I spent a few days at the beach this week with five other priests, thanks to the loan of a house from some very generous lay people. In Washington we speak of going to the beach. But in nearby Baltimore they “We’re goin’ down-e-ocean.” In think in Jersey they speak of going to the shore, as in Jersey shore. At any rate, thank God for a restful time, lots of long walks along the shoreline, interesting discussions and good food. In fact, according to the Scripture story of the Road to Emmaus, Walking, talking and dining, is an image for the Kingdom.
Just a brief thought that occurred to me today as I walked, along the water, this time alone. I began my walk, right in the center of Bethany Beach Delaware, just down from the center of the boardwalk. The beach we rather crowded, lots of people, chairs, umbrellas, kids running back and forth into the water.
As I headed north walking right on the littoral (where water meets land), I noticed the crowd thinned out quite quickly, so that, within a hundred yards of where the boardwalk ended the beach became quite empty, just a few folks here and there.
Why, I wondered did people huddle together so? It would seem that people would prefer to spread out a little, would want privacy, and might be willing to walk a little to get that space and privacy. Instead, they huddled together in a crowded eight block area of beach along the Bethany Boardwalk.
It occurred to me, that despite out often expressed need for spaciousness and privacy, this image of people huddling together had important lessons to teach.
The chief and uniting lesson is that ultimately people need people. Huddling close together meant that there were others to provide not only company but also safety. There were plenty of life guards, and if any trouble arose, plenty of people nearby to help. Where there are people, there are also many conveniences near at hand. There were food vendors up on the nearby boardwalk and also those selling beach gear. There was a free town Internet signal in the air. Public Bathrooms were also nearby as were as was a safety station and police presence. A lot of kids, who had just met that day, were also playing together and teaching each other to surf, ride boogie boards or build sand castles.
A simple lesson really but somehow beautifully painted for me at Bethany Beach, people need people. People benefit from other people. People take care of people and provide necessary services, protection and company. Space and solitude have their place, but it really is more our instinct, even in this wide open country to huddle together in cities. For all our complaints about crowds, in the end it’s good to have other people in good numbers close at hand.
It was all a painting of what Scripture says: Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up. (Ecclesiastes 4:11).
Every now and then I hear of my fellow Christians, my Catholic brethren among them, speaking with great conviction that the Lord may be coming soon, or at least that he will bring a great chastisement upon the world. There is almost a longing for this to occur.
Such a longing is not without biblical precedent. Indeed, the closing words of the New Testament, an hence the whole Bible are these:
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life….He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen. (Rev 22:16-21)
Hence there is an eagerness for Christ’s return. This eagerness is also expressed in the Church’s liturgy in the “embolism” of the Pater Noster:
Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Yes, there is an appropriate eagerness for the Lord’s second coming.
However, there is also a context for that eagerness that we ought not forget. The context is one of repentance and humility, a context of our need to be purified and delivered from sin to be ready for the “Great and Terrible day of the Lord.”
The words of Revelation uttered above occur only after a period of intense purification for the Church expressed in chapter after chapter of purgative sufferings and persecutions experienced by the faithful. And the embolism of the Our Father utters our hope only after mentioning our need for mercy and the grace to be kept always free from sin.
Hence our eagerness for the coming of the Lord ought to framed in great humility, beseeching a prevenient grace of mercy not only upon us, but on the whole world, a grace of readiness for ourselves and all the world before the Lord comes.
The danger to be avoided in our zeal for the Lord’s coming, is a triumphalist notion of “Lord give this world the punishment it deserves.” For in asking God to crush the wicked, we ought not too easily presume we are not among those who will get stomped. God is very Holy and the Lord’s second coming, or even his coming upon the world in “mere” chastisement, might not necessarily include us in his inner circle of the blessed, no matter how highly we think of ourselves. Again, God is very holy, and we have many reasons to not to be too eager to usher in the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. The prophet Amos warns us in this regard:
Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord. The Day of the Lord. (Amos 5:16-20)
This text ought not be seen to cancel the Christian longing for Christ’s return, but, rather, to frame it carefully in the context of repentance and the need for God’s saving grace to “deliver us from the wrath to come.” (cf 1 Thess 1:10).
