Pray More Novenas: The Immaculate Conception

Before I became a Catholic, and for years after my conversion, I was terribly uncomfortable with novenas and other traditional expressions of Catholic piety.  Part of this was rooted in the seemingly over-the-top results that are often "guaranteed" to those who faithfully offer the prayers for nine straight days as perscribed.  In their excellent little book, Why Be Catholic: Understanding Our Experience and Tradition, Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos warn about the kind of un-Christian superstitions to which Catholicism is always prone.  Our sacramental understanding of reality can tempt us toward a kind of "Catholic magic" whereby we assume that, through our own activities (such as prayers) we can force God to give us a blessing.

Certainly the instructions for some novenas can suggest just this type of thinking.  A few months ago, however, I responded to a friend's invitation to join in a novena to St. Therese of Lisieux, to whom I have personal devotion.  This novena was sponsored by a one-man website operation called Pray More Novenas, run by an ordinary Catholic layman named John-Paul who wanted to, well, pray more novenas, and as a means of encouraging himself, has started a worldwide network of folks who now join together to support each other in the prayers.  The next month I joined in the novena to St. Jude the Apostle, and today we launch the Immaculate Conception novena, which will culminate on said feast day, December 8.  Over 6,000 people are praying this novena together.

Pray More Novenas doesn't promote Catholic magic, but rather Christian devotion and disciplined prayer.  The tradition of nine days of prayer comes straight from Holy Scripture, when Jesus instructed the disciples, following his Ascension, to return to the upper room and wait for the arrival of the Holy Spirit, which descended upon them on the tenth day.  Since then, nine-day devotions of various sorts have proliferated in popular practice.  And while no one is guaranteed a specific outcome to their prayers, Scripture is also clear that God pours out blessings upon those who call upon Him in faith.

And so I have become a devotee of novenas.  I look forward to selecting specific prayer intentions and the gentle discipline of offering the prayers, in communion with Mary and various saints, every day.  John-Paul makes it easy for us digital-age disciples by sending an email with each day's prayers, and an online forum provides a place to note your intentions and any blessings that might unfold.

I invite readers to join us.  Here's today's prayer:

O most pure Virgin Mary conceived without sin, from the very first instant, you were entirely immaculate. O glorious Mary full of grace, you are the mother of my God – the Queen of Angels and of men. I humbly venerate you as the chosen mother of my Savior, Jesus Christ.



The Prince of Peace and the Lord of Lords chose you for the singular grace and honor of being his beloved mother. By the power of his Cross, he preserved you from all sin. Therefore, by His power and love, I have hope and bold confidence in your prayers for my holiness and salvation.


I pray first of all that you would make me worthy to call you my mother and your Son, Jesus, my Lord.


I pray that your prayers will bring me to imitate your holiness and submission to Jesus and the Divine Will.


Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.


Now, Queen of Heaven, I beg you to beg my Savior to grant me these requests…


(Mention your intentions)


My holy Mother, I know that you were obedient to the will of God. In making this petition, I know that God’s will is more perfect than mine. So, grant that I may receive God’s grace with humility like you.

As my final request, I ask that you pray for me to increase in faith in our risen Lord; I ask that you pray for me to increase in hope in our risen Lord; I ask that you pray for me to increase in love for the risen Jesus!


Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.


Amen.

Christ Climbed Down

Via my dear friend Tom comes this Advent poem from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, compadre of Thomas Merton and co-founder of San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore:

CHRIST climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

Advent of Our Birth

First Sunday of Advent

"What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"
--Mark 13:37

Today's reflection in Jay Cormier's Waiting in Joyful Hope provides a beautiful kick off to this Advent season.  Cormier reminds us of all the times we have stayed up all night, studying for an exam, or getting an early start on a long journey, or perhaps for even more profound experiences, like sitting vigil with someone about to die, or waiting on the birth of a child.

This last example struck home powerfully for me, of course.  My daughter was born near dawn after a long night of labor, nearly two years ago now.  The parallels between that vigil and the joyful expectancy of Advent make the sacredness of this season palpable to me.  Months of anxious waiting, preparation, and dreaming came to a climax that night.

