The One Solution to the Political Problem

This election morning I am rereading a great article by Msgr. Albacete written for the 2004 election titled "Faith, Politics and the Scandal of Christ". In this piece he dissects our Christian problem of faith and politics and shows a way out. The whole piece is well worth some study today, especially if you feel at all queasy about your vote. Here I will highlight some sections, but better to skip this and read the whole thing.

First, the religious sense is what gives rise to politics.

The religious sense is our conviction—our experience—of whatever it is that ties this moment in our lives with the whole show, with existence, with our final destiny. It's the mystery of how and why we are here. It's what to do with the world that surrounds us. It's how to obtain satisfaction of the needs that we all experience, and for which there seems to be a world out there to satisfy those needs. How to deal with all of that is the religious sense.

The religious sense is what leads to politics. Politics, in that sense, is a manifestation of the religious sense. It's an attempt to make sense of life and to satisfy our needs. You cannot separate politics from the religious sense. And, in that way, there'll be many religious senses around. The religions of the world are all different ways of carrying out this search, of expressing this need, and politics is the art of making sure that all of them make a contribution, and don't wipe each other out.

What would you expect from a politics that is a response to the religious perspective? You would expect a politics that doesn't crush, a politics that will not provoke, or bring about, the silencing of the religious search. In that sense, all that religious people would need from the world of politics is, at the very least, religious liberty. That's so there can be this openness to the search, and then the ability to make a contribution to the society based on this opening to infinity.

In that sense, the most important requirement to be made of politics or any government is religious freedom. Without this, we cannot proceed. At the level of religion that is all one needs to ask. Already that presents a problem in many areas of the world. It might even present a problem in our own society, one that is dedicated to religious freedom. At an elementary level, you want to see how that is being lived in our society today. And you would obviously favor those political proposals that respect and promote this religious freedom. Those that do not already show an inhumanity.

Albacete goes on to explain the problem of the competing interests of time and eternity, or of religion and politics. Secularism focuses on the present to the exclusion of a higher purpose; theocracy denies the worldly situation in favor of eternal interests. There is no solution to this problem, thus we have to compromise:

Now, perhaps we don't want to use the word compromise. But sometimes there will be a relation between the two that will be the best that can be expected. It will be something that will be redefined every time, every election time, every time that the question arises. At those times we have to sit around and figure it out, and that's that.

Now usually this is the point where we get dropped. Compromise and deal with it. The lesser of two evils. Albacete doesn't leave us there with our desire mangled. He acknowledges the impossibility of this dilemma:

The problem with compromise is that it's impossible. The religious sense always wants to move towards infinity, and the desire to do that makes it dangerous to the political world. And the political world also wants to move in the same direction, to want to embrace everything, and so you have this conflict, and the question is: Are we resigned to this conflict? Must we say that religion and politics will always be in conflict? How do we design a situation that is not in conflict?

My answer to that is that it's not possible. Two sides, with one exception, are in conflict. And at the end, a compromise is the best that we can do. I am prepared to say that between the religious sense, and earthly politics, there is a conflict, and the experience of that conflict will not go away, except for one case. The efforts to solve the problem of religion and politics—not to mention that the problem is worsened when you move from religion to faith, which I will get to in a moment—are useless. We can't solve them.

The answer, as Christians, to the problem is in front of us:

The only solution to the problem of time and eternity, limited and unlimited, finite and infinite, the only "solution" to that problem is Jesus Christ. That is the statement that we must be prepared to make. Only the knowledge, the experience, the encounter with Christ, can resolve the problem between time and eternity, and therefore between religion and politics, which is a manifestation of this original problem.

Are we prepared to make that statement? This is the first problem. This is where all our claims begin to fall to the ground. We hesitate to say that only Christ is the solution of this conflict. In our own hearts we hesitate to say this. What are we afraid of? We are afraid—of what? Why would I hesitate to say that this is only solution to the human problem?