No room for triumphalism here, only pleas: “For the sake of thy sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!” Yes, Lord, do come! But please prepare us for that great and terrible day, that day of awe. What shall I frail man be pleading? Who for me be interceding? When the just are mercy needing! Righteous judge for sin’s pollution, Grant thy gift of absolution, Before the day of retribution. Yes, any call to usher in the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, should be made in great humility, in a spirit of repentance and recognition of the need for great mercy and grace to precede it. Otherwise, who can be saved? In this light the Second Letter of Peter gives us good advice in this regard:
[The Lord] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it coming. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him….Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:6-18)
Yes, do come Lord! Maranatha! But unto that very day Lord, pour forth your mercy and love, send forth your call unto the ends of the earth. Save us from the pride that forgets we need your mercy every day, even as do our enemies and those who have rejected you. Bring all to conversion Lord, and establish us in on-going conversion. For the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Maranatha!
The first reading from Wednesday of this week is a significant admonition for priests. Permit in this post for one priest to wonder aloud how this warning from the Lord might apply to us who are priests and shepherds today.
For you who read, who listening to the wonderings of one priest, please pray for priests, for we who have received much will also have much for which to account.
The passage from Ezekiel 34 is in bold blue, italic text, my own reflections are in plain black and bold text.
The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, in these words prophesy to them to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been pasturing themselves! Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep? You have fed off their milk, worn their wool, and slaughtered the fatlings, but the sheep you have not pastured.
We who are priests owe a great deal to our people. They take great care of us, giving us a place to live, food, a salary, health insurance, retirement plans, and other benefits. They also pray for us and are supportive of so many parish activities we depend on and benefit from. Yes, they are so very good to us.
We who are priests therefore must surely be willing to serve them with love and devotion. And, while there are human limits to what we can do, and while it is important to get proper rest etc., we ought to embrace the truth of offering our lives in sacrificial love and service for them. In the Old Testament the priest and the victim (e.g. a lamb) were distinct. But in the New Testament, the priest and the victim are one in the same, for Jesus, our High Priest offered the sacrifice of his very self. And we who act in his person must also learn to offer ourselves sacrificially to our people.
Cardinal McCarrick, my Archbishop for six years, used to tell us priests, “If you don’t routinely go to bed tired, something is wrong.” It was his way of telling us to work hard for our people, and he often reminded us of the difficult lives they led.
So also, in this admonition the Lord, through Ezekiel warns his priests, and shepherds not merely to live off the people, not to use them, but to live for them; to give them a shepherd’s care, loving attention, the protection of prayer, the Sacraments, and the truth of God’s word. The Lord does not say the shepherds have no needs. They do indeed need the wool, milk and food the sheep can give, just as we priests need our people’s support. But in the end, we receive these gifts not for ourselves or as an end in themselves. But rather we receive them so as to be able to better serve our people.
Woe to priests who life selfishly off our people rather than sacrificially for them. Most priests I know work hard and do live this, but woe to those of us who fall back from our duties and look more to ourselves than to our people.
You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured.
Surely priests do at times tend to the physical weaknesses and illness of our people. But more usually our is a ministry to those who are spiritually weak, and injured by sins, whether their own, or the sins of others who have hurt them. How essential for us to lovingly reach out to those who are hurt, those who struggle with sin and the weaknesses due to sin and temptation.
Sacramental confession ought to be generously and conveniently supplied to God’s people. Early in my first pastorate I realized that the traditional Saturday afternoon confession time, was inconvenient for my people. So I instituted a policy of hearing confessions for a half an hour before every scheduled weekend Mass. Many other priests do the same. It is sometimes a burden on a Sunday to rush from Sunday school to confessions, and then right into the next Mass, but God’s people have wounds that need binding and the medicine of the sacraments.
Counseling and spiritual direction is also needed. Thank God I have a good staff that effectively manage the business and administrative details of parish life. This enables me to do a lot of counseling and spiritual direction for people each day.
But God’s people need care and we who are priests and shepherd ought to do everything we can to become more available and effective in healing the spiritual sickness of sin and helping to bind the wounds of those hurt by the human struggle with sin.
We do this first by seriously tending to our own wounds and submitting our own weakness and sin to others, (our spiritual directors and confessors) for healing. And, as we gain skill in self understanding and make our own journey, we can help others.
We must also do this by preaching charitably but clearly about the reality of sin and the need to repent. Many many Catholics are critical that their pulpits have been “silent” for years on many critical moral topics and that little moral guidance is given God’s people by the clergy. Hence we must commit to speaking the truth in love about sin, morality and the need for repentance. Otherwise we are likened to the absurdity of a doctor who never mentions disease and who merely shrugs when clearly sick people seek his help as to how to get better.
