Make Room

Today, Tuesday of Holy Week, while surfing around on Facebook, this irreverent and flippant (and funny) meme popped up:

And, well... it got me to thinkin'. Scripture is neat that way: often even a sidelong and casual glance at it will burns a reflection into the mind. Is not my word like fire? (Jer. 23:29).

You see, it is Holy Week, and someone thought this was an appropriate post for the occasion. And that is because, in all of the synoptic accounts of the events of Christ's final entry into Jerusalem and His passion and death, this event - the "Cleansing of the Temple" - is placed in the very days leading up to the climax of the story.

But what is interesting is that, in John, the incident is placed quite early - in chapter two, in fact.

So, what gives?

Well, of course, details in the narratives, and particularly timing - and especially in John, who includes weighted little descriptors like "and it was night" - can be theologically significant. Anyhow, though, we won't digress into debates of the synoptic problem and all that. After all, it is as likely as not - in the present case - that the placement of the synoptic accounts of this particular event corresponds to the historical fact: indeed, the ruckus caused in this scene not only provide motive for those who would petition Christ's death, but also a rationale for the Roman government to quell a known rabble-rouser.

What's interesting to me, though, is that this scene comes in the narrative of this week - and what it might mean for each of us.

Of course, it's always worthwhile in these matters to consult The Fathers.

Jerome reminds us why this exchange trade was going on in the Temple in the first place [emphasis added]:

It should be known that in obedience to the Law, in the Temple of the Lord venerated throughout the whole world, and resorted to by Jews out of every quarter, innumerable victims were sacrificed, especially on festival days, bulls, rams, goats; the poor offering young pigeons and turtle-doves, that they might not omit all sacrifice. But it would happen that those who came from a distance would have no victim.

 The Priests therefore contrived a plan for making a gain out of the people, selling to such as had no victim the animals which they had need of for sacrifice, and themselves receiving them back again as soon as sold. But this fraudulent practice was often defeated by the poverty of the visitors, who lacking means had neither victims, nor whence to purchase them. They therefore appointed bankers who might lend to them under a bond.

Now, Jerome's interpretation of this passage, as with most Patristic commentators, seems basically to be that it contains a moral for priests and bishops and others who minister in God's sanctuary.

But, if I may, I find something fascinating in the background Saint Jerome chooses to give here - how potentially packed with meaning it is! Think about it: people too poor to provide a victim to satisfy... and laid upon them, by those supposed to help them gain atonement, a kind of double-debt on top of the first debt of the Law.

This is all of us: for humanity, on its own, is so impoverished, and also so doubly-in-debt: we need both a true Victim and a true Priesthood. And in the events of the same week in the Gospel, Christ presents Himself as both, and initiates in the same Last Supper the two sacraments that shall re-present Him as Victim and Priest to all the baptized until the end of time: the Eucharist and Holy Orders.

On top of this, Origen saw in this passage even more meaning still, applying it equally to us all and not just to our ministers:

Mystically; The Temple of God is the Church of Christ, wherein are many, who live not, as they ought, spiritually, but after the flesh; and that house of prayer which is built of living stones they make by their actions to be a den of thieves.

Yes, other reflections on this wonderful scene have been offered, and will continue to be. Of course, it has also to do with issues of avarice and greed, and the relative blessedness of the poor - after all, immediately after we see iniquity chased from the Temple, we see the lame and the crippled invited in to be healed. But I offer that we shouldn't press any social justice reading of this too far: after all, of all the Gospel accounts, the tersest and in some ways least interested comes from Luke, who is usually identified as the Evangelist most concerned with the plight of the poor.

Instead, I offer that the central motif here is one of MAKING ROOM: making a space ready for a new thing to be ushered in. Therefore, it is somewhat incidental to us whether this historical event happened in that first historical Holy Week or earlier in Christ's ministry - (or, as Augustine and others suggest, it happened twice). For us, in any case, there is a great spiritual merit to making it part of our Holy Week now.

We are the Temple of God. Indeed, beyond what Origen here observes, we should also be reminded that each of us is  "A Temple of the Holy Ghost". (I might also commend to your reading this week, along with this passage, Flannery O'Connor's brilliant story by that title.)

In order to "make room," as it were, for His Victimhood, His Priesthood, and His Rites of Atonement, Christ first had to clear out what only foreshadowed these, and imperfectly. Furthermore, He made it clear clear that the New Covenant demanded a break from all worldly thought: no hedging bets and conniving would have any place. Christ's rebuke to Peter - "You are thinking as man does, but not as God" - comes back to us here this same aspect of meaning as Christ's demonstration in the Temple. This was a merciful act, and an act of love: these things had to be cleared out, for they were passing away: the animal sacrifices and the dealings and the calculations were all to fade away under the shadow of The Cross. That Cross was the one and only payment that could be made, and we must bind ourselves over to it and to no other debt.

Holy Week provides us a last and urgent opportunity to "make room," even if all of our Lent has been squandered. It gives us a chance to clear out the old ways from our life, to abandon our compromises and our bets, and to cancel all our debts to falsehood.

We are the Temple of God. And we might find ourselves sometimes very much a den of thieves. But the True Victim and the True Priest, He Whose Temple it is... well, this is what He does. He rebuilds and restores the Temple. He cleansed the Temple once (or twice) upon a time. He restored the Temple (of His body) after three days following its destruction. And He rebuilds us, however broken from sin we may be, each and every time we fall - indeed, each and every day, with His Grace. We just need to make room for Him to do what He does.

Check it out!

I am grateful to Nancy Brown and the American Chesterton Society for graciously reproducing my lecture from this past summer at the International Institute for Culture on Chesterton's What's Wrong with the World as an episode of the Uncommon Sense podcast. If you like, you can download the podcast directly or, if you do the iTunes thing, subscribe there - there is a load of other good content that you're missing out on if you don't subscribe already.

Both the ACS and the IIC are organizations about which I care deeply and which are on the front lines of the much-needed mission of re-evangelizing our culture. Please give them your support!

Thanks again!

Quick Invitation and Call to Prayer

If you're at all like me, you may have groused, groaned, mumbled, grumbled, or even uttered an oath upon stepping out of doors into the extreme cold these past couple days.

I don't guilt myself with that, nor do I think you should, but I do see an opportunity in it for growth in virtue and for efficacious prayerful offering. And so that's what I'm going to do, and I decided I'd invited you to do the same.

As Wednesdays are a traditional day of fasting and penance anyhow, and as it will still fall at least somewhat in the cold snap for most of us here in America, I'm inviting my friends and readers to make tomorrow, Wednesday, January 8, a day of fasting and prayer for the less fortunate.

"Christ of the Homeless" (1982) by Fritz Eichenberg

In addition to the ordinary means of fasting by abstinence from meat and reduction in victuals, I'd also recommend trying to make a spiritual offering of the suffering involved in encountering such cold weather - and yes, it is a kind of suffering, and maybe for some of us (depending on various conditions we might have and the like) a greater suffering than for others.

But of course we can also take the opportunity to pray through this experience as well, reminded as we are by this suffering of the cold that there are many more less fortunate who suffer much more terribly, without shelter and proper clothing, dependent upon the charity of others. (And, needless to say, while I won't go so far as to challenge us to go looking tomorrow for an opportunity for charity, I hope we will hold ourselves ready to act upon such an opportunity should it arise.) All of which is to say, there should be no lack of substance for meditation and reflection as we imagine what it must be to lack shelter on days such as this: Hospes eram, et collexistis me (Mt. 25:35).