The pretense of solving this problem of faith and politics leads to a betrayal of the ideal.

Let me make this point: We do not have the problem, or the mission, to construct a bridge between faith and politics. We do not have this problem. To have this problem and to attempt to solve it, already violates our humanity. Every single attempt to build this bridge has been a weakening of faith, or a betrayal of the Incarnation. And historically, there have been many attempts.

Faith and politics, Albacete maintains, is a branch of Christology. That is because it was in understanding the person of Christ as divine and human that the Church discovered the human person.

...the very existence of personhood as a unique and unreplaceable individual—a "who" which is not exhausted by a "what"—that insight is the result of the Christological debate that led to the Council of Chalcedon. It was there that the Church was finally able to find a way of expressing this conviction about who Christ is. Until then it could not be understood because the concept of person that existed was insufficient. The Church had to invent the concept of personhood, perhaps its greatest contribution. But it did not invent it developing a political philosophy. It invented it through trying to understand who Christ is.

Albacete reviews the three possible ways of encountering Christ as Fr. Giussani outlined them in Why the Church? The first is rationalism, the second individual inspiriation, and the third, the Catholic way, by encounter with the living Body of Christ.

We even use the word society, a people. Peoplehood is at the origin, for it is a peoplehood expressed as a society, and structured as an institution. It is a recognizable reality, just as Jesus was recognizable as a particular human being. If the particularity of the Church offends us, given its universal claims, then why aren't we offended by the particularity of Jesus? It was even worse. He was just one guy. The Church at least can put on an impressive show. Jesus was one man who was killed.

Christ, who is the answer to the problem of time and eternity, is encountered today in the Church. "[T]he presence of Christ today, of his victory, is a form of coming together. This is what the Church is. An assembly is a bringing together." Therefore what we ask from politics is the following is freedom and unity for the Church.

Two fundamental values immediately become absolutely clear. We will favor that which promotes the liberty of the Church to carry on its work. And we oppose, no matter what—no matter what—anything that threatens the unity of the Church. Anything from any politician, any party, in domestic politics, or foreign policy, or whatever it is, anything that tries to create division within the Church, we must oppose, because unity and its compatibility with our freedom, this is the victory of Christ! Because if that is gone then Christ is not victorious, and we have no solution to the problem of faith and politics, and the only solution to religion and politics is just an unsatisfactory compromise. Those two are fundamental values.

The statement talks about the reality that will help the Church live out its freedom. Freedom is the experience of the fact that I am, in that moment, and in that location, walking towards the satisfaction—the real satisfaction—of all the desires of my life. It is what makes me free. This is the freedom we propose.

To follow and live...

Several months ago, Sharon gave me this phrase, "follow and live," as a response to my questions about what to do in a confusing and ambiguous set of circumstances I face. These words struck me with the force of a ten pound hammer to the heart, and I have repeated them to myself often when I needed to strike a match in a particularly dark tunnel.

My recent meditations on words, though, made me think again about this phrase: how deeply do I really understand it? Perhaps the strength that it has had in my life is only a fraction of the power that it might have if I would only do the work to penetrate it more deeply? When Sharon asked her question about words and meaning this week, I knew that this was exactly the invitation to explore the meaning of this phrase, to make a commitment to it, to follow it where it might lead.

About a year and a half ago, something quite dramatic happened to me that pulled me up short and made me realize how little I understand the way in which Fr. Giussani uses the word, "freedom." Such was my need to discover what he means by "freedom," that I looked the word up in the index of each of his books that we own, copied out all the passages in which he uses "freedom," and then read them and reread them with attention. This work, that was undertaken to address an urgent question in my life at the time, was so fruitful for me, in so many unexpected ways! And so, I decided to use the same method with the word, "follow;" but alas (!) this word is not indexed in any of my books! This problem, in turn, forced me to search for other words that I thought might be related to following, and I chose "adhering," "authority," and "obedience." The work of slowly reading each book, to find the word "following," will have to wait for another time.

