?” the liberal Catholic politician asks nowadays about abortion, same-sex marriages, and assisted suicide.  Thus they effectively negate the sage, sane and saving judgments that civilized people have been making for centuries regarding life, marriage, livelihood and death.  The collective wisdom of the ages is sacrificed on the altar of individualistic convenience. 

       Catholic politicians who claim that they personally disagree with certain laws but feel compelled as elected officials to uphold such laws should ask themselves an important question.  While I might have to enforce these laws now as an office holder, what am I doing to change these laws?  Are Catholic politicians who are now working aggressively to change marriage laws to include homosexuals in the name of civil rights also working aggressively to change abortion laws in the name of the unborn?  I doubt it.  The former issue is viewed as progressive; the latter issue is dismissed as reactionary.  Sadly, morality has nothing to do with politics nowadays.   Popularity is everything.                                                                                                                COMPLETE

       The Catholic married couple reflects the love of God to the world in two special ways: fidelity and fecundity – faithfulness and fruitfulness – bonding and babies – love and life.  Fidelity or faithfulness, one of the twin pillars of a Christian marriage, is a totally irrevocable commitment.  The commitment made in marriage is a giving, not a lending.  The bride is traditionally “given” away by her father.  This is a symbol of the unconditional, non-retractable love expected in marriage.  Once given away there is no turning back.  The very words spoken by the bride and groom,  “I DO,” connote total commitment: I do commit myself; I do accept total responsibility for this union; I do pledge undying love and respect.  Today’s Gospel passage, echoing the Old Testament, speaks of the two becoming “one flesh” or “one body.”  They are totally pledged to one another.  “Man cannot find himself except through the sincere gift of himself,” teaches the Second Vatican Council.  “He who loses his life for my sake will find it,” taught Jesus Christ. 

       A married couple is pledged to work their whole life long at this project of making a gift of themselves to one another.  To hedge in their commitment or to commit themselves unfaithfully to a third person is a serious violation of their vow of fidelity.  Admittedly, fidelity over the long haul of forty or fifty years is not easy.  Accordingly, married love becomes increasingly evident by a willingness to work at a marriage every single day.  Marriage is not for people who give up easily.  “Persons who give up because of the difficulties involved in marriage” one author wrote, “ are actually giving up because of the difficulties involved in happiness.”   “Marriage can make a couple very happy,” another writer observes, “but not effortlessly happy.”  “Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome;” read the old marriage rite, “only love can make is easy and perfect love can make it a joy.”

       The parallel way a married couple reflects the love of God to the world is by their fruitfulness, their fecundity, their fertility.  When a married couple shares their love with children, it is a sign of true charity, a sign of confidence in God, a sign of generosity.  The truly Christian couple, the truly spiritual couple, will be open to new life.  While it is easy to have children in today’s world (marriage is no longer required), it is not easy, either emotionally or financially, to raise children in today’s world.  Parents that are attentive and nurturing to their children, supporting them in challenging times and disciplining them in difficult times, educating them in both religious and civil responsibilities, are reflecting God’s love to the world and deepening their own spiritual lives.

       Couples likewise reflect the love of God to the world through their fruitfulness when they exercise responsible parenthood, that is, when their lovemaking is chaste, respecting God’s design of love, respecting the cycle of fertility placed by God within the human frame.  The self-control needed within a Christian marriage to space births or to postpone births by relying on the natural cycle of fertility and infertility placed within the female body (rather than resorting to artificial devices that frustrate God’s plans and can even be harmful) vividly displays the love of God present within a couple.  Their Christian spirituality is made evident by their self-control, their self-sacrifice, their self-discipline.

       In both their practice of fidelity – their unfailing commitment to each other – and in their practice of fruitfulness – their openness to new life – the Christian couple identifies themselves with the Cross of Christ who give himself totally, even to death, for his bride, the Church.  In the many sacrifices entailed in married life and in the many joys that come to a loving couple, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ himself are clearly seen.  Jesus died sadly on Good Friday but rose happily on Easter Sunday.  Every time a husband or a wife dies, like Christ, to self love and sacrifices for the good of the marriage God is there with his promise of resurrection, of renewed life, of nobler and deeper love.

     When I first became a pastor, I had been a curate for twenty-three years.  Four of those years I spent at Sacred Heart Church, Pawtucket, and nineteen of those years at Ss. John & Paul Church in Coventry.  When I was first ordained it was not unusual for priests to be celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary when they were assigned to their first pastorate.  I recall that as a student at St. Bernard’s Seminary in Rochester in the 1960s my classmates from Brooklyn were told by their bishop that they would probably never be pastors.  In a complete reversal of that antiquated trend, here in the Providence diocese, priests are now becoming pastors only eight years after ordination.   That means these men will be pastors for over thirty-five years!  I’ll be done in seven years – seven years, five weeks and two days. 

       As a curate I always imaged a parish as something that a new pastor inherited.  Some old codger worked doggedly to build up an empire, then he died, and a new man came along and inherited it.  Everything was in place and the new shepherd merely took over.  Wrong!  A parish is not inherited.  A parish is created anew by each succeeding pastor.  Workers that were enamored of the former pastor might think it’s time for a rest.  Ministries that appealed to the former pastor might not square at all with the new guy.  Neighborhoods change.  Old timers move or die.  Newcomers show up weekly.  Buildings deteriorate.  The diocese institutes new programs.  Believe me.  Parish life is not inherited.  Like the mercies of God, it is created anew each morning.

       In today’s Gospel a young man approaches Jesus and asks, “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Perhaps, like a naïve curate, the young man thought that spiritual maturity and eternal life were going to be handed to him on the proverbial silver platter.  It is certainly true that the grace of God is indeed a windfall.  The Christian life is not something that the individual merits.  The Christian life, like a parish, is something entrusted to the believer to be developed, matured, and completed.  Grace, like one’s first parish, is a feather in one’s cap but it brings with it responsibilities, duties, obligations. 

       The Protestants are correct in insisting that believers are not saved by works, by effort, or by energy.  Jesus alone saves.  But grace does bring with it relentless demands that impact upon the believer everyday.  Any Christian that thinks that an initial conversion experience is the fulfillment of the spiritual life is in for a rude awakening.  Conversion is the just the beginning of one’s religious endeavors. Each person’s spiritual life is created anew every day. 

