Christmas Homily...

Once upon a time there was a great tall tree on a hill in the woods. He stood there all day long, dreaming of what he might become.  Some days he would dream that he would be carved into a great treasure chest, filled with gold, silver and precious gems and decorated on every side so that everyone would admire his beauty.  On other days he would dream that he would form the massive timbers of a mighty ship which would carry kings and queens across the oceans to the four corners of the world.  He wanted to be great and powerful.

One day a woodsman came and looked up at the tree and cut it down, making it into neither a beautiful chest nor a mighty ship, but a feed box for the animals. He placed it a barn and filled it with hay. The tree was very sad, because he would never be great nor powerful.

Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave birth and placed her baby in the feed box, because there was no place for them in the inn.  But then a strange thing happened, as the whole manger seemed to fill with light, and there were angels and a star above the baby’s crib, and shepherds and wise men came to worship the child, not like a baby in a crib, but like a King upon the finest royal throne.

But soon they all left and the memory of that wondrous night began to fade, and over the years the barn grew old and the crib grew rickety, until it was sold for  scrap to some Roman soldiers and carted off to Jerusalem, where it was made into a Cross for the execution of criminals.

That was the cross they placed on the shoulders of a man who was made to carry the it, a man who who seemed to glow with the same light as the baby so long ago in Bethlehem.  The man fell three times and was finally affixed to the wood with nails which dug deeply.  The people jeered at him and mocked him, while only his mother and a younger man stood weeping at his feet, until the man looked to heaven, prayed and breathed his last.

And three days later, when the sun rose, so did the man rise from the dead, and the tree stood taller and prouder than he had since he lived in the forest, for he knew now that now he was, indeed, great and powerful, having been made little and weak.  He had never been a chest for earthly treasures nor a ship for powerful princes, but he had been a throne for the Son of God, as his crib and his cross.

And what about us?  Do we want to be rich and powerful?  Do we want the whole world to acclaim our beauty and our strength?  Sure we do.

In fact, especially at Christmas we expect that everything is going to be perfect.  It’s that idea of Christmas that people my age got from the Cleaver family in the 1950’s.  Everyone sitting around a beautifully decorated Christmas Tree with a perfectly constructed fire burns in the fireplace, decorated with overflowing Christmss stockings with the name of each child neatly inscribed on each.

And everyone is singing Christmas carols as they smile at each other with understanding and love.  There’s grandma in the rocking chair sharing her wisdom with all who sit in rapt attention, while mom and dad look lovingly on, holding hands with the trace of a tear in their eyes.  Meanwhile, each child asks permission to open their next gift and giggle with joy at each lovely surprise.  Soon they will leaves for Church as snow gently falls from the sky and dad leads them in Christmas carols until they genuflect and kneel in their pews dressed in their new Sunday clothes….

At Christmas time we expect everything to be perfect, but most of the time it is not.  Many of you lost someone you loved this year, and they are not here this Christmas because they have died.  Some who hear my voice fought about some stupid little thing all the way to Church and are not particularly looking forward to going home in the same car.  Some worry about what the doctor said or about the people at work who already got laid off or about their son who did not come home from school this year.  Some worry about addiction, or that one who drinks too much, or about how hard it is to pray or even to sleep.

But the great good news of this day is that you do not have to be powerful or perfect.  The great good news of this night is that, like the tree on the top of the hill, you need only be little enough to be a throne for the Son of the Living God.  Little enough to make your hands into a throne to receive his incarnate flesh…Little enough to prepare your heart to be a crib where the incarnate Son of God might rest this night…with his healing, his love and hope.

So God does not expect from us perfection or power.  We are not made for that.  God waits for us to make ourselves as little as the Babe of Bethlehem, that we might receive him this night and he might rest in our hearts.

Thoughts on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

He came here because he couldn’t feed his sister, brother and widowed mother back home. So he got a job in Lawrence, where he got married, and then moved to Milford and Hopkinton and finally Upton, always staying one-step ahead of the bill collectors.

