St Andrew, Apostle

Romans 10:10-18 / Matthew 4:18-22

It is hard to say whether or not the 1956 movie Miracle in the Rain reinforces the typical vice of Hollywood narrative, which is to say, whether it paints a picture a little too bright, a little too neat, a little too saccharine. To be sure, it is sentimental, a tear-jerker even, and likely too direct in its storytelling for most contemporary audiences.

Yet, there is a darkness here. Our heroine Ruth, played by Catholic convert and later Third Order Dominican Jane Wyman, has much in her life we would do well to pity. Her father abandoned her mother, who herself attempted suicide in her grief, and over the years has, through her bitterness towards men and her fear of losing her daughter to anyone else but herself, raised Ruth to be timid, to live a kind life, but a life on the surface, not knowing the depths of love. Even the rainstorm which brings Ruth to meet the lovable soldier Art, and all the joys which enter both her and his life from their budding romance, are not enough to drive away the gloom. The happy joy of their love cannot move Ruth's father to acknowledge her when he spies her in a restaurant, nor her coworker to end her adulterous affair with her boss, nor even can it move the affairs of state when Art is called away to the War. When she finally hears, after three months of silence, that Art has died, Ruth's desperate turning to St Andrew and offering up prayers does not keep her from terrible sorrow in her soul, nor from delirium and illness in her body.

Yet, it is just in this sorrow, in this grief, that love, true love is found. Seeing Ruth's suffering, her mother is lifted out of her own selfish world to care for the daughter she has smothered for so long. Seeing Ruth's suffering, her coworker turns from her affair to live a better, more honest life. Even Ruth's father, if in a halting and feeble way, breaks through his fear and shame to return to his wife. And, it is in her delirium and illness, in the unanswered grief on the way to visit once again the image of St Andrew, in the middle of a rainstorm, that Ruth is graced with a visit from her beloved Art, who though undoubtedly dead, is also undoubtedly alive and present to her.

St Andrew is, above all the apostles, the apostle of the Cross. His legends tell us that it was his insistent preaching of the Cross that led the Romans to try to silence him, and finally to imprison him and sentence him to death. It was his love for the Cross that led Andrew to dissuade the mob from freeing him, from keeping him from joining his Lord through suffering with him on the Tree. It was words of love for the Cross that came from Andrew's lips when he saw the gibbet on which he would be slain, and it was love for the Cross of Christ that, according to the story, moved Andrew to request he be fixed to a Cross askew and not upright, with ropes not nails, that he would not pretend to be worthy to suffer exactly as had his Lord Jesus Christ.

Is it any wonder, then, that Ruth's prayers to St Andrew would find their answer, that Love would find its way into her own heart and the hearts of those around her, through the crucible of suffering? With Christ as the one who calls, as our way and our goal, could it have been otherwise for her? Could it be otherwise for us?

First Sunday of Advent

Romans 13:11-14 / Luke 21:25-33

There is an odd time, well past midnight, but not nearly bright enough to see without the lights on. Shall we call the hour early, or is it very late? It depends, of course, on what we have been doing, what we are doing, what we hope to do. The night is far advanced; the day is near at hand. For the student, up all night finishing work he ought to have begun days, weeks, even months ago, the waning of the night, the coming of the dawn, is no source of comfort. He has slept not a wink, and can hope for no rest until well past the coming of morning; when all else has come alive, when the earth beckons with the promise and hope of a fresh new day full of possibility --- then it is he wants to close his eyes, refuse the light, and fall into the numbing comfort of sleep. For the carouser, the reveler, the passing of the night means seeking out another venture after the last call for drinks, for thrills, for worse. It means trying to keep the night alive, to find one more place that shields her from whatever pain she hopes to numb, exchanging the healing if all-too-revealing and honest light of the sun for the garish tones of neon seen through the gray hues of one too many cigarettes in a poorly ventilated room. For the mother in the hospital waiting room, her daughter taken to the hospital for what was supposed to be a routine check up, only to have spent the night in agony, splitting herself and her heart between the critical care units for her own child and her newly, prematurely born and dangerously fragile grandson, the passing of the night is hardly any more welcome. What news it brings, for good or ill, offers no hope that she can see.