There are differences too, of course.  Our waiting was accompanied by a subtle but real fear: fear that something might go wrong.  Whereas we are assured of the completeness that accompanies the arrival of the Kingdom.

This doesn't stop us from worrying, fearing, even doubting though, even about the Kingdom, does it?  We are confident pregnancies will come to fullfillment, but we harbor quiet doubts about the infinite promises of the Gospels.  Human nature, original sin, or just the absymally deep fragility and alienation of our spirits nurtures in us the constant risk of complacency.

This is why Advent is also a discipline.  We must work at being watchful, must actively nurture joy, expectant gratitude, and abiding faith.  Because the Kingdom will come as surely as the newborn child, and with mystery, glory and fullfillment far beyond our wildest imaginings.

Creator God, we await your birth among us, but ultimately it is you who give birth to us and through your grace, raise us up to be your blessed children.  Let us ever be watchful for your redeeming love alive in our midst.  Amen.

Of Christ and His Church

Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

The gregarious Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, launched the annual meeting of that august body earlier this week with a delightful address on a theme from Blessed Pope John Paul II: "Love for Jesus and His Church must be the passion of our lives!"

You can read the full text of Archbishop Dolan's remarks here.

Archbishop Dolan offered a stirring vision of what faith in the 21st century must mean for Catholic Christians.  His positive message of passion and love reminded me of the premier episode of Fr. Robert Barron's monumental series Catholicism, which I watched last night on EWTN (interestingly, Archbishop Dolan also gives a shout out to Fr. Barron in his address).  In the premier episode, which focused on the preaching message of Jesus, Fr. Barron emphasized that, despite the horrifying violence of the crucifixion, Christ's core message is one of joy and love.  The Gospel is a pathway of happiness and freedom.

In his presidential message to the bishops, Dolan stressed a key component of our witness to that message of joy and love is the realization that Christ's  message cannot be separated from the Body of Christ alive in the world today, which is His Church.  Quoting the late Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac ("For what would I ever know of Him, without her?"), Dolan emphasized that the Church is ultimately where the world encounters Christ. 

The Church we passionately love is hardly some cumbersome, outmoded club of sticklers, with a medieval bureaucracy, silly human rules on fancy letterhead, one more movement rife with squabbles, opinions, and disagreement.


The Church is Jesus -- teaching, healing, saving, serving, inviting; Jesus often "bruised, derided, cursed, defiled."

Because of this, Dolan encouraged the bishops to renew their commitment to renewing the Church itself.  Part of this work of renewal is acknowledging that the Church has failed the Gospel in countless ways through the sinfulness of its human members.  The world is lost, and sadly the Church has contributed to its lostness.  But Dolan offers a rallying cry to bring the work of redemption - of the world and the Church - to the Church itself, where Christ pours out forgiveness, renewal, and rebirth through the sacraments and the life of faith.

We who believe in Jesus Christ and His one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church interpret the sinfulness of her members not as a reason to dismiss the Church or her eternal truths, but to embrace her all the more! The sinfulness of the members of the Church reminds us precisely how much we need the Church. The sinfulness of her members is never an excuse, but a plea, to place ourselves at His wounded side on Calvary from which flows the sacramental life of the Church.

We have failed to live up to Christ's message, but for this reason we need to conform ourselves to the message - and share it with the world - all the more.  It is through the renewal of the Church and its faithful witness to the eternal truth of the gospel that it remains relevant, vibrant, and immediately important for today's world:

It is always a risk for the world to hear the Church, for she dares the world to "cast out to the deep," to foster and protect the inviolable dignity of the human person and human life; to acknowledge the truth about life ingrained in reason and nature; to protect marriage and family; to embrace those suffering and struggling; to prefer service to selfishness; and never to stifle the liberty to quench the deep down thirst for the divine that the poets, philosophers, and peasants of the earth know to be what really makes us genuinely human.