       All of us have read of “poor little rich girls” like Gloria Vanderbilt or Doris Duke who inherited vast sums of money but then spent much of their lives in a restless search for happiness.  It is axiomatic that inheritances, lottery winnings and windfalls do not bring lasting peace or joy.  In the long run, responsibilities are much more rewarding than riches. 

       Jesus’ answer to the rich young man is a list of responsibilities.  Respect for authority, respect for material goods, respect for marriage and family, respect for life, respect for the truth:  these are the steps that will lead to eternal life.  Or rather, these are the challenges that will deepen and develop the free gift of grace bestowed on the believer by God. 

       The successful spiritual life, like the successful parish, implies a lot of work, a lot of creativity, a lot of dedication, a lot of effort.  Grace might be the free gift of God but grace is not an effortless gift.  Rather grace is a challenging gift -- bringing great responsibilities but ensuring even greater rewards. 

     No one in the Gospel accounts is remembered in more contrasting fashion than St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple.  St. John is rightly recalled as the young man who sat next to Jesus at the Last Supper, tenderly resting his head on Jesus’ chest as he inquired about the identity of the Master’s betrayer.  Some would push this scene to its limit, appreciating St. John as an unusually delicate young man even to point of effeminacy.  Yet push the calendar ahead a few days and the reader discovers a St. John who is anything but delicate but rather a St. John who rather athletic.  It is the beloved disciple who outruns the hard working and no doubt quite fit fisherman St. Peter and reaches the tomb of Christ first on Easter morning.  It is also this same St. John who proves that his love for Christ is much more than mere sentiment and emotion by being the sole Apostle to remain with Christ during his agony, passion and crucifixion.  And the love of St. John for the Savior must have had its practical angle, too.  Remember that when Jesus wanted to provide for his mother Mary after his impending death, it was to St. John that Jesus turned as the responsible and resourceful individual who would look after and care for Jesus’ mother in her old age.

       Yet these pictures of the tender St. John and the dutiful St. John do not exhaust the Gospel’s recollections of this long-lived disciple, the only apostle not to die a martyr’s death.  St. John, along with his bother St. James and along with Peter the Rock and Simon the Zealot, was given a nickname by Jesus.  Apparently these two sons of Zebedee had quick, fiery tempers.  It was after all the Saints James and John who wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan town that resisted the preaching of the apostolic band.  These volatile young men were quickly labeled “boanerges,” that is, “sons of thunder,” by Jesus Himself.  Apparently it took little to get these former fishermen riled.  And not only were they short-tempered, they were obviously very short on patience, too, as today’s quite revealing Gospel passage would indicate.  They were eager, in fact, keen, to get ahead in the new Kingdom of God that was being formed before their very eyes.

       Although the Gospel accounts according to St. Matthew and St. Luke have the mother of St. James and St. John approach Jesus asking that her sons be given preferential treatment in the Kingdom to come, St. Mark’s Gospel account, read today throughout the Church, is probably more authentic.  By the time Saints Matthew and Luke put pen to paper, St. John and his brother were highly respected pillars of the Church, as St. Paul notes.  To portray them as ambitious status seekers might have scandalized the infant church.  The portrayal of the mother as eager for her sons’ advancement would be perfectly understandable.  Still it would seem that it was John and James themselves who wanted to get ahead in Christ’s projected Kingdom.

       Christ endorses the ambition of the brothers but he warns them that their eagerness may lead to surprises.  “Do you really know what you are getting into?” Jesus inquires of these two sons of Zebedee.  Can you accept the baptism that is about to engulf me?  Can you drain the bitter chalice that is being placed to my lips?  The brothers naively agree that they are willing and able to join him in the work of the Kingdom regardless of the consequences.  Jesus advises them to take a deep breath.  The fulfillment of his Kingdom will inevitably include these two men but they will be involved in inevitable suffering as well.   Even for the ambitious disciple, suffering is inseparable from victory.         The other ten apostles are scandalized at the ambition of the two brothers.  Or perhaps they are envious that John and James got the jump them, being the first to seek out Jesus’ favor.  Perhaps James and John were not the only disciples to have their fidelity to Jesus mingled with a bit of self-interest. 

       The prospect of eternal life is still very attractive to the believer – whether one sits at Christ’s right hand or at any distant corner of Kingdom.   The Eternal Kingdom is quite a prize under any circumstances.  But the Kingdom has a price, as Jesus warns John and James today.  Jesus’ life and Jesus’ words instruct us that affliction is the only sure door to eternity.                             COMPLETE

       An advertisement arrived in the mail (or was it in the e-mail?) announcing this coming Sunday as Priesthood Sunday.  Recipients were urged to pray for priests and to ponder the nature of the Catholic priesthood.  Certainly the priesthood has been the object of great scrutiny the past couple of years thanks to the sex abuse scandal, the gender issue and the matter of Church authority.  While a Catholic priesthood that is celibate, male and in charge may give some believers pause, it actually should give all believers hope.

       Celibacy has long been associated with the Roman Catholic priesthood.  Writings more technical than this Sunday homily can cite ancient counciliar documents and ecclesiastical decrees confirming this tradition.  More recently Pope Pius XII referred to celibacy as the jewel in the crown of the priesthood.  A celibate priesthood reflects two important elements of the Gospel message.  The unmarried priest reminds all believers of the universal love of God for all men and women.  In contrast to marriage which appropriately symbolizes and realizes the exclusive love of God for the individual believer (I, John, take you, Mary…), the priest is not aligned to any one individual in this world.  He is a living reminder of the wideness of God’s mercy.  The celibate priest is also a reminder of the eschatological aspect of Christianity.  No matter how worthy a marriage, family life or secular pursuits may be in this world, ultimate fulfillment comes only in heaven.  The unmarried priest bears witness to the promise of next world.