But every place he went they looked down on him as something less than a real American and so he took the jobs that no one else would do, shoveling out the stables or unloading the ships or pushing big heavy carts.

A fifty-hour work-week back then paid new immigrants less than $4, a third of which got him a single nine-by-eleven foot room with no water, sanitation, ventilation or daylight. It was, of course, cheaper to get a room in “a cellar-hole” in Charlestown, but those used to flood with every tide and the rats would tend to go after the children. 

Adult immigrants in those days lived, on average, just six years after stepping off the boat onto American soil. Yes, off the boat. That’s how Maurice Moroney, my great-great grandfather lived when he sailed to Charlestown from Cork, one hundred and sixty-five years ago.

But what got him through was his faith, especially in the Blessed Mother. That’s what got him through. Years ago, I saw a small and faded holy card of our Lady of Lourdes which I like to think Maurice used to look at and wonder:…if God could make her blessed through the homelessness, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents and even the crucifixion of her own son, then maybe there is some hope for me.

Not unlike Elsie who came here with her husband from Latin America some fifteen years ago. They live not so far from Mission Hill and have 4 kids, including the five-year-old, who they think is autistic. Her husband is still undocumented because he can’t afford to pay for his green card and still put food on the table, so he moves from job to job. Last year his mother died back in Columbia, but he couldn't go because they would have stopped him from returning here to his family.

In Elsie and Juan’s living room there’s a picture of Juan Diego, kneeling before the Blessed Virgin at Tepayak. They pray each night before Our Lady of Guadalupe, looking a lot like the powerless little peasant at her feet, and Elsie often thinks “if she appeared to Juan Diego, then perhaps she can take care of us, too.”

They are like the more than 150,000 undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts, most of them are Catholic. Three times that number are recent legal immigrants to the Commonwealth. They are Hispanic, Asian and European, with more than 10,000 undocumented Irish. 

Which is why our Holy Father has asked us to pray for immigrants on this feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. For we are immigrants, all of us, or great-grandsons of immigrants, who came here seeking a new life, and who through the intercession of the Mother of God found it.

Like the widower Juan Diego, who almost a half a millennium ago told the Bishop that he had seen the Virgin Mary. And when the Bishop asked him for proof, returned to the beautiful lady and, in the middle of winter, came back with a cloak overflowing with roses. 

Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of Immigrants and Mother of Priests, keep them all safe, and lead them home to the Manger of your Son.

Some Thoughts on the Immaculate Conception

My favorite place to pray in Washington, D.C., where I lived for many years, is the Irish Chapel in the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  There’s no fancy sanctuary or big mosaic...there’s not even an altar in this chapel.  Just a statue of the Blessed Virgin with the Christ child playing on her lap in the middle of a gurgling fountain. 

But on the wall, not far away, is a 1200 year old Celtic Prayer that boldly states: There is no hound as fleet of foot, nor young soul so quick to win the race, nor horse to finish the course, as the Mother of God to the death bed of one who needs her intercession.  It’s like the line in the Memorare: Never was it known that anyone who fled to Thy protection, implored Thy help or sought Thy intercession was left unaided. 

Two hundred and twenty years ago, sixteen years before the founding of the See of Boston, the first Catholic Bishop of America in his first Pastoral Letter announced the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate as the first patron of America and recommended “...a fervent and well-regulated devotion to the Holy Mother of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; that you will place great confidence in her in all your necessities.”  Bishop Carroll went on to recommend “a zealous imitation of her virtues and a reliance on her motherly superintendence.”

I have always thought of the life of the Blessed Virgin as the perfect song, immaculately conceived and perfectly executed in a life of saving grace. For the life of the “most blessed among women” is the most perfect song ever sung to the God of all beauty and truth. Composed in tones of humility, obedience and faithfulness, the composition begins with an Immaculate Conception and concludes with a sorrowful mother at the foot of the Cross. But the constant theme in every movement is the opening lyric: “Be it done to me according to your word.”

And so, as sons and daughters of America, we are sons and daughters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and we are bound to an imitation of her virtues.

To seek littleness, and faithfulness and love.