Holy One, pour your renewing life out into your people and your Church.  Forgive us for our many failures and remake us in your image so we may continue to be your Body in a world desperate for your love.  Amen.

Unutterable Splendor

At the First Things blog, Evangel, Hunter Baker offers some reflections on Todd Burpo's popular book, Heaven is for Real.  The book recounts the story of Burpo's son, who (it appeared) nearly died of appendicitis.  Except that some time after the incident, the boy began describing how he had, in fact, died, and visited Heaven, where he encounter Jesus, angels, and dead relatives.

Friends loaned me this book a few months ago and I'd heard many other Christians share their reactions.  I approached the book with a little trepidation, suspicious of any human attempts to describe in words an experience that must be far beyond human imagination.  And while I did find the book hopeful and encouraging in its testimony to a scriptural vision of the afterlife, I was still a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing.  The little boy's description of heaven was just almost too conventional, and I chaffed at certain details like his assertion that Jesus had blue eyes.  I'm not suggesting I know what Jesus looks like in heaven, but I can bet pretty confidently that the historical Jesus did not have blue eyes.

Baker offers a more poetic response to the book than I can muster:

The problem, I think, is that there is something fundamentally wrong with human attempts to describe heaven and/or the things of God. I’m not saying it can’t be done at all, but it seems to me that other than through full-on revelation (as in the book of that name), the sublimeness of heavenly things can only be approached from the side or seen from the corner of the eye. A direct confrontation seems doomed to fall short. I felt that way to some extent about Heaven is for Real (a non-fiction account) and more so about the picture presented of the divine appearing by Jerry Jenkins at the conclusion of the Left Behind novels. When Jesus arrives in the story, he appears to everyone in exactly the same way with exactly the same message. It feels like the description of a heavenly voicemail attached to a hologram.

Baker reminds us of Paul's description of being caught up into paradise ("the third heaven") in 2 Corinthians 12, where "the man...heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter."

Human words - even the sacred words of scripture - surely cannot do proper justice to the splendor, glory, and infinite beauty that is our destiny. 

Lord, quicken in us the hope for eternal life with you and let us be humble and open to all the unimaginable delights that await us.  Amen.

Fear and True Love

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love."
1 John 4:18

Monsignor Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington offers a thoughtful reflection on the meaning of the "fear of the Lord" in scripture and the life of faith.

Citing St. Augustine, Msgr. Pope distinguishes between "servile" fear of the Lord (which is a fear of being punished for failing to do God's will) from filial fear (the fear a son feels of failing to properly reciprocate his father's love).

Genuine fear of the Lord is rooted in love. It is the aversion we feel at the thought of hurting or offending someone we love. In genuinely loving relationships, we long for unity with our beloved, whom we appreciate and adore. Msgr. Pope's (and St. Augustine's) comparison of this kind of fear to the relationship of a loving father and his child resonates for me, but ironically in the reverse.

As a father myself, of course I hope that my daughter comes to love me in such a way that she avoids hurting me and bringing separation and enmity between us, not simply out of fear but because she values our relationship so much. But the reverse is also true. I cringe at the thought that I might hurt her someday, I'm sure out of selfishness and unintended oversight if (when?) that happens.

Of course, I feel that aversion toward hurting my friends, my wife, and others too, but I have never known a human love quite like I feel for this little girl. Nothing compares. My adoration for her is beyond words, and I hope with all my heart never to let her down.

This, then, must be what scripture means by "fear of the Lord," or at least the closest thing I've experienced so far, and suggests why such an attitude is so important for faith and discipleship. Modern secular society undoubtedly would scoff at the phrase "fear of the Lord" as something arcane and primitive. This reveals how short-sighted and weaak the modern mind has come to be, and how far from true love we really are.

Lover of my Soul, your patience with and passion for me is humbling. You pursue me though I reject you again and again, you who made me and love me and long for my rest in you. And I long for you too, looking in all the wrong places. Take me and make me yours. Make me always true to our love. Amen.