       When the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became a human being in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary two thousand years ago, God the Father had to make a choice.  In becoming human, the second Divine person had to be either a man or a woman, either male or female.  Unlike God who has no gender, humans do have a gender.  And God the Father chose to make the offspring of Mary a man, a male, a son.  It defies belief that God the Father would select the gender of the world’s Savior by the flip of a coin.  The gender of Jesus cannot be a matter of indifference, of ambiguity, or of arbitrariness.  The Good News of salvation begins with the Second Person of the Trinity taking a male human nature through Mary.  Maleness was the Father’s choice.  And since the Catholic priesthood continues the priesthood of the man Jesus then it makes sense to maintain the tradition begun by God himself.  Clearly there was a message in Jesus’ coming into this world as a male, as a bridegroom rather than as a bride.  Perhaps this message has not been pondered sufficiently by believers.  Perhaps the desire of some to broaden the priesthood of the future results from not having adequately considered the unique priesthood of the past, the priesthood of Christ.  The Roman Catholic priesthood is not a generic church function; Catholic priests are not chiefly presiders, or ministers or facilitators.  While priests do serve the Christian community, they first of all serve Christ, continuing the mission of Him who was and remains a man.  This historical link with the man Jesus is vital to the proper focus of the Gospel.

       Certainly there are qualified lay people who can sign checks, call the burner man when the parish heat fails, teach catechism, give marriage instructions and offer a prayer at wakes.  There are some lay people who are more eloquent than some priests and some lay people who are more prayerful than some priests.  So why should priests be in charge of church life from the humblest chaplaincy to the inner sanctum of the Vatican?  The Church is primarily a Eucharistic community.  Although the Church maintains schools and hospitals and missions and social agencies of all kinds, the Church primarily exists to offer Mass – it’s as simple as that.  The worship of the Father through the sacrifice of Christ continued sacramentally down through the ages is the Church’s main task.  All other Church functions – sacraments, beliefs, moral life, programs, structures – flow from and lead to the Mass.  With all due respect for the educational, cultural, social and moral obligations of the Church, Catholics remain a Eucharistic people.  The Catholic community’s link with the altar is primary and critical.  Hence the Catholic community’s dependence on the priesthood is inevitable and unalterable.                                                                                                                COMPLETE

       Nothing is more hotly debated in Catholic liturgical circles today than the position of the tabernacle in a church.  The National Catholic Reporter will quote chapter and verse from papal and episcopal documents emphasizing that the tabernacle should be positioned in a place of beauty and honor, but definitely apart from the locale where Mass is celebrated.  A chapel of reserve is the ideal.  The Wanderer and Adoremus will cite the same chapter and verse indicating that a reserve chapel may be ideal for a cathedral or basilica visited by tourists but for parish churches the more central the tabernacle the better.  They underline words like prominence, honorable and visible to bolster their arguments. 

       Visitors to European cathedrals and basilicas and shrines, like the Lateran Basilica whose dedication is commemorated today, can readily recall tabernacles placed in positions that they would not expect in their own parish churches.  The sacramenthaus (Sacrament House) was a venerable feature found in many large Northern European churches.  The Sacrament House was somewhat akin to an ornate hanging sanctuary lamp – except instead of containing a lighted candle it would contain the reserved sacrament.  Sometimes hand-carved doves also containing the reserved Eucharist were seen hanging in smaller churches.  Yet the overwhelming experience of the devout visitor in America or in Europe during the last century and long before that was the familiar tabernacle enthroned elaborately or placed humbly in the heart of the sanctuary.

       For centuries the Eucharist quietly reserved in a prayerful spot in larger churches co-existed with the Eucharist prominently placed in the center of all the action in smaller churches.  So what is the liturgical fuss at the dawn of the new century?  The location of the tabernacle makes a powerful statement about the believing community’s Eucharistic theology.  Should the focus be primarily on Christ and His Presence or on the community and their actions?  Is the enduring Presence of Christ in the church more basic to the Christian life or are the communal actions of the Mass more fundamental to Christian living?  Presence vs. Action – this is root of the discussion. 

       The choice is, of course, a false choice.  Christ Present in the Eucharist can certainly share the believer’s attention with a reverence for the action of the Mass.  The Mass can truly be a resounding and deepening experience of community while at the same affirming the ever-Present Christ as the source of that unity.  Separating the reservation of the Eucharist from the eating and drinking of that same Eucharist is, sadly, a move that is more the result of politics than piety. 

       Some within the Church understand the Mass to be primarily the action of the parish community.  The priest is there simply as the presider – as several liturgical books indicate nowadays.  It is the people who offer the Mass:  they sing the hymns, do the readings, bring up the gifts, share the prayers, embrace one another, sometimes stand around the altar, assist with Communion, (even when priests are present) and engage in similar community-affirming activities.  From this perspective, when the community – the celebrants – depart the church building, all authentic Eucharistic activity ceases.   If Eucharistic wafers must be left behind then they should be relegated to a place of obscurity in a side chapel or wall nook.  Thus the near empty church is a reminder, for them, that the Presence of Christ depends on their actions.  Accordingly, Christ’s Presence is the fruit of their labors – their communal chatting before Mass, their reflections offered in lieu of the homily, their standing proud during Communion.  A prominent and worthy tabernacle containing the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ made Present at the hands of an ordained priest actually becomes a threat to their community centered theology.  Christian communities must recall, however, that it is not they who effect Christ by their communal celebrations.  Rather it is Christ who effects them and fashions them into a worshipping community by the sharing of his Eucharistic Body and Blood made truly and enduringly present by the prayer of the celebrating priest.

       “The only thing certain in this life is death and taxes,” the old aphorism read.  Taxes are still a certainty but death is no longer the fate it once was in the Christian world.  Although the Scriptures tell the believer with no equivocation, “It is appointed to every man to die but once and to be judged,” denials of death from other traditions are creeping into popular Western thought.  Re-incarnation, in which the human soul returns to earth in another body or, more likely, in successive bodies is given some credence in certain circles.  Many readers will recall Bridie Murphy, a celebrated case of re-incarnation from the 1950s.  How a girl who grew up in Brooklyn knew so much about 19^th century Ireland is still a mystery.  “The Re-incarnation of Peter Proud” featured another denial of death’s finality in nearby Springfield, MA.  The transmigration of souls is a belief that souls return to earth in less than human form, entering into animals and trees, to wit, the sacred cows of India.  In neither case is death final.