One thing that impresses me about the word "follow" is how Christ uses it in the parable of the good shepherd in the Gospel of John. "The good shepherd calls his sheep by name... and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger...I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep..." (John 10). This mutual knowing that Jesus describes is far deeper than what we usually take for knowledge; in the Bible, when two people know each other, such is the fecundity of the relationship that it ordinarily gives rise to a new life. Father Giussani makes a reference to this phenomenon of God calling by name:

When God turns to man to ask something of him, the Bible describes the dialogue with sublime simplicity. God calls by name, which is the sign of the person as a unique and free individual; and the person's adherence is free and unique: 'here I am!' In Christianity, the only thing that matters is the value of the person, because everything else depends on this; and the value of the person is measured by that free adherence... Perhaps the most understandable and clearest moment for us is the figure of the Blessed Virgin. 'Ave Maria -- Fiat': In the impenetrable free intimacy of this gesture of offering and acceptance lies the cornerstone of God's mysterious encounter with the human person. (Journey to Truth..., 15)

There is a fundamental connection between first being called, then knowing the Voice of the One who is calling, and then following/adhering. And what strikes me now, as I think again about Christ's words about the good shepherd, is that this movement -- calling by name, knowing, following -- leads to a new call: the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. There was no greater sign of adhesion to humanity that Christ's free offering of himself on the cross; but in the phrase, "lay down my life for...," is also contained the sense of giving one's whole life, including the living portion. Christ not only poured himself out for us through his death, but also through his Incarnation and later through his continued Presence with us now, through the gift of the Spirit. His whole life has been laid down for us, and this gift of himself poses the strongest call and invitation we can receive. In front of such a gift, we must be moved! Adherence and following flow from the recognition of Who is calling us and also from the recognition of the precise nature of the call.

So many times, during preparation for First Holy Communion, I have read the parable of the true vine with groups of children. What always strikes us is the number of times Christ uses the word "abide" or "remain" (depending on your translation). Jesus is so urgent on this point! Fr. Giussani's understanding of adherence gains new depth, when it is placed beside the parable of the true vine:

Personal Adherence: Our duty is to make ours all those things with which God lavishes His generous and deep love upon us. This is precisely how our personality develops, and this is called 'work.' This is all the more so when we are dealing with live and spiritual beings. We are called to discover their presence, to accept their person, to make their reality a part of ours; in a word, we are called to 'share' in their existence and ours, to 'share our life' (convivere) with them. This is the 'work' through which our personality becomes completely mature. It is called love. (Journey to Truth..., 25)

Christ's urgent invitation is to "remain in [his] love..." and he compares our remaining in him to his own remaining in the Father, who remains also in him. Then he gives us the "new" commandment: that we love one another as he has loved us.

Here is one other passage from Fr. Giussani on adherence:

We must live this Reality [the mystery of the visible Church], commit ourselves wholly to it; that is enter it and compare all its movements, motives, and directives with the ultimate needs of our humanity. And insofar as we discover that those suggestions, those directives, those initiatives respond to our authentic human needs and help us to understand them, our adherence and conviction will be deep and definitive. So it is not a matter of studying theology or forming a group, it involves everything, all of life, because the proposal comes to us and meets us as a new life. To be 'convinced' means that the totality of our 'I' is bound to something: thus shall we all be bound to that Reality. That Reality will become us and we shall sense that we are that Reality...Whoever does not undergo this verification process will remain a Christian, but have nothing new to say, or else will simply leave. (Journey to Truth..., 98)

In love, if we bind ourselves in love, if we adhere to Reality in love, "That Reality will become us and we shall sense that we are that Reality." This seems to me to be the essence of what it means to "follow and live."