Getting Ready to Meet Christ the King

Is Jesus the King of the Jews? Pilate is speaking not just to Jesus today, but to you and to me. Is he the King? For if we believe that he is the King, the Son of Man who will return at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, then we seek to make our lives worthy of his Kingdom.  

Even though, so often, we fall victim to the temptations of the Prince of this World, who lays before us all kinds of false kingdoms.  Worldly kingdoms of power and prestige, of wealth and of comfort, where all streets lead to the worship of me, twisting and turning the truth to make it all conform my will and to where I want to go.

But Christ’s Kingdom, as he told us, is not of this world; For it is the dwelling place of God, illumined by the Glory of the Lamb, where there is no more death, nor mourning nor crying out or pain. Its’ streets are paved with the sacrifices of those who have washed their robes in the Blood of the Lamb, the Blood by which he has made us a Kingdom of Priests, destined eternally to be joined in one grand chorus of joyous praise to the glory of the one true King, the “the One who is and who was and who is to come.”

And we are made for this Kingdom, you and I.  It’s the reason we were born: made for the eternal praise of the One who will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, and who will lead us home to a Kingdom of truth and of life, of holiness and grace, of love and of peace.

Not that we have to go there, mind you. Not that we we are forced to choose to wash our robes in his Blood, to answer his invitation to the Supper of the Lamb, or to rise with those who have chosen to love others as he has loved them. 

No, we can freely choose the Kingdom of Darkness. We can choose not to love, not to forgive and not to worship God. We can choose to bow down before the Prince of this world, the Lord of neglect, perdition and sin.  And believing all his empty promises, we can choose “the fiery lake of burning sulfur…the second death,” an eternity “locked in the prideful rejection of God's love.”

Which is what brings us to the reason why the Church gives us this feast of Christ the King, and chooses the ancient prayer that will end the Mass today: that, “in obedience to the commands of Christ, the King of the universe, we [might] live with him eternally in his heavenly Kingdom.”

Perhaps it’s also the reason the Church ends the month of November the same way she began it: by remembering death and judgement and the choices we have to make. For death, like this last Sunday of the Church’s year, reminds me of the end, when someday my body will lay in a coffin before the Paschal Candle and those who loved me will come to my Funeral.  

As I get older, I think all the more of my death, of how it will all end and the choices I will make in the meantime. I often tell my friends that if at my Funeral someone gets up and preaches a long eulogy about how good I was, they should should throw something at him. For those who truly love me when I die will not praise me, but they will get down on their knees and beg God to forgive me for all my sins and lead me to the Kingdom of Heaven.

For those who love us, and those we love…we’re all are bound together in death just as much as they ever were in life: bound by a solemn obligation to pray that God will forgive us our sins and lead us to everlasting life. 

I started November on all Souls Day, by going to a florist not far from Saint John’s Cemetery in Worcester and buying twelve baskets of flowers. And over the rest of the day I visited all of my dead relatives, putting a funeral basket on each grave, singing the In paradisum and begging God to forgive their sins.

So, as this year comes to an end, let us remember the last things.  By praying for the dead: that God will forgive their sins. And while we are at it, trying to live a life worthy of the Kingdom of God.

Saint Cecelia and Gratitude in Suffering

There are seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin Mary, commemorated in the Roman Canon. Perpetua, Felicity, Agnes, Cecilia, Agatha, Lucy, and Anastasia, all of them martyrs enjoying extensive devotion by the fifth century when this Eucharistic Prayer was first composed.

A few moments ago we prayed that “what has been devoutly handed down concerning [Saint Cecilia] might offer us examples to imitate.” So what has been handed down that we might imitate it?

As far as we know, Cecilia was born into a wealthy Roman family, raised a Christian and piously carried the Gospels with her wherever she went. Consecrated from birth to a life of virginity, she converted her first husband on their wedding night after which the couple spent all their time burying the martyrs provided by the frequent Christian persecutions.

When the prefect of Rome grew tired of this troublesome couple, he executed her husband and soon decided to have Cecilia killed as well.