There are many reasons we do not want to hear that the sun is rising, many places we find ourselves where the light of dawn is unwelcome. Yet, come it will, whether we want it to do so or not. To see in the faint but unmistakable lightening of the darkness in the east a sign of hope and cheer takes many things, but most of all what matters is how we have spent the night. Have we gone to bed at a sound hour, grateful for the day that has passed and wanting to face the challenges of a new day, even or perhaps especially ones we expect to be difficult, with freshness and energy? Have we been up all night in joyful expectation to see one we love, even if she is doing less than well, but still happy to be with her? Do we, in the end, let our nighttime endeavors dictate to us how we respond to the dawn, or do we choose how to spend our nights so that the brightness of the rising sun is welcome, long expected, a cause for delight?

Advent invites us to consider again how we are spending our nights, not the nights when the sun cannot be seen (although that may be as good a place to start as any!), but the nighttime of our lives. There is much that has been dark, is dark, and looks to be dark in our lives. We may well find our souls drawn to anxiety, or desperate distractions, or heartbreak and despair, and so curse the dawn or ignore it altogether. Or, we can choose to live in hope. We can choose to see in this darkness not the final word, but the last gasp of a passing rebellion, and live in confidence of a world of new possibilities, of new joys, of new realities far exceeding even the most extravagant of our nighttime dreaming.

It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we came to believe.

Trinity Sunday

Romans 11:33-36 / Matthew 28:18-20

A nationally-syndicated advice columnist received a letter from a distraught man about a birthday cake. It seems as though every year is mother would invite friends and family over for her son's birthday, and every year she would bake for him a chocolate cake. All of the invitees had come to expect and look forward to their piece of the hostess' now famous chocolate cake, a cake she made precisely to please her son. All of the invitees, that is, except for one — her son. The son, who had written the columnist his letter, loathes chocolate in general, and chocolate cake in particular. He hated it as a child, and he continues to hate it as an adult. He told his mother in his childhood, and had continued to tell her to the present day, of his dislike for chocolate cake, and has pleaded with her to make another cake. She, however, either cannot or will not hear his pleas, and so he passes every birthday presented with a gift odious to him.

While the columnist's advice here is beside the point (I believe it was to make his own cake to bring to the party, an unsatisfactory solution at best), the scenario highlights crucial truths about loving relationships, namely that there is no real love where there is no true knowledge, and that there is no real knowledge where there is no authentically loving response. The mother would certainly protest that she had made the cake out of love, but in the face of his clear revelation of his actual desires, what sort of love would refuse to take them into account? Indeed, even had he kept silent, the fact that she did not know what sort of cake would make him happy would itself be a barrier to actually pleasing her son, however sincere her attempt to do so.

The example is of course trivial, but it might help us recall why God has chosen to reveal to us the mystery of his triune life. While profession of the Trinity permeates the life of every one of the Catholic faithful, with signs of the cross in the name of the Three Persons, the doxologies repeated in every recitation of the rosary or the Psalms, the conclusions of the collects at Mass or blessings at meals, we could be tempted to wonder what difference the mystery of the Trinity makes in the life of faith. We wonder, that is, whether getting the Trinity "right" helps us to live a better life, to love neighbor, or even God with any greater intensity than a more confused or even unexamined acceptance of Father, Son and Spirit. We may also consider our Jewish and Muslim neighbors, and perhaps even our Latter-Day Saint, Sikh, or Unitarian neighbors, who all in their own way insist that they, too, worship the one, true God. Do they fail to worship God in truth because they deny the Trinitarian confession of faith revealed in Jesus Christ? If they do not worship the true God for this reason, whom do they worship? If the fruits of the Spirit seem more evident in them than in our Christian brothers and sisters who confess the Holy and Undivided Trinity, does Trinitarian faith make all that much difference?