Now am Found

Memorial of St. Martin of Tours

All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God,
and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is,
and from studying the works did not discern the artisan...
--Wisdom 13:1
 
Much meditation recently on the utter lostness of the world.  Great dismay at the secular worldview that denies God's existence and humankind's place as subject to a Higher Power.  Even in the face of more perplexing, awe-inspiring scientific understanding and discovery than we've ever known, we simply make an idol of science itself and establish ourselves as masters of the universe, beholden to no moral code other than what we arbitrarily invent and impose on one another.
 
Terribly harsh, I know, and perhaps overstated.  And who am I to express such disgust?  Me, a child of this age myself, prone to as much self-indulgence as anyone?  And the record of those who adhere to more traditional worldviews is no less impressive when it comes to kindness, justice, and mercy.
 
We are all lost, then.  And we can spend lots of time wringing our hands over the tragedy of it all, but I don't think that's what our Creator intends.  We are not made for judgment, pity, and shame.  We are made for praise, glory, and love.  The discovery of our lostness serves no purpose other than to reveal that we are, ultimately, found.  In the crazy economy of God's kingdom, we are loved infinitely, with no regard for our ignorance and brokenness, and in complete irrelevance to our incapacity to love in return.
 
No, no time for judgment, pity, and shame.  And no point.  There is too much praise and joy to share.  There is too much love to glory in.
 
Holy One, you are revealed to us in countless ways.  May we waste not one more moment in ignorance of your boundless love.  Amen.

From Here to Eternity

Memorial Feast of St. Leo the Great

"Our great dignity is tested by death--I mean our freedom.  When the 'parting of the ways' comes--to set one's foot gladly on the way that leads out of this world.  This is a great gift to ourselves, not to death but to life.  For he who knows how to die not only lives longer in this life (if it matters) but lives eternally because of his freedom...So he who faces death can be happy in this life and in the next, and he who does not face it has no happiness in either."--Thomas Merton

Last night I had the pleasure of celebrating Vespers with the Orthodox Christian Fellowship at Western Kentucky University at WKU's spare but lovely Chandler Memorial Chapel.  Father Michael Nasser, pastor of the local Holy Apostles Orthodox Mission, presided with guest BishopThomas of the Diocese of Toledo and the Midwest.  The prayers were ethereal and hauntingly beautiful and I was awed by the great common stream of liturgical prayer and faith shared by all Christians, especially Catholic and Orthodox. 

After the service, Bishop Thomas gave a brief talk on "An Ancient Faith in the Modern World."  He emphasized that Christianity is not meant to be a lifestyle and belief system that seeks to accomodate changing times.  Rather, Bishop Thomas stressed that Christianity is essentially a path that begins in the present moment but culminates in eternity.  It is only from this perspective - that we are children of God created to give praise and worship (as we did at Vespers) - that anything makes sense.  And from this perspective, not much of the modern world makes sense.

The modern world, Bishop Thomas noted, suggests that this present moment is all that exists and all that matters.  And if this is true, then nothing matters.

Which is not to say that, from the Christian perspective, that the present moment is meaningless.  To the contrary, it is in this present moment that we must begin our encounter with God.  As Jesus reminds us in today's Gospel:

"The kingdom of of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce, 'Look, here it is,' or 'There it is.'
For behold, the kingdom of God is among you" (Luke 17:21)

He is referring, of course, to Himself, but also to His eternal presence among those who trust in Him.  We encounter the kingdom here in the modern world, but faith and discipleship prepares us for a world far beyond this one.

Holy One, bless us this day with a vision of eternity and faith courageous enough to set our eyes firmly on our destiny.  Amen.

Make Me a Door

"But the souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace."
--Wisdom 3:1-3

The readings this month offer a bridge between All Saints/All Souls and Advent, calling us daily to remember both those who have died and also to be mindful of our own mortality and the preciousness of the present moment.  We are called to open ourselves to the reality of the Kingdom, which breaks into our lives unexpectedly and with transformative consequences.