       Jewish notions of death in the Old Testament and to a great extent even today understand death to be a simple termination.   St. Edith Stein’s first inquiries into Christianity resulted from the dramatic contrast between her own family’s understand of death as the mere entrance into the pit, into the grave, into the suspended animation of Sheol, and the faith in the afterlife she witnessed in a Lutheran friend.  God was beginning to introduce some notions of life after death to the Jews in the centuries immediately before Christ.  “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they might be loosed from their sins,” is a consoling thought from the Books of Maccabees. 

       The Greco-Roman world did have some convictions about life after death.  But pagans tended to stress the immortality of the soul as opposed to the resurrection of the body.  Here the ancient pagan world had more in common with the Eastern traditions than with authentic Christianity.  Both the pagans and the Easterners looked down on the body.  The body was discarded in both the Eastern and the pagan traditions as a lesser form of life.  It was the soul that counted.  The body was expendable.  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ contradicted this common misapprehension.   Building on the Jewish appreciation of God as the God of nature as well as the God of the spirit, the Resurrection, hinted at in late Judaism and then experienced by Jesus Christ, truly sets Christian teaching apart from the pagans and the Easterners.

       In the end both the body and the soul enjoy eternal happiness with God in heaven.  Flesh and spirit, both equally God’s creation, are both invited the celestial banquet feast.  Discussed heatedly in late Judaism, belief in the Resurrection of the body is truly one of the core beliefs of Christianity, marking it out from all other faiths.  The Rite of Christian Burial, when properly celebrated, is a resounding affirmation of belief in the resurrection of the body.  The baptismal overtones of the Catholic funeral Mass are graphic: the coffin is sprinkled with the Holy Water recalling that first sacramental introduction of the believer to the Risen Christ in Baptism.  The white pall is placed over the deceased as the baptismal robe was once laid over the infant body.  The candle reminiscent of Easter eve is lit in a central spot.   After the Mass, the body is not so much buried as it is planted, sowed into the ground, to await a magnificent harvest at the end of time.  For the Christian, death is undeniably difficult but still unquestionably hopeful, as the baptized believer awaits the completion of the Christian life in the resurrection. 

       Much of the Catholic Rite of Christian Burial is being ignored more and more nowadays.  Wakes are inevitably shortened and often eliminated altogether.  The Mass is turned into a Memorial Service which looks to the past for comfort rather than looking to a future resurrection for the meaning of life.  Sometimes the Church service is forsaken for prayers at the funeral home or even at the graveside.  And sometimes even burial itself is neglected in favor of cremation and enshrinement on the mantel.  Loss of faith in the Resurrection and lack of appreciation of the Rite of Christian Burial undermines and obscures the Christian significance of death.                                          COMPLETE

       Perhaps the least popular article in the Nicene Creed recited Sunday after Sunday in our Catholic Churches is the belief that Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”  Belief in the Second Coming of Christ was very popular in the early Church even to the point of believers quitting their jobs to await the impending return of the Master.   Periodically in the Church history, the return of Christ has been thought to be imminent usually around the turn of a century or of a millennium or in the midst of calamities or disasters.  There was some slight enthusiasm for the Second Coming as the 1900s turned into the 2000s.  Novels and minimally circulated movies featuring former teen star Kirk Cameron have lately focused on the Rapture, an especially Protestant appreciation of Christ’s return.  Yet today’s average, Sunday-go-to-meeting Catholic has remained immune to any eagerness for, let alone fanaticism about, the eventual return of Christ, weekly public profession of faith in this belief notwithstanding.

       “It is appointed to everyman to die but once and to be judged,” wrote St. Paul basing his teaching on good authority.  Judgment, accountability, and justice were indeed favorite themes of Jesus Christ himself.  In fact, there are over three hundred references in the Scripture to Christ’s return on Judgment Day.  Christ’s mention of the thief coming in the night may have reflected an actual robbery in the vicinity of Jesus’ public preaching.  The Greek words seem rather specific.  The audience must have known that one of their neighbors had recently been caught off guard.  Similarly, the master’s return from a wedding banquet, catching the servants asleep or awake, is an oft-repeated Gospel motif.  The wise and foolish bridesmaids, all of whom slept but half of whom had made proper preparations ahead of time, are presented for the believer’s edification or warning, as the case may be.  The several talents, disbursed among various servants and intended for good use, will eventually be called into account.  And, of course, the most famous judgment scene is found in Matthew XXV, with its run-over imagery of the Son of Man, the King, the Shepherd, summoning the just and the unjust on the final day.

       Since this famous Judgment Day scene from St. Matthew’s Gospel account changes its imagery so thoroughly, shifting from the clouds of heaven to a royal throne room to pastureland in the Galilean hills, it might mean that Jesus told this story on several, perhaps many, occasions employing various metaphors and similes as best suited the occasion.  When St. Matthew finally put pen to paper, his mixed metaphors are perfectly understandable. Regardless of the blurred depictions, the theme of accountability for one’s daily choices is clear.

       St. Paul, whose reference to judgment began this homily, returned to the subject with equal fervor on several occasions.  St. Paul’s briefest yet clearest mention of the coming accountability are certainly these words: “God is no fool!  As a man sows, thus shall he reap.”   It’s as simple as that!    Whether it be the particular judgment at the end of the believer’s individual life or the general judgment of all mankind on the last day, Judgment Day will be a celebration of truth.  Since God is Truth Itself, he is the ultimate judge of good and evil, right and wrong.   The individual soul before God will have a rushing awareness of how well he has corresponded to the Truth of God made known to him during his lifetime.   The assembly of mankind before the judgment seat of God on the last day will equally have an awareness of how well or poorly the mass of humanity has responded to God’s overtures.  God’s justice will be satisfied toward those who have sadly persevered in their wickedness; God’s mercy will be displayed toward those who happily have repented of their sins.   A very consoling thought as Judgment Day inevitably approaches is the statement of the once Prior of Portsmouth, Dom Aelred Graham, OSB: “God’s justice is subordinate to his mercy.”   Certainly God is no fool, as St. Paul observes.  He cannot wink at injustice.  But God is also the merciful father, who runs down the path to embrace his wayward sons and daughters, unfailingly inviting them to repentance and rejoicing when they respond.