So, I hope you'll join me in making a special offering of suffering this cold weather tomorrow (Wednesday, January 8th), adding to it prayer and fasting, offering any part of our discomfort through it all up in prayer to God, calling for His generous blessings upon the less fortunate and acting in reparation for whatever sins of mankind might be contributory to making them so unfortunate.

+ A.M.D.G.

A Quick In-And-Out

Sounding off to all of the readers out there who still follow my posts (and I know there are at least as many as see them reduplicated over at Facebook).

It's been a long-running theme here that I can't seem to sustain any kind of regularity with blogging, and thereby do I fail to maintain stable readership. Time and effort involved in the writing process and the other demands of my schedule are the converging factors which seem to make this problem endemic.

I'm toying with the idea of beginning "video blogging." Generally speaking, I am able to put together at least somewhat cogent thesis presentations in extemporaneous interlocution, so I think this could - at least potential - facilitate much more frequent posting. I would also write occasionally, to be sure.

I'm looking for feedback on the proposal. Be honest, don't hold back. I'll be posting a sample video with some thoughts on an argument in which I'm currently embroiled. This will serve to give a preview of production type and quality, as well as to test whether the feed will be transmitted to the aggregates I use.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Hateful Speech

Saturday morning, 2 AM.

I sit in my comfortable recliner, grading students' papers.

As happens every Saturday and Sunday morning at about this time, the bar next door finishes last call and issues forth from the doors of the grimy Club National all that pent up pandemonium that has been erstwhile restrained among the dizziness of strobe lights and the din of hip-hop.

To say that I am annoyed would be an understatement. Tonight, I happen still to be awake. On other occasions, my sleep is disturbed by this event; less often, I am aided by the effects of my own weekend conviviality and manage to preserve my rest despite the noise. Yet whether I sleep through it or no, the hellish scene plays out unfailingly, and I indignantly wonder how many dreams of babes living in my building are interrupted by all the hollering and honking of horns.

I cast this phenomenon in diabolical terms not merely to be inflammatory. Rather, it is because I have sensed other Spirits than gin and vodka to be operative in its issue. On this occasion, for instance, I am sure that one has flown along with the sound of the ruckus into my living room, and that the rage to which I am tempted is a dangerous mixture of righteous wrath and rueful repugnance. Terms like "unwashed masses" and "urban refuse" spring unbidden to mind and it takes all my power to remind myself that these hooligans are my brothers and sisters in the human family. I cannot let my anger become personal; but I cannot either ignore that there is a profound problem involved in this situation and that the behavior of these folks is symptomatic of a deep disease in our culture of which it must be cured or die.

As much as the next one, I enjoy good drink and the elation it brings. I like a night out with friends and even a bit of rabble rousing. But I don't think I've ever grown unrestrained so that I have not been able to show courtesy to neighbors. More importantly, though, I try hard never to let my passions escape the control of my reason, whether due to drink or any other drug or influence. And yet, in places like this club next door, the whole atmosphere and purpose seems aimed at fevering man's animal heat. The music, the dancing, the clothing, the socialization - mechanisms which ought to serve to civilize and engender culture here converge to barbarize and destroy culture. And, lest anyone take exception to my rhetoric, let me be clear: the denizens of such places are no way animals, except as man is an animal and may well act like one; nor are such barbarians, except insofar as they engage in what is barbaric. All connections with the essential human things - gender, ethnicity, race, age - are incidental and accidental; to take me as insinuating anything else is to misunderstand me.

But other connections attain which coincide with these other categories - as causes coincide with effects - connections to situation of neighborhood, of education, of economics, of religion. The material fact is forever generating the moral fact in our society, because we have opted for materialism over morality. Those who critique the moral situation and the underlying material exigence are only too liable to be libeled for casting moral aspersions on the basis of material coincidence. The irony becomes, for example, that the person who notes the eugenic tendencies of Planned Parenthood in exterminating black people is the one accused of racism, rather than the ones exterminating black people. As a result, this and so many other serpentine evils in our society continue to wind more and more tightly round the heart of culture and squeeze it to death, and the victim - mistaking the threat - thrashes against the knife-wielding friend coming to break the vicious circle, and this thrashing only serves to speed asphyxiation.

Yes, I despise the club next door; I despise everything it represents as a symptom of dying culture; I despise the coincidence in the makeup of its clientele as symptomatic of the same deeper ills in culture; I despise the related symptom that makes me despised for despising all this; and I despise most those spirits of distortion who formulate all confusing speech, the hell-babble pandemonium of parties and parking lots and professional politics. Renaming love hatred and mixing personal affront with general criticism, these spirits disarm us by fear of all language except in two equally useless forms, namely the mere shouting of acerbic argument or the effete niceties of political correctness. Such speech is a blunted weapon, pointless in the proper sense of the word. The demons know what they are about, for they know that without precision of speech we cannot name them, and naming them take away their power.

But I don't want to be thus disarmed by fear. So, I risk sounding hateful to avoid using the only speech that is truly hateful - that is, worthy of being hated. I cannot see my way around being misunderstood by confused society unless I say nothing at all (even if it be with many words) - and I simply cannot accept that option. Therefore, I've taken a risk here at naming some demons I see at work. No doubt they will, like Legion, endeavor to throw their victims into a fit and frenzy at the affront. But no matter; I am convinced that my words aim to heal rather than hurt. Not only that, they aim to protect myself as much as anything else - for, I, too, felt tonight an attack and onslaught in my own home, and as my anger waxed I may easily have fallen victim to the very thing I deplore. So, I aim these words to deflect that temptation. I aim them to gain power for myself so that I can help empower others. I aim them to cut Moloch and Mammon and whomever is haunting Club National loose from their addled victims and, hopefully, to help in some way put an end to all hateful speech.

What Christmas Is All About (..., Charlie Brown)

I had to run to the grocery store for some last minute items needed for Christmas dinner. On the way out, I was privy to overhear part of a conversation between two women in the entryway. The segment I heard started out agreeably enough, but soon went (in my opinion) askew.

"... and the true meaning of Christmas is not about how many presents you have underneath that tree," said one woman.

"Yep, that's right," agreed the other.

"I told him what it's really all about is that we're all together..." she continued as I left through the door, probably wincing visibly at this last part.

Now, of course, Christmas is not not about being all together: surely, the Church in Her Wisdom proclaims this day an Obligatory Holy Day, which carries - along with the requirement of assisting at Mass - the duty "to abstain from those works and aVairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord's day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body" (CJC 1247; emphasis added). Enjoying family and fellowship are part and parcel of "the joy proper to the Lord's day" certainly and arguably have some connection as well to rendering due worship, considering that family life is a vocation and essential to offering acceptable praise to God is living well one's vocation.

But, what Christmas is all about? Not quite - that is, not all.

You hear this sort of thing a lot, sometimes in forms much less innocuous than the one expressed by the lady at the grocery store. This simplistic watering down of the meaning of Christmas is really at its best in my example, stemming from undoubtedly good intentions and some degree of mere ignorance; at its worst, it can be a very deliberate and seditious ploy typical of the dictatorship of relativism.

I offer this short note as a reminder for us Christians that we must witness to the true meaning of Christmas in all its vitality and power; we should take this opportunity to reflect upon the fullness and depth of that meaning so that we can manifest it forth in more compelling ways.

