A Reflection for Advent, 2011

As Christmas draws ever nearer and the shopping fervor kicks into high gear, we tend to hear more religious messages dissuading us from our rampant consumerism and reminding us of the “Reason for the Season.” And this is as it should be, given how we are often easily taken in by the mad dash to make sure everyone on our gift list is accounted for, not to mention making sure we’ve put the finishing touches on our own gift list! Surely the gift God gave to humankind in the birth of Jesus is incomparable, and it is all too easily lost in our overly commercialized holiday celebrations.

But lately, especially in this season of Advent, I’ve been reflecting on the whole idea of longing. Often accompanying the admonitions of fellow Christians is the offering of assurance that all of our deepest longings are filled not in those things which fill our stockings, but in Him who fills our hearts. Well, I would say, yes and no.

I can, without reservation, say along with Saint Augustine that “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” I hold that human beings have an innate longing for God which we try to fill with a variety of things which seem to promise happiness—power, fame, sensual pleasure, and yes, material possessions. Each and all of these end up being vain pursuits, never delivering true peace for the soul. In this regard, I agree with those brothers and sisters of mine I’ve mentioned above: a reconciled relationship with God, made possible through the One born in Bethlehem is what we truly seek, and entering into such a relationship squelches the potency of these earthly longings.

I would hasten to add, however, that that is not the end of the story. Beginning and deepening a relationship with God decidedly does not mark the end of all our longings. Instead, as we walk with God and as our wills are conformed ever more greatly to His, we find that our longings change. While our longings for those false lures to happiness decrease, other longings appear and increase: the very longings of God. These include longings for peace, for reconciled human relationships, for an end to wars, violence, and injustice, for suffering to cease, for no more sickness, dying, and death, and for a deep, profound love to be shared between all who are made in their Creator’s image.

Contrary to what I used to think, these longings cannot be passed over with a blind optimism which merely imagines either the day we individually pass on into the life everlasting and everything is as it should be, or when Jesus triumphantly returns and sets things right. Instead, these are precisely the longings that come to inhabit our thoughts, our prayers, our very lives. We pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” and we mean right here and right now. What’s more, we also mean in us and through us. We are both the object and the instrument of that prayer’s answer.

Longing for the things God longs for in no way diminishes our hope in the resurrection or desire for the return of Christ. Rather, it prepares us for it by stirring us to greater partnership with, and deeper dependence upon, God. May this Advent see our hearts ache for God’s kingdom to come, his will to be done.

“Graciously grant us peace in our days.”

History and the Christian

One of my growing convictions is that we, as human beings, are undeniably historically contingent: what has come before us—culture, language, philosophy, etc.—has contributed to us—to the very makeup of who we are.

My time in Evangelicalism had a strange interaction with this assertion. On the one hand, it stressed the absolute necessity for faith of the historical Jesus: his life, death, and resurrection. And rightly so, as orthodox Christianity is unabashedly forthright about the necessity of the historicity of its claims, as in the ancient creeds. But what Evangelicalism failed to convey, and only rarely acknowledged, was the ongoing influence of history on and within the life of the Church, and how that influence affected the faith. In lauding the Bible alone (rather than the alongside the Tradition of the Church) as the only reliable authority on divine revelation, Evangelicalism tenaciously clings to a strange and extreme interpretation of that medieval humanist cry, “Ad fontes!” (“To the sources!”) Rather than looking to Scripture and the early Fathers to correct and guide the admittedly sometimes far-reaching speculation of Scholastic theology, contemporary Evangelicalism, like its neighbor, Fundamentalism, can often rest content with only chapter-and-verse for a bed. Of course, while exegesis is often seen as necessary, there is little admission of the continuing historical role of hermeneutics, except insofar as the individual student of the Bible arrives at the “correct” interpretation of the Scriptures through prayer and diligence. As the bumper sticker read, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

The beauty I’ve found in embracing a sacramental practice of the Christian faith is that history becomes the ally to faith it is intended to be, without diminishing the centrality of the Scriptures. The Eucharist which shapes our very being, for example, is resolutely tied to history: it is at once linked with Calvary and the Parousia, but inasmuch as it is entrusted to the historical Church, it also ministers throughout the ages, and that ministry shapes what it is today. Moreover, the whole Church is present at each Eucharist: the Church Triumphant (those in heaven, as signified by the censing of the altar), the Church Suffering (the souls being made ready for heaven in Purgatory), and the Church Militant (the Church of our day, fighting the good fight). The historicity of St. Paul, St. Perpetua, St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Francis, St. Thérèse, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta has played—and still plays—a part in how they now celebrate the Mass, present with us. Far from being historically selective, and not at all denying history, the Eucharist converges and manifests the historicity of Christianity in our very midst. And we, as historical beings, partake!