       Two interesting books focusing on the same theme yet approaching it from different perspectives and arriving at vastly dissimilar recommendations for the future are The Liberation of the Laity by Paul Lakeland and The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America by Newporter David Carlin.  Both books survey the time from the Second Vatican Council to the present.   Liberation uses as its bases for discussion those very well known French theologians of the last century: Chenu, Congar, De Lubac and Danielou.  To my mind, going to France to look for guidance on the Church is like going to Mexico to study economic theory.  The Church in France has never recovered from the revolution and deals with a classic issue (anticlericalism) that the Church in America has never known – at least until recently. 

       Liberation also operates under what I consider to be a familiar but false hermaneutic.  Because the publications of Vatican II are official Church documents, traditional teachings are to be expected and so can be more or less discounted.  Liberal, innovative statements therefore deserve special attention since they would not ordinarily have been included by Vatican hacks.  I think just the opposite is true.  There was so much pressure on the Fathers of the Council to be ground-breaking and inventive that any traditional teaching included in the Council’s final deliberations deserve extra attention.  Liberation proposes compellingly and rightly that the task of the laity in the world is the transformation of the secular order.   Through science and technology, God’s material universe should reflect his design of love.  Peace, justice, and brotherhood through education, medicine, politics and commerce are indeed God’s work and indeed the work of Lay Catholics.  A distinction is rightly allowed between the task of the laity in the world and the task of the laity in the Church (what the French used to call Catholic Action). 

       After many fine and distinctive pages on the role of the laity in the world and in the Church, Liberation urges some guidance for the future.  He sees the Church simultaneously a monarchy, an oligarchy and a democracy.  While the author maintains a fitting role for the office of Peter as a sign of universal Church unity (monarchy) and while he obligingly holds the territorial bishop as the chief teacher of the local Church (oligarchy), he then proposes a vastly democratic face for the rest of the Church.  Popes, bishops and pastors would be chosen by election.  Representative government would characterize the Church at every level.  The local clergy come in for a particular short shrift.  All permanent parish staff have equal rank.  The leader of song, the director of religious instruction, the parish outreach coordinator, the finance manager and the pastor all have equal voice in parish affairs.  Isn’t this process exactly what the Providence Journal admired so much about the Anglican Church and even recommended for Catholic consideration a couple of weeks ago? 

       While Liberation speaks well and at length about the laity’s role in the world, the author is all wet when it comes to the lay role in the Church.  Using as his model The People of God imagery of Vatican II (actually a pre-Christian idea), he writes that the goal of the People of God is not worship but freedom.   Freedom is a laudably goal but freedom remains a means to an end; it is not an end in itself.  Sooner or later, mankind wants to make the ultimate choice and rest in God.  The goal of the Church then is to lead people through freedom to the worship of God.  It is this failure to appreciate the importance of worship that makes the author greatly undervalue the ministerial priesthood.  He dismisses without a single word of explanation the celibate priesthood and the male priesthood.   He replaces the Eucharist with Baptism as the central sacramental experience of the Church.   Scriptural images like the Mystical Body, the Vine and Branches, and the priestly role of Christ in Hebrews, are hardly mentioned. 

       In the end, Liberation, while well researched and well written, is neither fair nor balanced.  The author clearly has an agenda (which many of us do) and his scholarship serves his agenda better than the truth.  Next week, Mr. Carlin’s courageous reflections on the contemporary Church will be reviewed.                                                                                                                   COMPLETE

       Author and frequent letter writer David Carlin from Newport offers his readers The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America proposing that the Catholic Church in the USA was simultaneously hit with three momentous events in the middle of the last century.  The Second Vatican Council, no matter what the future benefits might be, was very unsettling for neat 1960s Catholicism.  The Cultural Revolution of the 1960s – sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll – changed everyone’s attitude toward authority, toward tradition, even toward respectability.  And, perhaps most importantly, secularism -- effectively symbolized by the striking down of prayer in public schools in 1962 -- placed the godless on an equal footing with the Godly.  It is Carlin’s contention that the Church in USA broke or almost broke under the strain of this triple blow.  Drastic measures must be taken to recall the Church to its former effectiveness.

       Professor Carlin argues rather sensibly if rather surprisingly that the strength of the pre-Vatican II Church lay in its clear appreciation of its enemy: Protestantism.  Protestants don’t believe in the Real Presence; good, we’ll build bigger monstrances.  Protestants don’t believe in Mary; fine, we’ll jiggle our rosaries all the louder.  Protestants have a married clergy; okay, it’s celibacy for us.  Protestants detest the Pope of Rome; great, we’ll make him infallible.  The pre-Vatican II Church was focused, observant and vigilant.   After Vatican II, the Church acknowledged no clear enemy.  Tolerance was the watchword of the day and the Catholic Church became a Church among churches.  Catholicism as another American denomination replaced Catholicism as an immigrant ghetto in the second half of the Twentieth Century. 

       It is Professor Carlin’s argument that the Church in the United States needs a new enemy and, mirabile dictu, one is readily at hand: secularism.  Carlin traces the rise of secularism as a respectable philosophy in the USA through the works of those secularist authors so familiar to us who went to school in the mid-century.  The books of Margaret Mead, John Dewey, Sydney Hook, and many other relativists popularized a philosophy without God.   The US Supreme Court and several local courts in successive decisions gave increasing legitimacy to atheism.  Within the Church, Modernism again proposed its anti-supernaturalist theology and, sadly, was welcomed by many.  The rise of secularism and the resurrection of Modernism is no co-incidence. 

       Once the bishops of the United States drop their “why can’t we all get along?”  attitude and courageously admit that Secularism is the enemy of the Post-Vatican II Church, things might start falling into place.  The very issues that pre-occupy so many grass roots Catholics must begin to be the pre-occupation of our bishops.  Carlin makes no apology for focusing on abortion as a critical contest between the Catholic Church and the secularist world.   Indeed in decades to come life issues will, or should, distinguish the Catholic Church from its unbelieving neighbors or, rather, its enemy, secularism.  Otherwise the Catholic Church will take its stand along side the mainline Protestant Churches of America, whose pulpits formerly occupied by the likes of Cotton Mather and Jonathen Edwards are now occupied by the likes of Gene Robinson and John Shelby Spong. 