And what is that meaning? It is Christ Himself: there is no easy reduction or formulaic distillation of this meaning. The babe in the manger is God Himself: He is God the Son, co-eternal with the Father, sent in time as a Man to live as man - and, lest we forget, to die as man, in reparation for the sin of man and the sins of men - each and every sin from the creation of the world to the end of time. God the Son, truly born in time of a Woman - a woman perfected in grace, the new Eve, so that redemption may begin in the manner that sin began.

Christmas is the revelation of God among us (not the beginning of it, mind you - that was 9 months ago). The hope and joy that Christmas brings to us are bound up with the fact that this gift is not merely the gift of a birth, but the gift of a life - the singular life of God as a man, which becomes the gift to all men of participation, if they accept it, in the life of God.

There's no end to the meaningfulness of this moment in time and eternity, but something it means definitely for us is humility. God humbled Himself this day, born by lowliest birth. We must be humble in turn, recognizing this mystery and speaking about it always with wonder and awe, at the grocery store or any place. In sight of what He's given us, we owe Him that much at least.

WW3D?

One of the most distinguishing features of Catholicism, when compared with other Christian faith communities, is the Doctrine of the Communion of Saints. In much Apologetics discourse, this seems very often to be the bone of most heated contention.

Many have commented upon and analyzed this point of difference. Most of the discussion I've read seems to focus on the need for intercessory prayer or on the concept of solidarity with Christians who have gone forth from this life. The image of a lit votive candle placed before a statue or a holy card stuck in a car visor are emblematic for many people of Catholics' strangeness, their medieval sentimentality, the "cult" of the Saints. There is another image, though, which - for me - highlights the difference that this quintessential Doctrine makes in living out the Faith of Christ. That image is the W.W.J.D. bracelet.

Now, of course Catholics have been known to wear and to celebrate the mantra on the bracelet, but it is at least somewhat significant that its origins seem to be in Congregationalist writings. Of course, for any follower of Christ, the question is important. But asking, "What Would Jesus Do?", is really only a starting point, it's no kind of end. It is an invitation to reflect, with the next step being to consider more deeply the particulars of any given situation in the aspect of the Gospel; after a first asking of the question, we usually come round again to the very same question, only re-emphasized: "What, indeed, would Jesus do?" That is, in this particular moment, in this set of circumstances which I now confront as a baptized Christian, what is the demand of the Gospel upon my choice of action? And in such questions of praxis, we can see the starting points of many of the divisions which have separated Christian groups throughout history: the question of interpreting the Gospel mandate forms the background of debate over liturgy, mortification, prayer, or Christian Social Action as determined by the Beatitudes and the Spiritual or Corporal Works of Mercy. "What Would Jesus Do?" Good question, and sometimes a head-scratcher.

Christ himself is of course our chief and primary exemplar in learning to be sons and daughters of the Father - nay, really, in becoming part of the One True Son of the Father. For many Christians, no further example seems to be wanted - but here is that point of difference made by the Doctrine of the Communion of Saints upon which I choose to focus. Christ, at His Ascension, promised to give His Spirit and invigorate the Church. The Spirit has sometimes thus been called the Soul of the Church, whose members are the Body. Christ left us a plan for His continued Presence - in the sacraments, the liturgy, etc. - but also for His continued example, in the lives of Saints.

We are given Saints in every time and place in order to have some better idea how to translate into practice the teachings of Christ. This is not a by-route around an intimate knowing of Christ, but simply a recognition of the economy of salvation as He has established it in His Living Body, the Church. His Word is alive and acting - it is not two-dimensional figments on a page, the theological abstractions and minutiae which we spill so much ink (and sometimes blood) in working out. But He comes to us in a Living Word which includes also the font of Sacred Tradition, a three-dimensional reality, constantly demonstrated in new ways and changing times, by the holy men and women whom His Spirit moves to witness to His Truth.

This may all sound very preachy, but it's really finally very practical. Saint Paul, in his letters, never hesitated to hold himself up as an example to his community. Since Christ had gone from their sight, or had never even been seen in the flesh by many of the new disciples, Paul didn't hesitate to give them a yardstick which appealed to the immediacy of their call as Baptized Christians: "Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1). "Not sure what Jesus would do? Watch me."

We are Baptized in Christ and bear His Name as Christians. Implicit in the question, "What Would Jesus Do?" is the translated notion of what Christians must do. And we look to the Saints for examples of how, in each era, this question can best be answered: What would Paul do? What would Agnes do? What would Gregory do? What would Francis and Clare do? What would Ignatius and Francis Xavier do? What would Isaac Jogues and Elizabeth Ann Seton do? What would Maximilian Kolbe and Theresa Benedicta do? And - yes - what would Mother Theresa and John Paul II do? They would do - they have done - what Christ teaches through His Spirit to His chosen Saints, to reify in their present actions the Hands of the Carpenter's Son.

And now, all of this being really only a background reflection to prepare for something lately burning in my mind, I will leave you with the question which I signify in this post's title (indeed, in the image at the top of this entire blog): a question to which I'll return pointedly in another post shortly: In this day and age, where the world is gone mad and the choice seems always to be for the lesser of two evils, what would our Lord do? What would he have us do? I think the answer, in part, comes to this: What Would Dorothy Day Do?

Planes, Porn and Prestidigitatory Passenger Searches

I love alliteration, what can I say?

Time was in this country when if you wanted an "enhanced pat-down", there was naught for it but $25 dollars and a shadowy venue on a side street. Now, it's the cost of a plane ticket, some obstinacy, a well-lit room, and an underpaid federal goon of the same sex. [I might digress here into how I can't reconcile this latter requirement with our Cultural Overlords' ever-engaged project of eliminating gender difference and identity. Perhaps soon an amended procedure will include a coin-toss as some point....]

Yes, I'm on about the recent media kerfuffle about the TSA's sexy new procedures. The "hand-sliding" methodology of the new technique has some passengers crying foul. As if naked body imaging weren't a privacy violation enough.

Now, on the surface of it, this is just another personal liberties hysteria, isn't it? I mean, we all want to be safe, don't we? We should all be expected to pay some price for our liberty.

Perhaps it's because I savor satire, but I must concede to appreciating a sort of irony in this whole situation. Because, back in the days of the Patriot Act, it seems that much of the same crowd that is now so up-in-arms was making just that argument that they're now rejecting as lunacy. And part of the argumentative strain, that this kind of search shouldn't be allowed without suspicion, of course begs the question of what engenders such suspicion. I can't help but wonder if, for many of these folks, that question isn't too easy to answer...

Nevertheless, the current protests have plenty of good arguments to go on. And I'm sure among the protesters are many who, like myself, have consistently rejected the whole mania of "added security measures" our country has been putting in place for fear that they might lead to profiling or, well, things like this.

The best arguments are just common sense. A recent editorialist in The Guardian put it nicely:

Listen to this: "My freely chosen bedmates and doctors are the only ones allowed to see my naked body or touch my genitalia." For a sane person in a sane country that's the ultimate in "no shit, Sherlock" statement. But not where I live.

Not the United States of America.

I would wholeheartedly agree if "freely chosen bedmates" were switched to the more sane "spouse," but for the time being I'll give due credit to the sanity which is there, rather than fixate upon the (significant) bit which is lacking.