According to the legend, when the soldiers came to arrest her, Cecilia converted them and they were baptized, “amidst loud hymns of thanks.”

The next day, wishing only to be rid her, the prefect ordered that she be suffocated in the baths. But from within the sealed chambers they heard her voice crying out: "I thank You, Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, that through Your Son the fire will be been extinguished.” And as they looked below the baths the fires went out.

So they tried to cut off her head; but as the executioner’s blade hit her neck for the third time, she is said to have yelled out “I thank you for your cross…” At which her lips fell silent, never to thank God again, until she stood with the angels before the throne of the God who never abandoned her.

So what has been handed down that we might imitate it?

The grace to give thanks when they arrest you, when they boil you and when the sword falls. “In all things give thanks to God…” (1 Thessalonians 5:18a)

Veterans' Day

It is good that Veterans’ day falls in the month of November, when the Church asks us to pray for the dead. For while this day honors all veterans, living and dead, its origins lie in Armistice day, commemorating the end of the first World War, one hundred and one years ago today.

It’s ironic, in a way, that as we honor all who have served our country, it is the moment of armistice, the moment that they ceased fighting wars that we commemorate. But then again, the whole purpose of the armed services is to end all wars and to make the ultimate sacrifice to bring peace to our shores.

For peace is something that every veteran, more than anyone else, desires with their whole heart and soul. Few and far between are the military men who glory in battle as something more than a means to an end.  They fight that there might be no more fighting and sacrifice that future generations will not have to.

Our greatest war time presidents have understood that.  Abraham Lincoln, who led the nation through our bloody Civil war gave a speech in Philadelphia and cautioned against those who see war as grand or glorious. “War at its best,” he warned, “is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.”¹

Franklin Roosevelt used to refer to war as a contagion, a disease and famously spoke of his hatred of it. “I have seen war,” he proclaimed at Chatauqua. “I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping exhausted men come out of line-the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.”²

And President Eisenhower, who picked up where Roosevelt stopped, likened war to hanging humanity on a cross of iron, reminding us that “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”³

All of whose views are reflected in the words of Pope Pius XII, who warned that "the calamity of a world war, with the economic and social ruin and the moral excesses and dissolution that accompany it, must not on any account be permitted to engulf the human race for a third time."⁴

I can see Pope Paul VI, the first Pope to address the United Nations, proclaiming loudly from its podium “No more war. war never again!”

So let us pray for those who have sacrificed so much for us.  Let us pray for those who died in Iraq, who were maimed or disfigured fighting ISIS in Syria, or who stand guard at lonely outposts in South Korea tonight. May God reward them for their vigilance and their sacrifice.

But let us pray that the need for their service might be brought to an end. That the covetous desires of evil hearts to dominate or control, to take what belongs to others or to violate the rights of peoples might cease and that all might “turn from evil and do good…seek peace and pursue it.”⁵

____________

1 - Abraham Lincoln, June 16, 1864.

2 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address at Chautauqua, August 14, 1936.

3 - Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953.

4 - Pope Pius XII's broadcast message, Christmas 1941.

5 - 1 Peter 3:11.

All Saints

We gather to honor the Saints.  Those who now live in heaven, gathered around the throne of God, singing:

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain 

to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength,

honor and glory and blessing.”

It is the last scene, God willing, we will see, the precursor of our eternity, joined with the angels and the saints in one grand chorus of joyous praise to the Lamb upon the throne, the Alpha and Omega, the one who was and is and ever will be, the Lord.

Such is the glory of God.  It is a glory we can see even now, as we stand this side of heaven. The glory of a Creator, reflected in his creation, in all the wondrous complexity and beauty of the springtime, of plants and animals newborn and overflowing with life. 

Indeed, each day of our lives is but an unfolding of the glory of God, as we come to know him bit by bit in the wonders he place before us. For God created time, and all time is ultimately his creation, made to mark the passing of all the days and nights of our lives. (Cf. Sirach 43:2,6.)