       The Professor is hopeful for the Church in spite of there being so much grist for his decline and fall mill.   Worth the price of the book is Carlin’s observation that the renewal of the Catholic Church in America depends greatly on “minimal lay influence.”  The reader will have to investigate the substance of that remark for himself. 

       “Decline and Fall” provokes the middle-aged or senior reader to ask, “Why didn’t we see this coming ?”   I lived through this experience and often felt the lure of denominationalism, tolerance, and liberalism.   Mercifully, the faith received in the 1940s and 50s triumphed over the faith revised in the 1980s and 90s.                                                                                                     COMPLETE  

       The Advent wreath, a late arrival on the scene of American pieties, admirably expresses the tension within which Christian believers work out their salvation.  The dual symbolism of the four candles and the circular wreath easily represent time and eternity, earth and heaven, man and God.

The four candles are often understood to represent the traditional four thousand years during which the ancient Jewish nation awaited its Messiah.  For some numerological reason, the Jews, untroubled by theories of evolution or the age of creation, decided that four millennia were an appropriate expanse of time for mankind to endure the curse of original sin.  After the four thousand years, the Savior would arrive and the history of salvation would be altered for the benefit of all.  Hence the four Advent candles represent time, time spent here on earth awaiting redemption, time spent “buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage” – those many events that constitute daily life for men and women, believers and non-believers, everywhere.

       On the other hand, the candles of Advent could stand for the four corners of the earth – north, east, south and west, in case you’ve forgotten.  Usually arranged about the candle in a square, the vast expanse of earth is neatly outlined by the four luminaries, bearing quiet witness to the limits of man’s world.  Instead of symbolizing time, as outlined above, the four candles now symbolize space – not outer space, so familiar to our imaginations, but simply space here on earth, the ground, the territory, the land on which mankind has worked out his destiny since Eden. 

       In the end, time and space are two sides of the same coin.  Time and space are the limitations within which man and women are born, mature, marry, reproduce, age and finally die.  Time and space are the perimeters of our world, our life, our creaturely existence. 

       Hence the Advent wreath candles are a weekly reminder of the importance of time and space, that is, of daily human life here on earth.  These four candles remind the believing community each week of the importance of family life, the responsibility of spouses, the accountability for children, the

significance of employment, the meaning of community, the challenge of poverty and ignorance, the evil of war and the fragility of peace.  All those challenges, accomplishments, and failures that constitute daily life are recalled by the incremental glow of the Advent candles.  The authentic Christian may not avoid the responsibilities of time and space.  Like Christ Himself, the true Christian will take on flesh, will deal with reality, will get involved, and will interact with the surrounding world.

       Yet Christianity is not just high-class humanism.  The Advent wreath is, after all, chiefly a circle of laurel, a ring of leaves without beginning and without finish, an endless curve symbolizing eternity and infinity and, in fact, recalling God Himself.  In contrast to Advent’s candles, the evergreen wreath speaks of life beyond time and beyond space.  The wreath reminds the Advent worshipper of heaven,

of the supernatural, of the divine.  While the sincere Christian will be alert to the demands and challenges of earth, never turning away from an outstretched hand, the Christian will be equally alert to the hand of God summoning him to a higher life.  The eternal wreath reminds the believer of the world of the spirit, of man’s need of grace, of the reality of faith, of the power of prayer, of the horror of sin, and certainty of redemption.  Advent’s evergreen ring is a weekly summons to raise one’s mind and heart to God in worship, prayer and fellowship.  Then, fortified by an authentic encounter with God though the Church, the believer can return to the world of time and space, spiritually energized and divinely invigorated to face and deal with the challenges of daily life.

       Like Christ Himself, the God-man, every Christian holds a Divine spark within a human frame.  Man should not ignore his own human circumstances nor must he ignore the gifts awaiting him from above.  Both time and eternity must be on the mind of the Advent believer.

       There is perhaps no more maligned expression in the English language than the word guilt.   Guilt nowadays is equated with mental illness.   Perhaps the guilty party’s mother was scared by a broom in the closet during pregnancy.  Or maybe the parish priest yelled at the guilty one during confession as a youth.  Or possibly the religion teacher was a bit overzealous in the teaching the Commandments.   The modern world needs some outlandish basis for guilt that will allow it to be dismissed as excessive, unfortunate, misguided. 

       But clearly there is nothing wrong with guilt.  Guilt is simply the soul’s way of letting the individual know that he has fallen short of his own ideals.  If I copy the answers off my smart classmate’s papers all through high school, I should feel guilty about graduating cum laude.  If I cheat on my spouse, I should experience guilt when my wedding anniversary comes around – if not before!    It is not the person who senses guilt that is mentally ill.  It is the person who never suffers any remorse that is mentally ill.  The person without guilt is a sociopath.  The person with guilt might be a fallen person, but that person still has values, ideal and goals.  Guilt can be a great spur to repentance, to reformation, to changing one’s ways.

       The Christian who experiences guilt should be aware that he has fallen short not only of his own ideals but, more importantly, of God’s nobler ideals as well.  The more vivid God’s call to excellence is for the believer the deeper and more pervasive will be the sense of guilt.  It is bad enough to fall short of our own standards.  But to resist God’s call to excellence should be a crushing blow to any believer.

       During the season of Advent, the figure of John the Baptist is projected large on the screen of Scripture.  John announces his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And John attracts great crowds along the shore of the Jordan.  Clearly it is guilt that has drawn these crowds to the preaching and ministry of John.  The self-centered crowds are told to share their food and clothing with the needy.  The tax collectors are instructed to be honest and forthright.  The soldiers are urged to be sympathetic, open-minded, and sensible.  John goes right to the heart of the several problems that are facing these groups:  The crowds feel guilty for ignoring their neighbors.  The tax collectors sense guilt for taking advantage their position.  The soldiers are uneasy about their strong-arm tactics.  John the Baptist knows that these guilt feelings can lead to contrition.  Guilt is the first step toward reform.  Guilt is the first awakening of conscience.  Guilt is the first sensation of hope.