Freedom is ambiguous

Reading ahead a little in the chapter on freedom in Is It Possible to Live This Way? I came across the following passage, which resonates for me as I consider Sharon's challenge:

Only in the companionship are you recalled to this fascination with being or this awareness of our own fragility due to something that is a choice -- to be able to choose is a good, but to be able to choose evil is an evil, therefore it's ambiguous. Freedom isn't in a bad position; it's in a position that is still ambiguous. (page 78)

At this particular moment there are any number of things that I could be doing: I could be down in the backyard with my two youngest daughters, who are there picking strawberries together; I could be cleaning my kitchen; I could be preparing for our outing to the swimming pool; I could be putting my tomato seedlings in the ground...I have so many options, all of which are good and necessary. So why I am here, typing?

The companionship I discover among bloggers is no substitute for the community of my family and near neighbors that surrounds me. And yet, it is undeniable that the friends I have here, on the internet, are real; their companionship is real, also made of flesh and blood. This companionship truly does recall me to a "fascination with being" and an "awareness of my own fragility" in ways that are just as necessary and vital to my life as are the ways of my proximate community.

Speaking and writing are two different methods of expression, and each are necessary to life. I can say things in writing that I cannot say in speech; and I can understand things that I read that escape me when I hear them spoken out loud. Of course, each of the preceding statements may be reversed! To remove the possibility of reading/writing would mean to diminish me and impoverish my relationships with others.

What if, like Jean-Dominique Bauby, I were stricken with Locked-In syndrome? Perhaps, if my faculties went unused, they would atrophy. And yet, if I, like Bauby, could communicate somehow, I would work with what I had, even if it were only a single eyelid that could still blink. Since I am not locked in, however, not to use all that has been bestowed on me, would be to maim myself. It is a moral imperative that I use all of my humanity. To paraphrase something St. Paul said, my mouth cannot tell my hand, "I don't need you" and my ears cannot tell my eyes, "You're unnecessary."

I can (and do!) waste time doing any number of things that are worthwhile and socially acceptable. Any time that we just go through the motions or live our duties with resentment or forgetfulness, we are wasting our lives and the lives of those who are forced to put up with us. Or, at the very least, we are reducing them. To be fully alive, we have to be aware, we have to seek the meaning in all we do. And we can't be aware or seek meaning on our own. At least I know that I can't. I have a need, so deep and so real that it makes me tremble to think about it, for this companionship (a companionship which includes those I see and speak with, those with whom I write, and those rare few with whom I can do both), in which I can be fully myself and fully alive, using not only my ears and mouth, but my hands and eyes as well. I am called back to the knowledge that all the hairs on my head are counted when I am present here with my blogging friends, but in a way that is different and equally vital as the way I am called by the faces and eyes of those with whom I speak.

I am convinced that the commitment I have to my blogging companionship is just as important as the commitment I make to my School of Community. Each is a commitment to Christ, alive and active and incarnate in my life.

The Mystery of Peter and the Net that Didn't Tear

With the visit of Pope Benedict, it was very apt that our last teaching day of first-year Confirmation class we showed the kids Steve Ray's documentary In the Footsteps of God: Peter. At the start, I told kids to listen to the history, that it was their history, our history, and thus indispensable in understanding ourselves and our destiny. So far so good, but I didn't take my own advice. Pretty soon, I was looking at the clock and critiquing Steve Ray's approach in my mind.

Nonetheless - and this is evidence of God's mercy in Christ! - my heart was penetrated by the encounter with Christ at the sea. They fished all night, and then at dawn Jesus shows up and says try the other side. And behold, 153 fish. One catch to make the night worthwhile (we have labored in vain). How could I not think of this history without thinking of my own work which depends now on making cold calls? I call in the morning, at lunchtime, and in the afternoon - often without reaching many. But one time last week, I called in the afternoon and everybody was there. Such is the mysterious hand of destiny: a hairsbreadth to the side and you'll miss it! So, obey, obey, obey.