Woe to us if we are too busy to bind the wounds of sinners and bring healing love to those who struggle. We are like the pharisees of Old who simply wrote off “sinners” as the great unwashed. Jesus welcomed and ate with sinners. Yes, woe is us if we fall short in reaching out to sinners. Some of the Lord’s most severe warnings were reserved for the pharisees and other religious leaders who scorned sinners but little or nothing to teach them, help them or bind their wounds.
You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost....
It seems clear that most Catholics today are strayed and lost. on 27% come to Mass at all, and even among them there are those who stray and have been deceived by the world, who have lost their way.
One of the greatest struggles of the modern priest is to know how or what to do with the overwhelming number of strayed and lost Catholics. Too many Catholic parishes have an evangelization program little better than opening the doors and hoping people come. We have to do better. We have to actively seek the lost and straying and call them home.
Yet, often overwhelmed with parish tasks and fewer in number, priests struggle to find the time for active and personal evangelization. Yet some things help:
– Wearing clerical attire when away from the parish, shopping, traveling, etc., and being approachable to those who seek answers and attention.
– Using opportunities like funerals and weddings (where many unchurched, and lapsed Catholics are in attendance) to call people home and to invite and summon them to a closer walk with God.
– Taking walks in the neighborhood and local park to greet people and engage them.
– Asking help from parishioners to specifically ask fallen away family members, to attend instruction programs and to return to Church.
–Asking group leaders to specifically reach out to members of their particular group who may have drifted, to return.
– Priests should also actively teach and engage his people in how to be better evangelizers. In the end, shepherds don’t have sheep, sheep have sheep.
But, however we do it, we priests must bring back the strayed and lost.
So they were scattered for the lack of a shepherd, and became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered and wandered over all the mountains and high hills; my sheep were scattered over the whole earth, with no one to look after them or to search for them.
I shudder to think of the immense losses the Church has suffered on the watch of we priests who live today. The flock is surely scattered. And while it is true that huge cultural waves have swept through western world and brought devastation, we who are leaders of God’s flock cannot escape any blame. The flock has been scattered on our watch. Vast numbers of our people have been deceived by innumerable errors and too often we have been silent, or, at best, an uncertain trumpet. Often our silence has been due to concerns with remaining popular and accepted. At other times it has been simple laziness in studying the cultural problems and developing a coherent and courageous response to errors. At still other times, it has been our own sin that has blinded us and caused uncertainty, even a cynicism toward the Scriptures and Church teachings.
Whatever the causes, cultural, or clerical, we who are leaders cannot escape significant responsibility for the lost and scattered quality of God’s people today. And neither can we blame the previous generation. We just have to get to work and trust that God will bless us.
I will save my sheep, ….For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
And in this is our sole hope, that despite every human weakness of priests, parents, educators and all Church leadership, the Lord God alone can overcome all this and will ultimately bring to perfection the flock who follow him in faith. And we who are priests, who feel so often overwhelmed, do well to remember that the Lord is the ultimate and true shepherd who can overcome our weakness and supply what is lacking. None of this excuses our laxity, it only shows God’s grace and mercy in spite of it.
Disclaimer: most brother priests I know are good, hardworking men. But it is also true that none of us are perfect men and the admonitions of this passage challenge all of us somehow.
Please pray for priests. Much has been given to us and much is rightly expected. Pray, pray, pray.
This video has a song that may not exactly fit for this sort of reflection, but the footage from Fishers of Men shows good priests in action:
One of the issues most apologists of the faith, eventually and frequently encounter, is the reliability of the Scriptures as an historical reference. Does the Bible record history? It surely does. However, the Scriptures do not necessary recount history in the very technical and chronological sense we usually do (or like to think we do) today. And some sophistication is required of those who have recourse to the Scriptures and other ancient documents.
While we want (as apologists) to exercise care in insisting on too much from a text, neither should critics be simply dismissive of the historical veracity of Scripture because it recounts actual historical events in ways not always in conformity with modern and Western notions.
Regarding the historicity of the Biblical accounts, Dei Verbum, (The Dogmatic Constitution on Sacred Scripture) from the Second Vatican Council insists on the historicity of the Gospel texts while also making some importatant observations about the nature of the History involved:
Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1). Indeed, after the Ascension of the Lord the Apostles handed on to their hearers what He had said and done. This they did with that clearer understanding which they enjoyed after they had been instructed by the glorious events of Christ’s life and taught by the light of the Spirit of truth. The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus. For their intention in writing was that either from their own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who “themselves from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word” we might know “the truth” concerning those matters about which we have been instructed (see Luke 1:2-4). (Dei Verbum, 19).