Judgment Day: Maybe Today, Maybe Tomorrow

May 21^st, 2011—the date that “graced” billboards across the nation as the date of the Biblical Day of Judgment—has come and gone. The world did not end. Judgment Day has not commenced. All of the hullabaloo that was made over the date on Facebook, on morning radio shows, in casual conversation, and even, notably, by major international news organizations (e.g. the BBC) will likely quickly die out and the public’s attention will move on.

I have wrestled with how best to respond to the phenomenon of the prominence of this prediction. As a theologian and scholar, I disagreed with Harold Camping’s numerological methodology of interpretation of the Scriptures. I did not expect Judgment Day to come on the 21^st—well, no more so than on another day. And therein lies the rub. As a Christian I was dismayed at the easy target Camping’s prediction made for would be mockers and scoffers of Christianity in general, yet I hold an adherence to the general principles which lie behind it.

It is incontrovertible that, according to the Bible, there will indeed come a time of judgment, often represented by what the Old and New Testaments call “the Day of the Lord/Lord Jesus” (e.g. OT: Isa. 13:6, 9; 58:13; Jer. 46:10; Ezek. 13:5; 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14; Amos 5:18, 20; Obad. 1:15; Zeph. 1:7, 14; Zech. 14:1; Mal. 4:5; NT: Acts 2:20; 1 Co. 5:5; 2 Co. 1:14; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:10). What’s more, both the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creed speak of Jesus returning to judge.

Equally, people are urged to be prepared for the coming of this Day (e.g. Matt. 25). To bolster this urgency of preparedness, the Scriptures highlight the imminence and unknowability of Jesus’ return. Essentially, Mr. Camping’s campaign sought to dispel apathy and increase faithful response by naming a date for Judgment Day. The Scriptures, by not naming a day, are not seeking to waylay urgency but rather to intensify it: “You don’t know the day or the hour, so be ready now,” is their message.

So, while I found no validity in Camping’s specific prediction, I sought not to belittle the concepts behind his teaching. I sought not to defend, but neither to mock. Moreover, I will endeavor to live in great anticipation of the Lord’s imminent return today (May 22^nd, 2011) and every day. Maranatha!

A Meditation for Holy Week: Love and Death

But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:13

Christ on the Cross is the perfect sacrifice because he there embodies perfect love. The immense power of all the wickedness, scorn, and sin of the ages, when heaped upon his broken body, is met with a power infinitely greater: Love. Perfect love. And love covers all offenses. Christ’s death was not merely necessary to satisfy justice, but since only through death—a good, sacrificial death—is wickedness definitively undone, his perfect death provided true atonement for the wickedness of the ages: the sin of the world vanishes before the death of Christ as a wisp of smoke before a gale-force wind. In the beauty of God, Death, the last enemy, the wages of sin, is precisely the vehicle through which Death is overcome. Love is the giving of oneself for the sake of the other. Perfect love is giving all; perfect love is self death.

When we are baptized, we are incorporated into Christ’s death. It is no coincidence that water, the matter of baptism, is simultaneously a symbol of chaos and evil in ancient Hebrew thought and a sign of cleansing in the Law and the Prophets. Christ’s side would not have been pierced but for the evil of humanity, and yet evil is drowned in the flood which flows from him. It is no mistake that water both flooded the earth in God’s judgment and flowed from Christ’s side in God’s mercy. God’s great mercy could not have been fulfilled without God’s judgment upon the sin of the world, yet mercy triumphs over judgment. Perfect love undoes Death through Death.

What’s more, when we are joined to Christ’s death through baptism, we ourselves assume the character of perfect love, for he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness is the victory of perfect love, which we cannot claim for ourselves unless it should become the character of our life. As Bonhoeffer said, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” True love is death to self. Our Christian lives therefore evince the perfect love of God through the sacrificial nature of our deeds, empowered by our incorporation into Christ’s death through baptism, by the working of the Holy Spirit.