The Sacred Liturgy, the Holy Mass which we celebrate today, opens a door into that Heavenly Kingdom.  It directs us away from a certain self-centeredness, and focuses our eyes on God.  That’s why the Altar is placed at the center of every Catholic Church, the Altar we venerate with a Kiss and a bow, just as we venerate Christ. And that’s why just above it hangs the cross of the crucified Christ, the Cross which is the Altar upon which the great High priest offered the perfect sacrifice of praise which is our hope and our salvation.

For this is what we were made for, and this is what heaven is going to be.  Not puffy clouds with angels playing harps, but perfect joy, pure love and praise in the presence of the glory of God.  Listen to the description of heaven in the Book of Revelation:

Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” (Rev 4: 8b.)

A great multitude of saints and angels, like the roar of Niagra Falls or the snap of a peal of Thunder, praising the glory of the Lord for all eternity, as day and night they sing: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.” (Rev. 4:11)

May we be found worthy of that heaven which eye have not seen and ears have not heard, but which has been prepared for us, that Heavenly Jerusalem where we will hear  “the voice of many angels around the throne…and the number of them [who were] myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing.” (Rev.. 5:12)  For ever and ever.  Amen.

On Halloween

This evening, in the dark, things will go bump in the night. Demons and devils and goblins and such, many disguised as little children during the day, will ring that door bell and demand a treat, lest they be forced to think up some dreadful trick to pull on you

.

But this is not the only night that things will go bump in the your house. For if you pick up the crosses God gives us, it’s often a very bumpy ride.

Saint Paul compares it to a woman in labor, groaning in pains from deep within, straining for the redemption of our bodies and of our very selves.

Such straining often takes place at night, as when Peter struggled to remain faithful to the Lord and failed. It was night.

It’s often after the gloaming of the day that such struggles occur, when the doubts and the fears come out to play, when old rages or panicky gasps crawl out from beneath the veneer of respectability that we maintain during daylight hours. At those moments when we are most like our primordial selves we work out our redemption, like Peter beside the campfire trying to choose Jesus or himself.

But it is such nights that make this journey blessed. For when you face the bumpy ride you never do so alone. It is a blessed share in his blessed Passion, which transforms you, deepens you and makes you ever anew. It is the dark purgatory of the living, which refines you into the fire-tried gold he has called you to be.

And no matter how scary things get, rest assured that nothing, neither death, nor life, nor present things, nor future things… will ever separate us from the love Christ, who is our hope and our salvation.

On Being Missionaries...

How come you’re here?  Why do you come to this place to worship the Lord?  It seems to me it is for the same reason the disciples came to Jesus.

In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, right after John the Baptist has called  Jesus “the Lamb of God…[he] who takes away the sins of the world,” two of the Baptist’s disciples began to follow Jesus.  One of them was Andrew, who, after meeting Jesus, goes to find his brother Peter, and brings him to Jesus.

The next day, Jesus goes to the Sea of Galilee and finds Phillip, who in turn, goes out and finds Nathanael, who he brings to Jesus, and Nathanael follows him.

So there is only one way to become a disciple: to meet Jesus.

Now, for most of us, the one who literally carried us to Jesus was the one who gave us birth.

You’ve probably seen pictures of it, or at least heard stories of the day your parents and godparents first brought you to Church.  “What do you ask of God’s Church for your child,” the priest asked them. And from that day they sought to introduce you to life in Christ.  They were the first missionaries you knew, and they led you to Jesus.

There are more exotic missionaries, as well.  Like Sister Veronica and Sister Maria Louisa, who came to us from an International community founded to bring Jesus to people far far away.  One was born in Italy ad the other in Mexico, and they came to Worcester, to lead us and all the the other little missionaries to Jesus, that we might have a personal relationship with him.

Fr. Mark Marangone, s.x., Provincial of the Xavarian Missionaries, was with us a couple weeks ago when Bishop McManus honored Sister Maria Louisa.  Fr. Mark once wrote that the job of each Baptized man and woman is to “make of the world one family” by leading each man and woman to Jesus.