The second part of this story is that after following Jesus to His death, the disciples pick up and go back to work, fishing. Jesus says ok, but don't fish so close to the shore, turn around and cast out into the deep. Work is not about eating. Jesus cooked fish that they didn't catch to feed them breakfast. Work is about mission, about announcing the Incarnation, Christ present in history: history now as well as history past. Christ present amid boats and nets or with a CRM filled with prospects and a headset.

The third part has to do with history. History makes us strong. I myself recognize the madness, the unreasonableness of "call reluctance." It's unreasonable to fear the unknown because the unknown has been announced to us, we know the face of the one who waits for us. This one crumb of history last night made today entirely different. It strengthened me, and this strengthening is so important to our destiny and our mission in the world (see, for example, the heartrending account in the current issue of Traces).

Preach the Word: in season and out of season

«I know that in pastoral ministry, when people seek advice and counsel, most often the last thing they are looking for is to be challenged in their lives by the Gospel, by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.» Kαθολικός διάκονος: Living lives of loves

The Significance of the Second Vatican Council

Vatican II finished 43 years ago. It was a bit before I was born, so I tend to regard the Council as part of the unchanging history of the Church. I didn't always feel this way. From my father and mother, I inherited the 'hermeneutic of continuity' although I also discovered progressivism as one avenue for intellectual curiosity in my early college years. I've read the main documents of the Council, but looking at the following passages (with others, in the context of the whole book), I realize that I've never really grappled with the event of Vatican II.

«The Council has undoubtedly made Church matters more difficult. Those who seek mitigations in everything and express delight at the "progress" and the growing "maturity" as each barrier falls do not understand what the Fathers were concerned with. It was to direct into the secular world through the Church, which is a divine mystery, the mysterious ray of trinitarian and crucified love, wholly and completely. Let us add that this image of the Church — the mediation of the whole love of God to the whole world — is what makes possible true love of our neighbor. The barrier must fall that Augustine set up through his concept of a double predestination to heaven and hell. No, on the contrary, I must be able to hope for every brother so much that, in a fictional Ernstfall, if it were a question of whether he or I would enter the Kingdom, I would — with Paul (Rom 9:3) — let him go. But in order to know what that means, one would have to have uppermost in his mind a theology of Holy Saturday — the descent of Christ into hell — or at least a theology of the dark night of the soul of which John of the Cross gave an experimental description.» (The Moment of Christian Witness, 125-126; emphasis mine)

We cannot shrink from this challenge to bear "the whole love of God to the whole world." This means neither being conformed to the world, nor rebuilding the bastions of the preconciliar Church on a personal level — as if Vatican II never happened.

«If one questions the outcome of the Vatican Council II (and what that is depends to a large extent on us), the answer should surely be this [the defenselessness of Cordula]. We have said already that it should be the Church's defenseless exposure of herself to the world, the dismantling of all bastions and the leveling of all bulwarks to boulevards. And it must take place without any mental reservations or secret hopes of triumph, since our discovery that the old kind of triumph is no longer practicable or desirable.» (136-137)

Instead of hiding out in a Catholic enclave or camouflaging one's belonging to Christ by cleverly phrasing everything in terms palatable to the world — we are called to announce the Mystery whom we have met: simple, risky, and yet the only testimony which is credible.

Magdi Allam and Corneille's Polyeucte

The Easter baptism of Magdi Crisitiano Allam is such a striking event that I hardly know what to say except to add my own amazement to the chorus of reactions to this event. I would suggest, however, that we examine the unfolding of events through the dramatic perspective of Pierre Corneille's great play Polyeucte. Hans Urs von Balthasar first indicated this work to me and it came to mind when I began reflecting on Allam:

«Corneille's Polyeucte, which Péguy considered the most important work in French literature, describes in detail the encounter of Christianity and culture as envisaged by him and also by me.»