The canard of "protection" that keeps getting trotted out is a laughable attempt at justification. What the above author calls "pointlessly superstitious security theatre," I call a childish sleight-of-hand - so much smoke and mirrors. If it comes right down to it, I'd rather take my chances with less draconian measures which leave the off-chance of a violation of my safety rather than the sure violation of my privacy which the current measures represent. I feel not at all assured that these new measures will likely ensnare a determined terrorist; rather, I see the likelihood of their being abuses as a much more real exigency. But these are trusted government employees! They're screened and undergo psychological batteries! Yes, like the military personnel at Abu Ghraib? Or - to anticipate the insensitive smart ass who would seek to strike the low blow against my argument - what about the priest pedophiles who abused children? It doesn't deflate my point - it proves it: screening processes fail. And I'll gladly admit that the problem in the Church evinces a similar social phenomenon as that in the military, i.e. that bureaucratic structures can easily become breeding grounds for corruption without the necessary balances of transparency and accountability - and virtue. (I also would add, though it is not essential to my point: at least with the Church the scandal stands against real motives of credibility that urge me to keep trusting Her divine constitution in spite of human failures; where are the proofs that would impel me to a similar fealty toward the government, I ask?)

It is simply too great a price to pay for liberty to subject to pornographic exploitation and what would, in any other context, more than meet the base definition of sexual harassment.

But, what else can they do? I mean, they have to do something! They can't just do nothing! Yes. Yes they can. I'm not being insensitive to the tragedy and travesty of 9/11 in saying this. But we're not honoring those folks' memories who were murdered that day by invading people's personal space in this way; actually, we're dishonoring them. We're giving those who would attack us a small victory in allowing one more invasion into the life we love.

Yes, we have a right to feel safe and to not have to fear when we travel, or simply when we get out of bed to go to work in the morning. The attack in 2001 violated this right and shook us into the understanding that we weren't so safe as we supposed. We have something to fear, it is true. It is not entirely irrelevant (and not the least irreverent, to my mind) to point out that we now can have some solidarity with the people who live, say, in Israel or in Iraq. Yes, we deserve better than to have to fear - so do they. But we're robbed of that, as they are. It sucks, no bones about it. But some factors are simply beyond our control: we only have certain choices left to us. And it is those choices about which we must be careful and considerate. It seems we're destined, at least for a time, to live in fear - it's not an unknown condition for a people. But I would much rather live in fear of a wily and unscrupulous (but thankfully limitedly capable) enemy than to live in fear of my own government...

Wouldn't you?

More Thoughts on Yuletide (of My Philosophy of Decking the Halls)

Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts.

Malachi 3:19

"The day is coming..." - these words from the first reading of today's Mass present a good jumping-off point for yet another discussion of due seasonal awareness in our existential encounter of the meaning of the Christmas season.

In the Church, for some weeks now, we have been looking toward the prophetic day, the adventus of Christ the King. Next week, we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King - the final Sunday in the Novus Ordo calendar of the ordinal Sundays following Pentecost. It is a celebration of arrival as well as of expectation: it is, in a sense, a nice microcosm of the whole meaning of the season of Advent which we enter the following week. We are at once joyous, but also restrained - penitential, sober, alert, watching. Watching for Christ to come again, in the consummation of time and the fulfillment of the Kingdom, and also watching with a different emphasis of attention Christ's daily arrivals in our lives as Baptised members of His Holy People.

Now, so far I am very much in agreement with the sort of philosophy propounded by many good Christian apologists on the correct posture of religious experience at the ending of the Church year: see, for example, this excellent resource. But I part ways - really, just a bit, although it might seem more pronounced - in terms of how we should approach the day-to-day experience of this restrained joy and anticipation.

I have taken a bit of flack this week for having already put up my Christmas tree. Now, it should be noted that, while I have placed the tree (a fake one, but nicely made) and hung it with lights (actually, they came pre-arranged on the branches), I am not going to regularly light the tree just yet. But while I'm easing into that, I will be lighting it before the recommended date given by FishEaters, December 24th. I want to deal with that recommendation here, as well as address some of the objections that I've taken against my having put up my tree "so early" - and I apologize if some of this will seem redundant to those who have read my other ruminations on this subject, but I will try to cast the matter in more precise terms here than I've done before.

So, on to the objections:

It's not even Thanksgiving yet!

Well, this can be dispatched with rather easily, I think. What is Thanksgiving, anyway? And why should it have any bearing on our understanding of the cosmic realities surrounding the revelation of the Son of God as Man? Thanksgiving is, in a sense, a Hallmark Holiday. It is a secular celebration tied in some ways to the tradition of harvest festivals, and useful insofar as that goes. But it is, on the other hand, an observance of an American heritage - largely imagined - of making friends with our displaced aborigines. In fact, there's something ironic in hearing people who disparage the secularization of the Christmas observance appealing to Thanksgiving as some sort of meaningful time-marker that ushers in the appropriate time of anticipation. It is, to say the very least, question begging: for those who object that I've put up my Christmas tree before Thanksgiving, I reply, "Why do you put up your Christmas tree after Thanksgiving? Or, more to the point, why do you put it up at all, whenever you do put it up?" And there's the rub. The why is the heart of the matter, so let's get at that, shall we?

It's not even Advent yet!

Now, we're getting a little closer to a meaningful discussion, as Advent does at least relate in a meaningful way to the matter at hand, a way that Thanksgiving does not. So, let's look at this one more closely. A first approach here is the same Socratic question with which I ended the last paragraph: "So, when do you put up your tree, and why? What does it mean?" Now, to this, there is the answer of FishEaters first of all, which situates the question in the meaning of the season of Advent:

The mood of this season is one of somber spiritual preparation that increases in joy with each day, and the gaudy "Christmas" commercialism that surrounds it in the Western world should be overcome as much as possible. The singing of Christmas carols (which comes earlier and earlier each year), the talk of "Christmas" as a present reality, the decorated trees and the parties -- these things are "out of season" for Catholics; we should strive to keep the Seasons of Advent holy and penitential, always remembering, as they say, that "He is the reason for the Season."

And so it is that FishEaters recommends putting up the tree on Christmas Eve - certainly not lighting it before that night. But, here, the argument is all non sequiturs: we haven't really identified why the trees go up at all, what lighting them is meant to symbolize to begin with. After all, any conclusions we derive about propriety of time-frame will depend upon this information. Thus, if the Christmas tree is somehow part of the commericalized secular abuse of Christmas, then we should want nothing to do with it at any time. There is, on the other hand, the notion of the Christmas Tree as a "baptized" symbol representative of Christ Himself: the tree anagogically associated with the Cross, the evergreen with His eternity, the lights with the kerygma directed to the conditions of the poor and lowly. But penitential preparation and expectation doesn't mean we hide Christ from our experience: we don't pretend during Advent that He's never come. [Indeed, the first half of Advent - and the foregoing weeks in the liturgical cycle - aim to prepare us for and focus on the Second Coming at the end of time. What does the tree have to do with that?]