Each one of us knows someone who needs to be led to Jesus.  Maybe it’s a friend or a co-worker.  Maybe it’s a son or daughter who has stopped going to Church.  Each one of us are called to be missionaries, leading people to Jesus.

But who am I to be a missionary, you might say?  

You know who you are? You are just like Saint Andrew.  Of all the Apostles, Andrew is one of the least known.  He is only mentioned by name in twelve verses of the Bible, and in eight of those he is simply referred to as Peter's brother.  He is nearly always mentioned second and wasn’t even included among those closest to Jesus.  His only claim to fame was that he brought people to Jesus.  He started with his brother.  And then, when the young boy with 5 loaves and 2 small fish came to him, he brought the boy to Jesus.  And when there were some Greeks who were looking for Jesus, it seems Philip didn't know what to do, but Andrew took them to Jesus.

We don’t have to be heroic or members of a world-wide missionary order.  We don’t need new languages or great stamina.  What we need is such a love for Jesus Christ that we want to lead people to him.

That’s how we live as Missionary Disciples, obedient to Jesus’ command to "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

The patron of this Cathedral Church was made the first Missionary Disciple when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus in a dramatic conversion.  From that point on, his life was one long series of relationships, who he introduced to Jesus.

Like Barnabas, in the bottom left of the great Missionary window, who introduced Paul to Peter and became his constant companion in leading people to Jesus.  

That’s them on the bridge, a little further up, heading to Antioch on their missionary journey, in search of people to lead to Jesus. 

Among their first converts was Barnabas’ young cousin, John Mark, whom you see in a boat with Paul and his Uncle on the way to Salamis in the Mediterranean Sea.

They passed through the whole island of Cyprus where they were less than successful at converting a sorcerer named Elymas (he’s he one embraced by a big green snake), although Paul is seen above him trying his best to get him to know the Lord.

John Mark went home (that’s a story for another day), but there near the top left of the window you can see the tiny figures of Paul and Barnabas in the mountains of Pisidia.

Then at the bottom of the middle of the window Paul is in Lystra, where he told the story of Jesus to a man who had never been able to walk before. But when Paul commanded him in the name of Jesus to walk, the man sprang up and began to dance.

The crowds grew very excited, and no matter what Paul said, they tried to worship him and Barnabas as Gods.  You can see them sacrificing a bull to them. There’s a good lesson here for missionaries: Always remember that missionary work is never about the missionary, but only about Jesus.  The missionary, like John the Baptist, must decrease, that the people might come to know Jesus alone.

Maybe to remind him of this, God allowed Paul to experience many failures, including the time they stoned him and left him for dead, with the dogs sniffing at his carcas. You can see Barbabas dragging Paul’s limp body away by a golden chain.

Above that Paul sets out on his second missionary journey through modern day Syria where, in the company of Silas and Luke he meets Lydia, a seller of purple dye (yup, she’s the one in the purple), whom Paul Baptizes in the name of Jesus, along with her household, two of whom are sitting at their feet. 

But then Paul encounters a quite different woman, a fortune teller who was possessed by a demon.  We can see Paul exorcising her with Silas standing behind him. 

But Paul and Silas suffered for exorcising the girl, as her friends rose up and threw them into prison (if you look closely, you can see rats and spiders in the prison), but then you see the two disciples miraculously freed from their chains.

We could go on and one (and we will in a video we are preparing on these wonderful windows), but let’s stop with the image of Saint Paul in glory at the top, as he looks across the Church at Jesus.  For all the missionary journeys were about introducing people to Jesus, just as we are called to do.

It’s like Saint Paul wrote to the young Bishop Timothy in words we heard just a few minutes ago.  As he spoke to Timothy, so he says to us:

“I charge you in the presence of God 

and of Christ Jesus,

who will judge the living and the dead…

proclaim the word;

be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;

convince, reprimand, 

encourage through all patience and teaching.”

Proclaim the Word, who is Jesus the Lord.

Christianity is not for sissies...

There is a view of religion, and of Christianity in particular, that it is about the avoidance of conflict and smoothing over hurt feelings.

