One More Epicycle

On this day — the darkest of all days, darker even than the Last Day — it’s hard to find words appropriate. And that difficulty is only fitting: for today is the death of the Word.

One temptation should be resisted, though, and not every priest is up to the challenge.

The Cross isn’t God showing us how much He loves us; or showing us that we should renew our efforts to help the poor. It’s not God suffering to teach us how to sympathize by offering an example of an innocent being killed– if anything it’s an identification not with those who suffer but with those who cause it. The Cross is not a lesson that some people learn and others merely admire and some reject.

It’s an action. It’s an event. And it changes everything whether you’re sleeping in class or not.

The Cross has more in common with a hurricane or a supernova than it does the philosophizing of Socrates before his death.

We try to water it down and replace it by Hallmark sentiments. We try to escape by treating it as merely a dramatic example of a teacher who threatened the social order being suppressed.

We fail.

For there He hangs, and for this was He born, and from the effect of His death there is no hiding place.

Kneel, sons of men.

As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here.

“If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.”

They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission.

They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it. And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields.

Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting:

“Hosanna!

BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD;

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;
Hosanna in the highest!”

Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.

The Gospel According to St Mark: XI

Much has been written, and much is yet to be written, about the ordeal of the Taliban kidnapping of the South Korean missionaries in Afghanistan. Some of the hostages were killed; others, according to recent reports, were repeatedly subjected to sexual assault. It would appear that the release of the hostages was arranged through the payment of a ransom, which will certainly lead to more death (through the direct support it provides to the Taliban) and quite likely to more kidnappings (through the evidence it provides that kidnapping is profitable.)

For my non-Christian friends, there has long been a debate within the Church about whether priests should be married. Contrary to popular belief, there are married Catholic priests; there have always been married Catholic priests; and there will always be married Catholic priests. The restriction of the priesthood to the unmarried is a hallmark only of the Latin rite, which is one of many different “styles” of Catholic practice. It’s the most common in the West, but that’s it: it’s a discipline, not a dogma, and could be changed tomorrow with a stroke of the pen. I don’t know offhand of any Protestant communions who demand their ministers be unmarried, but there may be some somewhere.

St Paul’s writings seem pretty clear that he expected most priests (=presbyters/elders/overseers/bishops, depending on translation) would be married. It’s difficult to read his first letter to Timothy and conclude otherwise:

Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)

1 Timothy 3:1-6

By contrast, St Paul himself was unmarried, jokes about the “thorn in his side” notwithstanding, and he also commented on the advantages of being unmarried elsewhere (in that your attentions wouldn’t be divided). So there has always been a role for the single as well.

It seems to me that one Catholic argument in favour of a celibate priesthood is sound: that a priest with a wife and children has responsibilities which can interfere with his duties as a man of the cloth. (Paul famously mentions this principle in 1 Corinthians 7.) To my mind, though, that doesn’t require that all priests be celibate, or even that most be, only that there exists an order which is. This order of knight-priests could then be sent into the darkest corners of the world where martyrdom is likely, and who would be forbidden by the rules of the order from being ransomed.

Given the unspeakable cruelty of the enemy, although I admire the courage of those who face them, I will not apologize for the fact that I believe missionary work among them in obedience to the Great Commission is a duty for single men without dependents. It is a job for those who — to put it bluntly — can afford to die, and whose death the world could bear to watch without yielding to a foe for whom mercy is merely a weakness.

It’s a job for people.. well, for people like me.

Damn.

From a review of the series Rome over at First Things:

Some may quibble with the historical accuracy of this or that detail, but in the main the show has it right. The picture presented by Rome is provocative, troubling, and at times downright strange. Despite how well we know the story of the fall of Rome, and despite our clear debts to the Romans as a constituent part of our own culture, they are not us and we are not them, in large measure because of the interposition of Christianity. Indeed, the most recognizable people in the series are perhaps the Jewish characters, whose ethical structure is clearly recognizable as our own from the brief glimpses we are given of it.

Were we to travel back to the Empire, we would have been impressed by Rome’s grandeur, and Egypt’s legacy, but the despised and weird foreigners with their complicated rules are more our ancestors than those who designed the buildings we imitate and gave us the script we use. There’s more than one way to fulfill a prophecy, counting Abraham’s descendants, after all.

Athens, meet Jerusalem.

I’m definitely feeling philo-Semitic recently. Might be reaction to the locals.

Today is the second anniversary of the death of Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul the Second. Or, as some would say, John Paul the Great. Time will tell: the Church can afford to think in terms of centuries.

On this anniversary, though, I can’t help but link to my favourite JPII story, as reported by Roger Cohen, which reminds us all that the child is father to the man.

During the summer of 1942, two women in Krakow, Poland, were denounced as Jews, taken to the city’s prison, held there for a few months and then sent to the Belzec extermination camp, where, in October, they were killed in primitive Nazi gas chambers by carbon monoxide from diesel engines.