The reason that God revealed himself as Trinity, the reason that this revelation is the most fundamental of the whole Christian faith to which all other mysteries — Incarnation, Redemption, Resurrection, Eucharist, the sending of the Spirit — lead and from which they flow, is that God wants us to know who he is. He wants us to know who he is so that we can love him and out of that love and knowledge to live not simply as he commands, but enlivened by and participating in that interpersonal love which is the very divine essence. Not to care who God actually is, to think our natural intimations or incomplete revelations of him sufficient, is no different than trying to please one's son and refusing to take into account who he actually is and what he actually desires, but on a scale more fundamental, more essential to our very lives. The fact is we do not love God, cannot love him, apart from knowing who he is. Neither do any of our claims to know him have the slightest weight if we, in our thoughts and actions, do what he hates.

The mystery of the Trinity, then, is an invitation to know God that we might love him. It is the beginning and end of all that it means to share in eternal life. It is the heart of the Gospel because it is the heart, source, and summit of all that was, is and ever shall be. Blessed be God the Father and the Only-begotten Son of God, and also the Holy Spirit; because he has shown His mercy toward us.

Coming soon to a theater near you!

Well, not a theater, but this site. My life took a rather heavy and occupied turn after Easter, and while I still have a full summer, I hope to get back on track posting more homilies for what I trust may be a modicum of edification.

Thank you for your patience in the meantime!

Easter Sunday

1 Corinthians 5:7-8 / Mark 16:1-7

The trumpets blare, the bells have peeled from the heights of the church, and the music of the organ has shaken it to its foundations. We sing out with full voice, and repeat again and again as though we cannot say it often enough — Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed! Alleluia! This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad therein! Alleluia! Christos anesti, alithos anesti! Alleluia! Alleluia! Death and life, we proclaim, fought bitterly, and the Prince of life, who died, reigns glorified! Before and unbelieving world, we dare to speak the unspeakable, to believe the unbelievable. Death and Hell, Spite and Sin have done their worst, but the victory of Life and Love is complete and irrevocable. Death has forever lost its sting. From now on, it is Life who has the last word. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!

We say it, but can we really mean it? Do we dare to believe? Do we dare risk believing it is true?

When Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out that cold morning, early on the first day of the week ... when the sun had just risen, their eyes red and bleary from the hour and excess of tears, what did they expect to see? Certainly not what their eyes beheld! The great stone, rolled away. The tomb, empty. And upon the stone at the entrance of that empty tomb, a figure at once glorious and terrifying, clothed in dazzling white, a figure not of this world nor among the sons of Adam.

What had drawn them to the tomb at the hour was love, of course, but also the cold hard logic of the world — the body needed to be anointed, lest his decay fill the tomb with the stench of death. In a way, it is easy for us to yield to the logic of the world as well. Christ indeed from death is risen we sing, and then we read of piracy on the high seas, or another murder in Iraq or only blocks away from where we live. In our prayer we proclaim that on this day the Only-begotten Son overcame death and opened for us the gates of everlasting life, but are we wise to leave our door unlocked at night? Can we walk down lonely streets whose old warehouses we only hope are unoccupied without a sense of relief to have left them far behind?

Even so, we ring the bells, we let the trumpets blast, we sing our joyful Alleluia! We have seen the empty tomb, we have seen the angelic witness, and we dare to believe the unbelievable. For we have worked at jobs whose wages never seem enough to meet our growing expenses, we have known the death of loved ones with whom we never spent enough time, we have broken faith with those who rely on our trust with envious gossip and a lying word.

But, day after day, week after week, year after year, we return. Perhaps only since yesterday, or perhaps after many years' absence, we return. After a long life of service, or newly washed with water and anointed with chrism, we return. We return to the empty tomb. We see, and believe.