Test Everything, p 12

The first place where Corneille registers this encounter between Christianity and culture is not with paganism, but within the Church, a Church that takes comfort in its institutional prerogatives. A Church not unlike that described in the Book of Revelation 2:4 — Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first.

I'm posting here a dialogue between Polyeucte who is a new Christian and Nearchus the friend who introduced him to Christianity. Cleon, a friend of Polyeucte's father- in- law Felix, invites Polyeucte and everyone else to make sacrifices at a pagan altar. Polyeucte is ready to go, but Nearchus reminds him that as a Christian he can no longer participate in pagan rites. Polyeucte surprises Nearchus by telling his friend that he goes not to worship but to witness.

NEAR.
I fly their altars!

POLY.
I would overthrow!
Not mine to fly a worship I disown,
By me Jehovah, King of kings, be known!
Not mine to tremble as I kiss the rod!
I conquer by the Cross, I fight for God!
Thou wouldst abstain! For me another course
From Heaven the call, and Heaven will give the force!
What! Yield to evil! His Cross on my brow!
His freemen we! O fight, Nearchus, now!
For us our Lord was scourged, pierced, tortured, slain!
For us He bled! Say, has He died in vain?

NEAR.
Let timely moderation temper zeal!

POLY.
His—His alone am I! His woe my weal!

NEAR.
In love with death?

POLY.
For Him I love I die!
He died for me! So death is victory!

NEAR.
Thy flesh is weak!

POLY.
Yet He will make me bold!

NEAR.
And if thou waver?

POLY.
He will me uphold!

NEAR.
To tempt the Lord thy God were an offence.

POLY.
He is my shield—hence! cursed tempter, hence!

NEAR.
In time of need the faith must be confessed.

POLY.
The offering grudged is sacrifice unblessed.

NEAR.
Seek thou the death thine own self-will prepares!

POLY.
A crown I seek, which every martyr shares!

NEAR.
A life of duty well that crown can win.

POLY.
The purest life on earth is stained with sin.
Why yield to time and chance what death assures?
Death but the gate of life that aye endures.
If I be His—let me be His alone!
The faith that soars shall full fruition own;
Who trusts, yet fears and doubts, his faith is dead!

NEAR.
Not death the Christian's prayer, but daily bread.
Live to protect the flock, so sore oppressed.

POLY.
Example be their friend, most sure, most blessed!

NEAR.
Thou woo'st thy death!

POLY.
Is this poor life so dear?

NEAR.
Ah, I must own my heart is slave to fear.
The rack! The cross! I might my Lord disown!

POLY.
From Him our help, our strength, from Him alone!
Who fears denial does at heart deny;
Who doubts the power of faith makes faith a lie!

NEAR.
Who leans upon a reed shall find distress.

POLY.
His staff will guide, support my feebleness.
Thou wert my staff, to show the Truth, the Way,
Must I now urge thee to the realms of day?
Thou fearest death?

NEAR.
The Christ once feared to die!

POLY.
Yet drained the bitter cup of agony!
The way that thou hast shown—that way He trod;
His way be ours to lead man's soul to God—
For heathen shrine—to rear His altar fair,—
The deathless hope alone can kill despair!
Thou said'st: 'If Him thou wilt for pattern take,
Then leave wife, wealth, home, all for His dear sake!'
Alas, that love of thine, now weak and poor,
Glows yet within my breast—and shall endure;
Ah, must the dawn of this my perfect day
Find thy full light beclouded, dimmed, astray?

NEAR.
Baptismal waters yet bedew thy brow;
The grace that once was mine, that grace hast thou.
No worldly thought has checked the flow, no guilty act has stained;
Thy wings are strong, while mine are weak; thy love is fresh,
ungeigned,—
To these, thy heights, I cannot soar, held down by sense and sin,
How can I storm the citadel?—the traitor lurks within!
Forsake me not, my God! Thy spirit pour!
Oh, make me true to Him whom I adore!
With Thee I rise,—the flesh, the world, defy,
Thou, who hast died for me, for Thee I die!
Yes, I will go! With heaven-born zeal I burn,
I will be free,—all Satan's lures I spurn;
Death, torture, outrage, these will I embrace,
To nerve my heart and arm, Heaven grant me grace!