And while it is true that love is patient, gentle and self-sacrificing, love does not (contrary to that old movie) mean never having to say you are sorry.

Rather, to paraphrase Betty Davis, ‘Christianity is not for sissies.’  It begins in the poverty of the manger and reaches its climax nailed to the wood of the Cross.  It is the very definition of conflict: a blazing fire at the intersection between good and bad, light and darkness, virtue and evil.

This blazing fire immolates deceit, hatred and selfishness. It spontaneously combusts where the weak are exploited, the innocent are convicted and the hungry are ignored.

And it will end in the blazing fires of Hell, which will consume all who turn from love and truth in Christ.

So the world would do well not to mistake the gentleness and self-sacrifice of the followers of Jesus for a capitulation to darkness. Rather, it is but an imitation of our Savior, who gave his life in meekness: the perfect sign of self-giving love; but who will also come with justice, to judge the living and the dead.

The Catacombs

Tonight we started our new class, entitled Introduction to Liturgical Art.  The first session was on the catacombs.

Pope Saint Callistus

There are times, I am afraid, when we think that our modern age is the first to encounter controversy and colorful characters.  But even in the pre-internet age, even in the first centuries of the life of the Church, life was messy and complex, as was the case with Saint Callistus, the sixteenth Pope.  I guess it goes to show you that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The life of the sixteenth Pope is clouded by history, but one account tells us he was born a slave of Carpophorus, a Roman banker, who did a lot of business with the somewhat unpopular Christians of the early third century. There is some indication that Callistus became a Christian, as Carpophorus put him in charge of the monies which Christians had collected for the care of widows and orphans.

But then the young Callistus made a terrible mistake.  He lost the Christians’s money.  And we don’t know how.  Perhaps he just misplaced it, perhaps he mis-spent it or maybe the bank went bankrupt.  But, in any case, he lost the money and decided to run away to escape facing a charge of larceny.

He only got as far as the port of Ostia, not far from the Rome airport of today, where be was arrested and thrown into jail.  The merciful Christians, however, convinced the judge that Callistus was good for the money and should be released and given the chance to recover their funds.  No sooner was he released, however, at least according to one account, than he was rearrested at the Jewish synagogue where he tried somewhat too forcefully to either borrow money or collect debts from some of his friends.

So, he’s now in his 30’s and once back in prison, where he was denounced as being a Christian, which under the Emperor at the time got him sentenced to hard labor in the salt mines of Sardinia. Within a few years he was a broken man, but then, by the grace of God, he was finally released with some other Christians at the request of a priest who was close to the favorite mistress of the Emperor Commodus.  Go figure.

Two successive popes, then recognized his piety and scholarship, and so he was ordained a Deacon at the age of 39 and placed in charge of the first piece of real estate owned by the Church, a cemetery on the Appian way called to this day, the Catacombe di San Callisto.

Nine popes were buried there and there is an indication that Callistus became an able administrator and valued advisor.  

So, in 217, when Callistus was about 57, he was elected Bishop of Rome.  But the controversies of his life were to continue.  

Callistus, perhaps because of the three times he got out of jail, had a keen appreciation for mercy.  And up until then, those who committed adultery and murder were thrown out of the Church for good. No change of forgiveness for adultery and murder. But Callistus decided to admit them to the Order of Penitents and eventually reconcile them.  He faced a lot of push back for this controversial stance, including the election of a less merciful rival as the first anti-pope, who claimed an equal claim to the Papacy until well after Callistus’ death.  

Callistus was to remain pope for only five or six years in all, at which point an anti-Christian mob threw him into a well, where he died.  Ironically they had to pull the body of he who had been the manager of the first Christian cemetery out of a well in the middle of the night in order to give it a proper burial.

So, since the days when Paul would describe himself as a slave, called to be an Apostle of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, through the extraordinary struggles of the first martyr Popes and even to our own day, the Christian life is a messy business.  But a messy business in which good and holy men, imperfect but holy men, sought to give their lives to the one who died to save them on Calvary hill.

Saint Callistus, pray for us!