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.

A New Freedom

I've been reading some stuff lately that continues to reinforce my idea that modernistic individualism has run rampant in our society, particularly evidenced by the substance and meaning we attach to that all-surpassing term, "Freedom".

My assigned reading from Anselm's Cur Deus Homo has led me to reflect on what necessity means for God (Anselm would argue that the only operative force on God is his own volition...hence nothing can be presumed to be a necessity for God, see CDH, ii, 17/18). Perhaps the wise, obedient, and "fitting" exercise of our human wills is another feature of our being created in the imago Dei. On the flip side, when we make decisions which serve our misguided senses of self-importance, entitlement, and ultimate autonomy, we essentially live into the very basis of our (and Adam's) sin.

Still, it seems that a popular, cultural definition of freedom panders to just this end: freedom is being able to do/choose what I want. And, of course, our corrupted desires are often molded and shaped most by self-benefit, pleasure, comfort, etc. Simplifying the equation, then, we reach the point that freedom is nothing restricting me from attaining those goods and circumstances which provide me with pleasure, comfort, etc.

Pope Benedict XVI has recently maintained that this assumption is a corruption of true freedom. " 'A redefinition of the meaning of liberty' is needed, the Holy Father said, noting that it is more and more conceived as an 'untouchable right of the individual' while the 'importance of its divine origins and communitarian dimension' are ignored. 'According to this interpretation, an individual alone can decide and choose the physiognomy, characteristics and finality of life, death and marriage,' he added. But, 'true liberty is founded and developed ultimately in God. It is a gift that is possible to welcome as a seed and to make it mature responsibly so as to truly enrich the person and society.' " (see http://www.zenit.org/article-24113?l=english)

Indeed, the Church must define liberty, freedom--and live it out--in God. It's no coincidence that self-serving autonomy flies in the face of the two greatest commandments. True freedom, rather, is not freedom from all captivity, but it is captivity to the right master (Rom. 6:15ff; cf. 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:1, 13; 1 Pet. 2:16). The hard part? Sometimes the freedom given by God doesn't feel good. Sometimes it doesn't serve my needs (read: wants).

But it is of great importance that we understand that our happiness, our ultimate fulfilment as human beings, our salvation depends on something outside ourselves. Given, that, it may even be in the interest of our happiness to accept circumstances which are much less than pleasurable, than comfortable. As Anselm put it, "...it is not unhappiness to take upon oneself a discomfort willingly, out of wisdom, not out of necessity" (CDH, ii, 12).

Freedom is decidedly not captivity to our own desires. Freedom is abandonment of our bodies and minds (Rom. 12:1-2), of our lives and ourselves (Mark 8:34-38) to the mastery of Christ, of God. Only the One who gave us life in the beginning can restore it to us once again.

Kýrie, eléison.

The Church and Politics, part 1

Let me admit from the very beginning that I am a rank amateur when it comes to politics, political science, and even political theology. Hence, I am genuinely interested in people's comments and opinions as to the content of this post.

As the US presidential election draws ever nearer, the media, popular discussion, websites and blogs (including this one, obviously!) become ever more saturated with coverage of the candidates, of opinions, of campaigning, etc., etc. (Incidentally, check out the polling map I've added on the sidebar!) As some of my comments over at my friend Erik's blog will reveal, I continue to ruminate on the role of politics from a theological viewpoint...not that there is just one way of thinking on this.

Succinctly, no one is campaigning on a "we're fine, let's keep everything the same" platform. Surely such an attitude would prevent one from getting out of the starting blocks in a would-be political career. We've got problems: as individuals, as communities, as ethnic groups, as states, as a nation, as societies, as a race. Some of these delineations are highlighted to a greater or lesser extent in the campaigns, presumably proportionally to how proposed solutions contribute to electability (or not). In very stereotypical and stark terms, the Democrats and the Republicans offer two different broad solutions: the Democrats claim that the government can best make things better; the Republicans claim that individuals/groups/businesses can.

Enter theology: God says he can...uniquely, and far better than any merely human endeavor.

As infinitely wiser and more knowledgeable and more powerful than humanity, God alone is the source of true Hope for our world...not merely in the age to come, but in the here-and-now. The Bible makes the audacious claim that the root of our problems lies ultimately in our rebellion against God: as individuals, as communities, etc., and that God is presently at work wooing back all of us rebels into relationship with him. As that relationship grows and deepens, God performs the incomprehensible: he transforms his people into the likeness of his only Son, Jesus. This transformation is in thought and deed, so that we might have the mind of Christ and enact and embody the Good News (Gospel) of God's holistic plan of salvation in our society today.

Holding as I do to a Gospel embodied in the Church, my default assumption would then be that the vehicle for "God making things better" in the here-and-now is the Church. Now, regardless of how you view "the Church", there are problems...huge problems. I'm aware. (Remember, I'm an Anglican!) But my immediate question is not so much in relation to those problems. Rather, I'm interested in how this Church--specifically its manifestation in the USA (or in "Western" society)--is meant to interact with the political process.

I have Christian friends who are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats; others who are staunch Republicans; others who consistently vote for third-party candidates. Still others seem to have eschewed the political process altogether. And here sit I, trying to reason through the Church's rightful role (if there be only one): do we seek to enact the Gospel primarily within and through the political system, or without it? Are we so daunted by the enormity of the problems we face, and so dismayed at the disunity in the Church, that we see only government as holding promise for addressing the issues? Do we see the Gospel as primarily for the individual, and less for the other strata of human society?

Much more to be said, but perhaps it's best to let others in on the conversation before proceeding. A couple of disclaimers I would make at the outset of any ensuing discussion: I am not an anarchist, nor am I in favor of whatever people might posit which would draw us closer to a theocracy.