Thus the Scriptures, in this case the Gospels, recount actual history, an actual history vouched for by eyewitnesses. But it is a history that is inspired, one that is written in such a way that earlier events are seen and depicted in the light of later events. It is a history that involves selected events and wherein many things are synthesized and applied to the listeners and audiences to whom the apostles spoke and wrote at a later time.
As such the Sacred Authors, (beginning with the Holy Spirit), were less concerned with details such as exactly where and when a certain event took place. Was it the Sermon on the Mount, as in Matthew or the Sermon on the Plain, as in Luke? Does it really matter? Perhaps it was in both places, perhaps the sermon was actually a collection of things Jesus said in many places and synthesized later by him, or his apostles. Did two or three women go to the tomb on Easter Morning? How many angels, one or two appeared? Why are there two very accounts of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2? What exactly happened to Paul when he arrived in Rome and why does Acts suddenly end without telling us? These sorts of details interest us moderns intensely, but the ancients were less concerned about such things.
Our modern, Western notion of history likes to carefully pinpoint dates, times and rather exact accountings of what was said and done. We are, of course, helped in this by our modern capacity to record events in voice and picture.
Indeed, our modern, Western approach to things in general is to control by measuring, whether it is borders, or time, or science or history. Statistics, dates, demographics, etc. not only impress us, but they also act to reassure us that what we say is true, because we have measured it.
To some degree, measuring accurately is related to truth, e.g. a debate between doctor and patient as to whether the patient has actually gained weight or not, is pretty well resolved by recourse to a scale.
But other things, especially those related to history, are less measurable. For example, what is the meaning of a certain historical event? How important is a certain utterance, or the unfolding of a certain chain of events? When one recounts the history of a people or an era, what relative weight should certain things, people, events, movements, statistics, etc., receive?
So, when it comes to the recounting of history, while recourse to scientific measures of date, time, and high specificity to what is said or do, is helpful, it may not always be possible to render such details, and, even when it is, such specificity may or may not help us in history’s other task of connecting the dots and rendering coherent the meaning and significance of history. There will always be, and must be, some degree of interpretation, of selectivity and yes, even of bias.
Some who like to be dismissive of Scripture as history, because it is told from the point of view of faith, are often less willing to accept that all history is told from some point of view.
As a sacred history, Scripture IS history, speaking of things that actually happened and were said. But it is a sacred history, since God prophetically interprets for us the reality that history records. It is history from a point of view inspired by God.
We moderns have liked to think that our way of telling history is largely free of strong or biased interpretation. We like to think that history can be recounted with a “just the facts,” approach. But this is naive. For any time something moves from event to word, there is interpretation.
If, for example, I see a car accident and say, “Jones hit Smith,” I have already interpreted the event and given it from a viewpoint. In this case, I more than suggest that Jones is to blame. Even if I just say, “Two cars collided,” I am placing a passive interpretation on the event that suggests somehow that the cars were the moral agents. Of course cars are not moral agents and do not cause accidents. Thus my interpretive description suggests either that I do not know what really happened, or that I, for many possible reasons, do not want to speculate as to the cause. Thus, my lack of description is an interpretation no matter how I phrase it.
The ancients were more sophisticated in recognizing and accepting that any telling of history would involve interpretation. Recognizing this, they gave greater latitude to authors and were less concerned that every little detail add up with other accounts they may have read.
In terms of Scripture, therefore, we have a more ancient understanding and telling of history that includes a lot of built-in interpretation.
But it is history. And we, who are apologists can certainly point the Sacred text as historical proof. Yet, at the same time, we ought to be careful to understand that the text does diverge to some degree from modern notions of exactitude in details. We can do violence to the Sacred text and lack sophistication to the degree that we try to make it conform to modern notions by “resolving” details the ancient authors were unconcerned about in the first place.
Trying to resolve, for example, which Gospel account of a certain event or saying is the earliest thus presumably the more “pure” account, may not be possible, and might send an ancient Christian into puzzled laughter. That both accounts are fundamentally the same is usually more than enough to compensate for the variance in details.
To non believers, who like to highlight historical discrepancies as proof of a lack of veracity, two things can also be said. First, very few non-believers doubt the existence or fundamental facts about other ancient people based on discrepancies in other ancient texts. Indeed, a lack of discrepancy might more than suggest the presence of a single author who wrote a “controlled” message to deceive, rather than to many eyewitnesses, who, though in some variance as to exacting details, nevertheless saw, remembered and recounted actual events.
Secondly, our own modern telling of history is far less precise, and free of bias than we would like to think. Even the evening news is riddled with bias and perspective, as well as disagreements as to the details. If that be the case with news less than a day old, even more so our recounting of events decades and centuries later.