Their names were Frimeta Gelband and Salomea Zierer; they were sisters. As it happens, Frimeta was my wife’s grandmother. Salomea, known as “Salla,” had two daughters, one of whom survived the war and one of whom did not.

The elder of these daughters was Edith Zierer. In January 1945, at 13, she emerged from a Nazi labor camp in Czestochowa, Poland, a waif on the verge of death. Separated from her family, unaware that her mother had been killed by the Germans, she could scarcely walk.

But walk she did, to a train station, where she climbed onto a coal wagon. The train moved slowly, the wind cut through her. When the cold became too much to bear, she got off the train at a village called Jendzejuw. In a corner of the station, she sat. Nobody looked at her, a girl in the striped and numbered uniform of a prisoner, late in a terrible war. Unable to move, Edith waited.

Death was approaching, but a young man approached first, “very good looking,” as she recalled, and vigorous. He wore a long robe and appeared to the girl to be a priest. “Why are you here?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

Edith said she was trying to get to Krakow to find her parents.

The man disappeared. He came back with a cup of tea. Edith drank. He said he could help her get to Krakow. Again, the mysterious benefactor went away, returning with bread and cheese.

They talked about the advancing Soviet army. Edith said she believed her parents and younger sister, Judith, were alive.

“Try to stand,” the man said. Edith tried – and failed. The man carried her to another village, where he put her in the cattle car of a train bound for Krakow. Another family was there. The man got in beside Edith, covered her with his cloak, and set about making a small fire.

His name, he told Edith, was Karol Wojtyla..

You’ll have to follow the link for the rest of the story, but I should quote one more part:

In his early, and very personal, observation and absorption of this suffering lie the roots of the late pope’s core belief: the inalienable value and sanctity of each human life.

This belief carried Pope John Paul II to convictions that some found old-fashioned or rigid. But in an indulgent age of moral pliancy, why seek to be indulged by the pope, of all people? He offered his truth with the same simplicity and directness he showed in proffering tea and bread and shelter from cold to an abandoned Jewish girl in 1945, when nobody was watching.

When nobody was watching.

Rest in peace, Father.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and a time when you make a special effort to do some interior scrubbing. It’s also a tradition to give things up — and as Fr Jones explained on Sunday, a sacrifice which doesn’t cost you anything isn’t worth making. (I don’t think the suggestion to abandon watching Coronation Street and Eastenders really applies to me.)

I quite like the day’s rite, when the ashes are imposed and the ancient words are spoken to remind us of our mortality: Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return.

I always wonder whether I should wash the ashes off, with Christ’s famous warning in mind:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.

[...]

Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Matthew ch 6

On the other hand, the wearing of the ashes and the carrying of palm crosses on Palm Sunday serve as quiet, wordless witnesses to the Faith. I used to have students ask about the ashes every year. (For some reason I always used to get assigned Wednesday tutorials.)

I finally settled on a way of handling the problem. As GKC noted:

Becket wore a hair shirt under his gold and crimson, and there is much to be said for the combination; for Becket got the benefit of the hair shirt while the people in the street got the benefit of the crimson and gold. It is at least better than the manner of the modern millionaire, who has the black and drab outwardly for others, and the gold next to his heart.

In this spirit, I think it works well to have a public sacrifice related to your public life, which your friends can watch and call you on, and a private sacrifice which you don’t talk about, and no one will know but you and God.

One year I gave up meat, which was rough.. my diet is pretty meat-heavy, and several times I found myself having to explain that no, I wasn’t a vegetarian, which I found profoundly embarrassing.

This year I’ve decided to give up all food and drink which isn’t necessary, and simple. No more midafternoon snacks; no carbonated beverages, even with meals; no twice-a-day coffee; and definitely no beer. Including the beer which the department pays for on Friday lunch with the visiting speaker. For the next forty days and change, it’s bread and water (metaphorically) for me, eating only because of hunger and drinking only because of thirst.

We’ll see how it goes.

Christmas is a time of celebration; and therefore also a time to weep.

To weep unashamed, in relief and joy, for what we have been given, for the long night ended, for Him who rests in the bed of straw. And to remember in our cold winter what fire gives us true warmth, the fire which burns but is never consumed.

In the year of Our Lord 1881, Count Leo Tolstoy wrote a story to break the heart, and which — God willing — I will let do so to mine every Christmas season until my death.

To understand why, read: and learn anew What Men Live By.

I don’t have an alarm clock.

And unfortunately the laptop I’ve been using is on its last legs — I have to use duct tape to pull the power cable at an odd angle to prevent it from instantly turning off — so I can’t use it as an alarm either.

These details are offered to explain why for the last few weeks I’ve missed morning Mass on Sundays and instead have been going to Westminster Cathedral’s evening seven o’clock service. I used to tease a friend of mine who went to the evening service at St Mary’s back in Kingston that she was a heretic, and that only Sunday morning services counted..

<Homer> Mmmm.. crow.. </Homer>

The OT reading was a good one, from Zephaniah:

Sing, O Daughter of Zion;
shout aloud, O Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
O Daughter of Jerusalem!

The LORD has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.

On that day they will say to Jerusalem,
“Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.”

“The sorrows for the appointed feasts
I will remove from you;
they are a burden and a reproach to you.

At that time I will deal
with all who oppressed you;
I will rescue the lame
and gather those who have been scattered.
I will give them praise and honor
in every land where they were put to shame.

At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortunes
before your very eyes,”

says the LORD.

Zephaniah 3:14-20

I like Advent a lot. I think it’s my favourite liturgical season. It’s a time of joyful expectation, leading up to a glimpse of barely-understood grace made present, and in that sense has a lot in common with how I think Christians should live today.

Of course, some evenings it’s easier to stay focused in prayer than others. For some reason, the following Paul Simon lyric kept running through my head tonight:

Along come a young girl
She’s pretty as a prayerbook
Sweet as an apple on Christmas day

I said good gracious, can this be my luck?
If that’s my prayerbook
Lord, let us pray

which is, he said, crossing his fingers behind his back fervently, almost seasonal..

Michael Medved, in an insightful article (hat-tip Kathy Shaidle), explains why Hanukkah isn’t a celebration of tolerance but of faithfulness to God, and the principle that there are some things you can’t compromise on. As he puts it, Hanukkah is in fact “a celebration of the religious right”.

Medved’s is the best taking-back-the-holiday argument I’ve read since Mark Steyn’s brilliant comments on the strained interpretations given to another famous seasonal story by the modern Left:

And frankly the Democrats never do well when they try to square contemporary liberal pieties with religion. For one thing, they recoil from the very word “religion.” Al Gore prefers to say, “Well, in my faith tradition . . .” As a rule, folks with a faith tradition tend not to call it such. At Friday prayers in Mecca, the A-list imams don’t say, “Well, in my faith tradition we believe in killing all the infidels.”

Second, prominent Democrats seem to have great difficulty getting even the well-known bits right. Christmas, according to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1999, is when those in that particular faith tradition celebrate “the birth of a homeless child.” Or, as Al Gore put it in 1997, “Two thousand years ago, a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child.” For Pete’s sake, they weren’t homeless — they couldn’t get a hotel room. They had to sleep in the stable only because Dad had to schlep halfway across the country to pay his taxes in the town of his birth, which sounds like the kind of cockamamie bureaucratic nightmare only a blue state could cook up. Except that in Massachusetts, it’s no doubt illegal to rent out your stable without applying for a Livestock Shelter Change of Use Permit plus a Temporary Maternity Ward for Non-Insured Transients License, so Mary would have been giving birth under a bridge on I-95.

Heh.

After first hearing about this story (hat-tip John Podhoretz), I assumed it was one of those goofy rumours that pops up every now and again, especially because he didn’t include a link. But according to Variety, it seems to be real: “Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have made a deal for “Prodigal Son,” a romantic comedy that Gigi Levangie Grazer will write with Mimi James. Brian Grazer will produce. Story revolves around a workaholic single woman who is set up on a date by her mother. Her date, a handsome, kind and caring carpenter who works at Ikea, turns out to be Jesus Christ, who’s returned for Armageddon and settled in contemporary Los Angeles.” [Emphasis mine.]

The article goes on to note that “turning [Christ] into a character in a contemporary romantic comedy is new ground for a studio film.” One hopes so..

Anyhow, I wrote a long post on nuptial imagery in Christianity — Jesus is already engaged, we’re all invited to the wedding, and we sample the food and drink they’re planning to serve at the banquet at least once a week — and the ways in which the idea of a one-sided romantic attraction to Christ is and isn’t blasphemous. I explained why I expected the film to be objectively blasphemous, but wasn’t very worked up about it, and thought that it would be possible to write something along those lines which wasn’t.

Then I considered Podhoretz’ followup post:

How much you want to bet that Brian Grazer’s next film won’t be a romantic comedy about a workaholic woman who falls for a cab driver who turns out to be Muhammad?

I discussed the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy; the time when one of the astrograds at Queen’s explained how terrible it was that the cartoonists were offending Muslims — and in the middle of his rant used Christ’s name as a curse, which almost made me burst out laughing at the utter lack of self-awareness; the murder of Theo van Gogh; the oddity of the fact that you have to turn to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who live and breathe blasphemy of every sort, to get some sanity (“it really is open season on Jesus”); and yet why the response should be peaceful, not violent.

Finally I quoted a great prayer.

When I was editing the post, I realized that although I agreed with every word, it was long and dry and awkwardly written, and the only part of it worth keeping was the prayer, which explained the appropriate response better than anything I could ever come up with.

So I killed the post and replaced it with the above summary.

From Nikolai of Ochrid, with thanks to net.friend Rebecca:

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Enemies have driven me into Thy embrace more than friends have. Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world. Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath Thy tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.
They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself.
They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.
They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself.
They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.
Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf.
Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.
Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.
Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.
Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of Thy garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:
so that my fleeing to Thee may have no return;
so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;
so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;
so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;
so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;
ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself. One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends. It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies.

Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies.

A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a son blesses them, for he understands. For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life. Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Amen.