POLY.
On eagle wings of faith and hope ascend!
I hail my master—recognise my friend;
The old faith wanes,—we light her funeral pyre,
Her ashes fall before our holy fire;
Come, trample under foot the gods that men have wrought;
The rotten, helpless staff is broke, is gone—is naught.
Their darkness felt they own, but let them see the light!
Their gods of stone, of clay, but vampires of the night!
Their dust shall turn to dust,—shall moulder with the sod,
Ours for His name to fight:—the issue is with God.

NEAR.
The cause is just, is true—O coward heart, be still!
I lived to doubt His word—I die to do His Will!

A remarkable thing it is when long-time Christians like myself can be catechized by one just arrived in the Church like Magdi Cristiano Allam.

[postscripts: St. Polyeuctus of Melitene, in Armenia;
Wikipedia lists his feast as Feb. 13th on the Catholic calendar.
I also see that Militene is the modern city of Malatya in Turkey]

betrayal through familiarity

- Background on Caravaggio's Taking of Christ in the Garden -

Communicating Oneself

Suzanne, thanks for posting so many notes from the diaconia. It was great meeting and you and Scott, and others I'd never met; along with all the old friends that I don't see as often as I'd like.

The meeting with educators was particularly helpful for me. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have thought to go, but for the past few weeks my new parish (the one in my neighborhood) has been begging for catechists. I began to get the distinct feeling that they were talking to me... so I sent the parish an email offering to help out. The director of religious education sent me back an email saying "Jim, I came to the CL Beginning Day at your house in October!" So I had an immediate verification that I was doing what I needed to do.

But as I sat in the meeting with educators at the diaconia, I really began to feel a profound sense of gratitude... gratitude for having met the Movement, and gratitude for having been shown where I was needed the most in my own circumstances. I didn't have to push the Movement, or worry about how many people were coming to School of Community. I just have to follow for myself and my own needs, then let Christ show me where he needs me to be.

Don't get me wrong... I'm really nervous about my first class with the 5th graders at my parish. But I know that I'm not there to give them the answers, or to be The Perfect Catholic. I'm there to witness to what has happened to me, to the fact that I've met Christ.

Adventures in ecumenism

20 years ago I was on a week-long retreat led by Jean Vanier for volunteers with l'Arche. Knowing that l'Arche includes Catholics and Protestants, among others, the organizers had tried to make things ecumenical.

Prayer rooms were set up: in one were icons and candles, another had a Tabernacle with pews and kneelers. The sun room (with full 180 degree solar exposure) had an open bible on a table surrounded with chairs, each of which having a Bible too. The most popular chapel had the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Some people kneeled or prostrated themselves while others sat on pillows.

The reconciliation service had something for everyone. Folks were encouraged to ask forgiveness of each other; The passion of Christ was enacted; individual Confession was also available.

Liturgy was a bit messy. The original plan was for noon services alternating Catholic one day and Protestant the next. But the Catholics wanted daily Mass, so on Protestant days Mass was offered in the mornings. Also, a variety of Protestant services had to be added in order to address high church and low church preferences. Some folks asked about intercommunion. Vanier said that yes we have a desire to be one in Christ, but that obedience and humility indicated that we embrace the suffering of a broken communion (I speak from memory here, so forgive/ correct any imprecision).

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Christmas eve this year, my family sat behind another family. The grandparents of the family in front stood and sat but didn't kneel. I couldn't help noticing that they sang songs and prayed the Our Father. I was touched to see this couple participating in the Mass as much as possible. After Mass, I wished them Merry Christmas and thanked them for praying with us.