In the end, sophistication is needed by all when speaking of things as “history” and “historical.” Accuracy is to be desired, but once something moved from event to word, there is always going to be some interpretation and viewpoint at work. This is the human condition, and both believer and nonbeliever alike do well to recognize and accept that words, as analogy, never perfectly render what they describe. Assessing all history, not just Biblical History, requires this sobriety and sophistication.
Yet, as those of the household of faith, regarding Scripture, we can at least be sure, by faith, that the Holy Spirit guided the authors and the magisterial interpreters of the Sacred Page. Thus Scripture is more than a humanly limited description of events and words, it is the divinely inspired interpretation of those events, it is prophetic interpretation of reality.
In this brief video, Fr. Francis Martin ponders the fact that the incident of the cleansing of the Temple is presented ny John at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and by the synoptic Gospels at the end.
There is something deeply mysterious about joy. It is deeper than mere laughter, it is more than an emotion. Joy seems to combine both serenity and excitement along with a touch of humor or laughter. It seems to come as pure gift, emerging sometimes in an instant, sometimes as a gentle tide welling up. Perhaps its context is good news, or a humorous moment, Perhaps it exists with the satisfaction of a completed task or a reunion after an absence. It does not seem to be a learned response at all. It just is, it’s just there! Even the youngest infants show joy. It comes with the soul and is there from the start.
What is joy? It is the gift of God. We can only receive it, not cause it. It is gift.
I know that, in places, the Scriptures seem to command joy as though we could cause it. But notice those same Scriptures put that command in a context. For example, we are to not to “joy” but to “rejoice.” That is, we are to recall and revisit the joy the Lord has already bestowed, we are to “re-joy” in the Lord. Elsewhere the Scriptures say “Be joyful” but then add “in the Lord.” For joy is of God and comes from him.
Joy is an unmistakable foretaste of heaven. It leaps down from heaven and draws us up there for a time. For the Christian, joy should grow as we journey ever closer to that place where “joys will never end.”
At the interpersonal level it was once said, Laughter and shared joy is the closest distance between two people. I am not sure I want to affirm that without any distinctions, but there is surely a truth here. Sometimes two strangers on a subway can see something funny and, for a moment share the closeness of two long-time friends.
Yes, there is something deeply mysterious about joy, it is a deep gift, a wonder grace, and something earnestly to be sought. “RE-joy” in the Lord always, again I say it “re-joy!”
Joy to you!, as you watch this remarkable video and glimpse the joy of God on infant faces:
Ex ore infantium, Deus, perfecisti laudem
(From the mouths of infants you have perfected praise O God)
When I was young and in high school I was a rock ‘n’ roll fan. It had to be loud and in your face. Then one day I walked into a large church and the organist was practicing with all the stops pulled (i.e. LOUD). The organ shook the building and resonated through my very body. I was hooked! I said, “I have to learn to play that!” And I was off on my adventure. Alas, I am no virtuoso but I can play hymns well and I do all the footwork. I love to play the organ and make the whole building shake with the big 32 Foot in the pedal.
My early fascination with the Pipe Organ led me not only to learn to play it, but also to tune and repair the organ in our parish church. That in turn led to a great summer job I had for three years.
I worked for Lewis and Hitchcock and company that built and serviced pipe organs. What a great job it was! I went all over the city helping to tune and repair pipe organs in some of the grandest churches of the area, both Catholic and Protestant. When you build and service Pipe Organs you have to know a little of everything: electrical, HVAC, carpentry (for the casework), plumbing (for the pipes and tubing that supply the wind), electrical motor repair (for the blower), even leather work for the air reservoirs and pipe valves. It also helps to know music and architecture to bring it all together. It was a great job it was. I learned so much. I was also very thin in those days and was able to squeeze into some pretty tight spaces to tune and make repairs. I shudder to think today of some of the high ladders and narrow platforms I negotiated to do the work.
These days, Pipe Organs are still being built but more often Electronic Organs are chosen by churches. Truth be told, with digital sampling, the sound of the newest electronic organs isn’t bad. But nothing beats the sound of a true pipe organ, the king of instruments.
The first video shows you some of the basics of how a pipe organ works.
The second video shows you the work of a an organist, Frederick Swann as he plays a toccata. You’ll see how an organist switches keyboards, pull stops, play with hands and feet, and controls the swell shades (volume). The greatest virtuoso is the organist and you will see why! It takes A LOT to be a good organist.