The below poem by Tim Myers, which won Honorable Mention in the 2010 Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, is as beautiful an expression of faith as I've ever seen.  I aspire to live my life in such a way that I might own these words, both in the present moment and at the time of my own passing.

Myself as Tree: A Prayer

Adonai,
give me life then kill me if you must,

only let it be
that like a tree I live, a planted thing,
knowing the ground deep and deeper,
drinking up world through roots I send down,
water drawn from soil and darkness --

let the season-round ring by ring increase me--

when sun comes, let my leaves flutter
each with its own small luster --
let autumn-release fling my numberless seeds
outward on winds
as shifting and sure as Hope --

and when my sap fails at last,
come Thou, Axman.
lay me down, fell me hard
(I'll murmur Your name all the while),

stand over me gripping the ax of Death
and split me with Your hands
(the right I call Making, the left Unmaking),

let the blade bite, let it jump into
my drying white interior,
oh Unspeakable, shape me, plane me --

make me a Door.

Of Mustard Seeds and Microscopes

And the Apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."
The Lord replied, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you."
--Luke 17:5-6

My immediate reaction to this teaching is always a paradoxical blend of relief and shame.  It's good to know that even a tiny bit of faith is so powerful.  On the other hand, what if your faith isn't even the size of a mustard seed?  How much do you get for, say, a grain of sand-sized faith?  What if you need an electron microscope to see your faith?  I've not moved many mulberry trees lately....

So, we're a bit chastened by this teaching, but I don't think Jesus meant it simply as a chastisement.  Rather, I believe he's actually encouraging us that no matter how meager our faith may initially appear, that tiny little speck is the beginning of our life-fulfilling path to completeness and joy.  God takes us where we are, loves us as we are, and makes us His own.

Today's responsorial, from Psalm 139, follows a similar theme.  The psalmist begins with the extremely humbling awareness that God knows him more intimately than he even knows himself:

O LORD, you have probed me and you know me;
you know when I sit and when I stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
with all my ways you are familiar.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know the whole of it.
Behind me and before, you hem me in
and rest your hand upon me.

These are not entirely reassuring images. But then the poet reminds us that this intimacy is not merely scrutiny of our faults, but a loving awareness of who we are at the deepest level.  God does not know us in this way to judge, but to love us at the core of our being:

If I take the wings of dawn
and dwell beyond the sea,
Even there your hand guides me,
your right hand holds me fast.
If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me,
and night shall be my light”--
Darkness is not dark for you,
and night shines as the day.
Darkness and light are but one.

You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works!
My very self you know.

God know us and knows how puny our faith is, but through grace makes that tiny little whiff of faith our very redemption and the starting point for our complete transformation in his all-knowing, all-embracing love.

Great Lover of my soul, there are no words I can offer in humility, in praise, or in love that you have not placed in my mouth and in my heart.  I am yours.  Break me open so that you may love me all the more.  Amen.

EWTN announces schedule for "Catholicism"

EWTN has announced the schedule for Robert Barron's "Catholicism" series, which I previously discussed here.  The series begins Wednesday, November 16, with a look at Catholic spirituality, "Fire of His Love: Prayer and the Life of the Spirit."  Click here for more details.

Praying Well Together

Memorial Feast of St. Charles Borromeo

A key theme of my reading and meditation this week, inspired heavily by the Solemnities of All Saints and All Souls, has been on the communal nature of the faith.  While a direct, personal relationship with Christ is at the heart of Christian discipleship, it's never simply about "me and Jesus."  We're all in this together, now and in eternity.  A very practical example of this is our communal prayer.

On the First Sunday of Advent the new English translation of the Mass will formally premier.  I must admit that I was not a big fan of these changes when they were initially announced, even going so far as to join an online group advocating for a delay of the new translation.

I have softened my opinion on all this, though there are still changes that pain me.  The pinnacle of the Mass for me has always been when we say, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed."  The tenderness, helplessness, the utter surrender of this prayer is often a breakthrough moment for me.  When I have been distracted or unprayerful throughout the entire liturgy (and usually for the entire week before), this prayer is what brings me back to my knees (spiritually; being physically on my knees is never quite enough), and prepares me to truly receive the Body of Christ for the complete grace and offering of reckless love that it actually is.  Now, we will say, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof," which is the closer translation of Matthew 8:8 (upon which the line from the Latin Mass is originally based), and has a similar, but subtly different, set of theological connotations.