For we have looked beyond the stony logic of the grave, beyond the deadly certainties of pain and loss, fear and sorrow, and without blinking, without denying their power, we have exchanged the cold hard cash of the wisdom of this world to plant the few seeds of our faith, and climbing the Vine which grows up from the deepest place of our lives, reaching far beyond our sight into the heavens, we have found that there are indeed castles among the clouds. We have been enchanted by the deeper magic from before the dawn of time and proclaim to the world without shame, without embarrassment, that death itself can work backwards and spring forth in new life.

Brothers and sisters, JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN! This is our faith. This is the Easter faith of the Church, and we are proud to profess it! It is amazing, it is outlandish, it is incredible, and it is altogether true! We are not called upon to work it out or to adapt it, to fret over how well we have prepared for it, where we may have tripped over it or lost our fervor for it. We have only to be glad and rejoice — for this is indeed the day the Lord has made!

Christ our Passover is sacrificed! Alleluia! Let us feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Christ is risen! He is truly risen! Alleluia!

Holy Saturday

Genesis 1:1-31; 2:1-2 / Exodus 14:24-31; 15:1 / Isaiah 4:2-6 / Isaiah 54:18; 55:1-11 / Colossians 3:1-4 / Matthew 28:1-7

We want to be able to go back again. We have seen the devastation wrought by our misdeeds, by our ill-placed words, by our callous indifference, by our numberless offenses and omissions. We long for a salvation that lets us start from the very beginning, to wash all things new. It is a great hope to begin again when things are fresh, when the burdens and cares, the aches and pains, of a lived lived poorly can be traded in for a repetition, a restoration of its pristine innocence. After all, who hearing God's litany at the beginning of all things, when the almighty said again and again Fiat, and saw that it was good, would not trade anything to walk again with that first man and first woman, God's very image and likeness, unsullied by years of misspent energy? Who would not gladly hand back the life he has led if he could begin again in that primal greening of the earth, breathe in the life-giving coolness of that first breeze, hear for the first time the happy chrips, bleatings, roars and howls of beasts who gleefully attend to us as their lords and masters, sharing with us the unbloodied food of plant and fruit?

But, God's way is not the way of erasing the past, the waters of Baptism are not the Fountain of Youth. We have in Christ's victory not a return to our first birth so as to live our life over again, but the promise, and indeed the fulfillment of a new birth, for we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God.

This has ever been God's way with the world. When the primal goodness of Eden was poisoned by sin, God sent us not a new world, but a new covenant with Noah and his descendants. When the peaceful wanderings of the patriarchs in Canaan was traded for slavery in Egypt, God did not simply return his people, but placed them under the sweet yoke of the Law. When the judges proved distasteful to Israel, God raised up not new judges, but kings, for weal and for woe. In calling his people back from Babylon, God did not restore the glories of David and Solomon, but promised new hearts and new spirits. When the Word came to his own and his own received him not, he gave his chosen people, and all peoples of the world besides, a share in the very life of God.

This we must know, that each of us is placed upon this earth, indeed every created thing is called forth by the Almighty, to enrich the whole of creation with some good that it, and it alone, can give. When that good is lost, it is lost forever. Are there new goods yet to come? Undoubtedly. Are those new goods far surpassing even those that are lost? So we live in certain hope. Are there some who never have, and never will, taste joy after they have cast aside their good? Tragically, this also is true.

Even so, who would wish away Cain, if it meant never receiving the pleading of the blood of Abel? Who would desire there never was an idol, if it meant never rejoicing in the faith of Abraham? Would we have the sons of Israel stay their hand with their brother Joseph if that meant no victory over the God's of Egypt or deliverance by Moses at the Red Sea? If it meant never hearing the comforting prophecies of Isaiah, could we honestly wish away the infidelities of Israel and Judah? Indeed, would we trade that whole sad catalog of misery and wretchedness, of infidelity, cruelty, spite, and malice, of fear, jealousy, and despair which has sprung from Adam's seed if it meant never hearing the voice of the angel? Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen even as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord was laid. And go quickly, tell his disciples that He has risen, and behold, He goes before you into Galilee; there you shall see Him.