Incidentally, in purchasing the “Crystal Cathedral” (Now Christ Cathedral) the diocese of Orange has also acquired the 6th largest Pipe Organ in the World and you will see it played in the second Video.
Yesterday’s feast of the Assumption encourages a meditation on a distinctly human dignity, that of combining matter and spirit. More on that in a moment.
But we begin with an important understanding of every Marian feast, namely that we do not simply celebrate something about Mary herself, but also what God, who is mighty, does for her, and how, to a large degree we, will come to share in the blessings she receives.
Among those blessings is the blessing of being in God’s presence not only spiritually, but also bodily. For as Mary is taken up body and soul, so shall we one day be taken up, not in soul only, but in body too. The Catechism says of Mary’s Assumption: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection, and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians. (CCC # 966).
For now, we who die in the Lord, shall be present to him in our souls, but our bodies shall lie in the earth. Yet one day, in “That Great Gettin’ up Morning” scripture says,
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality. And when this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about: Death is swallowed up in victory.(1 Cor 15:51-54)
Sadly today, many have slipped back into a kind of Gnostic dualism, or ancient Greek notion that the body is somehow undesirable, a kind of cage or prison from which the soul can one day fly free. Death in effect liberates us from the body.
Yet nothing could be less biblical than to think of the body in this way. From the standpoint of Biblical anthropology, we are our bodies, and for the soul and body to be apart is both mysterious and emblematic of an irregular and incomplete work. In this sense therefore, Paul looks to the day when our bodies too will share in the salvation and victory wrought by Jesus. In Romans 8, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, sets forth a kind of two stage work on our behalf:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:22-25)
Thus St. Paul, and we as well, can clearly see that in our souls, many gifts have been given and are experienced, if we are faithful: a saving love, a joy, an increasing inner freedom, authority over our sins, a new mind and heart, an outpouring of many spiritual gifts, and an ever deepening renewal. Yet even all the while, our bodies decline and head toward inevitable death. Our bodies await (and groan) for the fruits of the resurrection that our souls can already enjoy.
Thus St. Paul looks eagerly to the day when our bodies too will share in the glory of resurrection and renewal. Then the full work of Christ’s death and resurrection will be accomplished. As Paul says elsewhere: For [Christ] must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor 15:25-26)
Thus the concept of some moderns of resurrection without reference to the body is inconceivable to St. Paul and the biblical world. Christ did not come merely to save part of us, but the whole of us! As human beings we are our bodies, and no saving work would be complete by leaving the body in the dust.
Yet, despite this, many modern still sniff at the notion of our bodies being raised. With our Gnostic tendencies, most disregard the body as anything more than a tool, or a suit that I can cast aside, and somehow I am still I. Not so. You are your body. And Body and soul are knit wholly together. How the soul can be separated from the body at death is mysterious, but the Scriptures are clear, it is not ultimately to remain this way, and God will rejoin the two.
Yet again to many moderns this notion is not pleasing for too often we think only of the limitations of the body, or of its diseases, its weaknesses, its sinful tendencies. But of these anxieties scripture is also clear, the resurrected body will be freed of all this.
St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit has this to say:
But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor 15: 35-44)
Yes, our risen bodies will have splendor and, though truly and recognizably our bodies, they splendor they acquire will be as different as the mighty oak is from the little acorn that it began as. Elsewhere St. Paul says,
[Christ], by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Phil 3:21)
Praise the Lord, our very bodies will one day rise, gloriously transformed. And on the Feast of the Assumption we acknowledge that what is promised to us at the Last Trumpet, Mother Mary already shares.
We live in strange times where we paradoxically show a kind of obsession with our bodies, with health, nutrition, life spans, what can cause cancer etc. Yet, at the same time, many of us who are believers are often ambivalent or sketchy of the true glory of the body, which is to rise from death gloriously transformed.
Consider well that our bodies are an essential part of our unique glory.As human beings we have the special dignity of uniting two orders of creation: the spiritual (in our souls) and the material (in our bodies). Only we do this. Animals are only material. Angels are spiritual. But we are both, and this is unique and glorious.
As Mother Mary is taken up, we meditate on this special aspect of our glory, that in us God unites the two orders of creation. This is our dignity. Of none of the animals is it ever said that the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Gen 2:7). Only man, among the created things shares the very breath of God. We are material like the animals, but unlike them we are spiritual, sharing the very breath of God.