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The root of ecumenism is the desire for the truth made flesh, Jesus Christ. Only his gaze can resolve the contradictions and sins that divide us, not only between Catholics and Protestants, but even between Catholics, even within families.

Any experiences with ecumenism you would like to share?

Christian culture reborn

There's so much in Robert Wilken's "Amo, Amas, Amat: Christianity and Culture," that I hardly know where to begin. In her post, Sharon repeated Wilken's call for a rebirth of Christian culture.
It would be worth it to unpack the historical development of Christian culture as Wilken traces it.

The starting point is the way that Christ came into the world: «But Christ entered history as a community, a society, not simply as a message, and the form the community’s life takes is Christ within society.»

This society, the Church, started by embracing the good around them, and by discovering a new significance in the symbols already in use around them.

«In buying and displaying objects such as lamps or ring or seals Christians created the first Christian art (of which we have knowledge), but what the symbols represented lay in the eyes of the beholder, not in the object. As far as Roman society was concerned Christianity was invisible.»

My mother gave me a metal decor cross to me for my birthday. This cross was bought and sold as an object with no memory of its significance except as a conventional form. But my mother recognized it for what it means and gave it to me. A similar example would be to listen to the human cry of pop songs with the ear of Christ.

Then Christians begin something new. They bury their dead in catacombs, hallowing out a place of memory that is out of the way and yet public.

«Significantly Christian culture first takes material shape in connection with caring for and remembering the dead. Memory, especially of the faithful departed, is a defining mark of Christian identity.»

Memory is the key word here, but it is not only the memory of the dead, of the saints that we remain in communion with - it is above all the memory of Christ's presence, his crucifixion and resurrection. The memory of the saints is the experience of Christ's resurrection in His people. Christ present keeps the saints present with us.

In time, the universal (catholic, ecumenical) dimension of the Christian proposal becomes evident. Christendom becomes the expression of a society transformed by the leaven of the Christian people.

«It is shallow and petulant to rail against the political aspects of Constantinianism while ignoring the efforts of Christians of ancient times to stamp the face of Christ on the mores of society, in the ordering of time, in architecture, and law (e.g. prohibition of the exposure of infants, an ancient form of birth control).»

Christ has conquered the whole world, and so it is no wonder that Christians will propose the boldest changes to society at the broadest levels. Our goal, however, is not to run the world, to fix all the world's problems, to impose (like others) a final utopia. It is to accompany the world and to foster true freedom by having the courage to show another way of living.

Facing darkness

[crossposted at Deep Furrows]

«We see darkness and talk about darkness so many times. We mustn't pretend that the darkness doesn't exist; we shouldn't just think some spiritual thoughts about darkness; we can't do something "alongside" the darkness — we have to look it in the face! "I look into my depths and see endless darkness" [song: "Il mio volyo"]. What is it that the darkness can't quash? It can't stop my acknowledging this darkness, and it can't stop the moment "when I realize that You are there," when I realize that this circumstance, no matter how ugly it may be, is not made by itself; when I live through a dark period, even in that moment I am living, and even in the darkness, I do not make myself; it that darkness I have a radiant clarity: I do not make myself.

[...]

We can't avoid this road, nobody can spare us this road, and this is why Christ went deep to the bottom of the darkness: so that we can look at everything. This is anything but an intellectual exercise! It's simply the recognition of reality according to all its factors.»

Fr. Julián Carrón
Notes from the talks by Ciancarlo Cesana and Julián Carrón at the Beginning Day for CL adults in the Lombardy Region of Italy, September 29, 2007.
Traces Vol 9, #9 - 2007

I mention this apropos of a post at Deep Furrows on an priest sex abuse trial in Kansas City. The post offered only a partial, tentative judgment. If I link to these articles from time to time, it's because of an implicit need to look at the darkness and betrayals of my life, of our life together in the Church. I must remember, however, not to stop at the surface, but to seek the face of Him who conquers the darkness.