But the symbolism of the tree, while indeed representing truths about the Person of Christ, has even richer meaning. The symbol includes its pagan connotations before the baptized meaning: the Norse and Germanic celebrations of Yule, the winter ritual of warding off death with symbols of life (the tree's vitality) and warding off dark and cold with warmth and light (the candles hung upon the boughs). Not just the symbol itself was baptized and given new meaning, but the Christmas event transforms these earlier associations as well. These pagan ideas - as symbolized in a tree - in a sense recapitulate the entire pagan ethos of pre-Christian expectation: those seeds of the Gospel that were implanted through natural law and the experience of nature. The tree here is meaningful not in its similitude to Christ, but in its difference: it represents our wants and desires for light in darkness, warmth when we are cold, life that escapes or cheats the ever ominous threat of death. We lose this meaning somewhat in our technological age, when winter doesn't mean the threat of starvation or exposure, the testing of our harvest and our hearth against the ferociousness of a fallen world. G.K. Chesterton's reflection from The New Jerusalem puts this meaning quite nicely: "Anyone thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate." The effect of all this is that the tree becomes part and parcel of our expectation, our anticipation, even our somberness: the tree reminds us of Christ, but it is not Christ. The lights combat the darkness, but they do not conquer it as He will do when He comes. It is a species of logical fallacy to suppose that the tree must necessarily distract us from this difference. The notion of holding off on the use of the tree as decoration ironically gives it more power than it deserves, rather exalts it instead of "putting it in its proper place." It all depends on what the tree means and why we put it up when we do. If we see the tree only as an embodiment of Christ and as some sort of panacea for the winter blues, then I agree that it has no place in Advent or before. But if it is, instead, a reminder of our own feebleness, a symbol of the futility and fragility of our battle with darkness and death, then it can very truly have a proper place throughout the entire darkening part of the year. In the one approach, the culmination of the tree's meaning is when its lights are hung on the night of Christ's arrival, demonstrative of the light he brings; in the other, the culmination is when the tree's lights fade and our attention redirects to the child in the manger that was once empty, His own ethereal light and power making a joke in the darkest time of year of our own weak dwimmer-craft.

But... the department stores! The commercialization of it all! Doesn't this give in to that cheapening of Christmas, and shouldn't we as good Christians fight against that trend of secularism?

Once again, this is typical of the approach that FishEaters seems to take along with many well-meaning preachers. I reiterate here that we run the risk of mistaking, a la post hoc ergo propter hoc, a common result for an inevitable one - or, in the terms of philosophy, we give perhaps sufficient cause the more potent meaning of necessary cause. As my defense against this objection, I'll appeal to the secondary players in the Christmas drama: John the Baptist, Herod the Great, and the Oriental Magi. As a preliminary, though, I present another Socratic question: "What should we do?" It's all very well and good to grumble about the commercialization of Christmas and determine that we will not participate, but all our efforts and words spent upon this determination can sometimes distract us from the pressing question of what we ought to be doing instead. Many people I speak with on this issue have very good reasons for rejecting the culture's observances at this time of year, but they're much less salient about having reasons for their own practices. Don't we concede too much to the culture, don't we let them have their way with Christmas, by simply stopping our ears and closing our eyes and running around all gloomy and disgruntled, "tsk"-ing in the check-out aisles and frowning at the office decorations?

Enter the Gospel players. John the Baptist is the figure of knowledge about the meaning of Advent and Christmas; Herod the figure of missing the point; and the Magi the figure of those who half-understand, who are charmed by the signs and search for meaning. Take any one of these away, and you lose something of the power of the drama. There are plenty of Magi in our world today who are, as the Biblical Magi did, running into Herod and being put on a wrong track. Who will announce, as the Angel did, the error of Herod's ways? Who will warn them off the mistaken path and usher them into the true recognition of the mystery? It must be we who do so, taking John the Baptist as our model.

To put it succinctly, it is precisely because Christmas has been commercialized and demeaned by our culture that we must become more knowing, more articulate, more robust in the manifestation of its true meaning and power. If we don't do it as a sign for the world, we must at the very least do it for ourselves and not succumb to pride. We can't think we're unaffected by all of what's happening around us from mid-November until December 25th, and then suddenly ending. When we return home after a saccharine-soaked swim in our cultural soup, we must have cures for it. On the one hand, we can drive past the decorated trees on mainstreet and pass the Salvation Army Santa Clauses and retreat behind our door with a grumbled "Bah humbug," seeking to purify our minds entirely from all this untimely joy. But it seems to me to be just as effective to put up our own tree, with our own meaning and intent, and to allow ourselves to be struck by the difference of it all. The tree can serve as a true herald who disabuses us of Herod's lies. We should keep the season robustly and vitally within our own homes, very aware of the meaning behind all that we do. Doing so will at once highlight the vapidness of the culture's indulgences and soberly remind us what is being missed - it might even spur us on to find ways of expressing the distinction to the world (such as writing a blog post, for example). Are we giving in to the culture more by maintaining our own observance with added vitality rather than by simply retreating from it all?

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And so goes my attempt at justifying my seemingly untimely tree. I welcome discussion, even debate, on the matter. Because, for me, what we do and when we do it are less important questions than why we do them at all. I respect the person who puts up his tree on Christmas Eve, provided he has good reasons for it. It puts Christmas ornaments and decorations in the proper place to realize them as manipulable symbols that have meaning according to their use. They are not ex opere operato fixtures that necessarily add to or detract from our religious awareness. Rather, they are expressions of our awareness - or of our ignorance - to the extent that we use them deliberately and use them well.

Whence, Whither and Wherefore

The LORD'S message was, Halt at the cross-roads, look well, and ask yourselves which path it was that stood you in good stead long ago. That path follow, and you shall find rest for your souls.

Jeremias 6:16a [Knox]

Simon Peter saith to him: Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered: Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow hereafter.

John 13:36 [Douay-Rheims]

Our culture is in a crisis. It is a crisis of direction and discernment. It is a crisis of ends and means. It is a crisis of causality. It is a crisis at a cross-roads.

A wayward generation looks for a sign. Ours is a wayward generation in the most literal sense. We wander capriciously, blindly led by the blind, ever clutching at new mess-making demagogues for want of rescue from the messes made by previous ones. We put our hope in change, in changeable objects that have no business bearing the aspirations of that holy virtue. We look for signs, maybe. But our sign has been given us: the sign of Jonah. We too little heed its clear indication, the Way which it signifies; but brazenly march forward down our own path - headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps down a mired and muddied road.

Prophets were sent to the people of Israel to call them back to the Lord, that they might walk humbly with God (Micah 6). The gift of prophecy is still given, as Saint Paul observes (see 1 Corinthians 12-13). And prophecy consists in much the same task as it did in times past. Prophets call us to task for waywardness and point out the true road. What has changed is that the Way has been revealed to us in its fullness: it is Jesus Christ himself. Prophets now point to Him and to His Word to be our guide. Our urgency should be no less than the people of Nineveh, who feared the Lord when they heard the preaching of Jonah. That whole great city, its whole political order (from the King to the chattel), underwent upheaval in order to follow that sign and embark in the way of righteousness. Our social order has also been given a sign: the Church has proclaimed the Gospel of Truth and Life to the modern world. But we have been slow in donning our sackcloths.

In What's Wrong With the World, G.K. Chesterton (one of many modern prophets sent to show us Christ more clearly) attempted "a rambling and elaborate urging of one purely ethical fact" (Part V, Chapter 5: Conclusion). This fact he pithily states in his first chapter: "I have called this book 'What Is Wrong with the World?' and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right."

Another way of putting this is to say that what is wrong is not merely that we do not heed the sign given us to show the Way, but we do not even look for one. We are not so concerned with where we go, but myopically center in on the fact of our going someplace.

Chesterton railed against the cult of progress, and this cult is perhaps even healthier in our day than it was in his. It is the worship of Mammon, an obsession with means to the detriment of the fair consideration of ends, the very essence of materialism.

In our mad rush from one crisis to another, we forget where we've come from and give no thought to where we should ultimately end up. It's a mad game of musical chairs, having a laugh with a moribund shrug that it seems somebody, after all, must always end up without a seat each time the silence falls. The Gospel of Wealth can only afford so many places round the table, and we figure perhaps the poor left out of the game are only there for lack of effort during the last interlude. We're just following the rules.