And, to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father” (Heb 1:5) as his Son shares in our nature? The Angels are magnificent Spirits but none of them can worship God in their spirit, and then take hold of his hand or worship him with a kiss as did Mary on Christmas Eve. None of them can receive the Lord bodily into themselves as we do in Holy Communion. For we are spiritual, like they are, yet unlike them we are also body. We are unique and have this glorious combination.
Yes, this is our dignity, to unite two orders of creation, the spiritual and the material. And as Mary is taken up, whole, entire, and beautiful beyond compare, we too can anticipate our glory of one day beholding and praising the Lord, whole and entire. It is biblically unthinkable that God who gave us this dignity would discard it in saving us.
Our Bodies will rise, gloriously transformed. Yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:26-27)
Not long ago I saw a bottle of hot sauce with the creative name “Wrath of God!” Now that’s gotta be some hot sauce!
But what is God’s wrath? It is spoken of often in the scriptures and it is a concept with which we have to be careful. On the one hand we cannot simply dismiss the concept as contradictory to the fact that God is love. But neither can we fail to see God’s wrath apart from his love.
As a follow up last week’s discussions on Hell, it seems worthwhile to consider some aspects of the very complicated and reality of the wrath of God. There is not enough space to cover the whole topic in the post but the comments stay open as always for your additions and subtractions.
What are some ways that we can explain and understand the wrath of God? Let me propose a few.
The wrath of God is not merely an Old Testament Concept. In fact we find it mentioned quite frequently in the New Testament as well. For example consider the following:
Jesus said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him. (John 3:36)
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness (Rom 1:18)
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Rom 12:19)
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things [i.e. sexual immorality] God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. (Eph 5:6)
For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thess 5:9)
The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. (Rev 14:19)
And there are at least a dozen other texts from the New Testament that could be referenced but allow these to suffice. So it is clear that the “wrath of God” is not some ancient or primitive concept that the New Testament has dispensed with. And notice too that the wrath of God is not something simply for the end of the world. It is also spoken of in some of the texts above and others not listed as something already operative in certain people.
So what is God’s wrath? And how can we reconcile it with his love? Consider some of the images, explanations of God’s wrath. None of them, all alone, explain it, but together a picture and understanding may emerge.
1. Image: God’s wrath is his passion to set things right. We see this image of God’s wrath right at the beginning in Genesis when God cursed Satan and uttered the protoevangelium (the first good news): I will make you and the woman enemies….one of her seed will crush your head while you strike at his heel” (Genesis 3:15). God is clearly angered at what sin has done to Adam and Eve and he continues to have anger whenever he beholds sin and injustice.
He has a passion for our holiness, and a passion to set things right. He wants what is best for us. He is angered by what hinders us in this regard.
Surely all sins provoke his wrath but there are five sins that especially cry out to heaven: Willful murder – [Gen. 4:10]; The sin of the Sodomites, [Gen. 18:20; 19:13]; The cry of the people oppressed, [Ex. 3:7-10]; The cry of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan, [Ex. 20:20-22]; Injustice to the wage earner. [Deut. 24:14-5; Jas. 5:4] (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1867).
Thus, especially for these but also in terms of all sin and injustice and anything that afflicts or hinders the possibility of salvation, God has a wrathful indignation and a passion to set things right.
This is part of his love for us. His wrath may be manifest through punishments, disturbances of our conscience, or simply by allowing us to experience some or all the consequences of our sin and injustice.
2. Clarification: God’s wrath is not like our anger. In saying that God is angry we ought to be careful to understand that, however God experiences anger or any passion, it is not tainted by sin. God is not angry like we are angry. When we get angry we often experience an out of control quality, our temper flares and we often say and do things that are either sinful or at least excessive.
It cannot pertain to God to have temper tantrums and to fly off the handle, to admix anger with an unreasonable lashing out. The way God does experience anger is not something we can fully understand, but is it surely a sovereign and serene act of his will, not an out of control emotion.
3. Clarification: God is not moody. It does not pertain to God to have good days and bad days, good moods and bad ones. Scripture seems clear enough when it indicates that God does not change. Consider this from the Book of James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning.
Hence to speak of God’s wrath does not mean that he has suddenly had enough, or that his temper has flared, or that his mood has soured. God IS. He does not change. As the text says, he is not variable. And this leads us to the next point.
4. Image: Given what we have said, the primary location of God’s wrath is not in God, it is in us. Perhaps the best definition I have heard of God’s wrath is this: God’s wrath is our experience of the total incompatibility of our sinful state before the Holiness of God. Sin and God’s holiness just don’t mix. They can’t keep company.