Other changes seem completely neutral in value (and therefore pointless) to me.  What makes "consubstantial with the Father" any different in meaning or clarity than "one in being with the Father?"

Nevertheless, I have now heard many good arguments for why the new translation is richer in symbolism and sacredness and more deeply rooted in scripture.  These are fine arguments, which I can live with (and have to; and I find a kind of freedom in that).  Ultimately, though, the goal of this translation is adhering more closely to the original Latin upon which the entire Roman Rite is based, and I've decided that is itself enough to satisfy me.

There is nothing magical about Latin, of course.  Latin is special, not because it possesses any inherent quality in itself (some argue that it sounds ethereal and otherwordly and fosters deeper contemplation and reverence; okay fine), but rather because it is the language of the Church.  It is the universal language that for twenty centuries has bound Christian worship in unity and purpose.  There is something particularly awesome and powerful in knowing that when we proclaim the words of the Mass each Sunday (or each day), we are proclaiming the same words in unity of faith with over a billion people across the globe, and with Christians throughout the ages.  We've lost a little appreciation for this since Latin ceased to be the "Ordinary Form" of the Mass in 1962, but it remains that whether we pray the Mass in English, Spanish, Swahili, Chinese, or some other vernacular language, we are praying the same words.  The common source for those words is Latin.

And, of course, the common source for those words is also a common faith, without which all words are empty and meaningless.  We worship One God, the Father of us all.  As George Weigel wrote earlier this week at First Things, the way we worship matters:

The re-sacralization of the English used in the liturgy affords all of us an opportunity to ponder just what it is we are doing at Holy Mass: we are participating, here and now, in the liturgy of angels and saints that goes on constantly around the Throne of Grace where the Holy Trinity lives in a communion of radical self-gift and receptivity. This is, in short, serious business, even as it is joyful business. We should do it well, as the grace of God has empowered us to do it well.

The Awesomeness of All Souls

Solemnity of All Souls

"As gold in the furnace, he proved them,
and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.
In the time of their visitation they shall shine,
and shall dart about as sparks through stubble;
they shall judge nations and rule over peoples,
and the LORD shall be their King forever."
--Wisdom 3:6-8
 
Today is not a Holy Day of Obligation, as was yesterday's Solemnity of All Souls.  A reader of Father Christian Mathis' Blessed is the Kingdom blog suggests that "obligation" is a horrible word and the Church should replace the term with something else, perhaps "Holy Day of Awesome" (found this via the also-always-awesome Ironic Catholic).  I agree wholeheartedly, and though the magisterium has not deemed it such, I find All Souls to be fairly awesome as well.
 
The Lectionary provides no less than three options for Old Testament readings today, three options for psalms, thirteen options for the epistle, and twelve options of Gospel readings.  I don't think there's another feast day in the Christian calendar with this many possible Mass readings.  What's going on here?
 
The answer is that the Bible is absolutely teeming with glorious messages about the peace, joy, and eternal happiness that awaits those who die in the faith.  Fewer teachings are as clear from scripture as this: the life we see here in front of us is only the beginning.  All those who have preceded us in Christ await our arrival and shower us with their own prayers and blessings, even now. 
 
I don't say this to diminish in any way the sadness and loss we feel for those who have died.  Growing up, I was never especially comfortable with funeral sermons that chastised mourners for their tears, as if grief were somehow incompatible with faith in life after death.  St. Augustine found no such conflict:

Therefore the Apostle [Paul] did not exhort us not to be sorrowful, but only not to be like "others who have no hope.'' We grieve, then, over the necessity of losing our friends in death, but with the hope of seeing them again. This necessity causes us anguish, but the hope consoles us; our infirmity is tried by the one, and our faith is strengthened by the other: on the one hand our human condition sorrows, on the other the divine promise is our salvation.

As Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, points out, love means attachment, not of the selfish kind, but of the holy kind, and so in our loving humanity we grieve for those who have left us.  But we are not beyond consolation, because we know our loved ones have only left us for a time.  This is both the scandal and the hope of our faith.  Those who profess a gross materialist understanding of reality have no such hope.  For them, death is the end, and so there is no greater meaning to our day-to-day suffering than what we give it.
 
For Christians, every moment of our lives is a moment of freedom understood from the perspective of eternity.  We still suffer, experience loss and hurt, but that is not the end of the story, and every mundane daily task, every frustration, and ever moment of grief is experienced within the context of our cosmic journey into the arms of God, where we shall know and be known, as we have been among our brothers and sisters in life, and far beyond our wildest dreams in the Life to Come.
 
All souls in heaven, pray for us.

To be a Saint

Solemnity of All Saints

Today is probably my favorite day in the entire Christian calendar.  Truth be told, I relish it even more than Easter and Christmas, though these are no doubt more important solemnities, but those holidays have become so overwhelmed by commercial and social dimensions, I really have to work at observing them as holy days.  Not so with All Saints, snuck in, as it were, after the secular festivities of Halloween (which wouldn't even have a name without the "Hallowed" ones of All Saints).

Today is when we savor the communal nature of the Christian faith in all its glory.  Today we recognize that the historical icons of Christianity - Mary, Joseph, the Apostles, Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola, Thomas More, Theresa of Calcutta, and a host of others, including the seemingly ordinary saints who have gone before us, including friends and family who have died, are as real and alive to us right now in the awesome family of Christ as when they walked the earth in flesh.  They pray for us, intercede for us, "cheer us on" (as my pastor put it today), as vigorously and enthusiastically as our closest family and friends in the faith do here in this world, even moreso.

And they invite us to holiness, and to join them in the shimmering light of God, promising a destiny of eternal life.  But they also invite us to follow them into sainthood, starting right now.

My favorite take on this comes from Thomas Merton, writing in his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, about a conversation with his friend Robert Lax, not long after Merton had been baptized:

I forget what we were arguing about, but in the end Lax suddenly turned around and asked me the question:
"What do you want to be anyway?" Lax asked.
I could not say, "I want to be Thomas Merton, the well-known writer of all those book reviews in the back pages of the Times Book Review"...so I put it on a spiritual plane.
"I don't know; I guess what I want to be is a good Catholic."
"What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic?"
The explanation I gave was lame enough, and expressed my confusion, and betrayed how little I had thought about it.
Lax did not accept it.
"What you should say"--he told me--"What you should say is that you want to be a saint."
A saint!  The thought struck me as a little weird.  I said:
"How do you expect me to become a saint?"
"By wanting to," Lax said simply.
"I can't be a saint," I said.  "I can't be saint."  And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility that makes men say they cannot do the things they must do, cannot reach the level they must reach: the cowardice that says, "I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin," but which means, by those words, "I do not want to give up my sins and attachments."
But Lax said: "No.  All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be a saint.  Don't you believe that God will make you what He created you to be, if you consent to let Him do it?  All you have to do is desire it."
A long time ago St. Thomas Aquinas said the same thing--and it is something that is obvious to anyone who has ever understood the Gospels.  After Lax was gone, I thought about it, and it became obvious to me.
The next day I told Mark Van Doren:
"Lax is going around saying all that a man needs to be a saint is to want to be one."
"Of course," said Mark.
All these people were much better Christians than I.  They understood God better than I.  What was I doing?  Why was I so slow, so mixed up, still, so uncertain in my directions and so insecure?

Of course, with God's grace Merton found his way, and became one of the greatest uncanonized saints of the 20th century, laying down the same challenge to us that his friend Lax laid down to him.  It's not just possible, it is God's promise.  And our destiny.

Holy One, make me holy.  I am yours.

Saints of all ages, past, present, and future, pray for us.  Amen.