       While the New Testament is never anti-Semitic (in spite of all the headlines one might read today), the Gospels can be anti-Jewish, in the sense that the early Christian community viewed Judaism as a rival church, competing for the allegiance of the Judean and Galilean populace.  But even in the midst of this rivalry, the Scriptures confirm that ancient Judaism was a very God-centered community.  YHWH was very real for the Jews.  God’s Law was the very core of their existence.   They were clearly a people of faith.  And so sin and guilt were very real for the ancient Jew.  The keener one’s appreciation of God and his Law and his teachings, the greater is going to be one’s guilt when God and his Law and his teachings are ignored or defied.  In other words, the ancient Jews had a sharp sense of sin, a keen appreciation of what God asked of them and of how far they had wandered from his invitation.  It was this sense of sin, this salutary sense of sin, that drove the Jewish crowds to the banks of the Jordan seeking some solace, some reprieve, some relief from John’s ritual bath.

       During the Second World War, Pope Pius XII lamented that the greatest evil of the day was the loss of the sense of sin.  Some nowadays perhaps wish that Pius had pointed out other evils but his observation was as insightful then as it would be now.  Mankind has nothing outside himself to which to aspire, nothing to which he might look up, nothing on which he might set his sights.  Hence he has no sense of falling short, of erring, of sinning.  Only a renewed sense of Gospel goals, of God’s Law, of perennial truths will restore man’s conscience, awaken a sense of guilt, and lead gradually to conversion.                                                                                                                            COMPLETE

       During these last days of December, anticipation of the solemnity of Christmas is enlivening both the sacred and the secular worlds.  Even non-believers are caught up in the hubbub of Christmas shopping, Christmas parties, Christmas greeting cards.  No matter how indirectly, the arrival of Jesus Christ into history is still commemorated, still celebrated, still significant for much of the world’s population.  Yet, lest the holiday ambiance obscure the holy day atmosphere entirely, the Church pauses this last Sunday of Advent to remind all believers that the authentic celebration of the birth of Christ is not explained by bluster and bravado.  The skaters at Rockefeller Center, the glistening lights on the White House tree, and the carols by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir certainly pay some oblique homage to the Savior of the world.  But today’s Scriptures and today’s liturgy prefer to remind Christians that the essence of Christmas is to be found in humility, in obscurity, in insignificance. 

       Jesus was born not in his hometown of Nazareth which is today the fourth largest city in Israel but in the village of Bethlehem which the prophet Micah recalls in today’s first reading as being “too small to be among the clans of Judah.”  True, Bethlehem was the city of David, a southern Israelite community from which the shepherd king David took his origin.  But recall that the David in Bethlehem was only a teenage shepherd boy not the later king who would happily unite the tribes of Israel around the city of Jerusalem.  David’s rise to glory would occur only after leaving his native city.  Awaiting the coming of Christ, Bethlehem would remain in sleepy obscurity and quiet insignificance for centuries.

       Although the Christian centuries have been rightly kind to the Blessed Virgin Mary and have universally exalted her in devotion and lore, the maiden Mary, like the city of Bethlehem, began her role in salvation history in total obscurity and complete insignificance.  Mary was a young, single, unknown woman at the time of her visitation by the angel Gabriel.  She lived in Galilee, always considered a backwater by the more sophisticated Jews of Judea.  She was engaged to Joseph, a workingman, about whom even the Scriptures reveal very little.  Her only known relatives resided not in cosmopolitan Jerusalem but in the “hill country of Judea,” like Mary, living out their lives in obscurity and insignificance. 

       It is true that the young John the Baptist, still in the womb of Elizabeth in today’s Gospel, would go on to make a name for himself among the Jerusalem elite.  But John’s mission was to resist the advantages of Jewish society, to reproach the privileged and reprimand the influential.   He lived most of his brief life in the Judean wilderness, deliberately renouncing the tumult of the first century world, preferring self-discipline to self-indulgence and anonymity to celebrity. 

     In their own lifetimes Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zachary, and the residents of Bethlehem were little known and little heeded.  They lived their existence in obscurity and insignificance.  Yet from them and from their faith came the Baptist, ”the greatest man born of woman,” and the Savior,  “the Son of God, King of Israel.”   The later Christian believing community, the Church we know, sprang from the faith in God and trust in his promises of these obscure Jews.  It was not secular resources and worldly capital that enriched Christianity in its infancy.  It was entirely the power of God that spawned the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth and loosed the Good News of Salvation upon the human race.   The obscurity and insignificance of Christianity’s first ancestors underline the Divine foundations of the Gospel message and the eternal origins of the Christianity community. 

       Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit through Mary’s thoughtful visit, exclaimed in joy, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”  These words should only be understood as prophetic.  At the time, there was no earthly way for Elizabeth to know of the spiritual good fortune that would descend upon Mary and Jesus in the years ahead.  It was Elizabeth’s supernatural faith alone that gave her a true appreciation of the impact of Jesus and the importance of Mary.  It is still supernatural faith alone that gives the modern believer the ability and the courage to distinguish eternal values from worldly ideals and spiritual principals from secular enticements.   Clearly, Christianity’s obscure origins emphasize its Divine establishment.                                     COMPLETE

       American religious practice is viewed less as a corporate enterprise and more as a personal (i.e., private) experience with each passing year.  American religion is a simple matter of the heart, to be experienced in the intimacy of one’s home or in the company of fellow believers.  In some circles, the public expression of religious beliefs is actually thought to be offensive.  Thus France attempts to ban the wearing of Crucifixes, Davidic stars and Islamic garb in French classrooms.  Cranston’s embattled Mayor Laffey is harassed for opening city land to non-denominational holiday displays.  Television commercials are intent to wish “Happy Holidays” and “Season’s Greetings” in lieu of the obvious but unspoken “Merry Christmas.”   Perhaps the most egregious departure from the traditional Christian appreciation of the Christmas season is the recently overheard felicitation, “warm winter wishes.”