Think of fire and water. They do not mix. They cannot coexist in the same spot. Bring them together and you you can hear the conflict. Think of water spilled on a hot stove and hear the sizzle and popping and the steam as the water flees away. If, on the other hand there is a lot of water the fire is overwhelmed and extinguished . But the point is that they cannot coexist. They will conflict and one will win.
This is wrath, the complete incompatibility of two things. It is this way between sin and God’s utter holiness. We must be purified before we can enter the presence of God otherwise we could never tolerate his glory. We would wail and grind our teeth and turn away in horror. Thus wrath is the conflict between our sin and God’s holiness.
God cannot and will not change, so we must be changed. Otherwise we experience wrath. But notice the experience is in us primarily and not God. God does not change, he is holy, serene, he is love. If we experience his wrath it is on account of us, not him. Consider the next example.
5. Image: It is we who change, not God and this causes wrath to be experienced or not –Consider an example. On the ceiling of my bedroom is a light with a 100 watt light bulb. At night before bed, I delight in the light. I am accustomed to it. But then, at bed time, I put out the light and sleep. When I awake it is still dark (at least in the winter). Hence I put the light on. But Ugh! Grrr! Now the light is bright and I curse it!
Now mind you, the light has not changed one bit. It is still the same 100 watt bulb it was hours earlier. The light is just the same, it is I who have changed. But do you know what I do? I blame the light and say, “The light is harsh!” But the light is not harsh, it is just the same as when I was happy with it. Now that I have changed I experience its wrath but the wrath, the problem, is really in me.
So also consider the experience of the ancient family of man with God. Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening when the dew collected on the grass (cf Gen 3:8). They had warm friendship with him and did not fear his presence. After sin, they hide. Had God changed? He had not, they had and they now experience him very differently.
Fast forward to another Theophany. God has come to Mt Sinai and as he descends the people are terrified for there are peals of thunder, lightning, clouds and the loud blast of a trumpet. The people told Moses “You speak to us, but let not God speak, else we will die!” (Ex 20:19) God too warned Moses that the people could not get close lest his wrath be vented upon them (Ex 19:20-25).
Now again, had God changed? He had not. He was the same God who walked with them in the cool of the evening in a most intimate way. It was we who had changed. We had lost the holiness without which no one can see the Lord (Heb 12:14). The same God, unchanged though he was, now seemed to us frightening and wrathful.
6. What then shall we do? If we can allow the image of fire to remain before us, we may well find a hopeful sign in God’s providence. Since God is a holy fire, a consuming fire (cf Heb 12:26; Is 33:14) how can we possibly come into his presence? How can we avoid the wrath that would destroy us?
Well, what is the only thing that survives in the presence of fire? Fire is the only thing that survives! So it looks like we’d better become fire if we want to see God.
And thus it was that God sent tongues of fire upon the Apostles and us at our confirmation. God wants to set you and me on fire with the Holy Spirit and in holiness. God wants to bring us up to the temperature of glory so that we can stand in his presence:
See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years. (Mal 3:1-4). And indeed Jesus has now come: For you have turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. 1 Thess 1:10-11)
Time to become totally fire! Veni Sancte Spritus, tui amore ignem accende. (Come Holy Spirit, and kindle in us the Fire of thy Love)
So there is a wrath of God. As I have tried to show it is more in us than in God. But I will not say to you that there is NO wrath IN God. Scripture seems clear to indicate that wrath does pertain to God’s inner life. What exactly it is and how God experiences it is mysterious to us. We can say to some extent what it is not (as we did above) but we cannot really say what it is exactly. But far more rich is the meditation that the wrath of God is essentially in us. It is OUR experience of the incompatibility of sin before God. We must be washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb and purified. Most of us will need purification in purgatory too. But if we let the Lord work his saving work we are saved from the wrath for we are made holy and set on fire with God’s love. And fire never fears the presence of fire. God is Love but he will not change. So it is that Love must change us.
One of the greatest cinematic depictions of the Wrath of God occurred in the move the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Nazi’s sinfully think they can open the Ark and endure the presence of God. What they get is wrath for sin cannot endure the reality of God’s presence. “Enjoy” this clip:
I spent a few days at the beach this week with five other priests, thanks to the loan of a house from some very generous lay people. In Washington we speak of going to the beach. But in nearby Baltimore they “We’re goin’ down-e-ocean.” In think in Jersey they speak of going to the shore, as in Jersey shore. At any rate, thank God for a restful time, lots of long walks along the shoreline, interesting discussions and good food. In fact, according to the Scripture story of the Road to Emmaus, Walking, talking and dining, is an image for the Kingdom.