As it is, there is no wishing away our past, no calling back the goods we have lost from the void where they are irrevocably lost. Still, when we consider the imponderable mystery of this night, dare we believe that even this loss will be for us who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, a source of indescribable and everlasting glory?

O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem! O truly necessary sin of Adam, which the death of Christ has blotted out! O happy fault, that merited such and so great a Redeemer!

Good Friday

Hosea 6:1-6 / Exodus 12:1-11 / John 18:1-40; 19:1-42

In his Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas asks whether Jesus Christ suffered all sufferings in his Passion. The reason for the question is surely not hard to find. Those who suffer find a special kind of solace in knowing that the one who loves them really knows what they have endured. It is not that misery loves company, or that those who suffer envy or resent those blessed with good fortune, although this too can be true. No, even for the best and virtuous, there is something assuring about the confidence that the one who tells us that all will be well, that the suffering, pain, and loss are not the final word, that God is in the midst of it all as our Advocate and Friend — that such a comforter can be trusted because he too has suffered. So, knowing whether Jesus, the Word made flesh, knew suffering as I know suffering is a question whose answer makes all the difference in the world.

Now, good Dominican that he is, Thomas makes here an important distinction. Jesus Christ, he notes, did not, indeed could not have endured every suffering specifically. Some sufferings are incompatible, such as death by drowning and death by burning. So, if we demand a Savior who encountered every single thing that threatens to assault and assail, then we demand foolishly and in vain. But, says Thomas, Jesus did endure every kind of suffering.

Now, here is where the Angelic Doctor surprises us. We might imagine that Thomas would place the physical agony of Christ in the first place, but he does not. Nor does he place the suffering as a person first, although he has much to say here. No, the first account of suffering endured by the God-Man is social, the suffering from all kinds of men: from Jews and Gentiles, from men and women, from rulers, their servants and the mob, and (significantly) from friends and acquaintances — the betrayal of Judas and the denial of Peter. Of his personal suffering, Thomas gives a full list: the blasphemies assaulting his reputation, the mockeries and insults against his honor and glory, the taking of his sole possession in the taking of his clothing, in the sadness, weariness and fear of his soul, and in the scourging and wounds in his body. Yet, in addition to these, and at the head of the list, we find the suffering endured by Christ from having his friends abandon him. And, in enumerating the ways in which Christ suffered in his members and his senses — his head from the crown of thorns, his hands and feet from the nails, his face from blows and spittle, his whole body from lashes, his taste with vinegar and gall, his smell "by being fastened to a gibbet in a place reeking with the stench of corpses," his hearing by the cries of blasphemers and scorners — Thomas crowns the whole list with that noblest and most rational, and thus human, of senses, namely sight. And how did Christ suffer in his sight, according to Thomas? By beholding the tears of his mother and of the disciple whom he loved.

For Thomas, the worst of the Passion was not the agony of the body, although that was horrifying and enough to make even the elect give pause. It was not the assaults on one's person either, whether internally in the soul or externally in name and possessions, even though these were also cruel. No, the worst of the Passion was, according to Thomas, the assault of that communion of persons which we call friendship, that brutal tearing of the noble joining of hearts we call love. The one theme, the one lash that marks across his whole account is the suffering of Jesus Christ in the violation of what it means to be joined to another in love — in the betrayal, treason and abandonment by his most intimate friends, and in knowing and witnessing the agony suffered by those one loves above all others, aware that this suffering of theirs has come about by what he has freely chosen.

Our Lord and Savior died from friendship abused for a friendship surpassing all of our wildest hopes. He hung on the cross by the iron nails of love betrayed with a love so hot it could leave the whole world in ash if he would unleash the slightest spark. Or, in the word of the great English poet Mitlon: O unexampl'd love, / Love nowhere to be found less than Divine! / Hail Son of God, Saviour of Men, thy Name / Shall be the copious matter of my Song / Henceforth, and never shall my Harp thy praise / Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin.