Day Twenty-Six: Humor

G.K. Chesterton said that what initially drew him to the Church was the fact that a pipe, a pint, and the cross could all fit within the boundaries of Catholic piety. If it weren’t for the rhythm of the sentence, he might well have added “a good belly laugh.” Catholics, like Jews, are not afraid to laugh at life or themselves, and in the last 13 years I’ve found this characteristic an endearing one.

Among secularists, the knock on faithful Catholics is that we are humorless automatons grimacing over our rosaries and plotting to spoil everyone’s fun. By contrast, many of our Protestant brethren consider Catholics to be libertines, the habitues of smoky dens of iniquity ranging from barrooms to casinos. Both are caricatures, of course, but if I had to choose which of these poles is set nearest the truth, I’d actually pick the latter. Catholics, you see, really do know how to have a good time. We drink wine, for instance. A lot of wine. And beer. In fact, can anyone doubt that our Bavarian pope, Benedict XVI, enjoys a frothy lager from time to time? If recent studies are to be believed, faithful Catholics also enjoy sex - of the married, monogamous kind - more than couples in other socio-religious groups. And yes, Catholics generally enjoy dancing, gambling and eating, as well as laughter.

The Catholic appreciation for these “worldly” pleasures is rooted in the sensuousness of the Liturgy, which itself is anchored in the great mystery of the Incarnation. The Mass is a smorgasbord of sensual delights, from the beautiful images in stained glass and marble, to the soaring music, to the scent of wafting incense, to the flashing colors of liturgical vestments and altar cloths, to the standing and kneeling and processing, to the tang of Precious Blood on the tongue. There is little laughter in the Mass, but Catholic ease with the body ensures that there is plenty of it everywhere else. And much laughter is aimed at Catholics themselves.

For instance, here’s a joke that’s told in many Catholic circles: “What three things does God not know” Answer: “What a Dominican is thinking, what a Jesuit is planning, and how many different kinds of Franciscan there are.”

Here’s another: A man is struck by a bus on a busy street in New York City. He lies dying on the sidewalk as a crowd of on-lookers gathers around. “A priest. Somebody get me a priest!” the man gasps. A policeman checks the crowd - no priest, no minister, no man of God of any kind. “A PRIEST, PLEASE!” the dying man says again. Then out of the crowd steps a little old man, dressed shabbily and at least eighty years old.

He kneels down, leans over the injured man and says slowly in a solemn voice:”B-4. I-19. N-38. G-54. O-72…”

Okay, one more: A priest stood at the church door greeting the parishioners after Mass. “Good mornin’, Mr. and Mrs. O’Riley. I married you ten years ago but still you have no children?

“No, Father, he’s gone to Rome to blow out your darn candle.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Twenty-Five: The Sacrament of Marriage

It is entirely appropriate that we should reflect upon the Sacrament of Marriage during the Lenten season. The public ministry that Jesus inaugurated at the marriage feast in Cana would reach its fulfillment in the events of Holy Week, when the covenant between God and Israel (of which marriage is a sign) would be extended to the whole world through the blood of the Cross. This progression from particular union to universal communion by way of the Paschal Mystery is the same arc traversed by every married couple awakened by grace to the sacramental and salvific significance of their mutual self-donation. I can personally attest to the power of the Sacrament of Marriage in transforming what was a rather ordinary conjunction of two individuals into a loving communion that “endures all things, believes all things, hopes all things.”

My wife, Camila, and I were married in a Protestant church in 1983. As befits the non-sacramental context in which the ceremony took place, the event was viewed by all concerned, including its principals, as something we were offering to each other and to God. As in the non-sacramental “ordinances” of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, our marriage was a declaration on our part, with God a somewhat removed, passive observer. We hoped for His blessing and seal, of course, but there was no sense in which He was the active participant in the actual event. Indeed, confirmation of the validity of our union was essentially conferred by the state in the final invocation announced by the pastor, “and now, by the authority vested in me by the State of Rhode Island, I declare you man and wife.”

It wasn’t until fourteen years later, on the eve of my reception into the Catholic Church, that my wife and I approached the altar of grace and were joined in the Sacrament of Marriage. Our witnesses were the priest who conducted the ceremony and two friends, but the active participant (which is to say, the one sealing our covenant in grace) was the Lord Himself. This time, unlike the first, matrimony was not so much something we offered to God, but something he offered to us, which is what the sacramental encounter is all about. And this time, the validity of our union wasn’t confirmed by the state, but by the Church, which is a function proper to the Body of Christ.

Our marriage had been a rough one at times, as many marriages are. Although we never went so far as a formal separation, the “D” word had frequently been spoken during our disputations, both large and small. But since that Monday evening before the tabernacle at St. Brendan Church, our marriage has been as rock-solid as it can be. Oh, we are each still burdened by our sinfulness, but in difficult times we have learned to rely on the grace poured out upon us through the Sacrament rather than our own weak, ultimately futile declarations of fidelity. In our lives, that grace, which like all grace flows from the Cross, has made all the difference.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Twenty-Four: Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR

Today’s reflection centers on Benedict Groeschel, the author, EWTN personality, lecturer, psychologist, co-founder of the Franciscans Friars of the Renewal, and above all, priest. I have known Fr. Benedict now for nearly 13 years, and although I’ve only seen him on average once or twice a year, he and his ministry have been one of the signal graces in my journey as a Catholic.

I first met Fr. Benedict in October 1997, during my first week as the new lay director of the Edmundite Apostolate Center (later renamed St. Edmund’s Retreat) on Enders Island near Mystic, Connecticut. For years, the Center had been known as a hotbed of New Age and dissenting Catholic spirituality. It was also in the middle of a financial and personnel crisis that had precipitated my hiring. Among other staff there were two faithful but marginalized priests, an actively homosexual religious brother and a nun, my immediate predecessor, from the Mary Daly-Matthew Fox school of feminist and creation spirituality. Most of our visiting retreat directors were notable dissenters, including the Capuchin friar, Michael Crosby, unofficial chaplain of Call to Action, and the Center was owned and operated by the Society of St. Edmund, a dying order of mostly liberal academics.

On my first day at the Center, I passed by one of our conference rooms and was startled to see a group of women sitting in a circle on the floor with their hands in a large pot of water. They were all humming the same droning note. The droning went on and on until finally I’d had enough and left. Later, I asked the nun on staff what the women had been doing. “They were depositing their negative energies into sea water,” she explained helpfully. “You mean, like Confession?” I asked. “Exactly,” she replied. I was appalled.

I carried around a sense of foreboding for much of that week until Thursday, when during a walk-through of the grounds I came around a corner and almost knocked over Fr. Benedict Groeschel. I was as stunned as he was, but for different reasons. I had read several of Fr. Benedict’s books and had heard him speak twice that year, once at Brown University and again at an apologetics conference in Steubenville, Ohio. “You’re Father Benedict Groeschel,” I practically shouted. “I was almost the late Father Benedict Groeschel,” he replied, alluding to our near collision. “Can I talk to you for a while?” I asked. He agreed and my life was changed.

It seems that for more than a decade Fr. Benedict had avoided Enders Island because of its reputation. “Just look at the crap in the bookstore,” he said. But he was putting the finishing touches on a new book and had needed a place to hole up for a few days of editing and re-writing. So he’d booked a room and quietly slipped onto the island. Naturally, I saw his presence as a sign and a grace. When we were alone, I explained the situation to him, including the fact that one of the priests on staff, Fr. Tom Hoar, and I had conspired to return the Center and all its programs - including the bookstore - to the authentic teaching of the Church. Fr. Benedict gave me over 90 minutes of his time that day, offering what to this former Army officer sounded like a veritable Order of Battle. He detailed the challenges we’d have to overcome, the machinations we could expect from our opponents, the strategies we should employ to frustrate them, and the spiritual ammunition we would have to store up in order to endure and win. “We’re taking the Church back doorway by doorway, house by house,” he said, echoing one of his recurring themes: that genuine renewal will necessarily involve restoration.

Finally, he counseled that we would never be successful without keeping our own hearts pure, loving those who would hate us for what we were doing, and honoring Jesus Christ every step of the way. He suggested that Fr. Tom and I begin a program of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for ourselves and the entire staff as a way of re-orientating the retreat center on Christ. He also committed that he would personally make himself available to come to Enders Island twice every year to speak.

Fr. Benedict did return. Often. And he still comes to Enders Island twice every year for days of recollection that attract hundreds of faithful Catholics from around the Northeast. Thanks to his sage advice, we did take back the Edmundite Apostolate Center for the authentic teaching of the Church. Within a year both the dissenting nun and the gay brother had been reassigned, we had recruited all new retreat directors, we had revived our radio ministry, and we had launched an innovative program called The St. Michael Institute of Sacred Art. In one of his return visits, Fr. Benedict complimented Fr. Tom and I from the platform, saying, “this may be the most genuinely Catholic retreat center in the United States.” Little did he know that his advice and his consistent presence had as much to do with the transformation as anything we did.

I could tell a million stories about Fr. Benedict, about his side-splitting humor, his graciousness in always taking my calls, or the way his New Jersey tough-guy demeanor dissolves when he talks about Our Lady. I could say that he’s the most amazing speaker I’ve ever heard, a man who can make two lengthy presentations, plus a homily, on any topic without the use of any notes. I could point to his near-death several years ago, when he was literally run over by a speeding automobile in a parking lot, and the grace and resolve he demonstrated during a long, difficult recovery. There’s a lot I could tell you about Fr. Benedict Groeschel, but the most important thing is this: He is a man truly in love with Jesus Christ.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Twenty-Three: The Priesthood

I first made a priest’s acquaintance 15 years ago. A friend who would later be my RCIA sponsor invited me to dinner with Fr. Marcel Taillon, then an assistant pastor at St. Brendan Church in East Providence, RI. He was young, handsome, enthusiastic, and above all, normal. Fr. Taillon was dressed in his “blacks,” and I later discovered that he made a point of wearing the collar whenever he was in public. The three of us took a booth in the bar at the 99 Restaurant in Seekonk. Fr. Taillon ordered a glass of wine. We ordered beers. Then we began to talk. Fr. Taillon told me that he had been an IT executive with CVS Corporation for a number of years, a homeowner, and a man who enjoyed dating and sports. In other words, an ordinary guy. For a long time he had suspected that God was calling him to the priesthood, but he had delayed the moment of decision as he went about building his life as a layman.

Finally, the signs were too thickly clustered to ignore any longer and he petitioned the Diocese of Providence for enrollment in its formation program. He was accepted and chosen to attend the North American College in Rome for seminary. When the day came to resign from CVS, he walked into a conference room full of other executives and announced that he was taking a job with a large, venerable multinational with headquarters in Rome and branches in every country in the world. His personal friends in the room knew where he was going with his announcement, but the others had no idea, and he savored the moment when he finally declared, “I’m becoming a priest!” Later, Fr. Taillon would be my RCIA instructor and officiate at our sacramental marriage. When he left St. Brendan, Fr. Taillon went on to be the highly successful vocations recruiter for our diocese and chaplain of our diocesan all-boys high school. Now pastor of a parish church (where he really belongs), Fr. Taillon remains an inspiration.

My reflection on the priesthood begins with Fr. Taillon because he was the first priest I knew personally. But he certainly wasn’t the last. During my thirteen years in the Church I’ve had the privilege of calling a number of priests “friend,” including Fr. Tom Hoar, SSE, executive director of St. Edmund’s Retreat, where I worked for five years as associate director; Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR; Fr. Pio Mandato, FMHJ; Fr. John of the Trinity, O. Carm.; Fr. Ray Suriani; Fr. Bob Bailey; Fr. Michael Kelly; Fr. Mike Najim; Fr. Paul Pinard, SSE; and others. They are a dissimilar lot made up of Franciscans, Carmelites, Edmundites and “secular” priests. What they share is a love of Jesus Christ, devotion to the Eucharist and Our Lady, and selfless loyalty to the Church. I’ve been proud to work and pray with them.

The Catholic priesthood has taken its lumps in recent years, especially when it was revealed that perhaps as many as four percent of priests who’ve served in the past 50 years have been accused of sexual misconduct at one time or another. As appalling as that percentage is, the worst thing about it may be the humiliation and suspicion cast on the ninety-six percent of priests who’ve striven to live their vows under conditions that, given the sex-saturated nature of modern culture, must be very difficult. This stigma has wounded my priest-friends deeply, and yet to a man they have found succor in deepening their identification with the suffering and crucified Christ.

One result of the scandal that rocked the Church in the early part of this decade is that celibacy (or its abrogation) has come to define the identity of the priest. But this, too, is a symptom of the sex-sickness under which the modern world labors. Priestly celibacy is a sign of chastity, which is itself a manifestation of the moral purity to which we are all called. Priests are called to this purity by means of living chastely, as are we all. But priests vow to remain unmarried, so that they may more fully give themselves in service to the People of God, the Church. This vow necessarily involves living celibate, and like all unmarried persons they seek the charism, or grace, of celibacy, just as married people strive for the charism of living chastely in their state. Viewed in this light, celibacy isn’t really that extraordinary a thing, and it falls far short of defining what the priesthood is all about.

What really sets priests apart is the indelible mark on the soul that is conferred upon them in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This mark is the true source of their identity and their unique station within the Church. Unlike baptism and confirmation, which also stamp the soul with an immutable character and which configure their recipients to the kingly priesthood of Jesus Christ, Holy Orders uniquely configures the recipient to the sacramental ministry, for the benefit of all the faithful. As the Catechism says,

1546 Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church “a kingdom, priests for his God and Father.”[20] The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are “consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood.”

1547 The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, “each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ.” While being “ordered one to another,” they differ essentially.[22] In what sense? While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace-a life of faith, hope, and charity, a life according to the Spirit-,the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood. It is directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians. The ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders.

Clericalism, a perennial temptation within the Church, consists precisely in forgetting that the priesthood is given for service to all the baptized, not vice versa. Priests are not priests because of some reservoir of sanctity they possess in their own right, but because of something God has done for them and, by means of them, for all his beloved people. As the old saw goes, “God doesn’t choose the qualified; he qualifies the chosen.” The unique charism priests possess is bounded by their liturgical ministry and does not confer upon them any special expertise or ability in other areas (though as individuals they may have acquired such abilities). They are to be honored, but not worshiped, respected but not idolized. Within reason the faithful should defer to them and their judgment - especially in sacramental or liturgical matters - but always with the understanding that priests, like all baptized Christians, are sinful men struggling to live out their vocations in a difficult world. Their word, to the extent that it conforms to the authentic teaching of the Church, is to be obeyed. To the extent that it does not, it may be questioned, contradicted or appealed.

Following his ordination, Fr. Marcel Taillon returned to Rome for an additional two years of graduate schooling. During that time he was assigned as the regular confessor at the Missionaries of Charity house where, on several occasions, he had the opportunity to hear the confession of Mother Teresa. When he met her for the first time, the saint grabbed his hands and kissed each one, saying “blessed are the hands that bring us Christ.” I feel the same way about the priests I have encountered during my 13 years as a Catholic. By and large they have been wonderful, faithful servants of God and His people. May they and their anointed hands always be blessed.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Twenty-Two: Pope John Paul the Great

I can say without a doubt that I am a Catholic today because of the life and witness of Pope John Paul II. He was my spiritual father in the faith and I miss him deeply, as deeply as I loved him while he was with us.

Like the rest of the world, I first heard the name Karol Wojtyla on October 16, 1978, the night of his election to the Chair of Peter. Though it would be nearly ten years before I even considered reconciliation with the Church - and almost twenty before I actually crossed the Tiber - I nevertheless was immediately impressed by the handsome Pole with the booming voice and a message of human dignity in all its dimensions: spiritual, economic, and political. Before long, it became clear that John Paul II was a very different pontiff than his predecessors. Not only did he strike a distinctive figure on the world stage, he spoke with an authenticity and authority that was utterly convincing. At the end of two tumultuous decades in which most heroes had wound up dead or unmasked as moral frauds, John Paul II stood on the portico of St. Peter’s Basilica and implored us to “be not afraid.” For the next 25 years, the world would indeed be a far less fearful place because of him.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Twenty-One: A Preferential Option for the Poor

“Christ is at once rich and poor: as God, rich; as a human person, poor. Truly, that Man rose to heaven already rich, and now sits at the right hand of the Father, but here, among us, he still suffers hunger, thirst and nakedness: here he is poor and is in the poor.” -St. Augustine

Christ “is poor and is in the poor,” says St. Augustine, providing a most succinct justification of the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.” Structurally, the poor share an intimate identity with Christ that demands our special solicitude, service and love. Ours is not a heroic faith, a religion for “winners” in the worldly calculus of success and failure. Rather, in the words of James Joyce, Catholicism means “here comes everybody.” And since most people alive, dead or yet unborn are, were or will be poor to one degree or another, it is the unique mission of Christians to provide them with the succor we would offer Christ.

I first became involved with the Society of St. Vincent dePaul at the strong suggestion of my spiritual director. I had only been in the Church for a short while and already the lesser angels of my nature were exerting their influence in the usual way: pride and judgmentalism. My director prescribed sustained service to the poor as a partial remedy. By placing myself at the disposal of people whom in my sinfulness I was disposed to look down upon, he hoped I would gain in humility, the indispensable virtue for salvation and sanctity. Working with the poor has been an eye-opening experience; the losses they suffer, the opportunities denied them, their daily struggle for dignity. And, yes, even the self-defeating mistakes they make, usually as the result of ignorance. Through my work in the Vincentian movement, I discovered within myself new reservoirs of compassion, gentleness and, yes, humility. And I have come to understand better the words of Mother Teresa, who once said that “only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”

Lately, there has arisen some dispute over whether the corporal works of mercy are intended to be strictly private and personal, or whether there is a social and political dimension to the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.” There really is no dispute: any supposed boundary between the personal and the political is a clumsy fiction trotted out on behalf of one ideology or another. We shouldn’t tolerate that fiction when it is offered by politicians excusing their support for abortion rights, and we shouldn’t tolerate it when it is offered by politicians excusing their denial of aid to the poor. The notion that compassion and social justice is strictly a private affair has no basis in Catholic teaching. As Fr. James Martin, SJ, has noted:

“The term “social justice” originated way back in the 1800s (and probably predates even that), and has been underlined by the Magisterium and popes since Leo XIII, who began the modern tradition of Catholic social teaching with his encyclical on capital and labor, Rerum Novarum in 1891. Subsequent popes have built on Leo’s work, continuing the church’s meditation on a variety of issues of social justice in such landmark documents as Pope Pius XI’s encyclical on “the reconstruction of the social order,” Quadregismo Anno (1931), Paul VI’s encyclical “on the development of peoples,” Populorum Progressio (1967) and John Paul II’s encyclical “on the social concerns of the church” Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987).”

Am I responsible for helping poor people that I know personally? Yes. Am I personally responsible for helping the poor in my community? Yes. Am I personally responsible for working toward a just social and political order in which poverty itself is eventually eradicated? Yes. Am I responsible for helping the poor in foreign lands? Yes. The poor who are in this country illegally? Yes. The poor with substance abuse problems or criminal backgrounds? Yes. The poor who don’t appreciate my help? Yes. The poor who disgust me in their helplessness? Yes. All the poor? Yes.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus does not say “I was legal, and you clothed me,” or “I was sober and you fed me, I thanked you profusely and you gave me something to drink.” Our responsibility to the poor is defined not by whether they make us comfortable, or whether we see the logic of it, but by their need. After all, “God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) We were loved unconditionally before we “deserved” it. We are called to do the same.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Twenty: The Blessed Virgin Mary

At the center of salvation history stands a simple peasant girl. As the Old Testament began with the story of Eve, the New Testament begins with the story of Mary, the New Eve, mother of the New Adam. She is the Theotokos, the God-Bearer, Ark of the New Covenant. She is the first Christian, and the mother of the Church, which is the Body of her son, Jesus Christ. It is therefore entirely appropriate that at the mid-point of our Lenten journey we should pause to contemplate this plain Jewish maiden, who is also the Mother of God and our mother in the Faith.

As a former Evangelical, there is still something deep within me that flinches ever-so-slightly at the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Though all of my old questions about Mary’s role in salvation history have long since been resolved, and although I’ve now been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart for a decade, I remain conscious of that imperceptible spasm of reservation that awakens upon hearing the Angelus, the Regina Coeli, or any other Marian prayer.

So it is odd that I should always be so moved by reading the great Marian hymn of the East, the Akathistos, which dates from the Sixth Century. The language is florid, as was often the style in the history of the Church; and yet, this hymn - a litany, really - manages to navigate the delicate line between the entirely proper exaltation of Our Lady as humanity’s greatest perfection and the disturbing, near-idolatrous worship of Mary that can sometimes be detected in popular devotion. As St. Louis de Montfort wrote in True Devotion to Mary: “If devotion to our Lady distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as an illusion of the devil.” The Akathistos avoids becoming such an illusion by always placing Mary in a subordinate role to Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. Thus, she is the tendril, not the bud; the soil, not the fruit; the table, not the meal; and the rock, not the living water that springs from it.

Having so sweetly depicted the Mother of God, even a former Evangelical like myself finds no difficulty in joining the ancient Church, as together we sing:

Hail, O you, through whom Joy will shine forth!
Hail, O you, through whom the curse will disappear!
Hail, O Restoration of the Fallen Adam!
Hail, O Redemption of the Tears of Eve!
Hail, O Peak above the reach of human thought!
Hail, O Depth even beyond the sight of angels!
Hail, O you who have become a Kingly Throne!
Hail, O you who carry Him Who Carries All!
Hail, O Star who manifest the Sun!
Hail, O Womb of the Divine Incarnation!
Hail, O you through whom creation is renewed!
Hail, O you through whom the Creator becomes a Babe!
Hail, O Bride and Maiden ever-pure!

My favorite image of Mary is the one found in the Catechism, which calls her “an eschatological icon of the Church.” Mary’s relationship to the Church is at once complex and beautiful. As the first Christian - she believed in him from the moment of her fiat - she is a daughter of the Church, the mother of all Christians. But as the theotokos, the God-bearer, she is mother of the Church’s Head, and therefore Mother of the Church, his Body. These divergent yet complementary roles are reconciled into one reality in the Eucharist. The Second Vatican Council called the Eucharist “the source and summit of the faith.” To the extent that the Church is Eucharistic, the Church will be Marian. The German writer Carl Feckes summarizes the Eucharistic nexus of mariology and ecclesiology:

“As Mary bore the earthly Christ, so the Church bears the Eucharistic Christ. As the whole life of Mary is centered upon bringing up and protecting Christ, so again the deep life and solicitude of the Church are centered on the Holy Eucharist. As Mary gives the earthly Christ to the world and from this Gift are born the children of God, so also the Eucharistic Flesh and Blood made present by the Church form the living children of God. As Mary offered up Christ together with Himself at the foot of the cross, so the whole Church, at every Mass, offers His sacrifice with Himself to the heavenly Father.”

Feckes could have gone on to note that as Mary reigns with the Risen Christ in Heaven, so the whole Church will reign with Him there in the final consummation of the Kingdom. To put it all in other words: Mary was what the Church is now, and Mary now is what the Church will be. When we take our eyes off Mary, we can tend to forget where the Church comes from and the purpose for which it presently labors here below. We also forget where and with Whom our destiny lies.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Nineteen: St. Athanasius

When I appeared as the guest on EWTN’s “The Journey Home,” a program featuring converts to the Catholic Faith, the episode title host Marcus Grodi and I agreed upon was “From Confusion to Clarity.” Though an encapsulation of one contemporary man’s “journey” into the Church, “From Confusion to Clarity” could also be read as the motto of that great 4th Century saint, Athanasius.

Athanasius was the great foe of the Arians (after Arius, a priest of the Alexandrian See), who believed that within the godhead, the Second Person held a subordinate role to the First, the Father. They argued that while the Father had existed from all time, there was a time when the Second Person, the Logos, had not existed. He is, therefore, not of the same substance (ousia), or being, of the Father, but a created thing; divine not by nature, but by a grace extended to Him by the Father.

Athanasius was a deacon in Alexandria when the bishop there, Alexander, was challenged by Arius for teaching what would later be confirmed as the authentic Christian faith: that the Second Person of the godhead, incarnate in Jesus Christ, fully shares in the same ousia as the Father and is therefore fully God, though distinct in His person. When Arius refused to recant his teaching, Alexander petitioned the churches of the East and West for a Council to decide the matter authoritatively. The Emperor Constantine I convened such a Council in 325 A.D., to be held in the city of Nicea, in what is now northwest Turkey. At the Council, the bishops of the Church affirmed the consubstantality of the Second Person with the First, specifically using the term homoousios, or “of the same substance.” They also anathematized the teaching of Arius.

Unfortunately, the Council’s definitive declaration hardly ended the matter, and the Arian teaching continued to spread, especially among the barbarian tribes of the East, tribes that were already beginning to encroach on the Empire, and who would within a century sweep classical civilization into history. In fact, it’s estimated that at one time there were more Arians in the “Christian” world than there were adherents of the orthodox faith. That this is no longer the case is due to the exertions of Athanasius, whose implacable opposition to Arianism became his life’s work.

After the Council of Nicea, some sought a compromise with the Arians, one that would allow both camps to continue to teach their respective theologies. Their mechanism for this compromise was the term homoiousios, or “of a similar substance.” To the orthodox, this mechanism allowed them to teach that the substance of the Logos was similar and therefore the same. To the Arians, it allowed them to teach that the substance of the Logos was similar and therefore different. Thus, although the Council of Nicea was convened with only two competing camps, in the years after the Council there were three competing camps: The orthodox, the Arians, and the compromisers.

This confusion was intolerable to Athanasius, who spent the rest of his life clarifying and defending the faith enunciated at Nicea, that the Second Person was homoousios - of the same substance - as the Father. Moreover, Athanasius extended this sharing in substantial Being to a Third Person, the Holy Spirit, the Trinitarian understanding of the godhead that is now accepted as the boundary between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Athanasius’ formulation was confirmed at a subsequent Council, held at Alexandria in 362 A.D., and written into the Nicene Creed at the next ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 381 A.D. The Creed we recite today is the same Creed that emerged from Constantinople, and for this reason it is formally called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Thus was born the doctrine of the Trinity, a term that does not appear in Scripture but which is supported by a wealth of biblical exegesis. It was also Athanasius who for the first time identified as Holy Scripture the 27 books we know as the New Testament. That canon would be officially recognized at the third Council of Carthage in 397 A.D.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Eighteen: The Anthropology of the Cross

Chesterton wrote that “the Church is the natural home of the human spirit.” I think this is so because the teaching and sacramental life of the Church is so perfectly consonant with human experience in its spiritual, intellectual, psychological and social dimensions. But until lately one dimension of that experience has remained inexplicable from a frankly Christian perspective: the anthropological. It’s not that Sacred Scripture or Church teaching was missing something. On the contrary, the clues to a profound truth were there all along. The anthropological dimension of Christian truth remained undiscovered because the challenge had never been taken up in earnest by serious thinkers.

Part of the reason for this can be detected in a quote used often by Gil Bailie, and whose source I forget: “Anthropology is the study of culture by people who no longer have one.” Anthropology as a modern science was the product of the emerging post-Christian civilization, in which the abandonment of “cult” has led to an utterly unique historical phenomenon, a civilization with no beating heart, no culture. That the children of such a monstrosity were reflexively hostile to the universal truth claims of Christianity is no surprise, and so the anthropologists among them began their endeavors by merely consigning the distinctive features of the Christian faith to the bin marked “Myth.”

In response, some Christians at first uncritically embraced anthropology and other modernist quasi-sciences such as Historical Criticism and philosophical Positivism. This embrace eventually proved to be toxic, as the 20th Century decline of mainline Protestant denominations demonstrates. Other Christians viewed these sciences with horror and rejected them outright, retreating into anti-intellectual enclaves marked by an equally uncritical insistence on what they viewed as the “fundamentals” of Christianity. The opposition of anthropology and Christian faith, fueled by mutual hostility, seemed implacable.

All this began to change in the 1960s and 70s when an obscure professor of French literature, Rene Girard, began to explore the role of violence in religion. His signal discovery was that despite some powerful surface similarities, biblical tradition is anything but another expression of archaic religion and mythology. Delving into the anthropological assumptions embedded - but not necessarily clearly articulated - in the Christian story, he discovered a hermeneutic key to understanding the role of religion and violence in all human culture, as well as the way in which Christianity smashes ancient religious mechanisms that bring about social cohesion and personal “righteousness.”

I first encountered the ideas of Rene Girard through the filter of Gil Bailie. I had conducted an Internet search for commentaries on T.S. Eliot and came across a tape series of Gil’s on the “Four Quartets.” I ordered the series and was impressed, so much that I invited him to present a week on Eliot at The St. Michael Institute of Sacred Art. In preparation for that week, I read his book, “Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads.” It was a revolution in belief and practice. Bailie’s presentation of Girard’s thought was clear, compelling, and fit perfectly with my own experience of myself, as well as my Christian faith. In fact, I found in that book the answer to the one question I had wrestled with my entire life and for which I had never found a satisfactory answer, even in the expressed teaching of the Church: Why did it take the Cross?

I won’t attempt to explicate Girard’s theory here. Girard and Gil have done it far better than I could. You can read a summary here (Part I) and here (Part II). I strongly encourage every Christian to dive deeply into the work of these two men. A good place to start is the web site of Bailie’s Cornerstone Forum, which is linked on the right margin of this page. After reading Bailie, I further encourage everyone to begin reading the primary works of Girard, books like “Things Hidden Since The Foundation of the World,” and “I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.” I can promise that your life and faith will be revolutionized. In fact, I believe that this body of work, dubbed the “Anthropology of the Cross,” is the single most important development in Christianity since the integration of Greek philosophy and the biblical tradition by St. Thomas Aquinas. Moreover, I believe this discovery is the key to reintroducing Christianity to postmodern Western civilization. Best of all, I have found that on a personal level the further one drills into the implications of Girardian theory, the deeper one’s appreciation grows for the truth of the historic Christian faith. As you begin this journey, “Be not afraid!” The work of Girard-Bailie is a profound escort into the anthropological heart of the Gospel, the bosom of the Church and the Mystery of Christ.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Seventeen: Women Religious

A few years ago I was driving on I-95 south of Providence, RI. As is my unfortunate (and occasionally Confession-worthy) custom, I was loudly denouncing every other driver in my immediate vicinity as either an “old lady” or a “maniac” depending on their speed relative to my perfect pace. After a while I came up fast on a Chrysler K-car puttering along at about 45 mph in the right lane. In one smooth move, I consulted my driver’s side mirror, flicked the blinker and nudged my car slightly to port, the dividing line disappearing in a long yellow trail beneath my tires. As I came abreast of the K-car I exhaled disgustedly, “OLD LADY!” and looked to my right. There, behind the wheel, was an elderly nun in a blue habit with a companion, another sister, sitting alongside. On her face was the most delighted smile I have ever seen. Naturally, I felt like a heel for my intemperance.

No sooner had I put the K-car sister in my rearview mirror than I became aware of another vehicle gaining ground on me at an amazing rate of speed. It was a big car, a Crowne Victoria or a Continental, bearing down fast and giving no indication of any intent to slow down. I jerked the wheel, recovering the right lane just as the speeding demon flew by me. At that moment I yelled “MANIAC!” and turned my head to get a glimpse of the offender. To my astonishment I saw it was another nun, a young one this time, in a black habit, but wearing the same blissful smile as her elderly colleague now a half-mile to our rear. As the second sister tore up the road in front of me I had to smile. “Aren’t nuns great?” I thought.

I’ve always found women religious to be an intriguing combination of speed and inertia, action and contemplation. As Fr. Benedict Groeschel once said about Mother Angelica, the EWTN foundress: “If you want the trains to run on time, she’s your gal.” Sisters do have a way of getting things done. At the same time, unburdened by husbands or children, they are free to indulge in what is a fundamentally feminine pursuit (though one men need to cultivate): intimacy with God through prayer. Religious women are the backbone of the Church’s healthcare and education systems. They work as lawyers, professors, nurses, physicians, web developers, retreat directors, social workers, administrators and even laborers. Many communities of sisters devote their entire lives to prayer. Their work is to continually offer praise and supplication to the Father on behalf of priests, families, peace, the unborn, those in poverty, missionaries, etc. All religious women, whatever their role, give their lives to Christ and His people, expecting little in return. They should be cherished, especially since there are far fewer of them now than there were a few decades ago.

Many traditional communities of women religious communities have been decimated during the past past forty years. The so-called “Spirit of Vatican II” - code for the unwarranted demystification and secularization that swept the Church in the wake of the Council - acted like a biological weapon in many women’s congregations, radicalizing some, causing others to opt out, and leaving the rest in a state of confused frustration. Community standards fell, habits came off, vocations dried up, and there emerged the caricature of the angry, heavy-bottomed, feminist nun in a man’s haircut. For a decade or so, it seemed that the Catholic Church in America might lose its cadre of sisters altogether.

But today there is a wonderful new generation of women religious coming into their own. By and large, they are habited, joyful, and thoroughly orthodox. And just as the new generation of priests has been stamped by the personality and influence of Pope John Paul II, this generation of sisters can rightly be called JPII nuns. Some of the groups leading this revival include The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia (the so-called “Nashville Sisters”), New York’s Sisters of Life and Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, the Capuchin Sisters of Nazareth, and Mexico’s Trinitarians of Mary, to name just a few.

My own experience with the Trinitarians of Mary and their foundress, Mother Lillie, is illustrative. I visited their compound in Tecate, Mexico, on a sunny summer day in 2000. The sisters live on “Mount Tabor,” a denuded hilltop outside of town. All the hills are treeless; the scrub pine, jelly palm and juniper stock having long ago been cut down for fuel. Shacks and shanties climb the hillsides, and streams of foul water run alongside the valley roads. The entire religious compound is surrounded by ten-foot chain-link fencing, topped with razor wire. Several armed men warily patrol the front gate. Apparently, gangs of bandits roam free in this part of Mexico, and they have a particular taste for convents. Many sisters have been robbed, killed, or worse. The monastery itself is a classical colonial villa with a central courtyard and several outlying buildings, including a perpetual adoration chapel where the community spends up to eight hours a day in prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament.

The sisters are mostly young and Mexican. Many of them were rescued from lives of prostitution on the streets of Tijuana. When we arrived in mid-afternoon, a gaggle of sisters was singing as they prepared the evening meal. Most of the rest of the community was in the chapel, at prayer. We were received by Mother Lillie and another sister. They chatted pleasantly with us for a while, giving us the thumbnail history of the order, and a detailed sketch of their charism and a typical day. They told us about the rescued girls, and how they were raised and educated at the monastery until age eighteen, when they were given the option of staying and taking vows or leaving to return to their families. Then Mother Lillie pulled out a guitar and sang a beautiful Spanish hymn for us. We asked for her blessing, which she cheerfully gave. After that, we had a simple meal with the community before starting our journey back to San Diego.

The one word I still associate with the Trinitarians of Mary is “joy.” They radiate the joy of the Lord, of youth, of femininity, of health and mission. Theirs is not an easy life. They live under the constant threat of criminal assault. They are tough and self-reliant. They are poor, as the world counts poverty, but in their spirit they are incomparably rich. Many of them have seen and done things we can only imagine, and yet there is an uncomplicated innocence about them that is hard to forget. Like all women religious, they have been a particularly precious grace in my life.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”