It should come as no surprise, either, that baptism is essentially a communal sacrifice: the one baptized is incorporated into Christ’s death and into his Mystical Body, the Church. Perfect love cannot exist with a subject alone. When we are incorporated into Christ’s death, and we assume the character of that death, it can mean nothing else that we assume his perfect love for the Father and for all of humanity. As his body breaks and blood flows to reconcile the world to himself, who lives in perfect love with the Father, we who are incorporated into his body through baptism are entrusted with the message of reconciliation.

And how do we manifest that message? No other way than always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life precisely in this way—it molds the Church, the Body of Christ, into a cruciform shape. As we are nourished by Christ’s body broken for us and his blood shed for us, our mortal bodies take on the essence of perfect love, of the death of the self for the sake of the other. Only this perfect love—but certainly this perfect love—is able to be the eternal unmaking of sin and death, and moreover, to restore to us our true and eternal self.

Prayer knocks, fasting obtains, mercy receives

This is from today's Office of Readings. A great Lenten meditation!

From a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop

There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.

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

When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.

Let this be the pattern for all men when they practise mercy: show mercy to others in the same way, with the same generosity, with the same promptness, as you want others to show mercy to you.

Therefore, let prayer, mercy and fasting be one single plea to God on our behalf, one speech in our defence, a threefold united prayer in our favour.

Let us use fasting to make up for what we have lost by despising others. Let us offer our souls in sacrifice by means of fasting. There is nothing more pleasing that we can offer to God, as the psalmist said in prophecy: A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; God does not despise a bruised and humbled heart.

Offer your soul to God, make him an oblation of your fasting, so that your soul may be a pure offering, a holy sacrifice, a living victim, remaining your own and at the same time made over to God. Whoever fails to give this to God will not be excused, for if you are to give him yourself you are never without the means of giving.

To make these acceptable, mercy must be added. Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to earth. However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit.

When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore, do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.

On Grandeur and Intimacy

My wife and I are parishioners at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in St. Paul, Minnesota. The building itself is a magnificent structure, filled with intricate and meaningful detail. The very grandeur that is so captivating, causing first time visitors to gasp when first stepping foot in the doors, suggests the surpassing majesty of the God who is worshipped therein. Statuary, stained glass, bronze grills, a towering baldakin set atop impossible marble monoliths, a grand dome, and so much more leave the visitor in little doubt about the lofty, sublime transcendence of God.

This is something my wife and I have come to appreciate highly. God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is majestic (and so much more so than the lone word implies). God is sublimely transcendent. Even 21^st-century Americans, many of whom have never experienced an earthly royal court, are familiar enough with the marks of honor (say, at a wedding, where the bride is so honored; or at a funeral, where the deceased is) to understand that a certain regal formality is only fitting for a king or queen. Without it, the regent (or bride, or deceased) is robbed of honor that is due. How much more so for the King of kings!

“Ah,” might say some of my Protestant friends, “but it all makes God seem so high, so aloof, so distant, and not our closest friend.” True, there exists the possibility that one might think of the God of the Cathedral of Saint Paul as one who is unreachable in prayer, unattainable in relationship, ungraspable in comprehension…

…until Mass.

The fact is, God is exactly that to those who are strangers, aliens, enemies (as says Sacred Scripture), distanced by the willful fleeing of his creatures into their own, autopetal volition. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And every day of the year (save one) the Catholic faithful around the world come to meet this high, majestic, transcendent God in the Way made present: the sacrifice of the Mass. And this sublime God who seems (and is) so far beyond our mental, physical, emotional, imaginational, spiritual grasp, comes to meet them through Jesus Christ’s real, sacramental presence, shared out in the most intimate way: through a union actualized by the eating of flesh and drinking of blood (which actually does happen every day), as prescribed by the Lord himself.

There is something so very right about this juxtaposition of sublime transcendence and deep intimacy. The closest friend—for indeed, He is—we receive in the Eucharist is unlike any other friend we’ve had, yet our closest friend He remains. The majestic grandeur of the Cathedral is centered around a genuflected tabernacle where He dwells and a bowed altar where He lays. Organs play, choirs sing, clergy process, incense rises, bells ring, people stand and bow and kneel, and in the center of all the ritualistic formalities and humble solemnity of the liturgy—crying out in prayer to this unfathomably great God—He comes. Not in thunder and lightning. Not in fire or wind. In bread and wine. In body and blood. In person.

…to love.