But Chesterton suggests that we might change the rules; nay, we might even change the game. Our Lord's banquet table has seats for the poor and maimed and blind and lame (Luke 14:21), and for Chesterton, securing our invitation should be the end of all our actions, even our political and economic ones. If this requires taking a seat on the floor and bowing out of the mad rush, then so be it.

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Whence, whither and wherefore do we go along our way?

This patchwork of ideas that I have dumped onto the page above is an inroad to exploring this question. It is not a question to find an answer unknown: the answer is self-evident. But the question helps one to find where that answer lies in each of the sundry affairs of modern-day life: every moment of discernment and decision, big and small, finds us at a cross-roads. Which is the way that stood us in good stead before? Which is the way of the Cross?

I have above suggested several ideas that I invite my readers to reflect upon with me in the coming months.

I have decided to begin writing a series of papers which I will germinate here on the blog. If all goes as planned, these papers will become the formula of some kind of small book aimed at bringing the Catholic Social Teaching's answers to bear upon the questions of modernity. I propose to put these questions in a somewhat novel (but also very old) way.

My focus will be the four causes of classical philosophy. I said above that our culture is in a crisis of causality. We suffer most of all for losing sight of our final end, our telos: to know, love, and serve God in this life and to be happy with Him in the next. We suffer also from post-Cartesian metaphysics; formal causation has been largely subsumed into the consideration of the efficient or agent cause. This cause, too, is effete in our day: because an agent without an end lacks its ultimate definitive trait of directedness. We are left with a capricious efficiency and robust materialism (a kind of primacy given the material cause).

My goal will be to approach these topics in "primer" language, so that they can be freed somewhat of the technical language of philosophy and placed before the layman. I would consider this an injustice if my object were to train philosophers, but it is not. My object is to invite the question: whence, whither and wherefore? I hope to persuade that there is an ethical satisfaction in seeking full causality for our individual actions, as well as our social and political ones. We must bring the discernment of proper ends back into the discussion of appropriate means, and heed the signs of the times.

Finally, I will propose one path which places man (as an individual and as a member of a society) more easily and efficiently within reach of his ends is not a new road, but a very old road. It is a road that has stood men in good stead for many ages, a road that many Distributists sought as a way of transforming Nineveh. I will suggest this road as perhaps not quite necessary but at least expedient for one's own good and his contribution to the common good...

So, this is my project. This is how I plan to demonstrate the answer to my question, whence, whither, and wherefore. I beg your input, your reaction, your patience, your criticism: in a word, your help. And I beg the help of your prayers, because any builder labors in vain who has not the Lord's help.

Christus Rex

Today is the liturgical solemnity of Christ the King. In a way, today might be considered the feast day of this blog, which is dedicated to bringing about the reign of Christ the King to the greatest extent possible within society.

The homily where I attended Mass today called for attention and devotion to Saint Thomas More: to the lessons to be learned from his life and the help to gained by his intercession. He has been on my sidebar since day one, because he is a crucial figure for the proposed reclamation of the social reign for Christ's dominion.

The recent "Manhattan Declaration" is a worthy embodiment of the ethic of this great saint, who was always "the King's good servant, but God's first." As the health care debate kicks into full swing, and the battle over the redefinition of marriage and all that that contest entails finds its way into new States, we need to remain vigilant, pray for our leaders - social and ecclesial - and remember that Christ has no voice in this world if not our own.

Something in the Air...

Update: This post refers to the Manhattan Declaration, a momentous manifesto that deserves more notice than might be directed to it by the original buried link within my text; so, I am highlighting it here. Feel free to read my ruminations on the matter (and there are more forthcoming), but be sure to go and read this wonderful work.

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“I wrote it at the time of the Cuban crisis. I was in Bleecker Street in New York. We just hung around at night – people sat around wondering if it was the end, and so did I. Would 10 o’clock the next day ever come?... It was a song of desperation. What could we do? Could we control the men on the verge of wiping us out? The words came fast – very fast. It was a song of terror. Line after line, trying to capture the feeling of nothingness.

- Bob Dylan, speaking about his song, "It's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."

Well, reader, whoever you are: if you're here, you've noticed: so am I. It's difficult to describe the pull that I've felt increasingly the past few weeks drawing me back onto the pages of my blog. Blogging for me can be a tedious, sometimes even painful process. I fight with the ordinary pretensions of an aspiring writer, struggle with the natural vanities incumbent upon the same disposition, and torment myself with the constant question of whether or not anyone really gives a damn what I have to say. But, at the end of the day, I realize that I do have something to say. And I have a whole lot I'd like to hear. I set up this place as a venue for conversation and I'll keep up my part even when it seems hopelessly one-sided. I'll keep holding out hope that the discussion will be joined by some searcher after meaning and expression like myself. But even if it's not, I'll feel better for having said what has boiled over inside of me and has been so painful to keep in.

There's something in the air. Thunderclap Newman put it quite groovily in the song of that title: "Call out the instigator, because there's something in the air. We've got to get together sooner or later, because the revolution's here, and you know it's right."

Sure, that was the sixties. But there was, in the sixties, a sense - a feeling - an electricity of which everyone, even the most sheltered suburbanite, was at least dimly aware. There was something in the air. Maybe the revolution was overestimated. It's fruits have certainly been a mixed bag of the bad along with the good, and I really wonder sometimes which is the majority. But somewhere near the heart of it all, a flashpoint that put the matter beyond doubt whenever it was touched, was the issue of rights. Some folks had 'em, and some didn't. And some people just wouldn't take it. They got pissed. They shouted from the rooftops. And they got changes made.

I started this blog because I felt the electricity I'd read about, and heard about, and experienced vicariously through art and song. And I got the sense I wasn't the only one. And in the center of it all was this song, this song that said it all, of which the words weren't mine but yet somehow were - and I set out here to sing that song and see if anybody would pick up the tune.

I know there are others who have the song in their heart, who feel something moving around them at this moment that's just somehow different than things were 5 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 15. Sure, you might say, we were different then. And it's true. Time is a great equalizer that way, there isn't one of us that's isn't different now. But I still maintain that there's something else, some inscrutable, even ineffable thing, that's different - something in the air.

I've been hearing the song more loudly lately and so I came back and thought I'd post some thoughts and see what happens. And then today, I read something, and I found my song there, too, and 148 folks - some very different from me - singing that song loud and clear:

...we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

So, the song is still there. And that's why I'm here.

Just thought you'd like to know. If you're here too, I'm sure you have your reasons - and I'd love to hear 'em.

The Calm Before the Storm...

Well, I'm coming out of hiding. There is a lot to talk about. A lot of change, facing the rising seas and the waxing storm - both in my personal life and in the world at large. My mind has not been idle. I've been thinking, reading, praying about social charity and social justice every day. But I just haven't been able to catch fire and write. Something in me has been poised, waiting with a kind of baited anticipation, a still and serene snowscape before the pebble that starts the avalanche. Not that the flow down the mountain will be strong enough to overcome anything; please don't mistake me as trying to characterize my output here as formidable thought. I doubt whether I am very well equipped indeed to enter the discussions into which I will shuffle with my two cents. But my thoughts are honest thoughts, and they are I think thoughtful. And I will continue to share them with whoever will accept them in charity, and wait to receive any who will share their own in kind.

The "pebble" aforementioned is this: a rigorous discussion (although, I fear, somewhat heated and overblown with occasional meanness) taking place over at Father Z.'s. The catalyst for debate is rumour of the Pope's new encyclical which pundits expect may be signed tomorrow. When the translation will be prepared is uncertain.

The thought of a new social encyclical, the many possibilities that entails, obviously has me pondering. I am anxious to see Pope Benedict's mind turn to these issues for which John Paul II showed famous academic interest and solicitude. I am struck even with some trepidation, both for the encylical's contents and its reception. Like one of the commenter's at Father's blog, I hold my breath when the Vatican begins to express specific opinion about economic policy. I do believe in a certain autonomy to the (albeit soft) science of economics. However, I cannot subscribe to the classically liberal tenets of many squawking over at WDTPRS.

So, there the stage is set for my own holding forth on these matters. Whether the letter comes tomorrow or not, I'll have something to say, so stay tuned. And thanks for sticking with me through the long winter. There'll be more said of that, too, ere long. Oremus pro invicem, friends.

One Day At A Time

“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).

“A promising future.”  The expression is one which we have heard so often that perhaps we never stop to think about what it really means.  Perhaps it is better that we never do, because I wonder if we did whether our optimism would fail us completely.  Really, when we consider it in the ultimate sense, this phrase contains something of a problem, or at least a sort of riddle.  For if there are any promises which the future holds, they are our promises; and, as this world teaches us with increasing clarity, our promises can be broken.

 A week ago, a young man with what many would have called “a promising future” was taken suddenly from this life.  At the age of twenty-six, he was an ordained deacon in the Church and completing his final year of preparation for the ministry of priesthood.  He would have been ordained this summer – in just a few short months.  In family and friends, in the many lives he had touched through his years of training and witness to the Gospel, seeds of hope and expectation had been planted; and with the promise of a fruitful ministry ahead, a shoot had begun already to sprout.  But all too suddenly, the shoot withered.  The promise was broken.  Those whom had nurtured these hopes and expectations in loving friendship and admiring camaraderie were left to grapple with the mystery of why.  And in the quiet hours of mourning and grief, there was felt a sense of abandonment and even betrayal.  For if a promise had been made, then who could be said to have broken it, if not the One who gives life and takes it away?  Bourn from many hearts, with not a few bitter tears, the cry went up: “Why, God?  Why?”

 Although I met him five years ago, unfortunately I never got to know him as well as I should like to have done.  I knew him to be a kind and generous man, an impressive and faithful witness to God’s Providence who gently accepted in all things and circumstances some expression of the will of God.  I can honestly say that I never heard an uncharitable word pass his lips.  In formation he was diligent and sincere, and manifested true love for the Church.  I, too, had recognized the promise...

 He was buried on February 2nd, the Feast of the Presentation.  Sitting in the Cathedral at the funeral Mass, I reflected on the words of Simeon’s Canticle from the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel running through my head: “Lord, now let your servant go in peace, for your words have been fulfilled....”  As a deacon of the Church, this young man had prayed these words from the Divine Office every night before laying his head on his pillow, along with the haunting responsory: “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. You have redeemed us, Lord, God of truth.”  The promise made to Simeon – the promise of eternal salvation and happiness and oneness with God in the life to come – this had been God’s promise to this deacon untimely dead; it is God’s promise to each of us, the baptized.

 A priest friend told the story that when the young deacon would speak of his first Mass or any other aspects of his future ministry as a priest, he would always add the caveat, “God willing.”  He understood the nature of his promise, and of God’s.  He knew that man’s promises can only attain for a day; that tomorrow is a new day and we must either recommit ourselves or fail in the promises we’ve made today.  Our promises can be broken, and sometimes not through any fault of our own.  This young man had once lain on that same Cathedral floor where his coffin was greeted by hundreds of loving faithful, and he had dedicated his life to God.  He promised, in a solemn act, his fidelity and chastity and obedience.  He promised his service to God, as God would have it.  And, for however short a time, that promise was faithfully kept.

 But our promises can be broken.  Not just because we fail, but because we are frail – because we are mortal, because tomorrow takes care of itself and sufficient to a day is its own evil.  Each night, when the Church prays the Canticle of Simeon, together we thank God for our faithfulness throughout the day which has ended.  We can only express our desire that we will remain faithful the next day, if such be given us.  But we also commend our spirits into the hands of God, knowing that, sometimes, another day is not given.  Then it is the promises of the day which has ended which will attain into eternal life, and not the promises of the future.  Death may break our promises for tomorrow, but cannot touch the ones we have kept today.

 Today’s promises are God’s promises, too, for us.  Today we will hear his voice, and must be take care that our hearts be not hardened.  A former coworker of mine, when you asked him how his day was going, would always respond: “I woke up this morning.  Everything after that is a bonus.”  Here there is a profound truth.  The lives of the saints, and good Christian men like our deceased brother deacon, teach us time and again the valuable lesson: this is the acceptable time, the promised day of salvation.  If we have been given this day at all, then we have been given it with the full pledge of eternal peace and joy, if only we hear and accept the word of promise.  Now is the time, we cannot delay.  We must make our commitments today: for tomorrow will take care of itself.  Each dawn that greets us is rife with renewals of God gift to each of us: the momentous offer of eternal salvation.  We must never take for granted that another day, another encounter of the fullness of time, shall be ours.  And this is after all only just.  God knows as well as we that our promises might only last the day, that tomorrow we might stray.  So, we are led along at a pace most manageable for us in our weakness, and God’s continual promise is expressed in each new dawn – each day, every day, but only one day at a time.

 He will be greatly missed.  Our community mourns him as we celebrate his memory and emulate his virtues.  For my part, I can at least hope that I will pray more fervently now the Canticle of Simeon in Compline before bed.  I pray that my head falls to the pillow in peace as I commend my own soul each night to the Lord; that at least I will have tried to respond that day to the Lord’s promise, knowing that the promise of any future days rests solely on the mercy and Providence of God.  May we all strive to live lives full of promise in the present, rather than in the future; such are lives like those of the saints, like the one lived by our dearly departed brother: such are lives of promise, lives well lived – one day at a time.

I'll know my song well before I start singin'

I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’.
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number.
And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it,
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it,
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’;
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’.

- Bob Dylan

The Catalyst

“What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops” (Mt. 10:27). This is the stirring commission Christ gives His twelve apostles as he prepares them to be sent out “as sheep among wolves;” but those wolves, He tells them, they are not to fear (Mt. 10:16, 26).

As I listened to this Gospel being proclaimed one Sunday at Mass, my heart was burning within me. I knew that this was the last bit of encouragement I needed. The time had come. I needed to set out again, spiritually and intellectually, down a path whose many turns are well beyond the terminus of my sight.

How you have come to find yourself crowded into my little corner of the web, perhaps only God knows. I hope, however, your time here will not be in vain. My greatest hope is that you will help enlarge this place with the input of your own thoughts and your own ideas, and perhaps lodge here more comfortably and more frequently in the future.

Some readers may be familiar with my former outlet in cyberspace, where I sought to engage in online discussion as part of my own vocational discernment while journeying toward ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. My efforts there were well rewarded and my time reading and writing online has indeed brought me closer to a “vision of truth.”

My reasons for launching this new blog are complicated and confused; some are very personal. My opinions have matured. My interests have both expanded and at the same time become more focused. Suddenly, the direction of my thoughts, prayers, and various other motivations all seem to be converging in a very singular direction. Pointing the way, at the outset, was Innocent Smith.

Chasing After Innocent

At the beginning of this academic year, I read for the first time G.K. Chesterton’s Manalive. Like so many before me, I became utterly fascinated by the character of Innocent Smith and his approach to life. When Smith waved a gun in a man’s face in order to convince the man that life is a desirable thing, it struck me as a revelation. Our world is chock full of men only half-living. Indeed, I myself have spent far too few hours in the “land of the living,” but have mostly wandered about half-asleep, not dead but, like Coleridge’s mariner, dead in life.

I became determined at that juncture to live; and, to bring others with me along the uncharted paths which I knew would open to the willing wayfarer. I had no idea what this new resolve meant. In truth, I wanted adventure: an intellectual adventure, a spiritual foray into uncharted territory. I knew the trip’s terrain lay somewhere in the Gospel of Christ but had no idea what contours would form the map of my particular journey. Like the Bagginses in the greatest story of the last century, I simply stepped out onto the ever-living Road and was swept along. I let the Way lead me to Truth and Life.

And very soon into my new pursuit, chasing after Innocent Smith’s life philosophy through sundry books and articles, I came to the first definite turn in my path; and I found this place at once a surprise as well as, truth be told, something of a disappointment...

Opening My Luggage

The road had dropped me at the doorstep of Catholic socio-economics. In distaste and a slip from reverence, I wondered whether I had not fallen victim to God’s first mistake (presuming, like most good theologians, the creation of the ostrich to be a complex joke). Catholic economics? The very mention seemed like a soporific drug. I hated the notion of economics, and thought it as much a “science” as auguring the entrails of the pigeons on Wall Street.

My first step into this field was Joseph Pearce’s Small Is Still Beautiful. Pearce had called the work an embodiment of “Chestertonian Economics” at a conference I’d attended in the summer and it was this name-dropping that encouraged me to stomach the book at all. But somewhere in the process of meandering along this first seeming detour from my intellectual path, it occurred to me that I had not been swept down this road alone: I had brought luggage with me.

Pearce’s book sparked memories of my intellectual past and my formation which revealed a subconscious interest in the subject I now found myself reluctantly investigating. My initial interest in the Papal Social Encyclicals; a fascination with writers like Dorothy Day, Flannery O’Connor, and Thomas Merton who scrutinized class relations; the hidden undertones of the writings of Tolkien and the not-so-hidden undertones of Lewis, dealing with industrial dehumanization; my fondness for champions of the poor such as Tolstoy, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and of course, Chesterton: these and many other “landmarks” began to emerge from the chaotic landscape of my mind. Suddenly, all along that crooked line of my lifelong discernment, I saw clearly and powerfully the straight writing of the hand of God.

Following the Crowd

My intellectual luggage bore evidence of myriad philosophers, poets, and saints who had gone before me down this same road. What had once seemed a detour I now knew as a familiar but forgotten path; and soon I found myself, like Wenceslas’ servant, tripping eagerly in the warm and worn footpaths of my masters.

I further began to recognize that I was not alone on this road. I found many contemporary men and women pursuing the same ideal, the same “third way,” hoping to find the way to life and that in abundance. The merry crowd gave me courage and I began to rush as fast as my mind’s feet would take me; I found I could now walk with some dexterity along these lines of thought and anticipate the potholes that previously halted me or caused me to stumble. But my charmed journey could not continue thus uncomplicated forever. For as yet, I only pursued a goal along intellectual terrain. And this path led me directly to a Wall.

Scaling the Wall

The Catholic Church’s teachings on properly ordered economic life and functional relations within human society are not mere ideas, they are ideals. They are to be lived rather than merely thought. My journey of mind could only go so far by itself. Arriving at the wall which represented the intersection of idea and reality, I knew that I must scale that wall and engage my whole person – body, soul, and spirit – in this pursuit. Dietrich von Hildebrand helped me to perceive the footholds on this wall as I began to climb, with his edifying philosophy of the human person. My thought journey was going to continue, but now had come the time to walk on a new level, a terrain overlying the intellectual landscape alone. I would walk in thought upon pathways set in day-to-day life, melding bodily and spiritual reality. So, I threw my luggage over the ledge and sprang onto the plane retained by that edifice separating our dreams from their waking fulfillment (or disappointment). And, to my dismay, the road laid in front of me was not quite what I had been expecting; and, more than that, there awaiting me was additional luggage to carry.

Taking Up the Cross

When an ideological path intersects with real life, it bumps into all sorts of limits. Time and space and the finitude of nature are nature’s restraints. But the mysterious problem of evil; human frailty; disorder; pride; the Devil – all of these constitute further limits that challenge the marriage of ideas with existential fact.

In order to cut through such limits, we need to turn liability into asset, misfortune into benefit. The unique luggage which awaits us at the outset of such a journey is the Cross, an it has this very transformative power of working evil into good. But the Cross’s usefulness (utilitatem, a “good for”) comes at a price. The Cross must be shouldered and born as a sort of weapon into the fray; and the better armored a soldier would be, the heavier the wares he must wield.

Following the trajectory of my thought into the added dimensions of body and spirit means additional challenges, over and above the growth in philosophy which must always continue. The open landscape in front of me at the wall’s zenith was crowded with people following all sorts of different trends; and each intersection represented a potential conflict, a place where I might be swept off course. And this new concentration in my vocation, a path set within my current journey, was evidently a threat to the adversaries of life. The world, the flesh, and the devil grew in their hostility as I grew in my resolve. Instantly atop the wall, I perceived that they wicked three were brewing in their putrid caldron a reek and tempest, to darken and dampen the course where I was headed. Very shortly into my new pursuit, the storm had gathered and was heading my way.

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

“The culture of death.” This is the term which our beloved former Pope, John Paul II, used to describe that confluence of forces which stands between a man and his pursuit of abundant life. In recent years, the frenetic anxiety of our world has seen this culture encroach even nearer to the foundations of human dignity and life. State-funded abortion. Gay marriage. The world food crisis. Rampant ecological abuse and poor stewardship. War. Genocide. International campaigns of attrition. Governments bloating in scope and scale. The list goes on. The world seems to be headed to a point of reckoning. A hard rain is going to fall and who is ready to survive the deluge?

The complex schemes couching lies and sedition in secrecy will crumble. These systems which form our existence cannot maintain their present course. All around the academy, government, society at large, the home, and the individual, walls are closing in. Soon, they will crumble and implode. Crawling out from the rubble, we will be able to investigate the foundations of these once impressive structures: their underlying ideas. Our society, having so long neglected ideas and not used to dealing with them, must choose its course: we will either succumb to mental atrophy and, in our refusal to confront these ideas, fall into utter decay; or, leaders will rise up and forge a new path, choosing new ideas, and these may be good or bad. My current quest is to set out early along the best path I can find.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God...”

And so I arrived at that Sunday to which I referred at the outset. Only the day before, the liturgy struck me with these words: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.... But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

One last push the next day was all I needed. “Shout from the rooftops.” But be not brash: sufficient for a day is it’s own evil; one step at a time, onward through the impending storm.

Nor should I be going alone. As a sheep to the slaughter, led pacifically into the valley of death, the Christian chooses his course, but always comforted by the Shepherd who keeps wolves at bay. With me, too, would be those whom I invite to join me as I seek to grow and learn...

So, thank you again for visiting my site. As I try to find my path, I hope you will join me in calculating the steps. Please, challenge my ideas. Unabashedly put forth your own. Help me to see the best way through the jumbled crowd under the darkening sky. The Church has a message for our society which strikes on all levels of life. A message about family life, social life, economic life, political life. But this message can be put many ways; the song has many tunes. I feel the burning desire of a troubadour to sing loudly the song in my heart as it cadences my own steps to destiny. But I need to learn better the tune, and that you can help me do. I want to know my song well before I start singing.

(References:)

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan (Copyright 1963)