       The privatization of religion is profoundly un-Christian.  Christianity by its very nature is incarnational, as the solemnity of Christ’s nativity vividly emphasizes.   In Jesus Christ, the Divine Word becomes human flesh.  Jesus Christ is the physical expression of the Divine Nature, God-made-man, Emmanuel.  With all due respect to our Protestant friends, Jesus did not come into this world simply as Word, to be contemplated with an open Bible in one’s lap or to be the subject of meditation in one’s mind.  No, Jesus came into this world with warm flesh and warm blood, very much a part of the human race.  He ate and drank.  He worked and rested.  He enjoyed company and relished quiet time.  He worshipped in synagogue and prayed on the mountain.  He was crucified, died and was buried.   The Gospel revealed through the public life of Christ was never meant to be private.  The city set on the mountaintop must never be hidden.  The light that is faith must shine before all.   The incarnational aspects of Christianity, introduced at the physical birth of Christ, would mature over time into the sacraments and sacramentals of the Catholic Church.  From its inception, Christianity was not just an object of personal belief.  It was intended to be preached, expressed, lived and shared in public as well as in private.  Frankly, the ultimate consequence of Christianity is a new Christendom, where Christ will be all in all.

       The incarnational and hence social nature of Christianity is completely at odds with the individualistic trend in modern society in which privacy and personal choice have dethroned the common good as the central consideration of mankind.  The Protestant consensus, which held together in this country until just after the Second World War and which Catholics for the most part shared (Revelation, Sunday rest, traditional marriage and family, sin, heaven/hell), has been decimated within Protestant mainline communities, greatly affecting American Catholicism as well.   The notion that there might be standards -- especially standards based on Revelation -- to which all men and women are answerable has become laughable in these first years of Christianity’s third millennium.  

       Yet this is the commission given by Christ to his followers.  The Good News of Salvation, the authentic Gospel message, is precisely that God has spoken to man through Jesus Christ and the core truths found in and revealed through Jesus Christ are intended for every creature.  Surely the Gospel is meant to be personal but never private.  Just as the Gospel is intrinsically destined to affect every fiber of an individual’s being so it is equally designed to influence every aspect of society:  church, politics, marriage, family, education, industry.   These thoughts are anathema of course to an era that has debunked God and his Revelation and instead exalted man and his private choices.   Clearly there is no common good nowadays.  There are only personal, private choices.  And to imply that there might be some institutional common ground – by erecting a Cross or a menorah or a crescent (or even an American flag) – is odious and provocative to the individual choice crowd. 

        Christians, especially Roman Catholics, must not acquiesce to the privatization of worship and morality that grows apace in this country and in the Western world.   Remember, Adam and Eve were the first to exalt private choice over God’s word.  Obedience to a higher law proved too great a burden for them.   Modern society’s refusal to acknowledge any authority beyond itself simply repeats the original sin of our ill-fated first parents.                                                                           COMPLETE

       As the octave of Christmas draws to a close, the Church is intent to remember Mary, the Mother of God or, as the liturgy praises her elsewhere: Mary, the ever-virgin mother of Jesus Christ, our Lord and God.  Certainly Mary is unique as a virgin-mother, the two words appear quite contradictory.  Yet it is clearly God’s plan that Mary be venerated as a perpetual virgin as well as an actual mother.  Both elements of Mary’s unique role in salvation history are worthy of meditation if her singular place in God’s plan of redemption is to be appreciated.

       The virginity of Jesus’ mother Mary must be understood more broadly than the simple purity our contemporary world might see.  True, Mary was pure and chaste and innocent.  She was spotless and inviolate, not only spiritually but morally, a suitable vessel for Jesus to be conceived.  In this she is a model of the unmarried woman who has chosen not to compromise her own integrity or the integrity of any spousal relationship she may later embrace.  In a society where chastity and its guardian modesty are considered naïve and old-fashioned, the innocence of Mary is commendable and recommendable. 

       Yet evangelical chastity connotes more than sexual purity and discretion.  The evangelical counsel of chastity, which the virginity of Mary anticipates, primarily bears witness to the reality of the next life rather than sexual caution in this life.  Marital fulfillment is the obvious vocation of the mass of mankind.  Ninety-five percent of people who can marry do marry.  Virginity and celibacy are clear exceptions within human societies.  The virgin clearly expects her (or his) fulfillment will be found elsewhere than in human intimacy.  Christian virginal fulfillment is found not here but rather in eternity.  The vowed virgin deliberately foregoes the legitimate pleasures of this life in order to increase her (or his) appreciation of the next life.   By forfeiting the delights of sexual experience in this world, the virgin deepens, sharpens, and focuses her (or his) appreciation of the joy promised in the next world.   Authentic Christian virginity is an eschatological witness:  evoking the fulfillment of heaven while resisting the lure of this world.   In this, Mary is truly the model for all Christians, married or virginal.  Every believer must accept that this world, no matter how comforting its pleasures, will eventually pass away and final fulfillment will come only in heaven.

       Mary is celebrated, of course, not only as a perpetual virgin bearing witness to the fulfillment of heaven but also as a complete, human mother with all the tender attributes that kindly word evokes.  The early councils of the Church argued frankly as to how seriously the motherhood of Mary should be taken.  Was she merely a physical channel through which some flesh and blood passed or was she genuinely a mother contributing from the core of her being to this new divine/human life delivered at Bethlehem?  The early Fathers decided that Mary was indeed a true mother, a mother not only of Jesus’ human nature but mother of Jesus, the Divine Person, himself.  Hence the solemnity that the universal Church celebrates today:  Octave of Christmas: Mary, the Mother of God.

       Mary as virgin/mother is accordingly a model of the Church.  The Church remains a virgin, refusing to embrace any earthly structure or institution as the ultimate experience in life.  Instead, the virgin Church saves her hopes of fulfillment for the next life.   No matter how successful the Church’s mission in this life might be, final victory will come only in the next world, in eternity.  Still, like Mary, the Church is a tender, loving mother.   The Church is jealous to share her life, her spiritual existence, with her children everywhere.  She welcomes them to life in Baptism, nourishes them in the Eucharist, heals them in Penance and the Anointing, strengthens them in Confirmation, sends them out into the world through marriage and orders.   Like Mary, the Church watches as her children grow “in wisdom, age and grace before God and men.”  While never taking her eyes off the next world,